Seyi worked for this boss once. The perfect way to describe her boss would be to say that he was borderline disrespectful. He had a comment about everything the ladies wore to work. How a lady’s shirt was too big it seemed like she was trying to hide a pregnancy, on some occasions, he would even touch the lip of a female staff while telling her to keep quiet.

At first, she was confused, wondering if she was the only one who found her boss’s attitude wrong as nobody else seemed to be saying anything. The job was important to her so Seyi kept quiet and continued to observe as her boss crossed a new level of harassment every day. Sometimes they were subtle, sometimes, they are obvious.

After observing the madness that was going on in her workplace, she decided to finally say something to a co-worker. Asking if the co-worker noticed anything off with things that had been going on in the office, she observed that almost every woman had the same reaction. “They would shrug and say is it with Mr Henry? That’s how he is, just avoid being in the same room with him alone as much as possible”. Some women even told her of instances when he had touched them inappropriately during meetings. She asked all of them why they were working in such an environment and they all threw the answers back at her asking her why she was also still working in such an environment.

It was a good pay job and they had never been raped. It was just a few verbal and physical harassments here and there so they stayed put.

If as you read this, what you are thinking is that the boss eventually raped a staff, you are absolutely right. What he had been doing with the few harassments here and there was setting a foundation for the larger danger. What they saw as “no case of rape” was rape silently seeping in.

For so long, we have been thought to stay away from “rapist” but how about the ones who have made harassment a habit?