Did you guys see this story, in the Washington Post yesterday, about the pervasive culture of sexual harassment and gender discrimination at Sterling Jewelers, parent company of Kay and Jared Galleria? Apparently a class-action lawsuit involving SIXTY-NINE THOUSAND female workers has been going on for years but the documents involved, which had previously been in confidential arbitration, were just released last weekend.

If you thought the corporate culture in Mad Men was television hyperbole, check out this article for depictions of a culture of no-holds-barred sexual predation by upper management of young saleswomen.

Routine sexual “preying” at company events “was done out in the open and appeared to be encouraged, or at least condoned, by the company,” Melissa Corey, a manager of Sterling stores in Massachusetts and Florida between 2002 and 2008, said in her declaration. 

Ellen Contaldi, a Sterling manager in Massachusetts between 1994 and 2008, said in her declaration that male executives “prowled around the (resort) like dogs that were let out of their cage and there was no one to protect the female managers from them.”…It was common practice, former employees said, for executives and high-level managers to ply subordinates with alcohol.

God, I’m so sick of this shit! This company sounds like a fucking rape factory. A rape factory fuelled by misogyny that peddles mediocre diamonds to women as desperate as their employees, just looking for someone to value them. Suddenly “Every Kiss begins with Kay” rings as hollow and misogynistic as it really is, the brainchild of a bunch of rapist-managers who genuinely believe that the only way to get women to have sex is by bribing, threatening, or drugging them.

But who says romance is dead?

Then this morning I woke up and one of the first stories on my Facebook Feed, posted by page of the film Invisible War (about assault in the U.S. armed forces), was an article about a Texas Air Force officer given 3 months of jail time for assaulting eight different women, the sentence handed down by a tribunal of his own superiors. And then I remembered that the U.S. military is also a rape factory.

And then I remembered that the Ivy League college I attended was also a rape factory.

And then I remembered the recent revelation that SEVEN PERCENT of all Australian priests have assaulted children. Rape factory.

Then I remembered this white kid in Idaho getting no jail time for anally raping his disabled classmate with a coat hanger. White boy rapists who never get jail time = rape factory.

Then I remembered the pervasive leaks coming out of Uber this month, about a persistent culture of harassment and sex coerced for professional security. Rape factory.

And then I remembered that our President and his would-be Cabinet are a pack of sex offenders. Rape factory.

Speaking of the President’s would-be Cabinet, something from the Kay Jewelry article reminded me of Carl’s Jr. CEO and non-Secretary of Labor Andrew Puzder. The article quotes a male witness called to substantiate the female plantiff’s claims “recall[ing] one former Ohio-based executive saying, ‘Why pay women more when they just get pregnant and have families?'”

LOL. Women are such bad workers! Why do they always quit their jobs?