What attracts harassment?
I might hear you say “be assertive, don’t take any crap, nip it in the bud, be strong, be confident”. OK, half of me agrees with you. Yeah, the strong prey on the weak, on the timid, like magnetic poles.
But I’ve seen the strong attacked too. By strong, I mean not afraid to speak up. There was one guy I remember who was not afraid to voice his opinion and he was very assertive. No one was going to boss him around and treat him like a meek bell-hop. He told me later and I noticed as well, that a ground-swell of gossip was slowly closing in, on him like a python strangling its prey. A few “popular” staff didn’t like him, so they started a campaign against him. Most of it was indirect, not direct. Because he could hold his own in a verbal confrontation, they mostly worked covertly. They started complaining to the boss, “oh he’s too hard to work with” or “he’s so lazy, he always leaves me to do all the work”. Only some of it true, but the truth distorted, not in his favour. He eventually left, becuae he couldn’t stand the tension, the unspoken hatred he had to endure.
What I’m saying is then, that no one need feel that it is their fault, that harassment occurs to them. It seems a rite of passage, something that must be endured to some extent. Employers will proudly say “no harassment occurs in our workplace, we have a detailed and thorough workplace policy to prevent it”. More lip service, more pretence. The reality is, you won’t have their support. My advice is if you really love the work, put up with it, until they stop and target someone else. If you don’t love the job, leave, like I did. Several times in fact.