In major corporate news today, Miki Agrawal, co-founder of Thinx period panties, has been accused of sexual harassment by the company’s former head of public relations, 26-year-old Chelsea Leibow. As NY Mag explained of the complaint filed late last week, Agrawal reportedly had a history of talking about “things you’re not supposed to talk about,” such as “the size and shape of her employees’ breasts, an employee’s nipple piercings, her own sexual exploits, her desire to experiment with polyamory, her interest in entering a sexual relationship with one of her employees, and the exact means by which she was brought to female ejaculation.” And it doesn’t stop there. “Per the detailed complaint, filed with the City of New York Commission on Human Rights, Agrawal also touched an employee’s breasts and asked her to expose them, routinely changed clothes in front of employees, and conducted meetings via videoconference while in bed, apparently unclothed. (She also is said in the filing to have shared nude photos of herself and others — ‘including but not limited to her fiancé’ — with staff.) At least once, she supposedly FaceTimed into a meeting from the toilet.”
If that wasn’t enough — and that’s a lot — Agrawal was also allegedly ageist and sexist, referring to women employees in their 20s as “children” and those in their 30s as “nannies.” And, to top it iff, the complaint notes “only two employees who had evidently successfully negotiated higher salaries were men.”
As you can imagine, these allegations have caused quite the stir as sexual harassment in the workplace is looked at, by and large, as an issue in which women are typically the victims and men the perpetrators. This case, however, flips the script entirely, exposing an issue that likely occurs more often than most care to admit. Though, Agrawal, it seems took things further you might even guess most men would:
“Once, when Leibow texted her boss a photo from vacation in Mexico wearing a shirt that Agrawal had bought for her employee (open, over a swimsuit), the then-CEO replied ‘Couldn’t focus bc boobs [sic]. Oh and the shirt looks good too!'” NY Mag reported. “When Leibow got her nipples pierced, she says she told various co-workers and showed a few privately; one told Agrawal, and Agrawal asked Leibow to show her the piercings in her office. (Agrawal says Leibow showed ‘everybody.’) ‘I said yes, because Thinx was a culture of we’re all women here, this is to be expected,’ Leibow told me. A male friend of Agrawal’s was seated in the glass-paned office but Agrawal said he was ‘cool’ and indicated that Leibow should go ahead and show the piercings. ‘She made a lot of comments about how beautiful my breasts are, and the size and shape of my areolas,’ Leibow said. ‘It didn’t feel good at all. I was very close to a lot of other people at work who maybe I would have felt comfortable showing the piercings to, but she was my employer, and I felt like I had to do a lot of things because it was my paycheck at the end of the day.’”
Just four days ago, Agrawal wrote a piece on Medium in response to articles on Jezebel and Racked about leaving her position at Thinx and the exploitative environment she created.
“Like any Co-Founder/CEO, all I did was the best I could under these crazy circumstances. Yes, I have made a TON of mistakes along the way but I can proudly say that our company has grown from an idea in my head to an innovation that is worn by millions of satisfied women globally in a few short years. And we have been at the forefront of the period feminism movement which truly is eliminating shame in the period space.
“One problem area throughout our startup’s story and no different to many in our position: human resources. I didn’t take time to think through it. We grew so quickly and I didn’t hire an HR person (it was hard to rationalize hiring an HR person at the time with only 15 employees and then all of a sudden we were 30 people). I didn’t call references because I needed butts in seats fast. I didn’t put HR practices in place because I was on the road speaking, doing press, brand partnerships, editing all of the creative and shouting from the rooftops about THINX so we can keep going.”
She also responded to the latest allegations in an update, writing:
“The company commissioned a third party employment law firm to conduct extensive diligence on each allegation and they all came back false and without any merit.
“Thank you for the thousands of wonderful messages of support during this strange time, each one has meant a lot.
“To be crystal clear, I know I’m passionate and oft unruly in my ways (as a taboo breaker must be), but I have never, ever crossed the line in the inflammatory ways described. This is all I am going to say on this matter.”
In a bit of irony, NY Mag closed their piece, noting:
“Agrawal — who recently raised $500,000 of funding for Tushy, her bidet venture — is slated to speak on March 23 at the New Orleans Entrepreneur Week’s Women’s Summit, directly following a discussion on ‘Navigating Sexuality at Work: Finding the Line Between Harmless and Harassment.'”
Interesting indeed. What do you make of this situation? Have you ever been sexually harassed by a female co-worker?
The post Have You Ever Been Sexually Harassed By A Female Co-Worker? appeared first on MadameNoire.