williams+ co

My life started in a trailer park in a small farm town in South Carolina. Playground bullying isn’t a new concept to me. I was bullied relentlessly for my lack of fashion—high-water pants, Goodwill clothes—and for my speech impediment, which required over eight years of speech therapy due to a disability I was born with. The bullying was harsh, unrelenting, and cruel. But what I didn’t expect was to experience the same level of intense bullying as an adult in the professional world.

My first career was in veterinary medicine, an industry notorious for its toxic work environments. Veterinary medicine has the second-highest suicide rate among all professions, largely due to the bullying, harassment, and unrealistic pressures that so many professionals endure. When I accepted a position as a public relations manager for two veterinary hospitals, totaling over $10 million in business, I was eager to make an impact. However, I quickly learned that bullying wasn’t just a childhood affliction—it thrived even in highly respected professional fields.

The owner of the veterinary hospitals warned me early on, saying, "sexism within the veterinary community would make my job as a PR Manager extremely difficult." At first, I thought she was exaggerating. After all, I had multiple degrees, ten years of experience in veterinary medicine and numerous certifications. Surely, my credentials and business success spoke for themselves. But when I attended my first professional event, I walked into a room full of men. The questions I received weren’t about the medicine our veterinary hospitals practiced or how we could improve patient care. Instead, they focused on how the female owner acquired the funding for her hospitals—insinuating that her success must have come from her husband. It didn’t.

Throughout my years in public relations, I saw firsthand that bullying comes in many forms: sexism, sexual harassment, degradation, and narcissistic manipulation. When I moved to my current town, I thought those years of professional sexism were behind me. I was wrong.

When I opened my boutique, I believed that running a women’s clothing store would be fun, fulfilling, and creative. What I didn’t expect was the bullying—this time, from business owners in completely different industries. Not from other boutiques, not from direct competitors, but from individuals who felt entitled to harass, threaten, and demean me simply because I existed in their space.

We are no longer on the playground. We are no longer children mimicking the comments our parents made at home. We are grown adults. Yet, in this small town—one that barely registers on the scale of the entire country—there are people who see themselves as larger than life, believing they have the right to tear others down. The reach of their influence barely extends 50 miles beyond this town, but their egos act as though they are giants in their own world.

To experience bullying as a woman in veterinary medicine because a woman dared to own a practice was one thing. To experience it again as a woman who simply opened a boutique is another. The question remains: Why? Why do people feel the need to diminish the success of others? Why do they assume that if a woman builds something, she must have had help from a man? And why do they believe they have the right to make another person’s life miserable for pursuing a dream?

Bullying doesn’t stop in childhood. It morphs, it hides behind professional titles, and it disguises itself as competition, judgment, and exclusion. But just as I endured it then, I will continue to stand against it now. Small business ownership is hard enough without the added weight of unnecessary cruelty. To those who feel entitled to harass others—I see you. And I refuse to be silenced.