Yup. Every. Single. Time. a male coworker has hit on me, or straight-out asked me to sleep with him, and I've said no, it has been a no-win situation for me career-wise.
(Any asshole who thinks it's appropriate to make a "maybe you should have slept with him" joke = instablock)
(Any asshole who thinks it's appropriate to make a "maybe you should have slept with him" joke = instablock)
Even the situation where, rather than doubling down or justifying or whatever, the guy apologize immediately, he then basically refused to work with me thereafter.
Privilege makes people fragile, and most people get embarrassed if they try to get someone to have sex with them and get turned down. If a woman "embarrasses" them in that way, most men want to not have to interact with her any more. That's a problem when she's a coworker.
So BEST case scenario: some guy you work with asks you to sleep with him. You say no. He (sometimes unintentionally, sometimes very intentionally) makes it super-awkward for you to, you know, do your job from then on.
You better hope to high heaven that he's not in a position of power relative to yours.
And if you speak up, it gets worse. Because no matter how closely the company follows guidelines on how to handle reports of sexual harassment, you're still going to get labeled in people's minds as a troublemaker.
Because by and large, tech (and games) can't tell the difference between someone who causes a problem and someone who points out that a problem exists.
So, 99% of the time, if you're a woman in tech or games, and a male coworker expresses any sort of serious interest in you, you're just fucked. Already. It may not come to fruition for a few months, but it's almost inevitable.
