Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Michelle Neeling's avatar

25 years ago, when I wasn't the woman of a certain age that I am now, I applied for a job in a company in rural England. In the interview, the boss, who was 20 years my senior, asked me what I'd do if a male colleague said I had a nice arse. Playing the game because I wanted the job, I said that I'd say thank you, and ask him to turn around so I could see his. (God how it makes me cringe now that I was so complicit in my own debasement). I got the job.

About a year into it, there were about ten of us sitting around the boardroom table one morning, waiting for the last people to turn up for a staff meeting. I was one of the few women in the room. I was wearing a dress with capped sleeves. One of my colleagues, my senior, pointed to the top of my arm and said, loudly enough for everyone in the room to hear, "That bit of skin there... It really makes me want to stick my cock in it." Even after all these years, writing the words makes me feel sick and humiliated. I didn't bother to tell my boss, who had, not long before, kissed me on the lips at a work function and said, when I looked at him, shocked, "I've always wanted to do that." He also said of my name, not long after I started working at the company, "Hm, Michelle Neeling... Is that a name or a sexual fantasy?"

Christ on a bike, I wish I'd called those bastards out on their gross behaviour then. But at the time, when I was already considered a weirdo feminist who annoyed people (men) with her big-city ways, I felt the need to keep my head down and keep my job.

Thank you for always calling the behaviour out, Anna, and for doing it publicly. It's been so helpful for me to read your words on the patterns of DARVO which, yes, I'm now seeing everywhere.

Expand full comment
Kate Spicer's avatar

Speaking as a woman who is accused of being an “amphetamine medicated” something or other, I’m pretty exhausted even thinking of all this belittling claptrap

Expand full comment
4 more comments...

No posts