Neanderthal Co-Workers ‘Mooed’ At Breastfeeding Mother And ‘Honked’ Her Breasts

breast pump with breast milkImagine you have a new coworker who’s a breastfeeding mother. How would you respond to her request for a private space to pump? If you said “by mooing at her and pretending to honk her boobs”, you just might work for Oregon’s Velocitel, Inc. Oh, and you just might be a total piece of shit.

People reports that an Oregon woman, Monica Van De Pitte, has settled her harassment suit with her former employers at Velocitel for an undisclosed amount. Not only were she and another nursing mother sentenced to pump in the company supply room (at least it’s not a toilet, I guess?), but the fine gentlemen she worked with would moo at her and post cow pictures on the supply room door for her to find.

The other nursing mother, who had been at the company longer, also warned Van De Pitte to hide her breast pump when it wasn’t in use, because their truly stellar coworkers found it “gross”. I’d really like to imagine that Velocitel is somehow violating labor laws by almost exclusively hiring middle-school-aged boys, because that is an easier pill to swallow than realizing that a bunch of grown-ass men are this unable to get over the existence of a boob in their proximity.

The harassment of Van De Pitte wasn’t limited to the sexual, either. Apparently one of her coworkers was saddled with the nickname, “The Walking HR Violation”, and yet still worked at the company – always a good sign that your boss is going to take your concerns seriously. Van De Pitte’s attempts to get her coworkers to stop were laughed off, and when she approached her supervisors for help:

[She] was told by a supervisor that she needed to “privately reflect on why sexual conversations made her uncomfortable.”

Why do sexual conversations, boob-honking, and being constantly mooed at make you uncomfortable? What are you, a normal human being or something? God.

Van De Pitte eventually quit and brought suit against her company, and I wish the undisclosed amount she won could have ten or eleven digits. The only way this could have a happier ending is if as well as the company being liable, all the people who harassed her or ignored her harassment also had to shell out a corresponding amount, one directly proportional to how much of a lecherous jerk they were to her.

I don’t know what kind of sad, entitled men are employed at Velocitel, but here’s a message for them, and any other male employees out there who may be confused by this issue: you need to learn how to handle yourselves in a public place when there is a pair of breasts nearby. Those breasts are typically attached to a coworker of yours. It’s almost the year 20-freaking-15; can we please wrap up the need for the “my eyes are up here” conversation sometime soon? If you can’t make it through a work day without having to make a comment about or a honk-honk gesture at your coworker’s rack, maybe it’s you who should be spending the day in the supply room, not her.

(Image: cheyennezj/Shutterstock)

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