After A Woman Saw Men Messaging Each Other About Her Looks During A Work Call, She Called Them Out And Posted It On TikTok

After the #MeToo movement spread across the world, harassment laws in the workplace have gradually been shifted around to suit the changing climate. Despite that, there are people who would still make unfavorable and distasteful comments about individuals that have been sharing the office space. While most of the individuals would let it slide on account of not caring enough, there are some who would take the catcallers to the task on platforms like TikTok. In this particular situation, when 28-year-old Whitney Sharpe, a recruiting and staffing professional from Boston was on a Zoom call with some potential clients, she accidentally stumbled upon a screen that the clients had between them. 

The screen, which Whitney uploaded on TikTok, showed a bunch of messages in Microsoft Teams between the three potential clients. They had been talking about the recruiter in an extremely vulgar way. Speaking to BuzzFeed News, Sharpe didn’t feel comfortable sharing all the contents of the messages to the public, she did put up one where she was referred to as a ‘f***ing bombshell.” After the meeting got over, Sharpe then decided to call these people out in a video that she posted on the social media platform. 

Saleswoman Uploads TikTok Calling Out Clients Who Were Commenting About Her 

In the TikTok video, one would hear Sharpe rebuking them by saying, “First of all, if we’re going to continue working together, I want to work with a woman sales representative because I don’t want to have to see locker room talk about myself when you’re sharing screens.” To this, one of the clients who had been sharing the messages stated that this was a horrible mistake that should never have taken place. The client also apologized for accidentally sharing the screen. This video has naturally gone viral with close to 2 million likes. Barbara Corcoran of Shark Tank USA commented, “You Rock!” There were other comments which mostly called out the clients for not apologizing for commenting on Sharpe in that manner. 

Whitney Sharpe was naturally quite shocked by what had transpired. In her interview with BuzzFeed News, one can feel the palpable surprise in her voice. “I was horrified because I have worked so hard to get to the point where I’m at in my career. I’m a vice president at my company and I’m one of the highest-up women at my company. And I feel like I have to work so much harder to prove that I am smart because of the way that I look, and it was just really disheartening to be on a call with a potential vendor where they’re not valuing my company. They don’t really value what I have to say. They value what I look like.” 

Sharpe’s Video Is A Glaring Reminder of Sexual Harassment That Women Face Daily At The Workplace

Before posting it on TikTok, Sharpe was debating whether she should make her clients worry if she had seen the messages or not. Nevertheless, calling out her potential clients was definitely quite a big deal. She stated, “I was just trying to get through it as calmly and professionally as possible. The last thing I wanted them to be able to say is that I’m just emotional. I didn’t want them to be able to say that. I was just focusing on getting the words out calmly and not crying.” Being a woman in sales, Whitney Sharpe is no stranger to sexual harassment. She remembers her first such instance when a male client had asked her to sit on a couch next to him- where he put his hand on her thigh. 

A few days after the calling out took place on TikTok, the VP of Sales for the company where the client was employed contacted her and apologized on their employee’s behalf. But Sharpe stated that the apology felt quite cold and impersonal- largely due to the presence of a lawyer during the event. Sharpe further stated, “I cannot work with a vendor and my company will not support a vendor who doesn’t support women in business. It’s just not going to happen.” She also went on to state that it would have been better for the company to “maybe not hire misogynistic p***ks to represent their company out in the field. Maybe hire smarter people who know how to share their screens since that’s part of their job.”