ARTIST STATEMENT: I, Beth Ann Sadowski, wrote this on August 3rd, 2016, in response to several articles circulating on August 2nd, 2016, much like this one from The Guardian: Eric Trump: 'Strong, powerful women' don't allow sexual harassment to occur

I encourage anyone who believes they are the men mentioned in this post to contact me within the next seven days. Otherwise, your full names and businesses will be added — without apology or malice.

HAPPY READING!

To Donald J. Trump:

Who would have thought a sometimes bankrupt/sometimes millionaire NBC ratings whore would push me to tell my story. This will be the one and only time anyone hears this from me: Thanks, Donny.

I moved to Washington DC on December 31st, 2012, nervous, but full of hope. I graduated from Kent State University the year before ready, I thought, to take on the world - I was opinionated, outgoing, and a Hell of an orator. This is what I thought DC wanted - a brash, but insightful Midwest gal with plans to tuck into a career with focus and purpose. I thought: this is a place to finally get it right.

I was wrong.

DC is chock-full of the worst kind of men - those who have just enough money to own part of the world, but minds so small their world only extends to the end... of their driveway. The wives are silent, bouffanted beauties with a dead-in-the-eyes glare that accompanies almost all interactions. Their children are 1980's movie level bullies with the same hair and clothing style as Steff McKee ala "Pretty in Pink." Here, they call it "The Bubble" and it's the religion of the Beltway and it's disciples are many.

In fours years, I've had 4 career starts and 4 career fails. 4 of those 4 were a result of a male business owner sexually harassing me, verbally intimidating me, or physically threatening me on the job.

The first, for me, ended on Christmas Eve 2013, when I was screamed at, at length, for "ruining" a professional relationship by delivering a poinsettia to the wrong person. However, for him, it was when I questioned his chronic absence from the business because I could no longer handle the onslaught of angry policyholders coming into the office demanding to speak with him. People were angry and I was lacking support.

I was told I should to keep my fucking mouth shut and not to question him because he was the boss and that he could do whatever the fuck he wanted, whenever the fuck he wanted, to whoever the fuck he wanted because he owned the business.

I was told, I should be grateful and thanking him every day because I was given time to see my grandmother, the month before, when she was in hospice. He didn't give time off to anyone within the first 90 days and she didn't even fucking die so what was the point of going anyway?

I was flabbergasted.

And that's when I made a fatal Beltway mistake - I fought back. I asked him to stop screaming at me, to stop swearing at me, and to treat me with respect. I told him, point blank, he was not allowed to speak to me like that anymore. He told me, point blank, if I didn't like it, I could leave. I told him I would not quit - if he wanted me to leave, he'd have to fire me. The next day, he did.

I had been "fired" once before, but those people worshiped dolls and "fed" them cigars and rum, so it didn't upset me. They were crazy - but, who was crazy now? Me, apparently, because I broke down, mentally and physically for weeks. I kept questioning and beating myself up for all of the things "I did wrong." I stopped leaving the house. I didn't want to see or meet people. I was defeated and embarrassed, but at some point, I thought, I am better than this, shake it off, so...

The second was, I thought, a chance to start on a career that was more well suited to my degree – residential property management. It was offered to me, at part time on 1099, but I was desperate. I only took it because he said, "After 3 months, you'll be full time! We have the work."

After 9 months I was still part time, still 1099, the lowest paid employee, and expected to do 40 hours of work in 20. My work, which was data entry, not property management, was scrutinized and questioned on an hourly basis. It was constantly implied that I was not doing any work at all and that my position was in jeopardy every day. My presence in the office was not welcome - I was asked on more than one occasion, "Are you even supposed to be here?" I was paranoid that I would be fired, on a whim, at any second. I was angry and afraid all the time. Something had to give...

December 2014, I was offered a position as a full time employee in the company's satellite office over an hour away by mileage, multiple hours away by rush hours. I took it, thinking this was a step up. I was offered less money than the person answering phones in our local office to run an entire portfolio of properties because, I was told, he had seniority. I didn't understand this line of reasoning because these were two entirely different positions, with vastly different responsibilities, but what did I know. I was getting a company car! That makes up for a laughable disparity in pay, right?

Four months in, the local office hired another manager, a male, who made, I was told in whispers, three to four times as much as I did. I was not even offered a chance to discuss taking on this role, only 3 miles from my home. I was even more enraged when I discovered the man they hired lived relatively close to the satellite office. What sense did this make? Anyone can see that this move did not make sense and he had a company car too? Where is his disparity in pay for this "perk?"

When I brought my concerns to my boss, I was laughed out of the room. Plain and simple. I was told, "No" more times than I care to remember. I was told that my request for a review and a possible pay raise was ridiculous. I was told not to concern myself with the pay of others because this man they hired had experience and a college degree in this exact field, but could you help him learn how to do his job and allow him to treat you like his secretary whenever he pleases? Sure, no problem.

But there was a problem. I couldn't move on from that conversation. I couldn't move on from the 9 months I had been lied to previously. I couldn't get my brain to stop. Ever. I wasn't sleeping, I wasn't eating, I wasn't living. So, I quit, to absolutely no fanfare. On my last day, when I returned the company vehicle, the boss was overly surprised that I returned it clean. In that moment, I realized: he is surprised because he thinks you're not even responsible enough to wash and vacuum a vehicle.

It took four months of unemployment before the next disaster at a "prominent" head hunting company in DC. I was told in the interview I was, "Beautiful," as the boss stared at my breasts with an impish grin. I was offered the position and took it, against my better judgment, because I was desperate.

Within the first three weeks, the same man who had called me "Beautiful" and ogled my breasts in my interview was cornering me in the company luncheonette, pressing himself onto my thigh, and telling me, with a rasp, "You think you're a know it all, don't you?" Two days later, he called me a "Bitch" in a meeting in front of the entire company. He began following me when I went to the bathroom, where I cried. A lot. I complained to my friends and family, but the answer is only what any loved one says in these situations: stay positive! Maybe it'll change! I tried to soak in comfort, but my mind was already saturated with the "what if's" of soon to be unemployment.

It was during a lunch with a woman who had worked at the company for over 15 years that I realized things were never going to change - she told me that the boss had asked her, on more than one occasion, to give him "massages" in and out of the office. After the lunch, over the next few days, other women in the office began giving me "Sorry you're going through this" glances or pulling me aside to say, "Hang in there. He's done this to all of us." This silent solidarity was not enough. So, I quit, to absolutely no fanfare.

However, I had been proactive this time - instead of jumping ship into the oblivion of unemployment, I had been spending part of my ladies room crying time applying to jobs. Within two weeks I had an interview at a "well known" DC property management firm. They loved me, I thought they seemed nice enough, and the possibility for advancement looked promising. I was briefly energized by the thought that I was on the right path this time.

The first two months on the job were a dream. Everything was going smoothly... Until we had a meeting about management expectations. I had a list of questions, items that needed to be clarified before I took over the office, months earlier than was previously discussed when I was hired, and I was already anxious. Then, instead of a meeting with the manager who hired me, it turned into an interrogation by the owner of the business, a man who said, more times than it was needed, the name of the prestigious law school he attended and how he knew everyone in The Bubble. Absolutely EVERYONE. My stomach turned.

Once again, my qualifications, education, and institutional knowledge were called into question. After asking a question, he interrupted me two words into every sentence saying, “You have to learn to get to the point, dear” and rolling his eyes. He pretended not to know of Kent State University, as though I had made up the name. He looked down his nose at me and compared my Communication Studies degree with an Interior Design degree – “You have the same kind of degree” that his do nothing niece got from a school in Massachusetts. I was angry, but I knew not to argue. I settled into resentful resignation: I had finally learned the most important of The Bubble Commandments, “When a man is talking, keep your mouth shut. Do not fight back.”

“SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP,” kept screaming through my brain, but I couldn't tell if I was telling him or myself anymore and I hated myself for it.

Unfortunately, because I will never be a poker player, he was perceptive enough to notice I was angry. Angry, but silent. And in that moment, he believed he won – he believed I silently gave him consent to condescend, berate, and belittle me at his leisure. He knew he was the boss and that he could do whatever the fuck he wanted, whenever the fuck he wanted because he owned the business. On my silent, red faced, purse lipped countenance he saw a “YES” when he knew all I wanted to do was scream “NO." I felt violated.

After our meeting, I was subjected to aggressive phones calls and drop-in meetings from the owner of the business. He blamed me for now failed projects that were completed before I was hired, questioned my hours and accused me of trying to steal company time on more than one occasion, and began calling me an “Idiot” or “Moron” every time I said something that he didn't like, which was almost every time I spoke. I was his punching bag for almost two months, but I knew I couldn't quit.

My co-workers, both male, completely checked out at this point – they didn't want to be in the line of fire, but weren't willing to stick their neck out to stop the abuse. Even better, one of them was the owner's son – who collected a paycheck by saying he was my assistant, but came into the office at least three hours late every day and watched endless soccer games on the internet. The other, began taking phones calls, on company time, for the loan shark business he was running. Towards the end, they both stopped coming into the office regularly, stopped taking my calls, and took private meetings with the owner weekly, none of which I was invited to. I felt isolated and attacked and helpless all the time, but I knew I couldn't quit.

Let me tell you why I couldn't quit: I couldn't take the feeling of failure anymore. The despair and uncertainty of unemployment and the crushing disappointments of fruitless interviews. The embarrassment of telling everyone: my partner, my friends, my family, that I couldn't hold down a job, again, was crippling. Earlier in the year, when complaining about the head hunter boss to a friend, he rolled his eyes and screamed in my face, “Well, have you thought, maybe it's you?” and I had internalized that comment so much it was my mantra. I couldn't look at myself in the mirror anymore, but I wasn't going to let this one win. I'd put up with so much for so long, I surely was strong enough to take a stand at some point, right? Right.

At Christmas, the owner gave employees a vest from a popular sport clothing store as part of our Christmas bonus. The vest was cute, but after taking one look at it, I knew this man size Medium would not fit my woman size XLarge chest. The owner insisted I try it on and I immediately thought, “IT'S A TRAP!” because I had been ridiculed in a high school girl's locker room before. You could feel the humiliation on the air, but there was no getting out of it. Arms weighty, cheeks reddening, I pulled on the vest and as predicted, it did not fit. When I looked around the room, I saw the owner's face – a grin as twisted and strange as the Cheshire Cat spread across it and my stomach dropped. I fell for it.

“Doesn't fit, huh? Well, I can take it back or...” he paused glancing to my male co-workers with a snort, “You can keep it as inspiration.” My co-workers paused, and then, a collective, “Oh, daaamn…” shot through the room and dissolved into restrained chuckles.

Inspiration.

It felt like a punch in the gut. Inspiration. I let the word sink in. Inspiration. The word burned like acid. I could taste batteries on my tongue. “SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!” my mind screamed in between interjections of “QUIT QUIT QUIT!” but the only thing I could squeak out was, “No. Thank you. I'll keep it.” I peeled off the vest and quickly shoved it to the bottom of my purse, disgusted with myself. I sat back down at my desk and felt the shame wash over me. I left at the end of the day and spent the better part of that night locked in my bedroom, crying, trying to figure out what the Hell to do. Had he only attacked my intelligence or my integrity or my weight would be one thing: I had been able to compartmentalize those attacks at other jobs, but the onslaught of every part of me being unacceptable? No, no that was too much to handle on my own. I was ready to take a stand.

The next day, the Friday before our company wide, two week Christmas break, I called my manager and reported the incident. By Monday, I was receiving unhinged, screaming phone calls from the owner that continued, almost every day, for two weeks. The relentless calling made me so nervous, I developed an excruciating stomach pain that made me skip Christmas and New Year celebrations and sent me to Urgent Care twice. One day, he called to question me about a project that was completed years before I was an employee and when I could not immediately recall the information from memory he yelled, “Goddamn it! You can't be this be this stupid!” and hung up the phone on me. I was a wreck.

After Christmas break, somehow, by sheer, stubborn force of will and need of a paycheck, I made it through three days of work before the final showdown. It began when my panicked mind could not correctly remember three sets of numbers I needed to look up for the owner. My brain was so tired from no sleep and jumpy from the fear of impending insults that I could not, for the life of me, remember those numbers correctly. Once I heard them they were lost in the foggy ether of my adrenaline soaked mind. When I asked him, a second time, to repeat the numbers he needed, he went red in the face. “What kind of a fucking moron can't remember a few numbers?!” and it went on like that for almost two hours.

I won't recount his rant of hateful, misogynist bullshit because, honestly, I barely remember it. What I do remember, I'd like to forget. It was almost like my body went into a self preservation mode – my ears could hear, but my brain wasn't recording it to memory.

In the end, what I do remember is the absolute terror I felt as I walked out of the office that evening. I ran to my car and drove home, as quickly as possible. When I got back to my apartment I locked the door, went to the computer, wrote a short resignation email, and did not leave my house for a month. It took fours years, but I had finally been broken by The Bubble and I haven't been the same since.

After my month of fear induced solitude, my partner convinced me to leave the house and talk to a professional, he said I couldn't hide in the apartment forever and, even though he's right, on some days I still disagree. It's been a rough four years, but now I have an understanding of what this kind of prolonged abuse can do to your mind, body, and soul and how those who inflict it are the worst of our society. When I moved to DC four years ago, I considered myself a strong, confident, intelligent woman ready to take on the world – now I've been unemployed for seven months (doctor's orders), in therapy once a week, and trying to relearn what it is to live again.

So, when men like Donald Trump talk about harassment and what women should do, I get enraged. When there are so many people cheering in the name of this racist, isolationist, bigoted, obstructionist xenophobe jackal, I am appalled. When my father tells me that he is voting for this man, I am sickened to my very core. I cannot and will not be silent on this subject because there are so many other women in this country and all over the world who have experienced the same abuse or worse and enough is enough.

And here's the truth: #Trump is the boss who abuses his female employees. Any of these stories could have been about him. When he says that women should just leave and find another job, it's because he thinks the same way The Bubble thinks: Women should be seen and not heard. Women should not fight back. Women should not report harassment. Women should disappear and never be heard from again.

I won't live in a country that doesn't value more than half of it's population. I won't live in a country where women will have to live and work in fear because their male bosses can do whatever the fuck they want, whenever the fuck they want. I won't live in a country where that man is President.

THE TIME IS NOW.
WE MUST RESIST.
THE DEVIL IS AT OUR DOORSTEP…

WHO IS BRAVE ENOUGH TO STAND WITH ME?