#** i have never been raped but i have been verbally harassed and groped

[frangipani-wanderlust]

Eurgh.  My Kingdom For Some Decent Journalism.

So, I was poking around the news today and I found this article on Townhall which is...a little disappointing for its casual misuse of the word “trigger” but otherwise largely a statement of the facts of a minor dust-up on Twitter with only brief forays into editorializing.

This would be really all there is to it, except for the editors’ note at the bottom talking about “fighting the ChiComs“ and giving discounts on subscriptions with the promo code WUHAN.  Way to poison the well, guys.  An evenhanded case that the Chinese government has maliciously and intentionally spread Coronavirus is one thing. (I don’t think they did, but...well, the Chinese government is evil*.  I wouldn’t be surprised if I were wrong about it.) Throwing around nasty insinuations about every Chinese person is racist and I know these editors know it.

Then we skip down to the comments where this...shrub decided that obviously if they disagree with something the Wachowskis say, that’s a free pass to take pot-shots at their looks.  And then this specimen comes around and...well, I’ll just quote his post.

Join the #meneither movement.

Is there enough alcohol in the world that would get you to even talk to her?

#meneither.

Every time some leftist hag comments anywhere, show your disdain by replying #meneither.

It is the antithesis of the #metoo movement.

They claim to be assaulted or harassed via #metoo.  We show negative interest in any of them with #meneither.

...

Most people who follow me know that I like to participate in NaNoWriMo.  This year, one user posted a topic that he probably expected to be a little bit unpleasant but largely unremarkable entitled “Ladies, what are the creepiest things men have said or done” (you will need an account to read the thread) asking for stories about sexual harassment that people had experienced to make his novel more believable.  He posted the topic at 9:11AM.  By the end of the same day, he had 73 replies to the topic, all with at least one story of harassment or rape, most more than one.  Mine was the forty-sixth reply**.  Every single man who read the thread was floored that there were so many of us, with so many different experiences.  “How could it be this bad and we didn’t even know?”

I still think about that thread a lot.  And how shocked the men reading it were that so much sexual misconduct was so commonplace.  I suppose I could go on more about it, but I won’t.  I could also point out that the #MeToo movement has done exactly what so many Conservatives so often say they want.  Rather than trying to get the government to legislate--or in this case relegislate--bad speech or things that are already illegal, the call is for existing laws to be enforced and bad speech is being countered by good speech.  It seems that even when that paradigm is adopted, it’s still bad if it’s adopted by women?  I could point out that neither rape nor sexual assault are things that only happen to attractive women.  But why bother when it’s so obvious?  Instead, I will say that if the end result of the #MeToo movement is that men are specifically and emphatically behaving in ways that are not sexually aggressive or invasive?

Mission.  Fucking.  Accomplished.

It’s not that the “disdain” of these men somehow hurts women who are victims of sexism.  The decision of men like this to withhold sexual attention from women was the goal all along.  “We will beat these women by doing exactly what they wanted us to do the whole time!”  ...Sure.  Just so long as these two, and those like them, do actually follow through with that “threat” to demonstrate negative interest, things will actually improve.

My gosh, I have never felt more validated in my decision to ditch the label “Conservative.”  If men like this feel welcome, then at least, as a Libertarian I can say, “You don’t really believe in freedom, because if you did, then the right of every human being to be secure in their person would matter to you.  Even if those people are women.”  That so many Conservatives have trouble turning that corner is a big reason I’m happy to be out.  Either you value every human being, or you don’t really value any human beings.  And when these kinds of articles and comments are the kinds of things that Conservative journalism is putting out, I really have to question just how much value that group really does put on human beings.  This kind of language is not what it looks like.

Bad job, guys.  Do better.

[bigskydreaming]

Hi, I have questions about trigger warning terms, can you help? Grayson # 12 or any time a character is hit by their family, should it be tagged as domestic abuse or any other term? Also like in Grayson, those uncomfortable sexual situations are under sexual harassment right? Not assault, because that means something else? Sorry, it's not my first language and I need to put warnings before discussing comics, closest I can get the better. Honestly every comic could have abuse warnings.

I mean, there are no hard and fast rules, which is part of what complicates things here. Domestic abuse would work, certainly, but its not necessarily what I would go with as domestic violence just as often carries connotations or impressions of partner on partner violence rather than between siblings or parent and children....which, given the nature of a lot of ships in this fandom, IS something to consider, I believe.

Personally, I would go with something like “Sibling Abuse” or “Parent/Child Abuse” because the more specific the better and its like there’s no reason not to be. Also, it can only help matters to see terminology like that become more widespread and commonplace, to combat the instinctive pushback a lot of people have, like “siblings can’t abuse each other, that’s just fighting” - like, no. Sibling abuse is definitely a thing, and the more its just matter-of-factly used as a description where the description applies, the less easy it is for people to contest it, or even just overlook it entirely in their own writing.

Specifically, what makes Grayson #12 definitively an instance of abuse that should not have been written IMO, let alone validated by so many fans, is not simply Jason punching Dick. I mean, that’s not ideal, but some people are always gonna go well boys will be boys and sometimes brothers fight and blah blah blah. I mean, I have issues with all of those takes because lol toxic masculinity and also ‘sometimes brothers fight’ usually refers to like....aggressive amateur wrestling which is still not quite interchangeable with just hauling back and sucker punching your brother in the face. But whatever. Sticking to that example specifically, the thing that pushes it definitively into the abusive category is the fact that it was framed contextually by both the issue AND fandom as a kind of....penance. A just punishment. 

It was NOT brothers fighting, it was one brother taking out his hurt on the other in a way that definitively should NEVER be approved of in a family, and with the implicit EXPECTATION that he wasn’t going to have to defend himself from any follow-up attacks from Dick in response to what he did. It was clearly written as though Dick was just letting it happen and okay with it happening, that ‘he deserved it’ and its extremely upsetting that even people who push the idea of a kinder, happier, more functional Batfamily in fics and such still found justification for cheering Jason on in this moment. Punching your brother as punishment for upsetting you. That’s defensible....why?

And of course, I don’t say any of this to vilify Jason. I don’t hate his character for doing it, I hate that his character was written doing it in the first place. I hate that so many people see so little problem with him doing that they have him do it again and frequently in fanfic. Honestly, its just as damaging to Jason’s character, because hello, he’s an abuse survivor himself. 

People don’t seem to understand just how much male abuse survivors struggle with the stigma of it our whole lives, where the SECOND people find that out about us, we can often visibly SEE them regard us differently, take extra note of every single outburst of ours, treat us as though us snapping and actually harming someone else is an inevitability rather than a possibility, because we all grow up surrounded by nothing but narratives that spread the myth of all abuse victims eventually grow up to become abusers, its a vicious cycle. 

No, in reality, many of us work really fucking damn hard to never become the people who hurt us, to never do to others what was done to us. Just because we’re angry or frustrated or have a lot to vent about doesn’t mean we don’t know how to keep ourselves from actually doing harm to others, and that’s why its particularly grating how often people like to point to our anger as being somehow inherently different from their own, simply due to information we voluntarily offered up about ourselves.

And yes, this obviously has a lot to do with my fixation on Dick’s temper and how its regarded, but just as much with how matter-of-factly its treated that of course Jason is casually violent with his brothers and nobody thinks twice about it, that’s just how he IS. 

NO.

That’s how people are CHOOSING to write him, because of their own blindspots in regards to abuse and the many realities and nuances and dynamics of it. Abuse is just as damaging and carries just as much trauma and impact for abuse survivors as rape does for rape survivors, even when there is no crossover, but there is a very big tendency to just....not regard that as the case at all. 

And there’s a very big, very real disconnect between the way people write Jason with a focus on his childhood history with abuse and how that impacted him…..and then just…not connect this at all to writing him being casually violent even with loved ones and friends, as though…..its not like its treated as if its an inevitable extension, its more just like, people completely FORGET that aspect of him when writing him being casually physically violent as though this wouldn’t have any bearing on how he views his own actions and interactions with others in light of that, y’know? 

And everyone who writes him this way and doesn’t think twice about it because oh its just Jason, that’s just how he expresses himself, like, is doing a huge disservice to a lot of the very same stuff they unpack in their own stories about his history of childhood abuse when they DO focus on it. And that’s very…..bewildering, to be honest.

As to the second question about the sexual harassment scenes in Grayson, no, I think you have the right idea there. Think of it this way: sexual assault typically describes unwanted physicality, the other person forcing body-to-body contact in some way. Sexual harassment typically describes unwanted situations, the other person forcing you into scenarios or situations where you’re forced to put up with unwanted sexualization of yourself or others (usually the self though). So most of what happened in Grayson I personally would term sexual harassment rather than assault, but that doesn’t make it ‘better’ - there’s a tendency I think to view sexual harassment as being ‘sexual assault-lite’ and that’s like….no. 

I hate bringing any kind of ranking into it at all, but its not even that so much as its apples and oranges….they describe two entirely different scenarios, and sexual harassment can be plenty damaging in its own right, often due to its frequency of recurrence ‘making up’ for it not being as intensely damaging in a single situation as an instance of sexual assault, perhaps.

So for instance, in Grayson, all the times Dr. Netz like, was very implicitly depicted as groping him during his physicals and medical exams, especially during the times when on top of that, she was verbally objectifying him in narration that made it perfectly clear she knew exactly what she was doing and exactly how uncomfortable she was making him (also emphasized via the facial expressions he was drawn with)…like those were sexual harassment, no ifs, ands or buts. The harasser was taking advantage of a situation they knew Dick had no way of gracefully exiting and had to put up with and endure because its not like a spy agency likely had much in the way of an HR department that was open to listening to claims about this shit….and even if there were, his undercover op demanded he make as little waves as possible. 

Which even without Netz knowing that latter part….she still knew from the second she capitalized on his vulnerable position with him a) distinctly uncomfortable as a result and b) making no actual move to stop it (since there weren’t really any available to him)….like, the first time was ‘testing the waters’ kinda, and the second the harasser determined they could get away with it without consequence, it became a frequent, regular occurring thing, something both parties were more or less matter-of-fact about, though each instance only made the harasser bolder, and the victim, Dick, more resigned to his vulnerability in that position and even LESS likely to attempt to enforce personal boundaries or bodily autonomy, as they weren’t being respected as it was already.

I hope that makes those distinctions easier to conceptualize, and sorry for taking so long to get back to you on this!

[lesbianmaxevans]

@gaymacriot replied to your post “tbh we should’ve been prepared for (at best) rlly sketchy ethics and...”

Yeah, Roswell has some kind of interesting ideas about consent...

yeah and it’s probably the thing that’s distressed me the most about season 2 (altho, it’s an issue that’s tied into a lot of my other criticisms, most of them having to do w racism lol)

there’s someone who wrote a post at some point last year about how good the show is at depicting consent, talking mostly about max given he pretty much never initiated physical contact with liz prior to their first kiss outside of when she literally asked him or she gave some kind of verbal consent (and it’s something that I myself talked about a lot during hiatus too!), and outside of isobel’s use of her mind powers which has always been......... questionable at best, I felt like the show was pretty good with depicting consent.

given how noah getting into isobel’s mind was treated as abusive and some of the dialogue in 1x12 when they talk about noah getting in her mind mirroring dialogue about rape/sexual assault, I was expecting isobel to realize that her ability (or at least the way she had been using it) was an act of her violating people but............ she doesn’t. in fact, season 2 starts making it a joke about how she repeatedly violates people’s boundaries (and to make it worse, as far as I can recall, it’s exclusively black and brown folks that she uses this power on), including when she outright complains about mimi pushing her out of her mind bc she used her abilities without consent. (I still can’t believe the writers rlly wrote that as a joke, it made me want to puke.) (also don’t get me started on when she knocked rosa out with that book in 2x05. I’ll forever despise her solely for that.)

I still feel sick about 2x07 and helena sexually harassing and groping max, and having that also as a joke. and I don’t think I need to get into liz’s alien research............

tbh c@rina defending isobel and insisting that isobel can’t make people do things they don’t want to do (when she like.......... clearly can..........) should have tipped us off that things were gonna get sketchy but I think we were all too busy enjoying canon and trying to ignore her word-of-god’ing the content as (for a lot of us) what she was saying didn’t line up with how we viewed the content.

idk I’m just. very tired of her and I think things will, unfortunately, only get worse unless major changes happen in the writer’s room which I don’t really expect to happen.

[drpepperhateblog]

Riot Games Sexism: Source Collection

Article: Inside The Culture of Sexism at Riot Games

Some excerpts:

“Both male and female sources have described seeing unsolicited and unwelcome pictures of male genitalia from bosses or colleagues. One woman saw an e-mail thread about what it would be like to “penetrate her,” in which a colleague added that she’d be a good target to sleep with and not call again.”

“Another said a colleague once informed her, apparently as a compliment, that she was on a list getting passed around by senior leaders detailing who they’d sleep with.”

“One of Riot’s male senior leaders regularly grabbed his genitals, the source said, adding, “If he walked into a meeting with no women he’d just fart on someone’s face.””

In disbelief? Here are some witnesses, with both former and current employees confirming what’s happening:

Multiple tweets from MiniWhiteRabbit

“Multiple women confided in me about being sexually harassed at work. About their asses being slapped, being groped at parties, or being raped at Riot events.”

Riot Tiza tweet

“Tough to read this but this is dead on about some problems in our house.”

Xylese tweet

“I’m fortunate to have an incredibly supportive manager, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that I have colleagues who’ve dealt w/ and still deal w/ this shit. I’ve had my own share of bad experiences here, too. I want that to change in Riot and in the industry.”

FFMirhi tweet

“I can assure you that the vast majority of testimonials in this article are true.”

Gogo Usagi tweet

“I worked there for 3 years and I'm still recovering, honestly.”

ScarizardPlays tweet

“I wanted to mostly be quiet and let other people speak but if my voice helps lend any credibility to the _staggering_ amount of sources cited here: this isn’t overblown ‘sensationalist kotaku garbage’ or whatever redditors love to say. Even the bits you can’t believe? it happened”

Yonah tweet

“I was so idealistic & hopeful when I joined Riot. I really believed the hype. And I left so broken I’ve been in therapy for years.”

Devongiehl tweet

“Happy to see all of this finally brought to light. I left three years ago, but Riot still has has a long way to go.”

DanielZKlein comment

“Sorry to state the obvious, but none of this is fucking acceptable. These people should at the very least have been put on a personal improvement plan or be fired. This is infuriating.”

UPDATE: Daniel Z Klein has further confirmed that the information in the article is true (link to multiple tweets), also confirmed what happened to Yonah (link), and made several retweets such as this:

“Not every single woman at a company has to have experience harassment for it to be real. The Kotaku piece was a result of months of thorough investigative journalism.”

In addition, there were questions raised about whether the person in the article could really have 16 game consoles plugged in. Here is proof that it’s true.

UPDATE 2: Riot Ghostcrawler comment on the controversy:

“One of the challenges of situations like this is that plenty of people have been fired for things that were described in the article. I have personally fired people for it (and I did it at Blizzard too). But you don't often go around communicating that fact, often times because you are trying to protect the victim of the harassment.

That is definitely not to say we have addressed every problem mentioned in the article.”

Not a current or former Rioter, but e-sports journalist Richard Lewis had something to say (tweet) about the article:

“Remember how I told you 2 years ago there was an inherent issue with sexism at Riot Games and we'd need to wait for the NDAs to start dropping off before the truth come out? Looks like today might be the day.” 

Meagan-Marie tumblr post

Some excerpts:

“Soon I began to notice gendered language regularly being used among male Rioters to insult each other. Guys would tell each other “not to be such a girl” and call one another “p*ssies” quite regularly. They would casually refer to women as “b*tches” and say that “all women were crazy.” I also overheard a group discussing how a female professional made it far in the industry, suggesting she “sucked c*ck to get to the top.”

“I didn’t go out with colleagues after events because strip clubs seemed to be a common destination. Asking me what age I lost my virginity at was deemed appropriate conversation during a team dinner, and employees I didn’t know prodded into how my sex life worked in a long-distance relationship.”

“Rape became a punchline to jokes quite frequently, including one instance where an employee went on for several hours about how he was going to rape his male colleague, who was his hotel roommate. He was graphic in exactly how he was going to rape his roommate, who was a new hire, and it was obvious that the individual in question was extremely uncomfortable.”

“A senior staff member proceeded to repeatedly call me sexist for not being willing to room with a man I’d never met before. At first, I thought he was kidding, but he continued to make arguments to his point. I explained why I would be more comfortable sharing a room with another woman, and told him I wasn’t enjoying the conversation and would leave if I was continued to be called sexist. The conversation continued, with him eventually saying that my unwillingness to room with a man was the same as not hiring a woman due to her gender.”

“I regularly witnessed lewd comments about women passing by at events, discussing their level of attractiveness, whether someone would sleep with them, and guessing if they were the age of consent.”

“At least three times Riot Dublin employees made inappropriate comments via work email about a female cosplayer’s breasts (one they regularly worked with).”

“Cosplayers have also been called “tr*nnies” and “attention whores” by Riot employees at events.”

“In meetings, I was told that we shouldn’t put cosplayers on stage to play League live, because they are mostly women, and therefore not very good at the game.”

If there was any doubt of the validity of these stories, this tweet from Riot Games themselves washed them away:

UPDATE 3: Katie De Sousa tumblr post

“Not too long after I started at Riot, the topic of sexual harassment came up in a conversation among a few Rioters on the art team, I was there, just listening. They were talking about something that had happened to a woman there, and I had no context for it, but was surprised when one of the guys on the team claimed that “she liked the attention”. The subject was then laughed off. I later found out what actually happened, a female employee received super inappropriate texts from a lead. This group of dudebros laughed it off and made her the villain.”

“I also can’t help but think I would have felt more empowered if I wasn’t told by a male coworker that “Women don’t fit into a male hierarchy.” Maybe I would have been more inclined to strive for greatness if I wasn’t dismissively called a “pretty pretty princess” when my first champion, Jinx, did so well (among a bunch of other thinly veiled jealous verbal barbs). I actually went to a lead to express my frustration over this and he said “Yeah I can see why he’s acting like that, I mean I’m kind of jealous too.” What was that about women speaking up again?”

“Not too long into my career one of my male coworkers might have thought he was giving me a compliment when he decided to tell me about how great some of the guys thought my breasts were. I had made the foolish mistake of going to a Riot pool party, wearing a swimsuit, and swimming. I hope I don’t have to explain how violating that felt, at any rate I learned my lesson, and I never attended another.”

“My days might have been a bit easier to manage if I didn’t have to stifle my rage when a male coworker would explain to me how to make designs for women, and how to be a feminist. Realizing that they believe their opinion as a dude meant more than, I don’t know, my entire lifetime of experience as a woman?”

“Even the Riot Dames email group didn’t feel like a safe space, when we were discussing the lack of female characters in esports promos a senior lead decided to chime in and question whether women deserved to be represented, they haven’t really earned it yet, as pro LoL players were all male. Oh, and on the topic of men thinking women are inherently lesser and must prove otherwise, let’s discuss another gross habit: saying “you’re really good at _______ for a chick.””

UPDATE 4: Barry Hawkins blog post

“The sexual references by straight men directly towards other straight men were a more complicated issue. It would often be homosexual in nature, but could also be sexually aggressive toward your significant other. You might be talking to a leader about conflict with a peer, and they’d respond with “man, you’re acting like he had sex with your wife.” Or they might start a paragraph by saying “Now for instance, if I fucked your wife…” and then segue into what they were actually supposed to be saying. The homosexual variants would be things like “well if he sucked your dick, would you feel better about this?” or “it’s not like I’m asking you to suck my dick, but I’d be OK with it if you did.””

“The next day, one of my former direct reports and her direct report, both of whom I was actively mentoring, asked to speak with me as soon as I could. We met up right away, and they were visibly upset. One of them said to me, “There’s a rape joke in some of the recruiting material, and they’re saying it’s something that Brandon said at the offsite. Is that true? Did he say that?”  I think I took a deep breath, followed by a long sigh. It was a simple question, with a simple answer, but with that answer came grave implications.“Yeah, he did.””

“I will never forget changing planes in San Francisco the following Monday. I pulled out my phone to check email, and found replies to the email I sent Brandon, but not only him. My original email had apparently become a thread with some folks in leadership. I recall it mentioning that hyper-sensitive people who didn’t understand intent were a problem we needed to address at Riot. I closed that email thread, and immediately below it there was a meeting invite titled “Riot Voice and Sense of Humor” set for when everyone returned from the company trip. The invite included the co-founders Marc (my boss) and Brandon, the head of Communications, the head of Legal, and myself.”

“The head of Legal did speak up and asked if we were concerned about legal liability. She was seated to my left, and I was seated on Brandon’s left, where he was at the head of table. Brandon extended his arm past me and held up his hand in front of her and hushed her, saying we were not going to talk about that.”

UPDATE 5: Riot Games Apology Statement: Our First Steps Forward

[dwam]

- Me too -

TW : sorry, I'm bringing that discussion about rape culture here too. No graphic depictions, but talks about rape and harassment.

…......……… "me too."…………………

Do you see them in your timeline? Did you count? Did you start realizing, eventually? Did you consider the fact that if pretty much every women, lots of men too, and as much nb persons that you know have been harassed, molested, abused, and/or raped ? Probably several times ? Did you realize it also means they are many, many, many harassers, abusers, rapists, and you know them as well? Do you see the disgusting iceberg under the tip now? One friend once told me, after a conversation about rape culture, that he was scared to think he could probably count the assaulted/abused women he knew on his fingers.

Oh.

I thought... What I can actually count on my fingers is the number of NOT assaulted womxn I know. And I do know quite a lot of people. I do not think I'm surrounded by peculiarly unfortunate people. Nor that the abuse rate among my friends is especially high. I unfortunately know also too many abused men - it's even more complicated for them to talk about it, cause there are other specific stigmas and toxic masculinity myths around this. Today I'm speaking mainly about womxn, (and by this I include any AFAB, agender, or any nb people *read, perceived, raised or treated as women*), because abuse is deep down more a question of power and domination than sex... Yet power, domination, entitlement, impunity, therefore, most of abuse fertile grounds, are on the hands of men.

I wanted to share "me too", because me too, like - I'm sure- almost all persons read as women I know, have had to deal with toxic, sexual, predatory behaviors. I've faced all possible forms of street harassment, sleazy comments, rape threats online or irl, verbal and physical violence from men - yet I still consider myself lucky cause I've been spared, in a way, the sexual aggressions. I feel lucky cause no one raped me. (and I had to correct my first formulation of "lucky I haven't been raped" cause there is no passive tense for this. People don't GET raped, however some people rape. Active tense, shift of blame).

Again.

I FEEL LUCKY. ...that no one raped me. How sick is that ? Is the creepy photographer trying to push my boundaries counting on the list though ? Is the customer who groped my ass while I was waiting tables considered still a "mild" form of garbage ? Would the "friend" I've repeatedly turned down still trying to kiss me when he thought I was drunk enough be listed on the verge of "sexual assault that could have turned worse"? I didn't think most of that at the time - party, drinks, promiscuity in our group of friends - and years later I found out that same one abused two friends of mine (probably a lot more we don't know). And of course almost no one believe them. Will one day the never-ending list of friends telling us about rape, incest, abuse, be enough for people to finally LISTEN to the victims, BELIEVE the victims, and ACT to stop perpetuate this pernicious rape culture that foster predators ? Read the "me too" on your timelines. Open your eyes. Consider all the ones that can't, or don't want, to speak up too. Add the numbers. Listen to the victims. Support them, question the behaviors of people around you. Yes. there are among us, we know them. Do not support rapists. Do not support abusers. Do not find them excuses. Educate yourself about rape culture. Educate your sons. Speak about consent, respect, power, boundaries, sexism. Stop other men where they are disrespectful. Amplify women's voices, but do not speak over them. Listen.

BELIEVE.

Listen. 

(art by witchoria) 

[woulddiefordomharrison-blog]

PSA: WOMEN ARE NOT TREATED EQUAL. PEOPLE ARE JUST TOO BLIND TO SEE OR THEY WANT TO IGNORE THE FACT BECAUSE THEY FEEL ITS TOO MUCH WORK TO TRY TO FIX IT.

So, as we all know, women are more prone to be a victim of a sexual crime than a man is. Now I'm not saying by any means that men don't suffer any kind of sexual crime, I'm just saying that it is more common for a woman to suffer the role of being a victim and said crime through no fault of her own. Take, for example, something that happened to me today.

So, at my school, there's the YMCA right next to it, there's a corner store across the street from it, and down the street there is a public library. Keep in mind this is not a good side of town. So I was going to go to the YMCA to swim with my friend, but then I realized it's Wednesday. On Wednesday, she goes to church and the evening. I didn't want to feel like a loser in swimming alone. My usual hangout spot after school is the library anyway. Before I went into Library, I decided to go to the corner store. I wanted to pick up two ice cream pints. I picked two out and then I went to the checkout. I gave the man the money and started walking to the library. In this corner store parking lot, there was a man who started to cat call me. Saying things like "heyyy babygirl. You want a ride?" I have a raging fear as it is of pedophiles, rape, and human traffickers, for pretty obvious reasons I do assume. Pretty quickly and in a very rude tone, I simply stated "No." The root tone was not intentional, but in fact was more out of fear and fright.

"You don't want a ride?"

"No. No, I don't."

After the terrifying encounter, on my part at least, I started rushing to the library. It's straight down the road from the corner store. He drove by and stared at me as I walked quickly away. From fear of being picked up and thrown into the car, I pulled out my phone and pretended I was calling somebody. I got down to the library, and luckily I was safe, but I'm still quite scared to walk alone. This might not seem like a big deal to some, but I do say that means there's some problem. I am a 13 year old. An adult calling a 13 year old who's not a part of their family 'babygirl' is A) uncomfortable and B) inappropriate. I feel that that is very wrong whether or not he touched me or not. It's a highly uncomfortable situation and it's a highly scary situation to be in. I don't mean to sound like a little snowflake or whatever, but if somebody who was not me that told my dad about an experience like this, that's exactly what he'd call them. Now, if I told him about this, he would never let another man lay eyes on me. Sure, this might not be a sexual crime, but whenever I told my friend about this, she had a similar experience to share. Whenever I told my other friend about this, she revealed that she has been verbally harassed and groped. At school. It's oh so common for young girls to experience things like this. To experience the fear of an older guy doing stuff like this. saying stuff like this. Acting like this. In fact, this is the second time in a week's span that something like this has happened to me.

Now, to the more PSA part, women are not treated equal. This man would not have offered a teen boy a ride, I don't reckon. Boys aren't targeted and sexual crimes like girls are

But it's almost as if it's forbidden to say women are targeted more for sexual crimes bC THEN PEOPLE ARE ALL LIKE "BRO CHILL OUT YOU, DUMBASS FEMINIST. GET OFF TUMBLR EVERY ONCE AND AWHILE"

Plus it's also sad that there are not many female icons who haven't lived by the sex sells idea. Some women are convinced that that's the only way to get money. And for some, that is the case. Some see the opportunity in having a sexual career are labeled office sluts when they're only trying to make common money. They aren't trying to be greedy or rich or whatever, they just want to make as much as they can live off of. Some women use this philosophy to become famous. There are not many famous female icons who haven't exposed parts of their body to be where they are today. That's sad. Now, I get the ones that are okay with it are okay with it, but others are pressured into this. Others are signed on to a contract and are pretty much owned by the people they signed for. In other words, they can dress a woman how they want. This, by no means is sweat shaming though. I'm saying that there are women in the industry that aren't comfortable with it, but that doesn't really matter.

And simply women are objectified. So many teen boys in my class only care about a girl's body. Not their mind. Their tits. Their ass. What they can give sexually. And that's fucked up because A) you are 14. And B) you shouldn't grow up thinking that's a way to think about women. We are so much more powerful than what we are credited for. We push out babies for gods sake. Some of the babies are babies that we don't even want. Some of the babies were given to us by the sexual crimes done to us, like my mother when she gave birth to my sister. We are so much more powerful than what we are credited for.

it's the same with my father as it is with those boys, too. You have no idea how many times he comments on an actresses ass or tits when as a woman, I can tell you, dad, it's very uncomfortable for people to say it whether it's a part of your body that you are comfortable with. Even if you know you have good tits, even if you brag about it, having it be said OUT LOUD by someone you haven't met or worse, someone much older than you is incredibly uncomfortable. It's still somebody's daughter. I guess he'll understand if I get famous and comments like this are said about me. Anyway, this has been my rant about and being sexualized in manners and ways that they should not be sexualized in.

[epiphany-in-exile]

I am a multiple harassment, multiple rape, multiple assault, and multiple domestic abuse survivor. I've been groped, verbally harassed, physically assaulted, raped, and emotionally abused.

However, I've processed all that more thoroughly than my mum who has "only" been verbally harassed and groped...

I have nightmares following triggers that wake me shaken but I shake it off and continue my day. I have hangups in friendships and relationships.

My mum has frequent nightmares that leave her sobbing in panic attacks and a passion of speech that is jarring in its rawness 40 YEARS after the events. It's a wound that has NEVER healed.

But in many people's opinions her story is a less important, despite its strong and long-lasting impact. Do you see the problem here?

NO ONE gets to decide what another human being is effected and traumatized by. NO ONE gets to dismiss someone's pain. If you don't identify with someone who is speaking out pick someone else to look up to, but SUPPORT THEM ANYWAY LIKE YOU WOULD WANT THEM TO SUPPORT YOU.

ANYONE who speaks or writes of their experience is WORTHY OF CARE AND COMPASSION regardless of RACE, GENDER IDENTITY, SEXUAL ORIENTATION, CAREER, YEARLY INCOME, PERSONALITY, POLITICS, RELIGION, OR AGE.

EVERY VOICE THAT SHATTERS THE SILENCE MATTERS!

@taylorswift ... YOU matter! You matter to me, and countless others that identify with you. You matter to our present, and how far we've come. YOU matter to our future, and how far we can go.

You will never be silenced, because we will make sure you are heard. We will never be silenced, because you give us courage to speak now.

[culturalsociologyblog-blog]

“Piropo: compliment vs. harassment. The cultural practice of catcalling in South America”

By Pascuala Migone

“All women like to be complimented. Those who say they are offended by it, I don’t believe it. There is nothing nicer than a piropo, even if it is accompanied by a vulgarity.To be told what a nice ass you have, it’s fine”.

(Mauricio Macri, current Argentinean president, 2014).

Gendered violence towards women, in its various expressions, is a critical issue in Latin America[1]. While the alarmingly high rates of homicides and rapes of women are widely condemned, there is no consensus towards other -less evidently violent- practices in this line.

Piropos are unauthorized comments of implicit or explicit sexual connotation made in the public space, almost exclusively from men to women, in contexts where there is no affective relationship to justify it. Sometimes whispered to the ear, other times yelled, they can be also accompanied by gestures and meaningful looks. The degree of intensity varies from "flattery" on the physical appearance to remarks of a strong sexual nature.

Although street harassment is not exclusive of Latin America, its magnitude is exponentially greater than in other parts of the world. In Santiago, for example, 85% of women and 97% of young women (18 to 34 years) surveyed declared suffering from street harassment during the last year[2], while in a similar study in Amsterdam, the percentage falls to 59% and 80% respectively[3]. The major problem is that, although certain forms of harassment -such as public masturbation or groping- are socially condemned, catcalling is not. Moreover, it is deeply installed and even valued in contemporary Latin-American culture, as Macri's comment illustrates.

Symbolic interactionism can provide an interesting perspective to understand this phenomenon. This micro sociological paradigm suggests that individuals act toward things -including other people- based on the meanings they have for them, and these meanings are a result of social interaction. Thus, the social realities or cultures are not given, but created and modified through interpretation and collective action between individuals (Blumer, 1969).

Under this lens, piropos –on which historical origin there is no consensus[4]- do not come out of the blue, but are an outcome of the concrete social interactions. They are a symbol of female and male roles expectation (Schutz, 1962). They are also an expression of how social interaction between men and women is characterized by inequity at multiple levels in the region. The fact that this kind of interaction exists, that so many men feel the right to assess and judge unknown women’s physical appearance, reflects a more generalized social logic, where women continually occupy inferior positions when compared to men.

To make the point, it is important to describe this interaction in detail. Piropo is usually characterized by an asymmetry: it never occurs in a context where a woman is accompanied by one or more men, but only when she is alone or with other members of her gender. It usually involves a group of men and fewer or one woman, or an adult and a minor. Also, it is a verbal behavior that does not expect to obtain a positive response or even establish communication. The speech is addressed to someone unknown and it is not done as an honest seduction, but rather as an attention seeking and male power assertion in the public space (Gaytan, 2009). When walking down the streets, women are exposed to a large chance of being objectified because of their gender and its perception.

Gender studies perspective provides a key point here: gender is not biological, but socially constructed. What a society defines as male or female is not given, but arbitrarily constructed and context-dependent. In this way, norms and discourses influence how gender is perceived and constructed under given social and cultural conditions (Alsop et al, 2002). Based on these perceived sexual differences, in most cultures “femininity” and “masculinity” have been linked to the domestic and public life, respectively (Ortner, 1972). That being said, the focus here is not on delving into the roots of these associations, but on how piropos constitute a frequent interaction that expresses them.

In this line, West & Zimmerman (1987), provide an interesting interactionist analysis. They maintain that gender is not a quality of individuals, but a product of day-to-day practices and behaviors that emphasize "femininity" or "masculinity". Thus, gender is embedded in and constructed through everyday interactions. The category operates as an ideological device, which legitimates certain understandings and limits in a society. Along the same lines, Henley (1977) borrows Goffman's (1959) ideas of individuals as actors on a theatrical stage[5], to argue that gender is used in different ways in performances by men and women. Their behavior, use of space and body language all express different positions towards each other. For example, women are more likely to enjoy less personal space and freedom of expression in public spaces, while men express their dominance over them through behaviors such as staring.

In this way, piropo can be understood as an expression of masculinity, a form of performing and reaffirming masculinity and its dominance. On the other side of the interaction, the victims’ usual reactions involve trying to maximize personal space usage by walking faster, looking at the ground or changing body language in anticipation of piropos (Vallejo, 2013). When gender dictates relations of power, piropos become devices or expressions of how these hierarchical positions are maintained in a patriarchal social order.

The most complex aspect of this matter is that the practice is deeply rooted in Latin American culture, and even justified as part of the folklore. The Chilean case is a good example of how the unequal interaction described above is mirrored in the public debate. Three years ago, the Observatory Against Street Harassment was created. Through a strong campaign, this organization managed to install the discussion about street harassment in social discussion and across various media, and is currently seeking to push a law against it.

The discussion has elicited opposing views: those who defend it are mostly men. They argue that as long as the compliments are not "too explicit" or accompanied by physical aggression, they are harmless. Many even assume that women enjoy them. According to a survey of Inter-American Open University, among those who admitted giving piropos, almost 60% believed that women enjoyed them. Moreover, the fight against it has often been framed as a "feminist overreaction", showing that women's speeches and experiences are more easily trivialized or discarded in patriarchal systems.

The problem is that tolerating certain forms of gender violence leaves room for ambiguity. If it is taken as something subjective, the boundaries blur. Every unsolicited comment about a woman's body is violent, not only because it ignores the possible psychological consequences, but also because it expresses the legitimation of the implicit idea of ​​ownership over women bodies, as if they were objects that men have the right to classify. This is clear when considering that the more women exhibit their bodies, the bigger the chances of receiving this type of harassment.

In this essay, I illustrated how the piropo, as an everyday practice, made invisible and naturalized, expresses a gender inequality. In Latin America, protective legislation and preventive educational policies are urgently needed. Recognizing and condemning street sexual harassment, as a form of gender violence, is a way of rewriting our cultural codes and therefore, the way we interact on the street. As Blumer (1969) states, meaning- making is an ongoing, interpretative process. To reject this behavior, at all levels, is to understand that public space belongs to all of us, that walking on the street without fear is not a privilege, but a right that both men and women should enjoy.

 References

1.       Alsop et al. (2002). Theorizing Gender: An Introduction. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press in association with Blackwell.

2.       Blumer, H. (1969). Symbolic interactionism: Perspective and method. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 1-47.

3.       Gaytan, P. (2009). From piropo to disenchantment. A sociological study. Biblioteca de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades. Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana México.

4.       Goffman, E. (2012 [1959]). The presentation of self in everyday life. In: Craig Calhoun et al., eds. Contemporary sociological theory. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 46-62.

5.       Henley, N. (1977). Body politics: Power, sex, and nonverbal communication. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

6.       Guerra contra el piropo: ahora lo definen como acoso callejero (2014) Retrieved from https://www.clarin.com/sociedad/Piropos-molestos-mayoria-mujeres-recibirlos_0_Syimvf05vmg.html

7.       Observatorio Contra el Acoso Callejero (2015). Encuesta 2015: ¿Está Chile dispuesto a sancionar el acoso callejero? Retrieved from https://www.ocac.cl/el-observatorio/

8.      Ortner, S. (1972) Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture? Feminist Studies, Vol. 1, No.2. pp. 5- 31.

9.      Schutz, A. (1962). Collected papers I. The Problem of Social Reality. Edited and introduced by Maurice Natanson, The Hague.

10.  Small Arms Survey (2016). Retrieved from http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/about-us/highlights/2016/highlight-rn63.html

11.  Vallejo, E. (2013). The Invisible Violence: Street Sexual Harassment in Metropolitan Lima. Retrieved from: https://www.ocac.cl/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/E.-Vallejo-Rivera-La-violencia-invisible-acoso-sexual-callejero-en-Lima-metropolitana.pdf

12.   West, C. and Zimmerman, D. H. (1987). Doing gender. Gender & Society 1(2): 125-151

[1] There is currently no comparable global data on the subject. However, the 2016 Small Arms Survey on violent deaths indicates that, among the 25 countries with the highest rates of femicides in the world, 14 are Latin American or Caribbean.

[2] Representative survey of women over 18 in Santiago, carried out by the Observatory Against Street Harassment (2015).

[3] Representative survey of women over 15 in Amsterdam, carried out by the City Council (2015).

[4]Although there are no reliable sources, the practice of the piropo is supposed to have a Spanish origin, derived from the Greek word pyropus (=fire red). This, given that during the Golden Age, men gave rubies to the women courted. Over time, this was associated to the act of "giving" something precious to a woman, including “compliments”.

[5] Goffman investigates social interaction from a dramaturgical perspective, where people interact with each other as actors performing on a stage.

[icshly]

I still remember so clearly when I talked with my dad about the sexual harassment me and my friends constantly experienced. I had been stalked on my way home in the middle of the night, having a unknown man trying to force himself in to my apartment. Same thing happened to my friend later. I had been groped and verbally harassed. I lost my virginity to a man who didn't take a no until I just gave in and lay there like dead fish while he did his thing until he was pleased. Then he called me ugly. A classmate had just told me she was raped by her ex. I was mad. And my dad believed none of it. That was the one time my dad let me down. Since then he learned after years and years of arguments so he's not as ignorant today. But that he didn't believe me, that I will probably never get over.

[gigglesall-blog]

Yesterday, I posted a video on this thread discussing the misogynistic abuse I have received day in and day out for the past 18 months of development. The reception was lovely overall. There were a few criticisms, like accusing me of posting an ad, but that is to be expected in an open forum. My number one goal is to HEAR female voices - to hear your experiences - because it helps me not feel crazy. Which is the number one feeling waiting to take over when you're hearing misogynistic gaslighting for the majority of a workday. "Am I going insane? Is this normal?" But I thought I would expand a little bit. In part because, before becoming a tech startup CEO, I was a screenwriter in Hollywood. So the written word is actually where I feel most comfortable. Also, you can say a lot more than you can in a 3 minute video, especially when being on camera is a medium I don't enjoy. The reason I am no longer a screenwriter is for every reason the Me Too movement exists. I was there in a pre-MeToo world & had actually left by the time the Weinstein scandal broke because I couldn't cope with it a second longer. I remember, one morning, staring at the ceiling in my bedroom & realizing that I could not get myself out of the deep hole of depression I was in if I stayed in my career and city I had come to know as home. So I moved from LA to New York. As a screenwriter, I had two male agents & two male managers. I am Australian so my work visa was connected to the agency/management companies and I was trapped with them. I couldn't earn money any way other than through selling screenplays via my agents & managers. So, more than the average writer, they controlled my life. But I wrote movies for women. I wrote romcoms. Usually movies about a flawed yet strong women who goes on a journey to realize her strength and own it. That was basically my brand. Once - ONCE - I wrote a script about sex. I was told that sex was my brand and no matter how many times I said, "Nope. Strong yet flawed women are my brand", I was sold as the sex writer. I needed to pay rent, so if "sex writer" was going to do it... In meetings with executives and producers, I was groped or verbally harassed. Repeatedly. At the beginning, I would tell the people (men) I needed to tell about what had happened. I was told "It's just how it is" and "just 'wow' them with a great script!" But after having a hand put down my pants (a literal "grab them by the P***y moment), I didn't want to be in a room with Him again. So I didn't write the script. This happened a few more times and my professional reputation started to fall. I was the girl who didn't deliver. The reality was that I could no longer write. I would sit at my computer all day, every day, trying to write. But I couldn't form coherent sentences in my head. Because my sole livelihood rested on my ability to write, I became more and more anxious. The anxiety did not help. I have since learned, after a lot of therapy, that I was trapped in a flight-or-fight survival mode and my subconscious was stopping me from writing because writing meant I would be in rooms with Men who would abuse me verbally or physically. New York helped for a moment, but the issues were just too deep. I needed a professional. The depression too strong. I was petrified of my own voice. My self esteem was so low. Eventually, I returned to Australia because I needed a hug from my Mum. While talking with my mum about what had happened - and relying what I was learning in therapy - we started to talk about how broken the system is. My therapist repeatedly told me I had to relearn how to "connect with people". It was the knew mantra replaying in my mind. It resonated with me because I had actually never lost the desire to connect with people, but I had become so afraid of leaving a safe environment - like my bed - that I wasn't connecting with anyone. The loneliness was palpable. When the Weinstein scandal broke, a lot of the girl-friends in LA and I re-connected and swapped stories. We realized we had all been going through the same thing, but we were too scared to talk about it. Being ignored by the people who *could* do something had squashed any desire to tell anyone else. In hindsight, we all wished we had told one another. This resonated with my mum. My mum decided we needed to find a way to give that gift of sisterhood to every girl who needed it. We decided - while drinking whiskey - that we would create an app. We knew nothing about apps. We had no idea what it would take to "create an app". But we weren't scared. We were just motivated by an idea. For the first time in years, my voice returned. I had a purpose again. For 18 months, we developed giggle. "Giggle" is actually the collective noun for a group of girls. When I discovered this, while searching for a name, I did a bit of an eye-roll. "UGH. Of course that's what they call us." Until I realized that it was an amazing opportunity to claim a word that has been hijacked to be belittling. The reality is that groups of girls do amazing things. The girls of 2020 are where we are being of the "giggles" before us. I decided to take the idea of "stupid, giggling girls" and prove it to be a completely incorrect stereotype. Because I know it is. We all know it is. Women can vote because of giggles. Mum and I spent months designing the app, with the help of my Dad who taught himself how to use Xd via YouTube videos. I would draw absolutely horrendous pictures of what I wanted the screens to look like (I am no artist) and he would turn them into something that other people could potentially take seriously. I learned how to create business plans, marketing plans, finance plans. We spent hundreds of hours researching, taking to people, discussing every possible avenue. Finally, we took the demo app of giggle to investors and.... for the first time in my adult life, something happened very easily: we got development funding & suddenly I had a company. It was 6 months from concept to funding. Then the real hard work began. Award-winning app developers, award winning designers, marketers & business partners came on board. It was my job to articulate my vision. But, suddenly, there were more men than women in the room. It was Mum and Me against a lot of men. They started telling us what girls were like. What girls wanted. We would have long meetings about the misogyny girls face on a day to day basis, but mum and I would not be allowed to speak. We would just look at each other, stunned at the irony. The yelling at us began quite quickly. We would be polite and tolerant. For months, any time we had an objection to the direction of our vision, we were told we were "closed minded". But we would be told "no" immediately if they didn't like what we said (keeping in mind, we're the majority share holders & directors. We are *supposed* to have the final word). I had already had one career destroyed by men abusing their power. There was no way I was going to let it happen again. So I started to fight back, loudly. I have done so every day for the past year. I have won every single battle to ensure that my vision is realized (while obviously collaborating and being a team player at the same time). I have put my foot down when it has desperately been needed. The fact that we have had to have these battles has been mind blowing - we don't want them, but the alternative is to not speak. It is not like we have told experts how to do their job. We want them around *because* they are experts. But it was very much expected that we would sit in the corner and shut up while the boys were in control. HA! I have been shushed in meetings by men. I have been told I shouldn't be CEO "in case" I can't answer a question with no proof or cause for concern. I have been told I need to be "managed". They don't sound like major things when you write them down like this, but fighting against them every day for a year does wear your down. Because it just shouldn't happen. Starting a new business is difficult. But before we get to the normal difficulties, we have to fight through the misogyny. By the time we are doing budgets, we are exhausted. Everyone who works for "Giggle" knew they were working on a girl-run company *for* girls. I have come to realize that they just didn't understand what that *means*. I have frequently said, "If you want to profit off empowering women, you better get used to having empowered women around." I have been told that this is an "ugly look". I'm tired of it. I'm tired of this being acceptable behavior. All I want to do is use my position of privilege (white, middle-class family) to do something to change the status-quo. Because this arrogant misogyny is not sustainable in society any longer. I want girls to be able to find a room to rent without sexual harassment (which happens ALL the time). To do freelance work without an abuse of power (which happens ALL the time). To connect with each other in a private way to express opinions, share experiences and get advice, without the fear of a rape threat or worse. Before anyone asks - yes, "giggle" is 10000000% LGBTQ friendly. I have worked with some absolutely amazing trans girls to ensure that they onboarding and platform is welcoming and that they feel comfortable. It has been one of the greatest joys in the whole giggle process - completely absent of hostility, arrogance & misogyny. Inclusive feminism is the only find of feminism I am interested in - all girls, of all cultures. Despite only recently having gone live on the App Store & Google Play - our launch & campaigns have not yet begun - we have a few thousands girls on "giggle" and I am having the most lovely conversations with girls from all around the world. My favorite at the moment is a conversation with a girl in India. Her instinctual responses are so different from mine, I'm constantly learning a new way to view the world, yet our experiences in the professional world are so similar. It's an utterly rewarding conversation. The reason I made the video & posted it everywhere yesterday is because a man has been questioning my ability to do my job, despite refusing to speak to me directly, and, after failing to having private conversations with him that would go anywhere, I felt like the only thing left was to talk to other girls and say "this is what it's like. This is the reality" and hear their stories. Because I have suffered in silence once before. I'm not going to any more and I don't think any of us should. Of course, I also want girls to know about giggle - if "Giggle" helps one girl realize her true self, feel safe & own her power, I will be happy for the rest of my life. Thank you for reading xx (PS - the company is what it is. I'm actually not requesting feedback on it at this moment in time, in this forum. You're all completely welcome to your opinions but I don't need them right now and, to be honest, I've probably already heard them. PPS - the collective noun for a group of boys is called a "plush" and, yes, I think it would be wonderful if men had a place on the Internet where they could connect with each other, be vulnerable and have safe & honest conversations, and help each other. I'm just not the face or the voice of such a company.)

gigglesall

[sahibookworm]

Release Date: January 7, 2020

Genre: YA Non Fiction

Publisher: Inkyard Press

Purchase Links: IndieBound || Harlequin || Amazon || B&N || Chapters

A timely and heartfelt collection of essays inspired by the #MeToo movement, edited by acclaimed young adult and middle-grade author Janet Gurtler. Featuring Beth Revis, Mackenzi Lee, Ellen Hopkins, Saundra Mitchell, Jennifer Brown, Cheryl Rainfield and many more. When #MeToo went viral, Janet Gurtler was among the millions of people who began to reflect on her past experiences. Things she had reluctantly accepted—male classmates groping her at recess, harassment at work—came back to her in startling clarity. She needed teens to know what she had not: that no young person should be subject to sexual assault, or made to feel unsafe, less than or degraded. You Too? was born out of that need. By turns thoughtful and explosive, these personal stories encompass a wide range of experiences and will resonate with every reader who has wondered, “Why is this happening to me?” or secretly felt that their own mistreatment or abuse is somehow their fault—it’s not. Candid and empowering, You Too? is written for teens, but also an essential resource for the adults in their lives—an urgent, compassionate call to listen and create change.

Trigger Warnings: As a book about the #meToo movement, this deals with themes from catcalling or verbal abuse to rape and incest and everything in between. So, please take care and decide if you are in the right headspace to handle this book.

I’ve read quite a few books in past couple months that dealt with sexual harassment in the workplace and the rise of the #meToo movement. So, when I saw the announcement of this book in which many YA authors are sharing their own stories and letting young women know that they aren’t alone, I was very excited to read this book. And I really am honored to be a part of this blog tour.

This is a painful and difficult read, partly because of the experiences of the authors and how they are still common after all these years, partly also because they brought up many of my own memories which I may have tried to forget. It’s also a very diverse collection of experiences and each author talks about their own way of dealing with their trauma, and that’s definitely an important message for young women that there is no single right way to react or respond.

It took me a while to read it completely because I could only handle it in small doses, but nevertheless, it’s a very important book and I would love to give this to any young woman I know. But I also think it’s important for adult readers like me to read because we all have had these experiences and it’s good to know we are not alone.

I’m not going to rate any of the individual stories, just share my thoughts on each of them below:

It’s our Secret by Patty Blount

As a survivor of child molestation, the author asks a very timely question – when her parents asked her to keep it a secret about what happened to her, were they sparing her the ordeal of being dismissed, or were they just sparing themselves?

Wishing on Silver Dollars by Jennifer Brown

This was painful to read because it’s so relatable and common. The author delves into all the ways girls are sexualized since puberty (which is worse for the curvy girls) and how we are so used to verbal comments and leering and groping that by the time we are ready to start our careers, we just consider this harassment part of our lives. But what hit me most was the author talking about how we feel shame for being harassed when it’s the other person’s fault. This is definitely a lesson that young woman needs to be told – it’s not your fault.

This is How it Ends by Tiffany Brownlee

As a young black girl with a sheltered upbringing, the author experienced both racial and sexual harassment and I really felt for her because she too concluded at that young age that it must be her fault. But as an educator currently, she emphasizes that such harassing conduct arises from ignorance or lack of empathy, and it’s necessary to teach kids to respect themselves and others, and exercise self-control.

Sugar, Spice and Not so Nice by Jess Capelle

The author’s harassment experiences and the way they are dismissed by the adults through the years are all too familiar, and she stresses that despite being taught from childhood that we girls should keep quiet and not make waves and just be nice, we really shouldn’t do that. We have a voice and we should use it to stand up for ourselves and not let anyone get away with harassing us.

Bus Stop Witchcraft by Kenna Clifford

As a young bisexual woman, the author talks about being a bit luckier to be able to grow up in the generation where #meToo movement is prominent and atleast some women are able to speak about their experiences. And she also talks about the need to speak our stories and make our voices heard.

Young but Not Powerless by Eva Darrows

The author talks about her experiences with harassment in school from teachers and how much worse it is than if the perpetrators were boys her own age, because these teachers had power over the students. And her mentioning that many girls knew about it and just warned younger girls to be safe, rather than reporting the issues just underlines the harsh reality that sometimes it’s easier to keep ourselves safe than try to get a harasser punished.

It Was Me Too by Dana L. Davis

As a survivor of childhood sexual assault, the author talks about how she internalized the shame that it was all her fault, and how it completely changed her as a person well into adulthood, how she learnt to just be aloof and hide and never put herself in a vulnerable position. This is another reality for so many women and it was heartbreaking to read about.

Anything but Ordinary by Ronni Davis

The author talks about the shame in wondering what she might have done and how her not acting her “color” had contributed to her being assaulted, and later on feeling anger and shame for all the instances when she didn’t speak up. There is also the feeling that she can’t use #meToo because what happened to her wasn’t too bad. But ultimately it’s about the fact that every single instance matters and we are not alone.

Not that Kind of Girl by Natasha Deen

The author talks about boundaries and emotional violence in her teenage years, and how traumatic it can feel when the whole school judges you for something you haven’t done. But she is also very graceful in her message that sometimes restraint is important, we should speak up for ourselves but never say anything in anger that we wouldn’t say in normal situations.

How do I look ? By Nicolas DiDomizio

As a young gay man in the closet, the author talks about how his shame about his body and weight made him accept the things that were done to him even when he knew they were wrong. And he makes a great point that self worth doesn’t and shouldn’t depend on how you look and I think it’s something we can all keep in mind.

Gray Lines by Namina Forna

As an African immigrant and also a child survivor of war, the author talks about not understanding the concept of personal space and just not making a fuss when a teacher violated it because she didn’t want to be a problem. But I’m glad that she was quick to recognize grooming and make herself safe after that, so I completely agree with her message that make a fuss and say no whenever anyone disrespects your personal boundaries, and do whatever you need to keep yourself safe.

No, Not Me! By Jenna Glass

This was definitely an eye opening read because the author talks about how we normalize so many harassing behaviors like flashing or groping or unwanted touching, never realizing that these are also forms of sexual assault. She talks about the importance of talking about these issues and not letting anyone get away with these kinds of actions without consequences.

Before Starbucks or Cell Phones by Janet Gurtler

The author’s experience was tough to read about, but I was also glad that she had atleast one teacher who listened. But the common theme of shame still comes through, with young girls always wondering if they did something that made the boys or men behave so badly. And I think that’s why the author’s message is important that we shouldn’t keep these things to ourselves, we should talk to and support each other, so that we may one day get to a world where a girl can say it has never happened to me.

The One we don’t Talk about by Teri Hall

This was absolutely horrific to read about and I don’t have words to describe the strength it must have taken for the author as a young girl to finally tell someone about all the abuse that was happening in her house. As the author says, believe in yourself and never let your abuser convince you that you don’t matter because you do.

A Long Overdue Confession by Ellen Hopkins

This is mostly the author introspecting her decisions when she was eighteen to have an affair with a married man and how she was taken advantage of due to her naïveté. She also wants to share the story to prevent if possible other younger girls from succumbing to older men’s attention and flattery, particularly those girls who already have body image issues.

Bathsheba by Mackenzi Lee

Through the Bible story of David and Bathsheba, the author tries to make the point that despite what we’ve been told since childhood, we are not responsible for making men comfortable or for their violent actions; none of our dressing or talking or anything is a reason for men to violate us and we should always remember that.

Burn by Saundra Mitchell

The author lists instances after instances where she was violated but couldn’t do anything because she felt trapped but her realization after she turned seventeen is something we can all hope for – to start believing in ourselves and finding our voice and never stopping ourselves from expressing our anger.

Just Smile by Ali Novak

The author’s story highlights the fact that even if we haven’t been physically assaulted, words flung against us can cause equal emotional trauma, and that’s why we should use our own words to tell our stories and never minimize what we’ve been through.

Boys Will be Boys By Eve Porinchak

Another experience where the boys’ actions are blamed on the girl’s clothes, but I was very glad to know the author had a supportive family and learnt to stand up for herself at a very young age. We all definitely need that conviction.

There is Strength in our Voices by Cheryl Rainfield

I can’t even begin to understand the strength it must have taken for the author to run away and survive her whole childhood where she was part of a cult and her own family raped and tortured her, but I tip my hat off to her for finding the resilience and the queer community that helped her. And that’s why she insists that it’s important to listen and talk to other survivors, so that we may help others while also helping ourselves and not feeling we’re alone in our ordeal.

Pretty Enough by Beth Revis

This is a story of the author’s realization that how wrong it was of her to internalize the feelings that only beautiful girls got harassed and because she wasn’t, it meant she wasn’t worth it. She talks about how harmful this divide is and basing self worth on looks is, and asks us all to understand that there is only one side – all of us women who have to stick up for each other and not let anyone else make us feel powerless with their words or actions.

My Oklahoma History by Andrea L. Rogers

As a Cherokee citizen from Oklahoma, the author uses her tribe’s history as a parallel to how indigenous women are treated – both have a right to their sovereignty but it’s always threatened. And she makes a wonderful point that women don’t need to forgive anyone for the purpose of moving on – forgiveness can be a consideration if someone is making amends but it means nothing if the violator has no regrets.

Class Valedictorian by Lulabel Seitz

As a young Asian woman who was assaulted by a rich white classmate in high school, the author talks about the ways in which she was silenced and disbelieved by those in power because they didn’t want to discomfort the perpetrator. When she says that money and holding onto old white power structures matter more, I don’t see anything wrong about it because that’s still the world we live in. But I admire her for speaking up even when she was forced not to, and trying to keep doing it for other people even at such a young age.

No Right Way to be Wronged by Mischa Thrace

This is a different take on all the above experiences but it’s not wrong in anyway. The author talks about how no one is owed our secrets or the details of what happened to us, and it’s totally our choice. It’s ok to not want to be a spokesperson for the cause or tweet about our issues. After her own assault, the author found it easier to deal with it by expressing her anger through learning Muay Thai and just like her, everyone has the right to find their own way of dealing with the trauma, even if it is silence.

Notes on Girlhood by Amy Zhang

The author talks about all the overwhelming feelings that one is bombarded with after a sexual assault happens, because we aren’t sure how to process the trauma; and navigating it becomes a big part of our life. She talks about being fortunate enough to have a friend group as well as a therapist who helped her untangle all her feelings and feel like herself again a little bit, and that it’s enough for now.

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Giveaway

We are giving away two copies of YOU TOO?, signed by each author. Entries are automatically entered with a donation to RAINN (the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization) on our YOUTOO Fundraising Page. 

https://fundraise.rainn.org/team/273355

About the Editor 

Janet Gurtler’s young adult books have been chosen for the JUNIOR LIBRARY GUILD SELECTION and as BEST BOOKS FOR TEENS from the Canadian Children’s Book Center. Janet lives in Alberta, Canada with her husband, son, a chubby black Chihuahua named Bruce and a Golden Retriever named Betty White.

Connect With Janet

Website: http://www.janet-gurtler.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4147574.Janet_Gurtler

Twitter: https://twitter.com/janetgurtler

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/janet.gurtler

Blog Tour Organized By:

YA Bound Book Tours

[Blog Tour] ARC Review: You Too? Edited by Janet Gurtler Release Date: January 7, 2020 Genre: YA Non Fiction Publisher: Inkyard Press Purchase Links: IndieBound || …

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Story attempt - maybe if I write it here I’ll have motivation

Just a heads up! This story mentions rape, assault, violence, catcalling and harassment, as well as victim blaming and dismissal. If these things are traumatic for you and will bring up bad memories or trigger any sort of negative reaction, please be warned. I want to discuss these things in a story, but I really really don’t want to harm anyone. There is nothing overly overt in the story (at least, I don’t think so), but I know that even mentions of a certain type of violence can send me into a panic attack, so I don’t want to do that to anyone else. 

October 14th, 2018

Ashura was 5 years old when a little boy in her class at school pulled her hair and called her dumb. He pulled her hair so hard that some of it came out. Ashura screamed, which attracted the playground attendant. Sobbing Ashura explained what had happened while the little boy ran off laughing. The attendant comforted Ashura by giving her a hug and telling her that the little boy was just doing it because he liked her. Ashura found that hard to believe, but since it continued for the next two years till the little boy moved away, and everyone said the same thing as the attendant when she complained, perhaps they were right.

May 5th, 2021

Ashura was 8 years old when she decided she wanted to be a doctor. She had excellent grades in every subject, especially the sciences, and she saw a movie where the (male) doctor was a hero who saved lives. She wanted to save lives. Her parents told her no, being a doctor was something for boys. She could be a nurse though, to provide comfort for sick people. Ashura was confused and upset, but after a year of being told the same thing, she gave up that dream and decided to be a mathematician. Again, she was told no. But she could be a school teacher if she wanted, good to work with kids. There were so many things she wanted to be over the years that her parents crushed out of her. Then they wondered why she had no future plans. Of course, they were happy with their plan that she would just marry a rich... wait for it... doctor. 

June 23rd, 2028

Ashura was 10 years old when her family started complaining about the clothes she wore. She tried to follow what they told her to, but no matter what she wore, they would always find fault. It was like she couldn’t win. If she wore light and breezy clothes fit for summer, her parents freaked out that she was “showing too much skin” and would be considered a slut. If she wore stuffy clothes that made her hot but covered her body “properly” her parents would exclaim that no man would ever want a women who was so boring. Apparently boys would call her names no matter what she did, and her parents and society supported that. 

February 2nd, 2032

Ashura was 14 years old when a group of men on the street yelled at her that she had a “nice ass, perfect for fucking” and “Let me rape you, sweetie.” Ashura had only gone out that evening to fetch groceries for her mother. There were other people around, but none of them said or did anything, so she felt scared and alone. Would the men actually try and rape her? How should she respond? She didn’t know and ran all the way home, even though her lungs burnt all the rest of the night and she only stopped shaking when she fell asleep. It would happen again and again, over the years, and it was always still as terrifying as the first time. Still as confusing. But it also became infuriating. 

April 7th, 2034

Ashura was 16 years old when her classmate tried to rape her at a party. It wasn’t even a party with drinking and drugs, it was a birthday party. He ambushed her and  dragged her into an empty room after she had gone to the washroom (the party was outside so the house was unoccupied) and tried to tear her clothes off. Thankfully for Ashura, she had been taking mixed martial arts since she was 11, and managed to fight him off. Running back to the rest of the party attendees (including adults) she showed them her ripped shirt and frantically explained what had happened. Instead of going after the boy, they told her she shouldn’t have gone to the washroom alone, and perhaps she had misunderstood the boy’s intentions. When she got home, the response from her parents was similar, but they also banned her from any more social events until she turned 18. The boy was still in her class the next school year and Ashura avoided him like the plague. Thankfully, he did the same. Unfortunately, Ashura still got teased by the other students about her “fake rape story.”

 August 27th, 2036

Ashura was 18 when she moved out to go to university. Her mother cried because “you shouldn’t move out until you have a husband to look after you!” Her father disapproved because she might be attacked by “strange men” because she lived alone. Turned out that her father had been right in his estimation of how shitty “strange men” could be, and Ashura’s fighting training came in handy more times that she could count over the next four years. A man tried to break into her apartment after having followed her catcalling her one evening. Another evening a man interrupted her supper at a restaurant to ask for her number, after she said no he stalked her for a while before trying to attack her one early morning a few blocks away from her apartment. She saved a friend from being raped. A drunk man tried to assault her in the middle of a supermarket of all places - no one helped - instead they looked disapprovingly at her after she had beaten him off. The list goes on. 

January 19th, 2040

Ashura was 22 when her work department got a new boss who thought it was okay to grope and demean and otherwise sexually harass his female employees. She nearly got fired twice before she was moved departments for “causing trouble.” This “trouble” was standing up to the boss and telling him to back down when he slapped his assistant’s ass every morning. All the other employees seemed to find fault in her, not him. The assistant halfheartedly laughed it off and told Ashura that she couldn’t afford to lose her job. Upper management sent Ashura to counselling, as if that made any difference. She was told she was “overreacting,” “couldn’t take a joke,” and “made people uncomfortable.” The new department had a nice boss, but some of her co-workers were just as bad as the previous boss, they just were more covert about it because they did own the place. Ashura continued to fight back against them as best she could. Especially Jackson Miller, a project manager who had his own assistant that he often verbally harassed. Ashura couldn’t stand him.

September 1st, 2044

Ashura was 26 when her fiancee of two years got really drunk at a friend’s party. The bar was upscale and nice, the party people were pleasant enough, and before this moment, Ashura found her fiancee to be sweet and decent. She planned to marry him, after all. She hadn’t chosen him, her parents had, but getting to know him had been fine, and he let her do what she wanted most of the time, so she figured he was supportive. But they had never spoken about marriage beyond his proposal. And it was this particular night that Ashura realised she should have checked. Theo, her fiancee, was pretty wasted when he started to call her by other women’s names. Weird, but she supposed that he was out of it and it didn’t matter. Then he started hitting on the waitresses. They were polite and firm, good at dodging his hands, and excellent at that fake light laugh that women give a man who they cannot get away from because of their jobs. Ashura tried to get him to stop. His friends, however, who were also rather drunk at this point, kept encouraging him and talking over her. Frustrated, Ashura left to go to the washroom. She ran into one of the waitresses there and felt that she had to apologise for Theo’s behaviour.

“I’m really sorry about how badly the men are acting this evening.” Ashura ventured, the other woman turning to smile at her, “It must suck, especially Theo - my fiancee - he has been really rude.”

The waitresses’s smile dropped, “Fiancee? He has a fiancee?”

“Err, yes?”

“Oh no..... I thought you were another one of his flings. Honey, he comes here all the time, and trust me, he has been a lot worse some other times. He is also always here with a different girl so I just thought.....”  

“Oh.” Ashura thought about it for a moment, “Well, my apology still stands. Also, thank you for letting me know.”

She waitress looked very guilty (guilty! Why? she had just given Ashura crucial information that was important to her relationship) as Ashura practically ran out of the washroom. Getting back to the table, she sat down quietly next to Theo and waited till there was a lull in the group conversation before catching Theo’s attention. He looked at her with a grin and asked what was wrong, told her to drink more. 

“Actually I think we should leave, I need to talk to you about something.” 

“Nah, babe, it’s not even midnight.”

“Theo, I insist, it’s important.”

“Lighten up, don’t ruin my fun.”

Ashura suppressed a sigh, “We. Need. To. Talk.” she said very calmly and firmly, even though she felt like screaming. Theo finally properly looked at her and, his words slurring together just a little, remarked,

“Women should really just learn to keep their mouths shut and their legs open.”

She should have punched him, she should have. But instead, Ashura gave a little laugh, stood up, took her ring off and dropped it in his glass, and walked away. As soon as she got home she called her parents and told them the engagement was off. 

Her parents were devastated. They asked her if she was sure, they said it was impossible, that Theo was a nice boy. They said he was just drunk. The dismissed the flings and called the waitress names. They told her that she was lucky to have a man would was not violent, she ought to put up with a few verbal jabs, they weren’t that important. Her mother cried, her father shouted. Ashura listened in silence and then ended the call be telling them to reach out to Theo’s family to tell the the engagement was off. That was it.

Theo’s parents were apparently furious, she heard from her mother later. Not at Theo, mind, but at Ashura. Ashura shrugged and said she didn’t care. 

September 3rd 2044

Ashura was called into the director’s office at work. She had been working non-stop for the past six months and had passed so many tests and interviews so that she could finally be a manager. The director very pleasantly told her that while she was an excellent employee, who had been with them for 8 years at this point (she started working at the company when she started her university degree), that they had found a more qualified person to be manager. Apparently, “more qualified” meant male, because the new manager was 23 and had been working at the company for a year and a half, he had only entered the workforce a year and a half ago after graduating. He didn’t have any knowledge of the projects that he was in charge of - projects that Ashura had been working on for ages. Ashura was livid. But she was civil about the rejection because the director was not too bad of a boss in general.  

September 5th 2044

Ashura knew she was probably going to get fired, but Jackson Miller had taken it too far. He had decided that because she hadn’t made manager, that it was a good idea to grope her. So she did the first thing that came to mind and kicked him in the stomach. He was taken to the hospital and she was sent home with harsh words from management on her behaviour. Never mind that he had grabbed her ass, she was clearly the one at fault. Management said they’d call her when a decision about what to do with her was made. So Ashura went home. Angry, but happy that she had finally done something to actually stop Jackson. And thinking that perhaps it was good she was going to be fired, maybe another company would value her more and be less on board with harassment. It would all work out, she had the rest of her life to look forward to, after all.

September 7th 2044

Ashura was 26 when the aliens “invaded.” 

To be continued...................

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Nature April Bloomfield Breaks Her Silence About Harassment at Her Restaurants

Nature April Bloomfield Breaks Her Silence About Harassment at Her Restaurants Nature April Bloomfield Breaks Her Silence About Harassment at Her Restaurants https://ift.tt/2pXO1GI

Nature

The Spotted Pig chef finally speaks about her role in the abuse scandal that has enveloped her and her partner, Ken Friedman.

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April Bloomfield, a Michelin-starred British chef, is accused of doing nothing to prevent abuse by her business partner, Ken Friedman.CreditCreditAlex Welsh for The New York Times

April Bloomfield sat with feet planted on the floor of a Manhattan hotel room, head down, grimly staring at her hands, which she twisted together until her knuckles turned white.

She fell silent for long stretches, trying to explain how she — one of the best-known chefs in the United States — came to be the first woman in the culinary world accused of victimizing other women since the #MeToo movement exploded.

In a New York Times article last December, more than two dozen people who had worked at her restaurants described a longstanding pattern of sexual harassment and verbal abuse by Ken Friedman, her business partner. Some said she knew about his behavior, which included groping employees and pressuring them for sex, and did nothing to prevent it.

In an instant, Ms. Bloomfield, a Michelin-starred British chef who had built seven thriving restaurants over decades of work, including the celebrated Spotted Pig in the West Village, watched her world break apart.

Mr. Friedman, who has disputed some accusations but apologized for behavior that he called “abrasive, rude and frankly wrong,” immediately stepped away from all business operations but kept his six-figure salary. She had the job of managing the rage and distress of hundreds of current and former employees, and keeping the restaurants going.

Ms. Bloomfield said nothing in public except for a few stiffly worded apologies that were widely criticized as inadequate. Lawyers advised silence while she and Mr. Friedman negotiated the breakup of their restaurant group, which has yet to be completed.

But silence, she has come to understand, inflicts its own damage. After months of requests from The Times, she agreed to be interviewed because she wants to add her voice to the narrative, and start to rebuild her reputation.

In a penthouse suite at the sleek James hotel in NoMad, Ms. Bloomfield, 44, recently sat for hours going over what happened, flanked by her wife and her publicist. She said she now understands that her past silence contributed to the sexual and emotional harassment of people she should have protected.

“I failed a lot of people,” she said. “That’s on my shoulders.”

At the same time, Ms. Bloomfield, like her supporters and some former employees, said she was a casualty herself — of her own naïveté, premature success and a manipulative business partner with whom she became so entangled that for years she could see no way out.

“I felt like I was in a position where he held all the cards,” she said of Mr. Friedman, 59. “He had so much control, and he was so dominant and powerful, that I didn’t feel like if I stepped away that I would survive.”

She knows, too, that because she benefited from the partnership for years, what she says about its dysfunction now may not be believed.

Indeed, several former employees declined to be interviewed for this article, saying they did not want to contribute to any narrative that might appear to offer her redemption. Others said Ms. Bloomfield herself was such a harsh and demanding boss that they simply didn’t believe she was afraid of Mr. Friedman.

“She could be scary and intimidating,” said Katy Severson, a chef who worked under Ms. Bloomfield at the Spotted Pig for four years. “She did lose her temper, especially with people who didn’t care enough about the food.”

But Ms. Severson, like other employees, said she believed Ms. Bloomfield’s behavior was motivated by perfectionism, while Mr. Friedman was simply aggressive and volatile.

“I did feel like she truly cared and wanted me to be a better chef,” she said.

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Mr. Friedman and Ms. Bloomfield outside the Spotted Pig in the early days. When she arrived from England in 2003, she had never been to the United States and had never run a restaurant. CreditDavid Howells/Corbis, via Getty Images

In her interview, Ms. Bloomfield broke down in tears once: when she acknowledged the distance between the leader she had hoped to be and the leader she became.

At the River Café, the London restaurant where she acquired her most significant culinary training, she had learned that it was possible to run a kitchen with civility and respect. But she said that seemed impossible in her own kitchens — partly because of the restaurant group’s rapid expansion (eight restaurants on two coasts in 13 years) and constant turnover, but also because of her quick temper and untamable perfectionism.

“I have had many moments of anger and frustration in the kitchen,” she said. “It’s an intense place to be, for me and for anyone there with me. And sometimes that’s gotten in the way, and it’s hurt many people.”

Ms. Bloomfield described the arc of her career in America, when she got a call (via Jamie Oliver) about a job opportunity in New York 15 years ago, through the moment last year when she said she read to her horror, in the Times article, that the Spotted Pig’s third-floor party space was known to some people as “the rape room.”

Ms. Bloomfield arrived in New York in 2003 after a full-court press by Mr. Friedman, who had decided to open a British-style gastro pub in the West Village, and by his friend and investor Mario Batali, whom several women have accused of sexual harassment (and in two cases, sexual assault) at the Spotted Pig and other restaurants. (Mr. Batali has said his “behavior was wrong” and left daily operations of his restaurants, but denied engaging in any nonconsensual sex.)

Mr. Friedman, although he had no restaurant experience, was brimming with confidence and backed by celebrity investors like Jay-Z. Ms. Bloomfield was a 28-year-old unknown from Birmingham, England, who had never been to the United States and never been in charge of a kitchen. “It’s hard to believe now how ignorant I was then,” she said.

Her introduction to Mr. Friedman’s vindictive side came, she said, as they prepared to open the Spotted Pig and she expressed a mild dislike for some framed posters on the restaurant’s walls. He exploded in anger, threatening to have her work visa revoked if she criticized his taste again, she said. (Since the Spotted Pig was her sponsor, she would have lost her ability to legally work in the United States if she were fired. At that time, she was an employee, not a partner.)

Through a representative, Mr. Friedman denied that he ever threatened Ms. Bloomfield’s work visa. He added that he was “personally dismayed by Ms. Bloomfield’s unwarranted and false attacks,” and that he planned to comment further soon.

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Mr. Friedman, who had worked in the music industry, knew how to draw people in. The Spotted Pig, seen here in 2006, was perpetually crowded. CreditAlex di Suvero for The New York Times

Ms. Bloomfield said she realized early on that to survive in this new job, she needed an old kitchen skill: the ability to appear tough, harsh and thick-skinned. She, like most chefs at the time, had been trained in restaurant kitchens where shouting, sexism and slashing insults were the norm.

“I had never heard of H.R.,” she said, referring to company human-resources operations. “It just didn’t exist in the world I came from.”

Inside, she recalled, she was terrified of being branded a failure in the restaurant industry, and convinced that Mr. Friedman had the power to make that happen. She said Mr. Friedman frequently told her that he was the reason she had become famous and wealthy, and that he could undo her success with a few phone calls. (Several people have said that Mr. Friedman often retaliated against former employees by trying to prevent them from getting jobs in other restaurants.)

Mr. Friedman had worked in the music industry for years, and knew how to pull a crowd. The night the Spotted Pig opened in 2004, there was a line around the block. “At the time, I couldn’t understand how that happened,” Ms. Bloomfield said.

For the first two years, the ill-equipped kitchen felt to her like a war zone. “All I could think of to do was cook faster, and I realize now I wasn’t doing what I should have done: gather all the tools I needed to be a leader,” she said. The crowds and the pressure on her only intensified as the Spotted Pig won a Michelin star, and as the partners opened new restaurants like the John Dory and the Breslin.

They informally carved up the responsibilities: In general, Ms. Bloomfield was in charge of everything to do with food, and Mr. Friedman handled everything to do with guests. Each kept well away from the other’s staff and sphere of influence. This pattern set the stage for more than a decade of secrets and silence.

Ms. Bloomfield said that at the beginning, Mr. Friedman’s staff — hosts, servers, bartenders — seemed happy to work at the Spotted Pig. “They were making good money, they worked hard and then they got to sit down and drink and party with the boss and his friends,” she said.

As the number of employees increased, so did the chaos in Mr. Friedman’s orbit. Apart from the pattern of sexual harassment, dozens of employees say he constantly berated them for minor infractions, fired and rehired them at whim, and created a toxic atmosphere of fear and uncertainty.

Ms. Bloomfield said she knew about some of Mr. Friedman’s inappropriate behavior with female staff members because much of it took place publicly: hugging and flirting were routine. She knew that the third floor was a place where Mr. Friedman’s friends and guests indulged in alcohol, drugs, and inappropriate behavior, but said she never knew of incidents there that were coercive or physically abusive.

She said she was not told about episodes in which women employees said Mr. Friedman groped and kissed them, persuaded them to get into his car and tried to touch their breasts, and asked them to send him nude pictures. She said the staff, at Mr. Friedman’s direction, also concealed the extent of his offenses from her. (Multiple employees confirmed this; others said they did not inform Ms. Bloomfield because they believed she didn’t want to know.)

Still, Ms. Bloomfield was told about some serious incidents, and said she also confronted Mr. Friedman many times about his unprofessional behavior and verbal abuse.

“I would tell him that we need to be a better company and that we need to treat our staff well and that he needed to stop,” she said. “I thought I could change him. I thought if I was talking to him more and guided him, he would learn because I was the professional one, I was trying to teach him the way of the industry.”

(Mr. Friedman, through a representative, confirmed that he and Ms. Bloomfield had discussions of this nature, but that they also included employees’ complaints about “Ms. Bloomfield’s erratic behavior and verbal abuse.”)

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Ms. Bloomfield, left, with Michelle Petrulio, a chef who worked for the company on and off for 10 years.CreditLiz Barclay for The New York Times

He would agree and promise to do better, she said, then continue as if nothing had happened. And despite the ever-increasing chaos around her and the rising distress of the staff, she would put her head down and bury herself in the kitchen.

“It’s like I decided to control what I could control,” she said.

Those closest to her say it was a survival mechanism, not a heartless act or a business decision. “She was not a person who was well-versed in management,” said Michelle Petrulio, who worked for the partners on and off for a decade, and was the company’s culinary director when news of the harassment broke. “She was just as affected by Ken’s behavior as everyone else. She didn’t feel strong in that relationship. She felt fear.”

Many people confirmed that interpretation. Others scoffed at it, saying it was impossible that Ms. Bloomfield, especially in recent years, did not know how much power she had as a star chef.

Trish Nelson, a former server who said she experienced years of verbal abuse from Ms. Bloomfield and sexual harassment from Mr. Friedman and his friends at the Spotted Pig, including Mr. Batali, said Ms. Bloomfield “has always been out for herself. She was a perpetrator in a lot of this.”

She and others said Ms. Bloomfield wanted the fame and fortune that came with being a successful chef and restaurateur, but none of the management responsibility.

“We had a pretty good rapport, and I had a lot of respect for her,” said Natalie Saibel, a longtime server who emailed a formal complaint in 2015 to Ms. Bloomfield that Mr. Friedman had groped her. Ms. Bloomfield didn’t respond, passing the complaint to a manager, said Ms. Saibel, who was fired soon afterward. “That’s why it was doubly shocking and devastating that she did nothing to stop it.”

Ms. Nelson, Ms. Saibel and others said they had told Ms. Bloomfield about Mr. Friedman’s sexual harassment, but the chef seemed unwilling to get involved. They said that in the kitchen and in the dining room, the message from both employers was: “Suck it up. If you can’t handle it, you don’t deserve to work here.”

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“I failed a lot of people,” Ms. Bloomfield said. “That’s on my shoulders.”CreditAlex Welsh for The New York Times

Ms. Bloomfield said she had tried countless times to hire a human resources coordinator, so that she and Mr. Friedman would not be the only recourse for aggrieved employees. When a coordinator was finally hired in about 2014, she was let go within months: a decision by Mr. Friedman that Ms. Bloomfield said she was not consulted or informed about.

Finally, Ms. Bloomfield began exploring escape routes. She agreed to open two restaurants in California, she said, in hopes that she could put a continent between herself and Mr. Friedman. About two years ago, she said, she began quietly consulting with lawyers and a few trusted colleagues about how she might free herself.

“She didn’t talk about it very much — that’s April — but she had always said it was a very tough relationship and not a very fair relationship,” said Gavin Kaysen, a chef in Minneapolis and a longtime friend. But at a dinner the two cooked together in October 2016, more than a year before the Spotted Pig revelations, he said she had reached a new level of despair.

“I’d never seen her so defeated in her life,” he said.

By then, even some of Ms. Bloomfield’s most trusted lieutenants and loyal employees had begun to turn on her. They say she had made too many promises that she couldn’t or didn’t keep: that she would right the ship and stop staff turnover; that she would help them get the money and recognition they deserved; that she would get Mr. Friedman to stop the harassment.

Ms. Bloomfield should have known by then that Mr. Friedman would make it impossible to keep those promises, said Ms. Petrulio, the culinary director. “But it’s so simple to say now what she should have done then.”

The chef Traci Des Jardins, a friend of Ms. Bloomfield, said that early in her own career, she had partnered with a powerful man to create an acclaimed restaurant.

“Imagine how difficult it would be to be in partnership in your late 20s when you are so naïve and really don’t know anything about business but you have a burning desire to make great food,” Ms. Des Jardins said. “If you walk away, you would have had to walk away from all the success and a business you put your heart and soul into.”

She cautioned people not to brand Ms. Bloomfield as a collaborator because of her reputation as a tough boss. For women in restaurant kitchens in the 1990s, when both of them began cooking, it was the only way to survive, she said.

“Being a disciplinarian and being tough in the kitchen does not make you a tormentor.”

However the public ultimately views Ms. Bloomfield, her reputation is scarred in ways that will inevitably affect her future. In June, she announced that she will retain control of the Breslin and the John Dory Oyster Bar in New York’s Ace Hotel, Tosca Cafe in San Francisco and the Hearth & Hound in Los Angeles. (Her new partner is a restaurant management company that provides structures like a human resources department and formal hiring and firing procedures.) Mr. Friedman will keep the Spotted Pig. The fate of White Gold Butchers, which has been closed since August, is unclear. Last week, GFI Hospitality, the developer of New York’s Ace Hotel, sued Mr. Friedman for $5 million in damages, financial “misfeasance” and back rent connected to the Breslin and the John Dory Oyster Bar.

Meanwhile, Ms. Bloomfield has begun psychotherapy, is receiving executive coaching, and has repeatedly gathered her current restaurant staff in order to listen, reassure and apologize. (Through a representative, Mr. Friedman said that he also has spent time this past year in therapy, and that he has been “listening, thinking and learning from this experience.”)

Ms. Bloomfield has reached out to several chefs for advice too. Tom Colicchio said he told her, “You have to do the hard work, and that doesn’t mean put your head down and make good food. This is different work.”

But a big hurdle remains: contacting Mr. Friedman’s victims, who have become bitter as her silence stretched out for months.

“These women have been hurting and I feel horrified that I’ve done wrong by them,” she said. “I know I need to hear what happened to them.”

She plans to start reaching out soon, she said.

Julia Moskin, a Food reporter since 2004, writes about restaurants, chefs, trends and home cooking. She investigates the best recipes for kitchen classics in her video column Recipe Lab and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for reporting on workplace sexual harassment. @juliamoskin • Facebook

Kim Severson is a Southern-based correspondent who covers the nation’s food culture and contributes to NYT Cooking. She has written four books and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for public service for reporting on workplace sexual harassment issues. @kimseverson • Facebook

Read More | https://ift.tt/2EA4ACT |

Nature April Bloomfield Breaks Her Silence About Harassment at Her Restaurants, in 2018-10-16 15:48:01

[internetbetterforall]

Nature April Bloomfield Breaks Her Silence About Harassment at Her Restaurants

Nature April Bloomfield Breaks Her Silence About Harassment at Her Restaurants Nature April Bloomfield Breaks Her Silence About Harassment at Her Restaurants http://www.nature-business.com/nature-april-bloomfield-breaks-her-silence-about-harassment-at-her-restaurants/

Nature

The Spotted Pig chef finally speaks about her role in the abuse scandal that has enveloped her and her partner, Ken Friedman.

Image

April Bloomfield, a Michelin-starred British chef, is accused of doing nothing to prevent abuse by her business partner, Ken Friedman.CreditCreditAlex Welsh for The New York Times

April Bloomfield sat with feet planted on the floor of a Manhattan hotel room, head down, grimly staring at her hands, which she twisted together until her knuckles turned white.

She fell silent for long stretches, trying to explain how she — one of the best-known chefs in the United States — came to be the first woman in the culinary world accused of victimizing other women since the #MeToo movement exploded.

In a New York Times article last December, more than two dozen people who had worked at her restaurants described a longstanding pattern of sexual harassment and verbal abuse by Ken Friedman, her business partner. Some said she knew about his behavior, which included groping employees and pressuring them for sex, and did nothing to prevent it.

In an instant, Ms. Bloomfield, a Michelin-starred British chef who had built seven thriving restaurants over decades of work, including the celebrated Spotted Pig in the West Village, watched her world break apart.

Mr. Friedman, who has disputed some accusations but apologized for behavior that he called “abrasive, rude and frankly wrong,” immediately stepped away from all business operations but kept his six-figure salary. She had the job of managing the rage and distress of hundreds of current and former employees, and keeping the restaurants going.

Ms. Bloomfield said nothing in public except for a few stiffly worded apologies that were widely criticized as inadequate. Lawyers advised silence while she and Mr. Friedman negotiated the breakup of their restaurant group, which has yet to be completed.

But silence, she has come to understand, inflicts its own damage. After months of requests from The Times, she agreed to be interviewed because she wants to add her voice to the narrative, and start to rebuild her reputation.

In a penthouse suite at the sleek James hotel in NoMad, Ms. Bloomfield, 44, recently sat for hours going over what happened, flanked by her wife and her publicist. She said she now understands that her past silence contributed to the sexual and emotional harassment of people she should have protected.

“I failed a lot of people,” she said. “That’s on my shoulders.”

At the same time, Ms. Bloomfield, like her supporters and some former employees, said she was a casualty herself — of her own naïveté, premature success and a manipulative business partner with whom she became so entangled that for years she could see no way out.

“I felt like I was in a position where he held all the cards,” she said of Mr. Friedman, 59. “He had so much control, and he was so dominant and powerful, that I didn’t feel like if I stepped away that I would survive.”

She knows, too, that because she benefited from the partnership for years, what she says about its dysfunction now may not be believed.

Indeed, several former employees declined to be interviewed for this article, saying they did not want to contribute to any narrative that might appear to offer her redemption. Others said Ms. Bloomfield herself was such a harsh and demanding boss that they simply didn’t believe she was afraid of Mr. Friedman.

“She could be scary and intimidating,” said Katy Severson, a chef who worked under Ms. Bloomfield at the Spotted Pig for four years. “She did lose her temper, especially with people who didn’t care enough about the food.”

But Ms. Severson, like other employees, said she believed Ms. Bloomfield’s behavior was motivated by perfectionism, while Mr. Friedman was simply aggressive and volatile.

“I did feel like she truly cared and wanted me to be a better chef,” she said.

Image

Mr. Friedman and Ms. Bloomfield outside the Spotted Pig in the early days. When she arrived from England in 2003, she had never been to the United States and had never run a restaurant. CreditDavid Howells/Corbis, via Getty Images

In her interview, Ms. Bloomfield broke down in tears once: when she acknowledged the distance between the leader she had hoped to be and the leader she became.

At the River Café, the London restaurant where she acquired her most significant culinary training, she had learned that it was possible to run a kitchen with civility and respect. But she said that seemed impossible in her own kitchens — partly because of the restaurant group’s rapid expansion (eight restaurants on two coasts in 13 years) and constant turnover, but also because of her quick temper and untamable perfectionism.

“I have had many moments of anger and frustration in the kitchen,” she said. “It’s an intense place to be, for me and for anyone there with me. And sometimes that’s gotten in the way, and it’s hurt many people.”

Ms. Bloomfield described the arc of her career in America, when she got a call (via Jamie Oliver) about a job opportunity in New York 15 years ago, through the moment last year when she said she read to her horror, in the Times article, that the Spotted Pig’s third-floor party space was known to some people as “the rape room.”

Ms. Bloomfield arrived in New York in 2003 after a full-court press by Mr. Friedman, who had decided to open a British-style gastro pub in the West Village, and by his friend and investor Mario Batali, whom several women have accused of sexual harassment (and in two cases, sexual assault) at the Spotted Pig and other restaurants. (Mr. Batali has said his “behavior was wrong” and left daily operations of his restaurants, but denied engaging in any nonconsensual sex.)

Mr. Friedman, although he had no restaurant experience, was brimming with confidence and backed by celebrity investors like Jay-Z. Ms. Bloomfield was a 28-year-old unknown from Birmingham, England, who had never been to the United States and never been in charge of a kitchen. “It’s hard to believe now how ignorant I was then,” she said.

Her introduction to Mr. Friedman’s vindictive side came, she said, as they prepared to open the Spotted Pig and she expressed a mild dislike for some framed posters on the restaurant’s walls. He exploded in anger, threatening to have her work visa revoked if she criticized his taste again, she said. (Since the Spotted Pig was her sponsor, she would have lost her ability to legally work in the United States if she were fired. At that time, she was an employee, not a partner.)

Through a representative, Mr. Friedman denied that he ever threatened Ms. Bloomfield’s work visa. He added that he was “personally dismayed by Ms. Bloomfield’s unwarranted and false attacks,” and that he planned to comment further soon.

Image

Mr. Friedman, who had worked in the music industry, knew how to draw people in. The Spotted Pig, seen here in 2006, was perpetually crowded. CreditAlex di Suvero for The New York Times

Ms. Bloomfield said she realized early on that to survive in this new job, she needed an old kitchen skill: the ability to appear tough, harsh and thick-skinned. She, like most chefs at the time, had been trained in restaurant kitchens where shouting, sexism and slashing insults were the norm.

“I had never heard of H.R.,” she said, referring to company human-resources operations. “It just didn’t exist in the world I came from.”

Inside, she recalled, she was terrified of being branded a failure in the restaurant industry, and convinced that Mr. Friedman had the power to make that happen. She said Mr. Friedman frequently told her that he was the reason she had become famous and wealthy, and that he could undo her success with a few phone calls. (Several people have said that Mr. Friedman often retaliated against former employees by trying to prevent them from getting jobs in other restaurants.)

Mr. Friedman had worked in the music industry for years, and knew how to pull a crowd. The night the Spotted Pig opened in 2004, there was a line around the block. “At the time, I couldn’t understand how that happened,” Ms. Bloomfield said.

For the first two years, the ill-equipped kitchen felt to her like a war zone. “All I could think of to do was cook faster, and I realize now I wasn’t doing what I should have done: gather all the tools I needed to be a leader,” she said. The crowds and the pressure on her only intensified as the Spotted Pig won a Michelin star, and as the partners opened new restaurants like the John Dory and the Breslin.

They informally carved up the responsibilities: In general, Ms. Bloomfield was in charge of everything to do with food, and Mr. Friedman handled everything to do with guests. Each kept well away from the other’s staff and sphere of influence. This pattern set the stage for more than a decade of secrets and silence.

Ms. Bloomfield said that at the beginning, Mr. Friedman’s staff — hosts, servers, bartenders — seemed happy to work at the Spotted Pig. “They were making good money, they worked hard and then they got to sit down and drink and party with the boss and his friends,” she said.

As the number of employees increased, so did the chaos in Mr. Friedman’s orbit. Apart from the pattern of sexual harassment, dozens of employees say he constantly berated them for minor infractions, fired and rehired them at whim, and created a toxic atmosphere of fear and uncertainty.

Ms. Bloomfield said she knew about some of Mr. Friedman’s inappropriate behavior with female staff members because much of it took place publicly: hugging and flirting were routine. She knew that the third floor was a place where Mr. Friedman’s friends and guests indulged in alcohol, drugs, and inappropriate behavior, but said she never knew of incidents there that were coercive or physically abusive.

She said she was not told about episodes in which women employees said Mr. Friedman groped and kissed them, persuaded them to get into his car and tried to touch their breasts, and asked them to send him nude pictures. She said the staff, at Mr. Friedman’s direction, also concealed the extent of his offenses from her. (Multiple employees confirmed this; others said they did not inform Ms. Bloomfield because they believed she didn’t want to know.)

Still, Ms. Bloomfield was told about some serious incidents, and said she also confronted Mr. Friedman many times about his unprofessional behavior and verbal abuse.

“I would tell him that we need to be a better company and that we need to treat our staff well and that he needed to stop,” she said. “I thought I could change him. I thought if I was talking to him more and guided him, he would learn because I was the professional one, I was trying to teach him the way of the industry.”

(Mr. Friedman, through a representative, confirmed that he and Ms. Bloomfield had discussions of this nature, but that they also included employees’ complaints about “Ms. Bloomfield’s erratic behavior and verbal abuse.”)

Image

Ms. Bloomfield, left, with Michelle Petrulio, a chef who worked for the company on and off for 10 years.CreditLiz Barclay for The New York Times

He would agree and promise to do better, she said, then continue as if nothing had happened. And despite the ever-increasing chaos around her and the rising distress of the staff, she would put her head down and bury herself in the kitchen.

“It’s like I decided to control what I could control,” she said.

Those closest to her say it was a survival mechanism, not a heartless act or a business decision. “She was not a person who was well-versed in management,” said Michelle Petrulio, who worked for the partners on and off for a decade, and was the company’s culinary director when news of the harassment broke. “She was just as affected by Ken’s behavior as everyone else. She didn’t feel strong in that relationship. She felt fear.”

Many people confirmed that interpretation. Others scoffed at it, saying it was impossible that Ms. Bloomfield, especially in recent years, did not know how much power she had as a star chef.

Trish Nelson, a former server who said she experienced years of verbal abuse from Ms. Bloomfield and sexual harassment from Mr. Friedman and his friends at the Spotted Pig, including Mr. Batali, said Ms. Bloomfield “has always been out for herself. She was a perpetrator in a lot of this.”

She and others said Ms. Bloomfield wanted the fame and fortune that came with being a successful chef and restaurateur, but none of the management responsibility.

“We had a pretty good rapport, and I had a lot of respect for her,” said Natalie Saibel, a longtime server who emailed a formal complaint in 2015 to Ms. Bloomfield that Mr. Friedman had groped her. Ms. Bloomfield didn’t respond, passing the complaint to a manager, said Ms. Saibel, who was fired soon afterward. “That’s why it was doubly shocking and devastating that she did nothing to stop it.”

Ms. Nelson, Ms. Saibel and others said they had told Ms. Bloomfield about Mr. Friedman’s sexual harassment, but the chef seemed unwilling to get involved. They said that in the kitchen and in the dining room, the message from both employers was: “Suck it up. If you can’t handle it, you don’t deserve to work here.”

Image

“I failed a lot of people,” Ms. Bloomfield said. “That’s on my shoulders.”CreditAlex Welsh for The New York Times

Ms. Bloomfield said she had tried countless times to hire a human resources coordinator, so that she and Mr. Friedman would not be the only recourse for aggrieved employees. When a coordinator was finally hired in about 2014, she was let go within months: a decision by Mr. Friedman that Ms. Bloomfield said she was not consulted or informed about.

Finally, Ms. Bloomfield began exploring escape routes. She agreed to open two restaurants in California, she said, in hopes that she could put a continent between herself and Mr. Friedman. About two years ago, she said, she began quietly consulting with lawyers and a few trusted colleagues about how she might free herself.

“She didn’t talk about it very much — that’s April — but she had always said it was a very tough relationship and not a very fair relationship,” said Gavin Kaysen, a chef in Minneapolis and a longtime friend. But at a dinner the two cooked together in October 2016, more than a year before the Spotted Pig revelations, he said she had reached a new level of despair.

“I’d never seen her so defeated in her life,” he said.

By then, even some of Ms. Bloomfield’s most trusted lieutenants and loyal employees had begun to turn on her. They say she had made too many promises that she couldn’t or didn’t keep: that she would right the ship and stop staff turnover; that she would help them get the money and recognition they deserved; that she would get Mr. Friedman to stop the harassment.

Ms. Bloomfield should have known by then that Mr. Friedman would make it impossible to keep those promises, said Ms. Petrulio, the culinary director. “But it’s so simple to say now what she should have done then.”

The chef Traci Des Jardins, a friend of Ms. Bloomfield, said that early in her own career, she had partnered with a powerful man to create an acclaimed restaurant.

“Imagine how difficult it would be to be in partnership in your late 20s when you are so naïve and really don’t know anything about business but you have a burning desire to make great food,” Ms. Des Jardins said. “If you walk away, you would have had to walk away from all the success and a business you put your heart and soul into.”

She cautioned people not to brand Ms. Bloomfield as a collaborator because of her reputation as a tough boss. For women in restaurant kitchens in the 1990s, when both of them began cooking, it was the only way to survive, she said.

“Being a disciplinarian and being tough in the kitchen does not make you a tormentor.”

However the public ultimately views Ms. Bloomfield, her reputation is scarred in ways that will inevitably affect her future. In June, she announced that she will retain control of the Breslin and the John Dory Oyster Bar in New York’s Ace Hotel, Tosca Cafe in San Francisco and the Hearth & Hound in Los Angeles. (Her new partner is a restaurant management company that provides structures like a human resources department and formal hiring and firing procedures.) Mr. Friedman will keep the Spotted Pig. The fate of White Gold Butchers, which has been closed since August, is unclear. Last week, GFI Hospitality, the developer of New York’s Ace Hotel, sued Mr. Friedman for $5 million in damages, financial “misfeasance” and back rent connected to the Breslin and the John Dory Oyster Bar.

Meanwhile, Ms. Bloomfield has begun psychotherapy, is receiving executive coaching, and has repeatedly gathered her current restaurant staff in order to listen, reassure and apologize. (Through a representative, Mr. Friedman said that he also has spent time this past year in therapy, and that he has been “listening, thinking and learning from this experience.”)

Ms. Bloomfield has reached out to several chefs for advice too. Tom Colicchio said he told her, “You have to do the hard work, and that doesn’t mean put your head down and make good food. This is different work.”

But a big hurdle remains: contacting Mr. Friedman’s victims, who have become bitter as her silence stretched out for months.

“These women have been hurting and I feel horrified that I’ve done wrong by them,” she said. “I know I need to hear what happened to them.”

She plans to start reaching out soon, she said.

Julia Moskin, a Food reporter since 2004, writes about restaurants, chefs, trends and home cooking. She investigates the best recipes for kitchen classics in her video column Recipe Lab and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for reporting on workplace sexual harassment. @juliamoskin • Facebook

Kim Severson is a Southern-based correspondent who covers the nation’s food culture and contributes to NYT Cooking. She has written four books and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for public service for reporting on workplace sexual harassment issues. @kimseverson • Facebook

Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/dining/april-bloomfield-spotted-pig-ken-friedman.html |

Nature April Bloomfield Breaks Her Silence About Harassment at Her Restaurants, in 2018-10-16 15:48:01

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Nature April Bloomfield Breaks Her Silence About Harassment at Her Restaurants

Nature April Bloomfield Breaks Her Silence About Harassment at Her Restaurants Nature April Bloomfield Breaks Her Silence About Harassment at Her Restaurants http://www.nature-business.com/nature-april-bloomfield-breaks-her-silence-about-harassment-at-her-restaurants/

Nature

The Spotted Pig chef finally speaks about her role in the abuse scandal that has enveloped her and her partner, Ken Friedman.

Image

April Bloomfield, a Michelin-starred British chef, is accused of doing nothing to prevent abuse by her business partner, Ken Friedman.CreditCreditAlex Welsh for The New York Times

April Bloomfield sat with feet planted on the floor of a Manhattan hotel room, head down, grimly staring at her hands, which she twisted together until her knuckles turned white.

She fell silent for long stretches, trying to explain how she — one of the best-known chefs in the United States — came to be the first woman in the culinary world accused of victimizing other women since the #MeToo movement exploded.

In a New York Times article last December, more than two dozen people who had worked at her restaurants described a longstanding pattern of sexual harassment and verbal abuse by Ken Friedman, her business partner. Some said she knew about his behavior, which included groping employees and pressuring them for sex, and did nothing to prevent it.

In an instant, Ms. Bloomfield, a Michelin-starred British chef who had built seven thriving restaurants over decades of work, including the celebrated Spotted Pig in the West Village, watched her world break apart.

Mr. Friedman, who has disputed some accusations but apologized for behavior that he called “abrasive, rude and frankly wrong,” immediately stepped away from all business operations but kept his six-figure salary. She had the job of managing the rage and distress of hundreds of current and former employees, and keeping the restaurants going.

Ms. Bloomfield said nothing in public except for a few stiffly worded apologies that were widely criticized as inadequate. Lawyers advised silence while she and Mr. Friedman negotiated the breakup of their restaurant group, which has yet to be completed.

But silence, she has come to understand, inflicts its own damage. After months of requests from The Times, she agreed to be interviewed because she wants to add her voice to the narrative, and start to rebuild her reputation.

In a penthouse suite at the sleek James hotel in NoMad, Ms. Bloomfield, 44, recently sat for hours going over what happened, flanked by her wife and her publicist. She said she now understands that her past silence contributed to the sexual and emotional harassment of people she should have protected.

“I failed a lot of people,” she said. “That’s on my shoulders.”

At the same time, Ms. Bloomfield, like her supporters and some former employees, said she was a casualty herself — of her own naïveté, premature success and a manipulative business partner with whom she became so entangled that for years she could see no way out.

“I felt like I was in a position where he held all the cards,” she said of Mr. Friedman, 59. “He had so much control, and he was so dominant and powerful, that I didn’t feel like if I stepped away that I would survive.”

She knows, too, that because she benefited from the partnership for years, what she says about its dysfunction now may not be believed.

Indeed, several former employees declined to be interviewed for this article, saying they did not want to contribute to any narrative that might appear to offer her redemption. Others said Ms. Bloomfield herself was such a harsh and demanding boss that they simply didn’t believe she was afraid of Mr. Friedman.

“She could be scary and intimidating,” said Katy Severson, a chef who worked under Ms. Bloomfield at the Spotted Pig for four years. “She did lose her temper, especially with people who didn’t care enough about the food.”

But Ms. Severson, like other employees, said she believed Ms. Bloomfield’s behavior was motivated by perfectionism, while Mr. Friedman was simply aggressive and volatile.

“I did feel like she truly cared and wanted me to be a better chef,” she said.

Image

Mr. Friedman and Ms. Bloomfield outside the Spotted Pig in the early days. When she arrived from England in 2003, she had never been to the United States and had never run a restaurant. CreditDavid Howells/Corbis, via Getty Images

In her interview, Ms. Bloomfield broke down in tears once: when she acknowledged the distance between the leader she had hoped to be and the leader she became.

At the River Café, the London restaurant where she acquired her most significant culinary training, she had learned that it was possible to run a kitchen with civility and respect. But she said that seemed impossible in her own kitchens — partly because of the restaurant group’s rapid expansion (eight restaurants on two coasts in 13 years) and constant turnover, but also because of her quick temper and untamable perfectionism.

“I have had many moments of anger and frustration in the kitchen,” she said. “It’s an intense place to be, for me and for anyone there with me. And sometimes that’s gotten in the way, and it’s hurt many people.”

Ms. Bloomfield described the arc of her career in America, when she got a call (via Jamie Oliver) about a job opportunity in New York 15 years ago, through the moment last year when she said she read to her horror, in the Times article, that the Spotted Pig’s third-floor party space was known to some people as “the rape room.”

Ms. Bloomfield arrived in New York in 2003 after a full-court press by Mr. Friedman, who had decided to open a British-style gastro pub in the West Village, and by his friend and investor Mario Batali, whom several women have accused of sexual harassment (and in two cases, sexual assault) at the Spotted Pig and other restaurants. (Mr. Batali has said his “behavior was wrong” and left daily operations of his restaurants, but denied engaging in any nonconsensual sex.)

Mr. Friedman, although he had no restaurant experience, was brimming with confidence and backed by celebrity investors like Jay-Z. Ms. Bloomfield was a 28-year-old unknown from Birmingham, England, who had never been to the United States and never been in charge of a kitchen. “It’s hard to believe now how ignorant I was then,” she said.

Her introduction to Mr. Friedman’s vindictive side came, she said, as they prepared to open the Spotted Pig and she expressed a mild dislike for some framed posters on the restaurant’s walls. He exploded in anger, threatening to have her work visa revoked if she criticized his taste again, she said. (Since the Spotted Pig was her sponsor, she would have lost her ability to legally work in the United States if she were fired. At that time, she was an employee, not a partner.)

Through a representative, Mr. Friedman denied that he ever threatened Ms. Bloomfield’s work visa. He added that he was “personally dismayed by Ms. Bloomfield’s unwarranted and false attacks,” and that he planned to comment further soon.

Image

Mr. Friedman, who had worked in the music industry, knew how to draw people in. The Spotted Pig, seen here in 2006, was perpetually crowded. CreditAlex di Suvero for The New York Times

Ms. Bloomfield said she realized early on that to survive in this new job, she needed an old kitchen skill: the ability to appear tough, harsh and thick-skinned. She, like most chefs at the time, had been trained in restaurant kitchens where shouting, sexism and slashing insults were the norm.

“I had never heard of H.R.,” she said, referring to company human-resources operations. “It just didn’t exist in the world I came from.”

Inside, she recalled, she was terrified of being branded a failure in the restaurant industry, and convinced that Mr. Friedman had the power to make that happen. She said Mr. Friedman frequently told her that he was the reason she had become famous and wealthy, and that he could undo her success with a few phone calls. (Several people have said that Mr. Friedman often retaliated against former employees by trying to prevent them from getting jobs in other restaurants.)

Mr. Friedman had worked in the music industry for years, and knew how to pull a crowd. The night the Spotted Pig opened in 2004, there was a line around the block. “At the time, I couldn’t understand how that happened,” Ms. Bloomfield said.

For the first two years, the ill-equipped kitchen felt to her like a war zone. “All I could think of to do was cook faster, and I realize now I wasn’t doing what I should have done: gather all the tools I needed to be a leader,” she said. The crowds and the pressure on her only intensified as the Spotted Pig won a Michelin star, and as the partners opened new restaurants like the John Dory and the Breslin.

They informally carved up the responsibilities: In general, Ms. Bloomfield was in charge of everything to do with food, and Mr. Friedman handled everything to do with guests. Each kept well away from the other’s staff and sphere of influence. This pattern set the stage for more than a decade of secrets and silence.

Ms. Bloomfield said that at the beginning, Mr. Friedman’s staff — hosts, servers, bartenders — seemed happy to work at the Spotted Pig. “They were making good money, they worked hard and then they got to sit down and drink and party with the boss and his friends,” she said.

As the number of employees increased, so did the chaos in Mr. Friedman’s orbit. Apart from the pattern of sexual harassment, dozens of employees say he constantly berated them for minor infractions, fired and rehired them at whim, and created a toxic atmosphere of fear and uncertainty.

Ms. Bloomfield said she knew about some of Mr. Friedman’s inappropriate behavior with female staff members because much of it took place publicly: hugging and flirting were routine. She knew that the third floor was a place where Mr. Friedman’s friends and guests indulged in alcohol, drugs, and inappropriate behavior, but said she never knew of incidents there that were coercive or physically abusive.

She said she was not told about episodes in which women employees said Mr. Friedman groped and kissed them, persuaded them to get into his car and tried to touch their breasts, and asked them to send him nude pictures. She said the staff, at Mr. Friedman’s direction, also concealed the extent of his offenses from her. (Multiple employees confirmed this; others said they did not inform Ms. Bloomfield because they believed she didn’t want to know.)

Still, Ms. Bloomfield was told about some serious incidents, and said she also confronted Mr. Friedman many times about his unprofessional behavior and verbal abuse.

“I would tell him that we need to be a better company and that we need to treat our staff well and that he needed to stop,” she said. “I thought I could change him. I thought if I was talking to him more and guided him, he would learn because I was the professional one, I was trying to teach him the way of the industry.”

(Mr. Friedman, through a representative, confirmed that he and Ms. Bloomfield had discussions of this nature, but that they also included employees’ complaints about “Ms. Bloomfield’s erratic behavior and verbal abuse.”)

Image

Ms. Bloomfield, left, with Michelle Petrulio, a chef who worked for the company on and off for 10 years.CreditLiz Barclay for The New York Times

He would agree and promise to do better, she said, then continue as if nothing had happened. And despite the ever-increasing chaos around her and the rising distress of the staff, she would put her head down and bury herself in the kitchen.

“It’s like I decided to control what I could control,” she said.

Those closest to her say it was a survival mechanism, not a heartless act or a business decision. “She was not a person who was well-versed in management,” said Michelle Petrulio, who worked for the partners on and off for a decade, and was the company’s culinary director when news of the harassment broke. “She was just as affected by Ken’s behavior as everyone else. She didn’t feel strong in that relationship. She felt fear.”

Many people confirmed that interpretation. Others scoffed at it, saying it was impossible that Ms. Bloomfield, especially in recent years, did not know how much power she had as a star chef.

Trish Nelson, a former server who said she experienced years of verbal abuse from Ms. Bloomfield and sexual harassment from Mr. Friedman and his friends at the Spotted Pig, including Mr. Batali, said Ms. Bloomfield “has always been out for herself. She was a perpetrator in a lot of this.”

She and others said Ms. Bloomfield wanted the fame and fortune that came with being a successful chef and restaurateur, but none of the management responsibility.

“We had a pretty good rapport, and I had a lot of respect for her,” said Natalie Saibel, a longtime server who emailed a formal complaint in 2015 to Ms. Bloomfield that Mr. Friedman had groped her. Ms. Bloomfield didn’t respond, passing the complaint to a manager, said Ms. Saibel, who was fired soon afterward. “That’s why it was doubly shocking and devastating that she did nothing to stop it.”

Ms. Nelson, Ms. Saibel and others said they had told Ms. Bloomfield about Mr. Friedman’s sexual harassment, but the chef seemed unwilling to get involved. They said that in the kitchen and in the dining room, the message from both employers was: “Suck it up. If you can’t handle it, you don’t deserve to work here.”

Image

“I failed a lot of people,” Ms. Bloomfield said. “That’s on my shoulders.”CreditAlex Welsh for The New York Times

Ms. Bloomfield said she had tried countless times to hire a human resources coordinator, so that she and Mr. Friedman would not be the only recourse for aggrieved employees. When a coordinator was finally hired in about 2014, she was let go within months: a decision by Mr. Friedman that Ms. Bloomfield said she was not consulted or informed about.

Finally, Ms. Bloomfield began exploring escape routes. She agreed to open two restaurants in California, she said, in hopes that she could put a continent between herself and Mr. Friedman. About two years ago, she said, she began quietly consulting with lawyers and a few trusted colleagues about how she might free herself.

“She didn’t talk about it very much — that’s April — but she had always said it was a very tough relationship and not a very fair relationship,” said Gavin Kaysen, a chef in Minneapolis and a longtime friend. But at a dinner the two cooked together in October 2016, more than a year before the Spotted Pig revelations, he said she had reached a new level of despair.

“I’d never seen her so defeated in her life,” he said.

By then, even some of Ms. Bloomfield’s most trusted lieutenants and loyal employees had begun to turn on her. They say she had made too many promises that she couldn’t or didn’t keep: that she would right the ship and stop staff turnover; that she would help them get the money and recognition they deserved; that she would get Mr. Friedman to stop the harassment.

Ms. Bloomfield should have known by then that Mr. Friedman would make it impossible to keep those promises, said Ms. Petrulio, the culinary director. “But it’s so simple to say now what she should have done then.”

The chef Traci Des Jardins, a friend of Ms. Bloomfield, said that early in her own career, she had partnered with a powerful man to create an acclaimed restaurant.

“Imagine how difficult it would be to be in partnership in your late 20s when you are so naïve and really don’t know anything about business but you have a burning desire to make great food,” Ms. Des Jardins said. “If you walk away, you would have had to walk away from all the success and a business you put your heart and soul into.”

She cautioned people not to brand Ms. Bloomfield as a collaborator because of her reputation as a tough boss. For women in restaurant kitchens in the 1990s, when both of them began cooking, it was the only way to survive, she said.

“Being a disciplinarian and being tough in the kitchen does not make you a tormentor.”

However the public ultimately views Ms. Bloomfield, her reputation is scarred in ways that will inevitably affect her future. In June, she announced that she will retain control of the Breslin and the John Dory Oyster Bar in New York’s Ace Hotel, Tosca Cafe in San Francisco and the Hearth & Hound in Los Angeles. (Her new partner is a restaurant management company that provides structures like a human resources department and formal hiring and firing procedures.) Mr. Friedman will keep the Spotted Pig. The fate of White Gold Butchers, which has been closed since August, is unclear. Last week, GFI Hospitality, the developer of New York’s Ace Hotel, sued Mr. Friedman for $5 million in damages, financial “misfeasance” and back rent connected to the Breslin and the John Dory Oyster Bar.

Meanwhile, Ms. Bloomfield has begun psychotherapy, is receiving executive coaching, and has repeatedly gathered her current restaurant staff in order to listen, reassure and apologize. (Through a representative, Mr. Friedman said that he also has spent time this past year in therapy, and that he has been “listening, thinking and learning from this experience.”)

Ms. Bloomfield has reached out to several chefs for advice too. Tom Colicchio said he told her, “You have to do the hard work, and that doesn’t mean put your head down and make good food. This is different work.”

But a big hurdle remains: contacting Mr. Friedman’s victims, who have become bitter as her silence stretched out for months.

“These women have been hurting and I feel horrified that I’ve done wrong by them,” she said. “I know I need to hear what happened to them.”

She plans to start reaching out soon, she said.

Julia Moskin, a Food reporter since 2004, writes about restaurants, chefs, trends and home cooking. She investigates the best recipes for kitchen classics in her video column Recipe Lab and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for reporting on workplace sexual harassment. @juliamoskin • Facebook

Kim Severson is a Southern-based correspondent who covers the nation’s food culture and contributes to NYT Cooking. She has written four books and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for public service for reporting on workplace sexual harassment issues. @kimseverson • Facebook

Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/dining/april-bloomfield-spotted-pig-ken-friedman.html |

Nature April Bloomfield Breaks Her Silence About Harassment at Her Restaurants, in 2018-10-16 15:48:01

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Nature April Bloomfield Breaks Her Silence About Harassment at Her Restaurants

Nature April Bloomfield Breaks Her Silence About Harassment at Her Restaurants Nature April Bloomfield Breaks Her Silence About Harassment at Her Restaurants http://www.nature-business.com/nature-april-bloomfield-breaks-her-silence-about-harassment-at-her-restaurants/

Nature

The Spotted Pig chef finally speaks about her role in the abuse scandal that has enveloped her and her partner, Ken Friedman.

Image

April Bloomfield, a Michelin-starred British chef, is accused of doing nothing to prevent abuse by her business partner, Ken Friedman.CreditCreditAlex Welsh for The New York Times

April Bloomfield sat with feet planted on the floor of a Manhattan hotel room, head down, grimly staring at her hands, which she twisted together until her knuckles turned white.

She fell silent for long stretches, trying to explain how she — one of the best-known chefs in the United States — came to be the first woman in the culinary world accused of victimizing other women since the #MeToo movement exploded.

In a New York Times article last December, more than two dozen people who had worked at her restaurants described a longstanding pattern of sexual harassment and verbal abuse by Ken Friedman, her business partner. Some said she knew about his behavior, which included groping employees and pressuring them for sex, and did nothing to prevent it.

In an instant, Ms. Bloomfield, a Michelin-starred British chef who had built seven thriving restaurants over decades of work, including the celebrated Spotted Pig in the West Village, watched her world break apart.

Mr. Friedman, who has disputed some accusations but apologized for behavior that he called “abrasive, rude and frankly wrong,” immediately stepped away from all business operations but kept his six-figure salary. She had the job of managing the rage and distress of hundreds of current and former employees, and keeping the restaurants going.

Ms. Bloomfield said nothing in public except for a few stiffly worded apologies that were widely criticized as inadequate. Lawyers advised silence while she and Mr. Friedman negotiated the breakup of their restaurant group, which has yet to be completed.

But silence, she has come to understand, inflicts its own damage. After months of requests from The Times, she agreed to be interviewed because she wants to add her voice to the narrative, and start to rebuild her reputation.

In a penthouse suite at the sleek James hotel in NoMad, Ms. Bloomfield, 44, recently sat for hours going over what happened, flanked by her wife and her publicist. She said she now understands that her past silence contributed to the sexual and emotional harassment of people she should have protected.

“I failed a lot of people,” she said. “That’s on my shoulders.”

At the same time, Ms. Bloomfield, like her supporters and some former employees, said she was a casualty herself — of her own naïveté, premature success and a manipulative business partner with whom she became so entangled that for years she could see no way out.

“I felt like I was in a position where he held all the cards,” she said of Mr. Friedman, 59. “He had so much control, and he was so dominant and powerful, that I didn’t feel like if I stepped away that I would survive.”

She knows, too, that because she benefited from the partnership for years, what she says about its dysfunction now may not be believed.

Indeed, several former employees declined to be interviewed for this article, saying they did not want to contribute to any narrative that might appear to offer her redemption. Others said Ms. Bloomfield herself was such a harsh and demanding boss that they simply didn’t believe she was afraid of Mr. Friedman.

“She could be scary and intimidating,” said Katy Severson, a chef who worked under Ms. Bloomfield at the Spotted Pig for four years. “She did lose her temper, especially with people who didn’t care enough about the food.”

But Ms. Severson, like other employees, said she believed Ms. Bloomfield’s behavior was motivated by perfectionism, while Mr. Friedman was simply aggressive and volatile.

“I did feel like she truly cared and wanted me to be a better chef,” she said.

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Mr. Friedman and Ms. Bloomfield outside the Spotted Pig in the early days. When she arrived from England in 2003, she had never been to the United States and had never run a restaurant. CreditDavid Howells/Corbis, via Getty Images

In her interview, Ms. Bloomfield broke down in tears once: when she acknowledged the distance between the leader she had hoped to be and the leader she became.

At the River Café, the London restaurant where she acquired her most significant culinary training, she had learned that it was possible to run a kitchen with civility and respect. But she said that seemed impossible in her own kitchens — partly because of the restaurant group’s rapid expansion (eight restaurants on two coasts in 13 years) and constant turnover, but also because of her quick temper and untamable perfectionism.

“I have had many moments of anger and frustration in the kitchen,” she said. “It’s an intense place to be, for me and for anyone there with me. And sometimes that’s gotten in the way, and it’s hurt many people.”

Ms. Bloomfield described the arc of her career in America, when she got a call (via Jamie Oliver) about a job opportunity in New York 15 years ago, through the moment last year when she said she read to her horror, in the Times article, that the Spotted Pig’s third-floor party space was known to some people as “the rape room.”

Ms. Bloomfield arrived in New York in 2003 after a full-court press by Mr. Friedman, who had decided to open a British-style gastro pub in the West Village, and by his friend and investor Mario Batali, whom several women have accused of sexual harassment (and in two cases, sexual assault) at the Spotted Pig and other restaurants. (Mr. Batali has said his “behavior was wrong” and left daily operations of his restaurants, but denied engaging in any nonconsensual sex.)

Mr. Friedman, although he had no restaurant experience, was brimming with confidence and backed by celebrity investors like Jay-Z. Ms. Bloomfield was a 28-year-old unknown from Birmingham, England, who had never been to the United States and never been in charge of a kitchen. “It’s hard to believe now how ignorant I was then,” she said.

Her introduction to Mr. Friedman’s vindictive side came, she said, as they prepared to open the Spotted Pig and she expressed a mild dislike for some framed posters on the restaurant’s walls. He exploded in anger, threatening to have her work visa revoked if she criticized his taste again, she said. (Since the Spotted Pig was her sponsor, she would have lost her ability to legally work in the United States if she were fired. At that time, she was an employee, not a partner.)

Through a representative, Mr. Friedman denied that he ever threatened Ms. Bloomfield’s work visa. He added that he was “personally dismayed by Ms. Bloomfield’s unwarranted and false attacks,” and that he planned to comment further soon.

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Mr. Friedman, who had worked in the music industry, knew how to draw people in. The Spotted Pig, seen here in 2006, was perpetually crowded. CreditAlex di Suvero for The New York Times

Ms. Bloomfield said she realized early on that to survive in this new job, she needed an old kitchen skill: the ability to appear tough, harsh and thick-skinned. She, like most chefs at the time, had been trained in restaurant kitchens where shouting, sexism and slashing insults were the norm.

“I had never heard of H.R.,” she said, referring to company human-resources operations. “It just didn’t exist in the world I came from.”

Inside, she recalled, she was terrified of being branded a failure in the restaurant industry, and convinced that Mr. Friedman had the power to make that happen. She said Mr. Friedman frequently told her that he was the reason she had become famous and wealthy, and that he could undo her success with a few phone calls. (Several people have said that Mr. Friedman often retaliated against former employees by trying to prevent them from getting jobs in other restaurants.)

Mr. Friedman had worked in the music industry for years, and knew how to pull a crowd. The night the Spotted Pig opened in 2004, there was a line around the block. “At the time, I couldn’t understand how that happened,” Ms. Bloomfield said.

For the first two years, the ill-equipped kitchen felt to her like a war zone. “All I could think of to do was cook faster, and I realize now I wasn’t doing what I should have done: gather all the tools I needed to be a leader,” she said. The crowds and the pressure on her only intensified as the Spotted Pig won a Michelin star, and as the partners opened new restaurants like the John Dory and the Breslin.

They informally carved up the responsibilities: In general, Ms. Bloomfield was in charge of everything to do with food, and Mr. Friedman handled everything to do with guests. Each kept well away from the other’s staff and sphere of influence. This pattern set the stage for more than a decade of secrets and silence.

Ms. Bloomfield said that at the beginning, Mr. Friedman’s staff — hosts, servers, bartenders — seemed happy to work at the Spotted Pig. “They were making good money, they worked hard and then they got to sit down and drink and party with the boss and his friends,” she said.

As the number of employees increased, so did the chaos in Mr. Friedman’s orbit. Apart from the pattern of sexual harassment, dozens of employees say he constantly berated them for minor infractions, fired and rehired them at whim, and created a toxic atmosphere of fear and uncertainty.

Ms. Bloomfield said she knew about some of Mr. Friedman’s inappropriate behavior with female staff members because much of it took place publicly: hugging and flirting were routine. She knew that the third floor was a place where Mr. Friedman’s friends and guests indulged in alcohol, drugs, and inappropriate behavior, but said she never knew of incidents there that were coercive or physically abusive.

She said she was not told about episodes in which women employees said Mr. Friedman groped and kissed them, persuaded them to get into his car and tried to touch their breasts, and asked them to send him nude pictures. She said the staff, at Mr. Friedman’s direction, also concealed the extent of his offenses from her. (Multiple employees confirmed this; others said they did not inform Ms. Bloomfield because they believed she didn’t want to know.)

Still, Ms. Bloomfield was told about some serious incidents, and said she also confronted Mr. Friedman many times about his unprofessional behavior and verbal abuse.

“I would tell him that we need to be a better company and that we need to treat our staff well and that he needed to stop,” she said. “I thought I could change him. I thought if I was talking to him more and guided him, he would learn because I was the professional one, I was trying to teach him the way of the industry.”

(Mr. Friedman, through a representative, confirmed that he and Ms. Bloomfield had discussions of this nature, but that they also included employees’ complaints about “Ms. Bloomfield’s erratic behavior and verbal abuse.”)

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Ms. Bloomfield, left, with Michelle Petrulio, a chef who worked for the company on and off for 10 years.CreditLiz Barclay for The New York Times

He would agree and promise to do better, she said, then continue as if nothing had happened. And despite the ever-increasing chaos around her and the rising distress of the staff, she would put her head down and bury herself in the kitchen.

“It’s like I decided to control what I could control,” she said.

Those closest to her say it was a survival mechanism, not a heartless act or a business decision. “She was not a person who was well-versed in management,” said Michelle Petrulio, who worked for the partners on and off for a decade, and was the company’s culinary director when news of the harassment broke. “She was just as affected by Ken’s behavior as everyone else. She didn’t feel strong in that relationship. She felt fear.”

Many people confirmed that interpretation. Others scoffed at it, saying it was impossible that Ms. Bloomfield, especially in recent years, did not know how much power she had as a star chef.

Trish Nelson, a former server who said she experienced years of verbal abuse from Ms. Bloomfield and sexual harassment from Mr. Friedman and his friends at the Spotted Pig, including Mr. Batali, said Ms. Bloomfield “has always been out for herself. She was a perpetrator in a lot of this.”

She and others said Ms. Bloomfield wanted the fame and fortune that came with being a successful chef and restaurateur, but none of the management responsibility.

“We had a pretty good rapport, and I had a lot of respect for her,” said Natalie Saibel, a longtime server who emailed a formal complaint in 2015 to Ms. Bloomfield that Mr. Friedman had groped her. Ms. Bloomfield didn’t respond, passing the complaint to a manager, said Ms. Saibel, who was fired soon afterward. “That’s why it was doubly shocking and devastating that she did nothing to stop it.”

Ms. Nelson, Ms. Saibel and others said they had told Ms. Bloomfield about Mr. Friedman’s sexual harassment, but the chef seemed unwilling to get involved. They said that in the kitchen and in the dining room, the message from both employers was: “Suck it up. If you can’t handle it, you don’t deserve to work here.”

Image

“I failed a lot of people,” Ms. Bloomfield said. “That’s on my shoulders.”CreditAlex Welsh for The New York Times

Ms. Bloomfield said she had tried countless times to hire a human resources coordinator, so that she and Mr. Friedman would not be the only recourse for aggrieved employees. When a coordinator was finally hired in about 2014, she was let go within months: a decision by Mr. Friedman that Ms. Bloomfield said she was not consulted or informed about.

Finally, Ms. Bloomfield began exploring escape routes. She agreed to open two restaurants in California, she said, in hopes that she could put a continent between herself and Mr. Friedman. About two years ago, she said, she began quietly consulting with lawyers and a few trusted colleagues about how she might free herself.

“She didn’t talk about it very much — that’s April — but she had always said it was a very tough relationship and not a very fair relationship,” said Gavin Kaysen, a chef in Minneapolis and a longtime friend. But at a dinner the two cooked together in October 2016, more than a year before the Spotted Pig revelations, he said she had reached a new level of despair.

“I’d never seen her so defeated in her life,” he said.

By then, even some of Ms. Bloomfield’s most trusted lieutenants and loyal employees had begun to turn on her. They say she had made too many promises that she couldn’t or didn’t keep: that she would right the ship and stop staff turnover; that she would help them get the money and recognition they deserved; that she would get Mr. Friedman to stop the harassment.

Ms. Bloomfield should have known by then that Mr. Friedman would make it impossible to keep those promises, said Ms. Petrulio, the culinary director. “But it’s so simple to say now what she should have done then.”

The chef Traci Des Jardins, a friend of Ms. Bloomfield, said that early in her own career, she had partnered with a powerful man to create an acclaimed restaurant.

“Imagine how difficult it would be to be in partnership in your late 20s when you are so naïve and really don’t know anything about business but you have a burning desire to make great food,” Ms. Des Jardins said. “If you walk away, you would have had to walk away from all the success and a business you put your heart and soul into.”

She cautioned people not to brand Ms. Bloomfield as a collaborator because of her reputation as a tough boss. For women in restaurant kitchens in the 1990s, when both of them began cooking, it was the only way to survive, she said.

“Being a disciplinarian and being tough in the kitchen does not make you a tormentor.”

However the public ultimately views Ms. Bloomfield, her reputation is scarred in ways that will inevitably affect her future. In June, she announced that she will retain control of the Breslin and the John Dory Oyster Bar in New York’s Ace Hotel, Tosca Cafe in San Francisco and the Hearth & Hound in Los Angeles. (Her new partner is a restaurant management company that provides structures like a human resources department and formal hiring and firing procedures.) Mr. Friedman will keep the Spotted Pig. The fate of White Gold Butchers, which has been closed since August, is unclear. Last week, GFI Hospitality, the developer of New York’s Ace Hotel, sued Mr. Friedman for $5 million in damages, financial “misfeasance” and back rent connected to the Breslin and the John Dory Oyster Bar.

Meanwhile, Ms. Bloomfield has begun psychotherapy, is receiving executive coaching, and has repeatedly gathered her current restaurant staff in order to listen, reassure and apologize. (Through a representative, Mr. Friedman said that he also has spent time this past year in therapy, and that he has been “listening, thinking and learning from this experience.”)

Ms. Bloomfield has reached out to several chefs for advice too. Tom Colicchio said he told her, “You have to do the hard work, and that doesn’t mean put your head down and make good food. This is different work.”

But a big hurdle remains: contacting Mr. Friedman’s victims, who have become bitter as her silence stretched out for months.

“These women have been hurting and I feel horrified that I’ve done wrong by them,” she said. “I know I need to hear what happened to them.”

She plans to start reaching out soon, she said.

Julia Moskin, a Food reporter since 2004, writes about restaurants, chefs, trends and home cooking. She investigates the best recipes for kitchen classics in her video column Recipe Lab and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for reporting on workplace sexual harassment. @juliamoskin • Facebook

Kim Severson is a Southern-based correspondent who covers the nation’s food culture and contributes to NYT Cooking. She has written four books and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for public service for reporting on workplace sexual harassment issues. @kimseverson • Facebook

Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/dining/april-bloomfield-spotted-pig-ken-friedman.html |

Nature April Bloomfield Breaks Her Silence About Harassment at Her Restaurants, in 2018-10-16 15:48:01