D
Deleted member 4645
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I'm a senior in college right now and I've been working part-time a research lab since my sophomore year. I worked closely with another mentor for the last year and a half, but she relocated. I got paired with a new postdoc mentor right before Covid hit so I've only been working with him in-person for a couple weeks.
Suffice to say, I hate the guy. He has a super condescending attitude, mansplains everything to me, and has made multiple weird/offensive comments to me. It's been a pain working with him, but to be honest, I'm only staying in the lab because I love my PI. She's the most amazing woman and we've grown incredibly close in the last couple years. I also knew for a fact that she's a feminist. So I kinda knew what was going to happen when I reported him.
The incident happened last week when I wore these new, grey yoga pants to the lab. We don't have a dress code except wearing closed-toed shoes. What I didn't know was that they're quite see through and I was wearing a hot pink thong underneath. I approached my mentor to show him something on my lap top and accidentally dropped my pen, and proceeded to bend down and pick it up. He makes the following comments: "Woah, I can see your thong..." laughs and winks at me, and then says, "it's pink, isn't it?"
I was so shocked and embarrassed at that point and just laughed awkwardly and apologized, to which he responded, "No prob, just stop wearing that shit if you don't want guys looking."
The whole situation made me so uncomfortable and I talked with various friends and my boyfriend about it and everyone told me to report it, so I set up a meeting with my PI. She was completely on my side and actually told me that it's not the first time he's made someone uncomfortable and that she will do something about it. I get an email from her today that she attempted to discipline him using other methods, but he became very angry so she just decided to let him go. That came as a bit of a shock even though I kind of expected it and now I'm starting to feel remorse. Idk. AITA?
Edit: Thanks for all the responses! Just thought I'd clarify a few things since I keep getting comments saying I should've known they were see through and therefore I'm at fault and how it's rude of me to say my mentor "mansplains" when he's my mentor.
Suffice to say, I hate the guy. He has a super condescending attitude, mansplains everything to me, and has made multiple weird/offensive comments to me. It's been a pain working with him, but to be honest, I'm only staying in the lab because I love my PI. She's the most amazing woman and we've grown incredibly close in the last couple years. I also knew for a fact that she's a feminist. So I kinda knew what was going to happen when I reported him.
The incident happened last week when I wore these new, grey yoga pants to the lab. We don't have a dress code except wearing closed-toed shoes. What I didn't know was that they're quite see through and I was wearing a hot pink thong underneath. I approached my mentor to show him something on my lap top and accidentally dropped my pen, and proceeded to bend down and pick it up. He makes the following comments: "Woah, I can see your thong..." laughs and winks at me, and then says, "it's pink, isn't it?"
I was so shocked and embarrassed at that point and just laughed awkwardly and apologized, to which he responded, "No prob, just stop wearing that shit if you don't want guys looking."
The whole situation made me so uncomfortable and I talked with various friends and my boyfriend about it and everyone told me to report it, so I set up a meeting with my PI. She was completely on my side and actually told me that it's not the first time he's made someone uncomfortable and that she will do something about it. I get an email from her today that she attempted to discipline him using other methods, but he became very angry so she just decided to let him go. That came as a bit of a shock even though I kind of expected it and now I'm starting to feel remorse. Idk. AITA?
Edit: Thanks for all the responses! Just thought I'd clarify a few things since I keep getting comments saying I should've known they were see through and therefore I'm at fault and how it's rude of me to say my mentor "mansplains" when he's my mentor.
- The leggings were Lululemon, a brand that I've never had issues with before. I was in a hurry that morning and didn't think of doing the squat test. I will be sure to do that more in the future. Also, they were only see through when I bend down, not when I was walking around.
- I would never say he's mansplaining when he's teaching me about research-related topics. However, I was referring to topics outside of research where he regularly feels the need to explain basic things that I already know. For example, he knows that I'm minoring in political science, but continues to say things like "no no, what you're saying is wrong....look at it this way" or "haha you clearly don't understand this ___, lemme explain," when we're talking about politics/political theory. Yet, most of the time, he has his facts wrong, I just don't bother arguing and let him try to explain what the electoral college is to me lol.
