At the corporate office. At the mas camp. At the roti shop. At the television studio. Why? Why, what, you ask? Why do some women always have to be running, clutching their pan’ies from being ripped off?!! And no, I am not talking about rape! I’m talking what is really sexual harassment! Why can’t men see people gyul chile and leave them be? I’ll tell ya why because some o’ y’all help take the pan’ies off!
It is all so sinister and powerful though, isn’t it? It makes some of you wonder sometimes how many jobs or promotions or basic opportunities you missed out on because you didn’t flirt or sleep with the fat, balding, cigarette-breath, yellow-teeth creature with a face that only a mother could truly love! Okay, so sometimes there are the good-looking ones but still Wait, there was that Denzel Washington lookalike who - oooookay, back on track!...
I remember once working with a top executive (who had a much higher salary than the Prime Minister of T&T at the time). He was almost old enough to be my grandfather but he loved young girls like me and occasionally, he would ’indirectly’ ask me about being with him. Ugh! I always put him in his place - nicely - but damn, how I wished I could get an increase in salary! I saw girls who had worked there before me pop in periodically and collect envelopes with huuuuuge cash sums because they had cast aside their pride (if it was ever there) and given ’it’ up or given close to ’it’ up. I could have done the same and gotten the five-figure salary job with the important-sounding title, the all-expenses-paid trips to anywhere at any time, the money to buy that outfit for a party because I just had nothing else to wear, et cetera et cetera. But why? To always wonder if he dies from a massive heart attack from my insatiable appetite (oh puhleez, you know how us young girls are!) and someone else assumes his position, I might get fired because I couldn’t really do the job in the first place? Oh-oh, I hear someone asking ’What does it matter if you were actually qualified for the job in the first place?’ Girrrrrl, I see it takes a while for that sand to trickle down if you can ask that aloud.
I mean, think about it. Look at even public personalities enjoying major success. You don’t even realise what some of them did to get there. It was easy work and hard wuk, honey! The thing is, why do we feel we have to ’give him a piece’? Are we so hurry for success? Can we not pay our dues? Are we so naïve? Are we so dumb to be someone’s 71,130,864th conquest? Double ugh!
Why don’t we remember and live out Singing Sandra’s song, remembered more as ’Die With My Dignity’? I know of a woman flexing on the office floor (oh, the carpet burn!) at late night with a man, considered to be the ultimate family man by the local public who adores him, thinking he would secure her a higher position at the organisation at which they worked. Madam Smarty-Pants apparently didn’t think much of the fact that the decision wasn’t his to begin with! Then there was the naïve but sweetheart-of-a-young-girl who was, in the wee hours of the morning at a popular nightclub, convinced by an executive (who is straight as a pin with his employees by day and ’bending it like Beckham’ for the boys at night) that she could have a career at his organisation although she wasn’t even remotely qualified or experienced for the job. Oh yeah, Miss Missy was fired before you could say ’got da drawers’. And, mind you, she was even ’shared’ between the executive and one of his brown-noser employees! Na-hice. Maaaaaan, the scenarios could go on endlessly.
When you think about it though, it seems like an unspoken pact: you’d be great at my company - once you’re great in bed. Dude, seriously, do I really need to do that to get that $3,500-before-tax job? I mean, it’s the recession phase now and I have financial commitments but hello! Do I really want to show my dutty-wine skills to a man who will daily ask me to serve him his coffee - who ain’t my husband or at least the man ’breathing in my face at night’? Do I reeeeally want to get up close and personal with a guy who has one of the most gren-gren beards I’ve ever seen? Aaaaaaaaaaargh, do I so desperately want that $9.50/hour job which can barely pay my bills AND buy my human-hair weave AND pay the hairdresser AND do my acrylic nails? Pshhhhhht! I think not!
Why don’t we say no? What is the rationale? What do we have to lose by saying no? What makes you think another young, pretty hoochie (c’mon, let’s be honest and call a hard piece of flour covered with melted granulated sugar, khurma, shall we?) won’t be hired before you can offer him a ’tossed salad’? Hmmmm
I’m sorry but it all boils down to this for me: Yes, I’ve got boobs, I’ve got loads of estrogen, and yes, I get PMS every goddamn month BUT listen buddy, I’m really the one with the pants, aw-ite?! I’ve got the testicular fortitude! I’m in control! It ain’t no ’open sesame’ for you when it comes to me, ya freak. I’ll pay my dues. I’ll stick it out at this lower-paying job for now. I’ll keep my integrity. I’ll be able to watch my daughter in her eyes with a clear conscience. I’ll, I’ll let you beg your wife for that pasa pasa - and still fall asleep on her after 7.2 minutes! Don’t deny it, the girl from Marketing told us the story, you, you, stud-muffin. Ha.
Hear me, I’m not the epitome of feminism although I may seem so at times to some but I just think we give too much power to men when it comes to this. Don’t we realise that there is no guarantee of a long-term anything with these creeps? Don’t we realise that we’re gonna have to keep doing what we did just to keep the little pittance with which they so ’graciously’ provided us? Don’t we realise that we’re always gonna be alone and/or lonely because the perv ain’t gonna leave his wife ’who doesn’t understand him’? Geez, women, get a grip!!!!
Several years ago, I worked with a manager who hired me on the spot. Great! Admittedly, we had a sexual chemistry which became obvious to both of us within my first week on the job. I was genuinely attracted to him but I kept professional. Eventually, after a few months, we actually went on a date one night but nothing happened if you know what I mean. Mere days after that date though, he made me the Assistant Manager. Up to this day, as much as I knew I was good at my job, I always wondered and pondered. Questions, doubts, half-hearted personal reassurances. What if there wasn’t my lack-a-do aura screaming at him - I hadn’t gotten any for months! What if there wasn’t the prolonged eye contact between us and telling mutual smiles? What if I hadn’t gone out with him? What if he didn’t feel that promise of something that could happen? Would he have given me that position still?
Another question but this time to you. If you genuinely like them, okay, but when you don’t really like them and feel forced, what then? Sweetie, they could keep their money, I go keep my honey and die wit’ my dignity!
