I tried to find the right place to post this. We hire lots of women to work here and the work place has a lot of very manly type men, this is a fabrication plant, men who are welders and pipe fitters and the like. The women here are for the picking, I mean it, if you are a woman here, especially if you are younger, you will be hit on and pulled on until one of the guys takes you down. The survival rate of a woman here is low. To survive you have to become the girlfriend/woman of one of the men at the plant. I you are with a man who does not work at the plant, he will be displaced and run off by these men. I have seen it happen many times. Including me. I came here with a husband of two years and when I was chosen, I will say that word chosen, by the man that I am now attached to, he ran my husband off completely. My husband was just not capable of defending himself against this kind of man. If I can say it like this, here he was no match and he lost his woman because of it.

In my case the man who chose me and to whom I am now attached was the head of the company, he wanted me and nothing was going to stop him from getting me. I was overwhelmed by his power, his wealth, his basic manhood. My husband was simply no match for him. I did not fight it, I became his girlfriend/woman and that is the way it is today. You are pressed on until you succumb to the advances and become attached to one of the men, or you quit and leave. The turnover with women is real high. Those that get attached to a man that can keep her survive. there is not one woman who has a man here who would have it any other way.

We brought in a consultant to help with the turnover. Of course their observation was to keep the men away from the women. Well that would only lead to the men quitting. So that was not going to work. So they gave us an assertiveness coach. This isn't like a nice little church office culture with all kind of niceties, this is a large fabrication plant where the men are competing with each other all day and running on high all day and a woman is what they need to let off steam. If you are little desert flower and can't handle men like these you are not going to last.

In this place being attached to the right man works. Saying no, or asking please to be left alone, or of all things to 'negotiate' with them, is going to get you nowhere. Assertiveness here is having the balls to get the right man. This is a plant of men, run by men and for men. I am all for being assertive, but you have to be able to back it up. The best defense is a good offense, no one messes with me because my man will knock their block off. It is that simple.