For Women's Day, one woman tells her story of harassment during mandatory, unpaid internship

LaurieBissonnettewas near the end of a mandatory, unpaid internship when a colleague walked into her office while she was working late one night, closed the door and began making sexually charged comments.

For months, he had been making similar comments, but she'd brushed them off.

Nowhe was in her office, after hours, when few colleagues were around. Luckily,she was able to de-escalate the situation before it became physical.

Shaken,Bissonnettemade sure to never be caught alone in the office again.She reasoned that there was only a little more than a month left in hereight-month internship, and she'd soon be able to extricate herself from the unsettling situation.

The feminist and activist, who is now studying for her master's degree in social work,says she felt at the time she needed to do something, but she wasn't sure what.

She felt neither the university which placed her in the internshipnor the company where she was workingwasclearly responsible for her well-being.

While walking with a female colleague who was about 20 years her senior, the man approached them and directed another offensivesexual remark atBissonnette.

She turned to the older woman for guidance.

"She agreed it was inappropriate,"Bissonnettesays. But she discouragedher from reporting it.

"I felt so small."

She says she was too exhausted to pursue the matter further: the internship demanded she workat least three days per week, whiletaking a university course. She was also working two paying jobs to support herself.

"I'm still shy about this situation, because people project the image onto me of thisstrong feminist activist, and what I really want to say is that everybody can be a survivor of sexual violence."

The economics of silence

Gabrielle Bouchard, president ofthe Fdration des femmes du Qubec, saysBissonnette's story is notuncommon female interns are particularly vulnerable to harassment and often feel they're not in a position to report it.

Many fields require students to do internships, and for women in those internships, "there's no true recourse to voice their concerns when they face harassment and bullying,"Bouchardsays.

"They have to be silent in order to not have a long-term impact on their work career or academic career."

Bouchard says it's time to examine what keeps women in precarious and disempowered positions, where they can become targets of abuse.

For example, Bouchardsays, internships in female-dominated fields are often unpaid, while "you don't see unpaid internships in male-dominated fields, like engineering."

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Bissonnette's field of social work is, indeed, female-dominated: She says there were about two men in a class of 30 students and their internships were allunpaid.

She says that if she had been paid, she wouldn't have had to work two jobs on the side to support herself, and that may have left her with enough energy to take action against her tormenter.

When her senior colleague put a chill on her attempt to speak about what had happened, she worried that if she pursued it, it might jeopardize her internship and leave her unable to complete her degree, which she'd already been working on for three years.

Bissonnette's story is a familiar one to Marie Boti, a founding member of aMontreal group called Committee of Women of Diverse Origins, which represents many women in low-paying jobs.

"We see violence against women as being paid crummy wages and being in a precarious work situation," Boti says.

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#MeToo to #NowWhat?

There's also the issue of who feels free to report harassment and sexual assault.

While the #MeToo movement is providing that onlinespace for many women to share their stories,Bissonnettesays it's not as accessible as it seems.

"#MeToo puts a lot of pressure on survivors and victims to come forward," she says. To go to police, for instance, "you have to be a perfect victim."

Sandra Weasley, the head of Stella, a Montrealadvocacy group for sex workers, agrees that even within the #MeToo movement, "there's thematter of people not having the same empathy for different women, based on their perception of our worth."

She says that often, the women coming forward with personal experiences of abuse are in a privileged and safe situation.

If sex workers speak out and have to disclose their line of work, Weasley says it can mean ostracism, unemployment, even being barred from crossing the border into the U.S.

"We need to look at more systemic solutions and have more nuanced conversation that can't just be captured with a hashtag," she says.

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Call for interns to strike on International Women's Day

ForBissonnette,concrete measures would include paid internships and the establishment of clear procedures for dealing with sexual harassment and assault by bothuniversities and the firms or agencies that accept interns.

Bissonnetteis a member of the Montreal coalition for paid internships, which is calling on interns to strike Thursday, International Women's Day, to demand more control over their working conditions.

The coalition is holding a rallyat Norman Bethune Square, near ConcordiaUniversity's downtown campus, from 3 p.m. until 6 p.m.

The Fdration des femmes du Qubec and Women of Diverse Origins are also hosting their own rallies on International Women's Day,in different locations, staggered throughout the day.

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