Rape on the Night Shift
This some 50 minute podcast takes a different turn on the Me Too movement, and focuses on women in lower levels of society and more specifically, women janitors. ABM is the main company being talked about here, and it talks about how the women who clean our buildings in the woo hours of the night often experience sexual harassment, and even rape, by their male supervisors. Yet, several of these victims, not only in ABM but in the other industries, have a difficulty speaking up against the terrors they have experienced.
One of the speakers in the podcast urged us to think about "the systemic barriers that keep night shift janitors and others from coming forward and from reporting this, and from seeking legal help." Maria Magana, one of Vazquez's victims, decided to stay in ABM even after she had been assaulted because she needed the money. And this is where immigration may or may not come in. Another speaker talked about how a lot of "janitors are immigrants, newcomers, and they're not familiar with the laws of this country. They don't know how to see legal recourse if sexual harassment happens to them." This is worse for those who are illegally here and trying to make a living for themselves and for their families, as the fear of deportation can cause them to remain silent about these tragedies. Some women at ABM even got fired for making accusations and were labeled as lying women who are "thirsty" for money. It is difficult to speak out about harassment especially for these women because unlike the famous celebrities following the #MeToo movement, not all of these lower classed women's stories are being heard by our society. One victim said, "Who listened to me? Nobody listened to me. These are women with money, women in Congress, and they get help. They get the attention. They're women who are worth something... I'm a woman who's worth something, too."
What I liked about this podcast is how one the speakers said “ it doesn't matter what the color of your skin is, what your immigration status is, but nobody should harm your body or touch you.” The podcast insisted that sexual harassment within the work force “is something that we heard from a lot of the janitors and farm workers and other low wage immigrant workers that we've talked to since the Me Too movement started…this is not new. That they have been trying to speak up, but they just haven't been heard, and that the whole universe of female workers out there need to be included in this conversation.” Luckily, after a hunger strike in Sacramento, a bill was signed which required training for all janitors in the state about sexual harassment. The podcast talked about its importance because, as stated earlier, “a lot of janitors are immigrants, newcomers, and they're not familiar with the laws of this country. They don't know how to see legal recourse if sexual harassment happens to them. If these companies don't follow the sexual harassment training requirement, then they can't do business in California.”
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