yonmei

11:32 am: OMG. Wolf is a sexual harasser!
I was working out that as I got Wolf on 7th August, and he was six weeks old then, that puts his birthday at about 25th June - so I can call him a midsummer cat and remember his birthday that way.

He is very nearly a year old, and he appears to be going through whatever kind of puberty a castrated cat can go through, housed with a human and a female cat who was spayed 10 years ago (Bob was 8 when I got her in December 2005: I keep not quite wanting to do the arithmetic, but that makes her 11 this year).

This morning, Bob was curled up around my hand and I was petting her lovely furry tummy and she was purring happily - and Wolf leaped up on the bed, eyed us both, did some sniffing around Bob's bum (which Bob ignored) and then he settled himself down behind her, which Bob also ignored... and then he bit her on the back of the neck and clung to her, which she growled at. Eventually he got bored and let go, and now he's sitting on the windowsill chirping at the birds, but...

Oh, Wolf.

More seriously, obviously Wolf isn't actually sexually harassing Bob, and also Bob - despite the growls - doesn't actually seem to mind too much. (She hasn't gone *hiss*spit* at Wolf in quite a while.)

But recently someone started telling me about her troubles at work, with a colleague who keeps making comments at her, despite her telling him no, she's not interested: and how recently, when they were both alone in the office in the evening, he kissed her and then the next evening asked if he could kiss her again (and when she said no, did it anyway). He touches her - hand on head, on shoulder - in ways that make her uncomfortable. And she doesn't want to report him to her boss because "she doesn't feel people should get into trouble for being retarded" and "is this really sexual harassment"?

All the hairs went up on the back of my neck, because not only is this bloody well definitely sexual harassment, it also sounds like a classic situation for attempted rape. (I would hope that the creep would only get as far as "attempted" - the person who was talking to me may look small and mild but is nothing of the kind.)

If someone is repeatedly saying non-work-related things to you at work that make you uncomfortable, you have a certain right to get them to stop doing that. If someone is making personal/sexual comments to you at work, and you don't want them to, you have an absolute legal right not just to get them to stop doing that, but to have them formally verbally warned off doing it: your employer has a duty of care towards you. But I can appreciate that a person migh feel, well, it's only words. (Still: I gather that the harassment from this creep to his victim has got to the point where it is actually interfering in her ability to do her work, and he has got to be stopped.)

My own personal feeling, FWIW, is that the bright line is touching: a person may be "confused" about what level of verbal harassment, er, sorry, "conversation" is appropriate - though actually, I doubt most heterosexual men are really that confused, since I am prepared to bet they'd be quite unconfused if they were approached like that by another man - but there's no way you can be "confused" about whether or not it's appropriate to kiss a colleague on the top of the head: you know bloody well it isn't, it's just a question of whether you will get away with it.

And I really, really hope he doesn't. I advised talking to her union rep, then her manager, Monday.

Tags: bob, cat politics, feminism, wolf