Help Me Please – I Am Being Harassed At Work. I am only 22 and the only woman of this team in a tech company. I am going to find another job. I am dreading going to work.

That’s the email I received. It made me furious. I immediately thought of my own daughter who is 25 years old and a hostess at a restaurant. She is often grabbed by guys dining there, not to mention the nonsense she has to listen to. She has heard it all from marriage proposals to being told she would be KIDNAPPED. All she does to incite this is show up for work.

Let me get this message out LOUD and CLEAR. It is NOT a compliment when you grab my butt, or tell me how hot and smoking sexy I look, or how you would love to just “do me.” It is a scary turn off when you bury your face in my neck, brush your elbow by my breast, “accidentally” bump into me full frontal, or give me a hug that I didn’t asked for.

And yes, men actually say and do these things to women.

To clarify, if my beau grabs my butt and tells me I am the hottest thing he’s ever seen, it’s ok because he has my permission to do so. But that is my personal, private relationship. That is between me and only one other person: the man I am with. He’s the only one from whom I wish to receive that kind of attention.

When women go to work, we do not want your sexual advances or “accidental” contact. What do we expect? Well, I am going to spell it out for those few rotten tomatoes who still haven’t gotten the message.

• I go to work to…work.
• I expect all men and women to conduct themselves in a professional manner.
• We focus on our jobs, innovation, creativity, and how to get stuff done.
• We communicate and collaborate for a single reason—to come up with ideas that move our organization forward.
• The only time we get physically close is when we are reviewing a pitch deck, a project, or to study numbers.
• When we do team events outside the office, we keep the conversation and drinking light. (Remember my Cinderella Rule? Follow that you will be in excellent shape.)

As a general rule, men at the office and everywhere else do not have permission from women to:

• Touch us, and that includes hugs without permission.
• Make jokes of a sexual nature.
• Call us prudes or tightly-wound because we don’t want to participate in your sexual banter.
• Whistle, chuckle, or undress us with your eyes, stare at our breasts, or turn around to stare at our asses.
• Mislead us by asking to discuss something business related in a more casual setting (like having a drink after work or going to lunch) only to make a sexual advance.
• Blackmail us into thinking that we cannot further our careers unless we are “extra friendly” or even sleep with you.
• Engage in stupid, idiotic, “harmless banter” or “locker room talk” (thanks 45, I have not forgotten!) or use the “boys will be boys” excuse.

It’s NOT okay now. It NEVER was okay, even when you got away with it. I don’t care who you are. Enough. If you are a man described above, you need to review your morals.

Do it for your daughter if you can’t do it for your co-worker.

I am stupefied as to why in the year 2017, with all the attention sexual harassment is getting, that we even need to discuss this. And honestly, after my last post went viral with over 2 million reads, I must say that 80% of men are amazing. They have daughters, wives, and sisters they deeply care about and they extend that awareness to other women. They agree the way some men behave is completely unacceptable. One supportive man said he is just fine without the ‘bros’ if having a man code results in demeaning behavior toward his wife. He’s not having it.

And you—the amazing 80%—you shouldn’t have any of it either. Why? Because the rotten 20% give ALL MEN a bad rep.

If you see something, SAY SOMETHING. Stand up for women. Because if you don’t, your silence says it’s ok for someone to do the same thing to your wife and daughter.

We owe it to ourselves and to our loved ones to STOP sexual harassment. Enough already.

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At her lowest point, Beate Chelette was $135,000 in debt, a single mother, and forced to leave her home. Only 18 months later, she sold her image licensing business to Bill Gates in a multimillion dollar deal. Chelette is a nationally known ‘gender decoder’ who has appeared in over 60 radio shows, respected speaker, career coach, consummate creative entrepreneur, and author of Happy Woman Happy World. Beate is also the founder of The Women’s Code, a unique guide to women leadership and personal and career success that offers a new code of conduct for today’s business, private, and digital worlds. Determined to build a community of women supporting each other, she took her life-changing formula documented it all in a book Brian Tracy calls “an amazing handbook for every woman who wants health, happiness, love and success!”

Through her corporate initiative “Why Acting Like a Girl Is Good For Business” she helps companies with gender diversification training, and to develop and retain women.

If you’d like to book Beate as a speaker on New Leadership Balance or Creative Entrepreneurship for your next event please connect with me.