By Claire Patterson
Content warning: Descriptions of sexual harassment and violence
I was nestled into my first midterm season of university in the fall of 2016 when an unwanted conversation with an unfamiliar man changed my life. The weather pelted drops of rain onto the pavement that largely enclosed Simon Fraser University, and I left my dorm room to study. Cracking open my laptop, I placed my book bag on the seat beside me, hoping the attempt to regain space would clear room in my mind for new material.
Amidst the first chapter, a man came and stood beside me, hovering over my bookbag and using the space upon the desk above for his laptop. I glanced over, and then continued highlighting the sentence I was reading. Chairs sat vacant with matching desk spaces throughout the corridor, but he wanted this space. My space.
Reluctantly I pulled my bag up onto the desk, relinquishing the chair as my textbooks spilled onto the table. He tapped my shoulder and I looked up at his mouth, moving without sound. I pulled my earbuds out and he repeated himself.
“Hey, I’m a TA for that class,” he said, gesturing towards my intro level communications textbook. Taken aback, I had a flush of embarrassment that It took me so long to move my bag and allow him a seat, as if my unladylike manners would effect my grade.
He began speaking about the material that will be on the midterm, readings from Marshall Mcluhan and various authors we had studied thus far. He asked me my opinions on communist theory, technological surveillance, and then my name.
He wasn’t my TA, but the TAs shared the marking of midterms and papers for the course. I hadn’t before met the other TA’s. I told him my name and he asked if I lived on campus.
“I lived on campus my first year, too! What building did you get?”
I told him what building I got.
“Oh, my friend had that building. What floor did you get?”
I told him what floor I lived on.
Then he pulled out his laptop. “You don’t have to study, I have the midterm right here,” he said. I declined sharply feeling both guilty and sick, with the fear of academic dishonesty floating above me.
He then went on to describe that he will only show exams and give As to students that provide him with “sexual favors,” and that is how his cousin got a good grade in the class—by giving him a blowjob. He made the actions to go with the statement, pretending to give head.
Terrified and shocked by the statement, I thought that this must be some kind of joke. An inappropriate joke but a joke just the same.
He didn’t laugh.
I got up to go and he started to as well. He then told me to wait, that he had to grab something and would be right back, and to just wait. He disappeared down the hallway.
The girl that was sitting next to me looked me in the eyes, eyebrows furrowed with worry, and said, “You need to leave right now.”
I shook as I packed up my things trying to rush before he came back. Through the rain, I ran back to my residence building and tore down my name tag on the door, hoping that he wouldn’t look for me here, hoping that the absence of my name would make me invisible.
Then I opened the Canvas page for the course and scrolled under people. I clicked on the courses TAs.
He wasn’t one of them.
I spent the night alone confused and scared about what happened. Scared about being a woman from a small town, in the city for the first time. About living on my own. About misogyny and inequality. About the power of men. About the potential of a knock on my door that very night.
But I never heard a knock.
Midterms and finals came and went and a new year marked a new semester; I hadn’t seen the man for the rest of the term. I stood outside of my first tutorial for a new class, listening to music and feeling excited by the potential of a new dynamic and the clarity that came with a fresh start.
That’s when I saw him. The TA man. My mind began to race. Was he my TA for this class? Would he remember me? Would he say something? Would he do something?
He walked straight towards me and I looked away music blasting in my ears. He began speaking to me. I looked straight ahead, hoping that a lack of eye contact will make me invisible.
He became frustrated that I did not acknowledge him after several attempts at conversation. He threw up his hands and angrily muttered words shaking his head as if having a fit, switching between languages and swearing profusely in an expression of his discontent with me.
The class began and I sat between two already taken chairs. He sat across from me. Not as a TA, but as a student, watching me throughout the class. The walls felt as if they were closing in on me and the teacher’s words were a jumble in my thoughts of what would happen next. I left class immediately in fear.
It was my nineteenth birthday.
The next week, when it was class, I didn’t go. When the week after came, I knew I had to do something, I was going to lose participation marks by not attending, but I couldn’t go back. I emailed my TA explaining what happened and asking to switch class times. She emailed back accommodating my needs, and forwarding the email to my professor, wherein they both apologized for what had happened and urged me to speak with the chief of student conduct about sexual harassment. I felt embarrassed by the words. “Sexual harassment” sounded daunting and serious. I thanked them and attended a new tutorial time.
Days followed without seeing him, until he was all I saw. Every day in the dining hall, which was mandatory for students living on residency, there he was, eating pizza. He had gotten a meal plan. I left whenever he was there, after he had attempted to sit at my table. I opted not to eat. He was ever-present in lecture, interrupting the professor with commentary weekly.
I told a few close friends about what happened and word circulated about similar stories of a student posing as a TA for various subjects and asking for sexual favors for good grades. After hearing multiple stories of this happening with other girls, I decided something had to be done. I dug up the email my professor sent me with the contact info about the student conduct office and I made an appointment.
In the following days, I made my way to the student conduct office. I was nervous and rubbed my sweaty hands on my jeans repeatedly as I waited for her to come out of her office. She greeted me with a pen and paper and asked me to share my story.
I told her everything. When I got to the part where he asked me for my name and where I lived, she scolded me, telling me that what I did was the wrong way to handle the situation. She continued commenting on my storytelling me I should have “just walked away,” asking if he ever “actually touched me.” She barely wrote anything down and finished the meeting by telling me that the incident cannot be categorized as sexual harassment, and then wished me a good day and ushered me out of her office.
I closed the door behind me, embarrassed for wasting her time and walked down the AQ as the cold February air stung against my hot tears.
It was Valentine’s day.
The following months were the hardest of my life. I told my parents about what happened, and they furiously emailed the school. They researched what the school defines as sexual harassment and I met with more people from the university. Some university workers were furious with what happened and said they would ban him right away, but did not have the authority. Others explained that it is a long process to put sanctions on where in the school he can be, and one told me to get as many girls to email the school with complaints as possible.
I took to the Facebook group INPOWER and shared my story, asking girls who had experienced this particular individual to email their stories. The response was overwhelming. The post got hundreds of comments and likes both of support and of pledges to send in emails.
Within the following days I had the attention of security, after weeks of negotiating. They met me after class and sat down to speak with me. However, they spoke at me instead. I shared portions of my story and included the part about INPOWER.
The head of security told me that the accusations of “hearsay” were useless to my case and harmful to the TA man’s “academic reputation” and told me to tell my friends to stop emailing. These so-called “friends” were girls I had never met before, speaking up for themselves and for each other. Struggling to have a bigger voice for the sake of female rights and campus security. I could not ask them to be silent.
I walked from class back to my residence, afraid, every night after. Coming home from work late one night, I heard someone walking behind me. I felt a ringing in my ears my breathing quickened. The steps got closer to me and I began crying. The figure passed in front of me. It wasn’t him. I cried harder. I was afraid of men everywhere. I hated them. I hated him, I hated the man from security, the men who whistled at me on the street, the men hit on me in the club. I hated the guys that threw frat parties, those who sat beside me on the bus and the guys who I thought were my friends, yet after a few drinks put their arms around me and asked to sleep with me. I hated them all.
Then security team at SFU, without my permission, went on to show the TA man my photo ID and name. The TA man then found me in a computer lab an hour later that was locked and I was the only student in. He tried to speak to me and I ignored him, saved my work and got up to leave, completely unsafe in the space I study, live, sleep and eat. I turned to get my bag and saw written in big letters on the whiteboard “B I T C H.”
In the following days, I met with security again, took safe walks to and from my late classes, applied to different universities and lay awake thinking about the gap in inequality between genders. Understanding truly for the first time what it meant to have my voice silenced.
In the end, it wasn’t my story and experiences that caused the individual to permanently be expelled from Simon Fraser University, but that of another girl. I am in my second year at SFU with a renowned hope that it will be the camaraderie and strength of women to stand together against adversity. That it will be the female peers that I am in class with every day who will fight for our right to have a voice against the rigid rules of patriarchy in society.
My professor who originally emailed me announced the expulsion of the TA man in lecture that week. I sat between students who I thought would never hear this story and blinked back the tears that brimmed my glasses.
It was the first day of a new era.
My name is Claire Patterson, this is my #metoo story. I am no longer afraid. Hear my voice.