Workplace Oppression: Kevin's Story

            Kevin Tait knows the realities of workplace oppression very well.  He is single, thirty-two, and works freelance as a graphic designer.  Tait has dark red hair, stunning blue eyes and his thin frame tops out at 6"4'. 

            "I had to turn freelance after I lost my job," he explains.  "Three years ago, I was working for an advertising agency and I was seriously involved with my then girlfriend, Bethany."

            He tells me he still finds it hard to talk about what happened to him. "I was accused of sleeping my way into a promotion," he says softly, his eyes downcast.  "It wasn't true" he adds finally.  "I don't know why," he continues, "but my supervisor never liked me.  She made a point of constantly rejecting my work, sending it back for revisions and, then rejecting the corrections I made because she said I missed this and this and that. She nitpicked me for minor mistakes. She was constantly riding me for everything I did. If I left my desk to go to the bathroom, when I returned she was there, telling me I was not allowed to take unscheduled breaks.  She yelled. She fumed. She made my life Hell.

            According to legal documents, there were four men working in Tait's department, all of whom were called out in their performance reviews for "producing unsatisfactory work."  Tait, however, was also cited for excessive tardiness, an uncooperative attitude, aggressive tendencies, and not finishing his projects on time.

            "I did run late," Tait admits, "but my attitude was based on the fact that, according to this woman, my work was never good enough. The other guys in the department didn't have their work rejected seven or eight times before it was completed.  I could never get any work done because she forced me to do it over and over.  Because of that, it took me three weeks to finish every project."

            Despite the problems and the poor reviews, Tait landed a promotion to lead the team assigned to a major account. 

            "My supervisor didn't promote me," he says. "The CEO did.  She liked my work, and when she was involved in my projects, they were accepted immediately, which only angered my supervisor because the boss took control of my work out of her hands. Whenever the CEO did that, my supervisor took it out on me. It was miserable. I dreaded getting out of bed in the morning."

            After enduring the toxic environment created by his supervisor for over two years, Tait's girlfriend convinced him to file a complaint. "Bethany is a wonderful woman, but after I lodged the complaint, suddenly, the rumors began. Before I could prove my supervisor started them, someone called Beth and told her I was unfaithful. All I know about the caller is that it was a woman. My lawyer could never prove my supervisor made the call, but it didn't matter, Bethany left me."

            The downward spiral continued. "Men are always judged by their private lives in the workplace. It's patently unfair. Women's private lives are their own, but for men, never. When the CEO heard about the complaint, she called me to her office and grilled me for half an hour about my private life, trying to blame my 'aggression' for the problems I experienced at work. This woman, who had previously been so supportive of my work, stood by the supervisor. She never asked me one question about how I was being treated. She never asked me to explain the complaint. She just kept asking me personal questions. Did I live with a woman? How many women had I been intimate with? How do I handle my aggression outside the workplace? She told me the supervisor had complained to her on several occasions that I was 'overly aggressive' and 'uncooperative'. She asked me what steps I had taken to express my anger positively. It was very insulting, dehumanizing, and offensive to have my private life investigated because of a problem at work. That's when I got a lawyer and sued the company."

            According to court documents, Tait sued the company for defamation of character, and sued both the CEO and his supervisor for harassment and creating a hostile work environment. 

            "Two weeks after the filing date, I was fired for 'excessive aggression and unwillingness to compromise,'" Tait says. His lawyer added "termination without cause" to the lawsuit and argued Tait's dismissal was retribution for filing the case, but because both offenses meet the standard for just cause under the law, the Judge dismissed the additional charge.

             During the testimony of Tait's CEO, she admitted she subjected Tait to questions about how he behaved during his personal time, but did not ask the same questions of the supervisor.

            "I thought the Judge would see the obvious injustice of it, but, of course, she didn't."

            The woman with whom Tait was accused of having the affair testified for the defense, claiming Tait seduced her over a period of weeks and that the affair lasted two months. When questioned by Tait's lawyer, she admitted the CEO had recently given her a large pay raise, but the defense objected to the question, calling it immaterial to the case. The Judge granted the objection and informed the jury the pay raise was not a factor in the case.

            Though Bethany testified that Tait was the least aggressive man she had ever dated and that, despite his alleged affair with a co-worker, she still cared for him, Tait lost the case.

            "At every turn, the Judge ruled against me. I mean, here we have a female judge, a female-owned company, two female defendants and a female witness to the affair. Three-quarters of the jury was female.  In civil cases, you only need a majority to decide the disposition of the case. The whole system is stacked against men."

            After that, Tait says, no one else would hire him. "The case received a lot of attention, everyone knew my name.  I couldn't get work anywhere.  Hiring managers kept telling me, 'Well, you're very talented, but we can run the risk of hiring a trouble-maker with uncontrollable, aggressive tendencies.'

            "The problem," Tait concludes, "is that women have all the power. Women are in all the power positions, and women stick together. It's divide and conquer, in the workplace, in the courtroom, everywhere."

            I ask Tait how his experiences have affected him financially. "I live on half of what I used to make," he tells me. "I had to move because I couldn't afford my apartment. I had to sell my car and buy a smaller, cheaper one because I couldn't afford the payments. Because of the internet, everyone in the country knows my name, and I've been universally blackballed. There's a website that lists men who have been ruled 'aggressive' by the courts. They added my name to the list. 

           "All the work I do now is for online companies, who are only willing to work with me because I'm freelance, work on specific projects through a specific contract and, therefore, the company isn't responsible for my behavior. I work far more hours than I used to, and still just barely get by, and because I'm freelance, I have no paid time off.  I have no vacation days, no sick days, no personal time."

            Has this experience caused any other changes in his life?  "Oh, yeah," he says.  "The cops keep an eye on me.  They pull me over for no reason. I have trouble finding women willing to go out with me. A lot of people recognize me when I'm out. Clerks at the grocery store are rude because they've read articles about me in the media. My mother won't talk to me because she's ashamed of me."

            I ask how men treat him. "In public, they're as rude as women, but in private, they feel sorry for me.  Every man I know shakes his head in despair over what happened to me, but at the same time, they are now more aware of how easily it could happen to them. They tell me how terrible it is, and then tell me how they have to distance themselves from me or find themselves accused of guilt by association. The only men who will openly associate with me are the ones active in the masculinist movement because they've been through similar experiences or they empathize with what I've been through and want the workplace, and society, to change.  I hope it does."