The Silence Breakers /

Emily Anibal

Emily Anibal is a fourth-year medical student at Michigan State University. In 2021, she was a plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against a McDonald’s supervisor who sexually harassed and abused dozens of women employees at several McDonald’s franchises in Michigan. The lawsuit resulted in a $1.5 million settlement awarded to the survivors.

When I was hired to work at McDonald’s at age 17, I was excited. It was my first real job and a way to make my own money. But right from the start, my supervisor constantly made sexualized comments to me and my coworkers, who were also fellow teenaged girls. He told demeaning jokes and graphically described his sexual experiences with young women. Over time, he pressured some coworkers to have sex with him. Much of his harassment was done in front of other managers and supervisors. No one seemed to react to his mistreatment of us, making me wonder: is this how adults behave on the job?

Now, 10 years later, I am the age of my harasser and in my final year of medical school. During a recent pediatric rotation, I worked with many teenagers, and to me they were clearly still kids. They reminded me of myself and my coworkers at McDonald’s—feeling so mature, like we knew everything. But we were just kids who were being abused by our boss, and we didn’t know what to make of it. As I age, it becomes harder to understand how an adult could see teenagers in a sexual light and how other adults could see this treatment as normal. It’s horrifying that so many adults failed to step in and protect us.

I plan to become a child and adolescent psychiatrist and use my position to help those experiencing sexual abuse. Unlike the adults around me at McDonald’s, I will never normalize or ignore sexual harassment and abuse. I will support victims and prioritize their mental and physical health.

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