CW: misogyny, racism, homophobia, sexual harassment, mention of rape
About six months ago, I started collating a list titled ‘All of the times I have felt uncomfortable or vicariously uncomfortable at work’. If I had recorded every instance of harassment, the list would be the length of a small manifesto.
Like many women and non-binary people, I have occasionally experienced sexual harassment. However, these experiences were disconnected, and with time, seem almost satirical. A 2024 study titled “Just Another Day in Retail” characterised sexual harassment in retail as ‘pervasive’, whereby inappropriate behaviours are perpetuated by industry standards. When I started my new retail job, I did not connect the dots between my theoretical awareness of this prevalence and my new workplace. It was suddenly difficult to shrug off behaviour overtly recognised as pervasive while maintaining my financial security. The rapid turnover rate of staff at this store reflected this tension — workers eventually are forced to choose between constant harassment and a steady income or financial uncertainty.
ENTRY #1: I am wearing long 90s-style shorts to work. My Manager tells me that they make my calves “pop”. He comments on the shorts a total of five times throughout my shift. For some reason I keep count.
A common defence used to justify sexual harassment is that the behaviour was intended as a ‘compliment’. This minimises the experience of feeling uncomfortable, and assumes that one is incapable of appreciating ‘harmless’ compliments.
ENTRY #6: I am wearing a tighter shirt to work instead of the oversized one I usually wear. My Manager says, “You actually look human now. It’s a compliment, the other shirt was like a dress on you.”
Most of us have at some point been exposed to spaces that are hostile to our gender identity or expression. I have found that my worldview is inevitably distorted by my surroundings. It is like peering into a fish-eye lens; where my young, queer friends are the entire foreground, disproportionate and goofy. I sometimes forget that this lens is not the “real world”; that those patriarchal and colonial structures around us have yet to disintegrate.
ENTRY #14: I’m in the lunchroom, I have headphones in. My coworker asks if I have Facebook. I say yes. He wants to add me. I pretend not to hear. Next shift he asks again, and the shift after.
The most effective way to survive a retail shift is to dissociate. You untether your thoughts and opinions from your material reality; the fluorescent lights, the too-still air, the grating radio. You barely register when you speak to customers, sometimes you even forget to reply until your co-worker nudges you meaningfully. You feel half asleep, the hours melting slowly.
ENTRY #9: I’m sitting at the computer, my Manager comes up behind me. “How was your holiday? You’re so fucken brown, I almost didn’t recognise you.”
As a lighter skinned person, I wondered if he felt safe making racist comments to me, compared with my other non-white co-workers.
Recently, I had a long conversation with my dad about work. I was looking for other jobs but feeling lethargic, suspecting that any alternative job I might find would be equally miserable. Having worked a range of soul crushing jobs himself, he gave me some advice. “There are some fights that aren’t worth having. If you have to smile and act fake, do it. This is just a means to an end, it’s not your career.” He was right: there is no way to ‘win’ as a worker for a major retail corporation. My dad told me about a particularly awful boss that he had, a story that ended with him losing his temper and getting fired. I wondered if it was worth it, for that one cathartic moment.
In my Manager’s office, I tried to apply my dad’s advice. I was in his office because we were having a “chat” about my “attitude”. Taking this “chat” as an opportunity, I brought up the issue that I wasn’t receiving enough shifts since the company cut hours for the entire store. He replied with:
ENTRY #17: “Maybe if you smile more, you will get more shifts”.
I couldn’t tell if my Manager was joking or simply out of touch with reality. I often think about this line, a perfect representation of my former workplace. One of my coworkers had endured many “chats” with the same Manager. In one meeting, she was commended on the basis that her “mood swings” had improved. Although she was counselled, she still had a lot of work to do.
It is hard to imagine a reality where my male coworkers would be punished for being assertive and decisive. Or told that their expression is “hostile” and a threat to the company image, as I was told more than once. I successfully managed to nod and smile throughout the “chat”, until my Manager asked if he may give me some life advice. Purely for the plot, I prompted him to go on.
“Being approachable and friendly is a skill that you will use throughout your whole career, not just here. I’m trying to do you a favour by giving you this advice.”
It was like he wanted me to argue back.
“What if I work in academia? My expression has never affected my grades.”
I cannot remember what he said because I was trying to stop visibly fuming as I walked out of the office to begin my shift.
Being instructed to smile is relatively benign compared to the comprehensive instances of sexual harassment and homophobia I have witnessed in this workplace.
ENTRY #22: I am talking to the only other outwardly queer woman who works for the store, we are sharing our experiences of misogyny at work. She says that on one occasion, she was standing by the registers and overheard the former store Manager talking to the teenage girl working there. She hears him say, “you wouldn’t mind being raped right?”.
I am relieved to say that I no longer work in retail. I wanted to leave from the beginning, but a combination of inertia and cynicism prevented me from taking any real steps. As time went by, it became more difficult to see my job as “a means to an end”, and to compartmentalise my work life from my ‘real’ life.
Unfortunately, quitting is not an option for many workers, who are forced to survive toxic workplaces for much longer than I did. While I am not optimistic about change in this industry, I am aware that these issues are starting to be talked about openly. In the meantime, I hope that others might locate some sense of solidarity within their workplaces. I found it through whispered conversations, shared eye-rolls, and inside jokes with trusted co-workers.
