In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

No. 99-2710

Romelia Hazel Frazier,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

Delco Electronics Corporation,

Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.

No. 97-C-690--J.P. Stadtmueller, Chief Judge.

Argued October 26, 2000--Decided August 24, 2001

 Before Bauer, Posner, and Ripple, Circuit

Judges.

 Posner, Circuit Judge. The plaintiff

brought suit against her employer,

charging sexual harassment in violation

of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of

1964 and a failure to accommodate a

disability in violation of the Americans

with Disabilities Act. The district court

granted summary judgment for the

defendant. So far as the charge of sexual

harassment is concerned, the court held

that the plaintiff could not use the

doctrine of continuing violation to avoid

the 300-day administrative statute of

limitations applicable to Title VII suits

in Wisconsin and that in any event she

had failed to show that the alleged

harassment was based on her sex.

 Taken as favorably to the plaintiff as

the record permits, the facts tell the

following story. Late in 1991 the

plaintiff’s car was stolen, and from then

till she got a new car in February of the

following year she rode to work with

another worker in Delco’s Milwaukee

plant, Bester Spears. He lived near her

and had just been divorced by his wife,

who by a curious coincidence had the same

first name as the plaintiff (the

plaintiff uses Hazel, her middle name, as

her first name) and the same date of

birth. These coincidences seem to have
fascinated Spears, who after he stopped

driving Frazier to work would frequently

drive past her home and sometimes park in

front of it and watch her. After some

weeks or months of this, he approached

her at work and told her he had seen her

husband barbecuing in his backyard. She

told him to stay away from her. He was

angered by her rebuff and took to calling

her "bitch" when he encountered her in

the workplace. In November 1992 came the

explosion. Spears approached Frazier as

she was talking to a coworker, and to

avoid being brushed by him she stepped

back. This set him off. He started

screaming at her, saying he was "sick and

tired of her goddamn ass." He screamed

that she was a "slut," a "motherfucker,"

a "whore," and a "motherfucking whore."

When she asked him whether he was talking

to her, he replied, "Yes, you fucking

whore, I’m talking to you, you

motherfucker. I’m sick and tired of your

motherfucking ass. You goddamn bitch, you

slut, walking by me like I’m dirt." He

threatened to take her outside and "kick

her motherfucking ass" and kill her. He

acted as if he were going to hit her. A

male coworker grabbed him and pushed him

out of the area. The coworker then

escorted Frazier to the nurse’s office,

while Spears shouted at her to "go

outside to settle the matter."

 Frazier complained immediately to her

supervisor. A union representative,

Alston, interviewed Spears, who admitted

that he had called Frazier names,

explaining that she had stopped talking

to him in the last couple of months.

Alston thought that Spears looked as if

he were about to explode with anger.

 In the following weeks and months,

Spears did not speak to Frazier, but he

glared at her ominously. Although he

worked at the opposite end of a large

plant, he haunted her end of it, staring

through the window of her work area and

sometimes pushing the door open and

sticking his head in and staring at her.

She complained continuously both to

management and to the union. In March of

1993, Alston, the union representative

handling the matter, told her not to file

a formal grievance because he was working

with management to resolve the problem.

 The following month Alston met with

management and after the meeting told
Frazier that Spears had been instructed

to stay away from Frazier’s work area and

refrain from the actions she had

complained about. Four days later,

Frazier obtained a temporary restraining

order, and the following month an

injunction, forbidding Spears to have any

contact with her for one year.

 In June, Spears was transferred to a

Delco plant in the Milwaukee suburbs and

Frazier breathed a sigh of relief. Not

for long; for in August she was

transferred to the same plant. She told

her union representative at this plant

about the injunction and for a time was

able to avoid Spears. But beginning in

September of 1993 Spears began appearing

unexpectedly three or four times a day in

Frazier’s work area. He would glare at

her, as before, sometimes sticking his

head inside the door to the area and

making faces at her. Once, in December,

he jumped in front of a forklift that she

was driving, forcing her to stop

abruptly. He stood laughing and making

faces at her. She called the police, and

an officer came to the plant and told

Spears to keep away from her.

 The next month Spears was transferred to

a different shift and again Frazier

thought she was free of him. But he

returned to her shift in March.

Throughout all this the company had not

disciplined Spears, and now it told

Frazier that it would do nothing to

prevent him from contacting her at work.

This was the last straw. Frazier had a

nervous breakdown and was on sick leave

for almost two years, not returning until

Spears moved to Louisiana.

 It was in March of 1994 that she filed

her complaint with the EEOC, and this

means that the statute of limitations,

unless tolled, barred her from

complaining about Title VII violations

that occurred before May of 1993. The

worst incident had occurred months

earlier, in November 1992, when Spears

had screamed at her, menaced her, and

threatened to kill her; and the defendant

argues that she should have filed her

complaint within 300 days of that, since

she argues that the company, though on

notice that she was being harassed, never

did anything to stop it.

 This might be correct if the defendant

were Spears rather than the company, and
the charge was assault or threat. But a

violation of Title VII that is based on a

claim of harassment by a coworker doesn’t

occur until the employer has failed to

take reasonable steps to bring the

harassment to an end. E.g., Hostetler v.

Quality Dining, Inc., 218 F.3d 798, 809

(7th Cir. 2000); Smith v. Sheahan, 189

F.3d 529, 533 (7th Cir. 1999); Star v.

West, 237 F.3d 1036, 1038 (9th Cir.

2001); Breda v. Wolf Camera & Video, 222

F.3d 886, 889 (11th Cir. 2000). Obviously

that did not occur in November 1992. The

company could not be expected to rectify

a situation within minutes of its

occurrence. It wanted time to investigate

the matter in order to protect Spears’s

rights. It was entitled to take some time

and until that time passed its failure to

act would not be actionable and so the

statute of limitations would not begin to

run. Delaware State College v. Ricks, 449

U.S. 250, 257, 259 (1980); Cada v. Baxter

Healthcare Corp., 920 F.2d 446, 449 (7th

Cir. 1990). This is a principle more fun

damental than the doctrine of continuing

violation, which in a sexual harassment

case permits the plaintiff to delay suit

until an ambiguous situation of possible

but uncertain harassment has ripened into

an unmistakable case, a case that any

reasonable person would recognize as

harassment. Russell v. Board of Trustees,

243 F.3d 336, 343 (7th Cir. 2001); DeClue

v. Central Illinois Light Co., 223 F.3d

435, 435 (7th Cir. 2000); Galloway v.

General Motors Service Parts Operations,

78 F.3d 1164, 1166 (7th Cir. 1996);

O’Rourke v. City of Providence, 235 F.3d

713, 732 (1st Cir. 2001); Rush v. Scott

Specialty Gases, Inc., 113 F.3d 476, 481-

83 (3d Cir. 1997). When that happens the

victim must move promptly to alert

theemployer and the employer must move

promptly to investigate and resolve the

situation; but only when it becomes clear

that the employer has failed to resolve

it in a timely fashion does the statute

of limitations begin to run. Garrison v.

Burke, 165 F.3d 565, 570 (7th Cir. 1999);

Galloway v. General Motors Service Parts

Operations, supra, 78 F.3d at 1166;

Saxton v. American Tel. & Tel. Co., 10

F.3d 526, 532 n. 11 (7th Cir. 1993). The

company cannot plead for time to rectify

a situation of harassment, the plea we

accepted in Zimmerman v. Cook County

Sheriff’s Dept., 96 F.3d 1017, 1019 (7th

Cir. 1996), but deny the time to the

victim of the harassment to learn that
the company has failed to rectify it

after all.

 When, as may have happened here (whether

it really happened is for a jury to

decide), the victim of harassment is

reasonably induced by the defendant or

others to believe that the situation has

been or is in reasonable course of being

resolved, the statute of limitations is

tolled. It is tolled pursuant either to

the doctrine of equitable estoppel, if

the defendant was responsible for

creating the false impression of achieved

or imminent resolution, e.g., Wheeldon v.

Monon Corp., 946 F.2d 533, 537-38 (7th

Cir. 1991); Cada v. Baxter Healthcare

Corp., supra, 920 F.2d at 450-51; Currier

v. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Inc.,

159 F.3d 1363, 1368 (D.C. Cir. 1998), or

equitable tolling, if the responsibility

lies elsewhere. E.g., Cada v. Baxter

Healthcare Corp., supra, 920 F.2d at 451;

Donald v. Cook County Sheriff’s Dept., 95

F.3d 548, 561-62 (7th Cir. 1996). Having

complained promptly after the November

blow-up (and we do not understand Delco

to be arguing that she should have

complained earlier), Frazier had every

reason to believe the matter well in

hand. She received further assurance from

Alston, the union representative (who may

well have had greater credibility with

her than management) in March 1993 and

again at the end of April after Alston’s

meeting with management.

 Things quieted after that and she had no

reason to believe the harassment was

continuing, especially when Spears was

transferred in June to another plant. It

was not until August that she found

herself again in the same plant with him,

and the harassment restarted the

following month. The critical period, so

far as her tolling argument is concerned,

is between September 1993 and January

1994, since in January Spears went on a

different shift and when he returned, in

March, she finally filed her

administrative complaint. Maybe when the

harassment resumed in September she

should have realized the company wasn’t

going to do anything to restrain Spears.

But this is not so clear that it can be

determined on a motion for summary

judgment. Frazier complained to

supervisory personnel throughout the

September-January period, and rather than

telling her that they would do nothing to
restrain him they gave her the impression

(or so a jury could find) that they were

working on the problem. The creation of a

misleading impression that causes a

plaintiff to delay suing is a

conventional basis of equitable estoppel.

E.g., Currier v. Radio Free Europe/Radio

Liberty, Inc., supra, 159 F.3d at 1368;

Cocke v. Merrill Lynch & Co., 817 F.2d

1559, 1561-62 (11th Cir. 1987) (per

curiam).

 But all this is of no moment if the

district court was right that there is no

evidence that Spears’s behavior was

motivated by Frazier’s being a woman.

What is true is that there is no evidence

that Spears had a sexual or romantic

interest in Frazier, though that is

possible. But many cases of sexual

harassment involve hostility to female

coworkers because they are female.

Sometimes it is because the men feel that

their macho workplace has been "invaded"

by women, whose presence damages the

self-esteem that the men derive from

thinking they are doing work that only

men can do. Carr v. Allison Gas Turbine

Division, 32 F.3d 1007 (7th Cir. 1994),

was such a case. This is not. But what

does seem to be involved here, or so at

least a reasonable jury might find, was a

sense on Spears’s part that as a man he

was owed gratitude and deference by a

woman whom he had assisted (by driving

her to work until she got a new car), and

that the denial of this obligation was an

affront to his manhood. We find it

difficult to imagine a man treating

another man the way Spears treated

Frazier--men do not normally respond with

such intensity to a spurned offer of

friendship, call each other sluts and

whores, make faces at each other, and

stalk each other. Those are

characteristic forms of male aggression

against women. See, e.g., McDonnell v.

Cisneros, 84 F.3d 256, 259-60 (7th Cir.

1996); Williams v. General Motors Corp.,

187 F.3d 563, 565-66 (6th Cir. 1999);

Hillary S. Axam and Deborah Zalesne,

"Simulated Sodomy and Other Forms of

Heterosexual Horseplay: Same Sex Sexual

Harassment, Workplace Gender Hierarchies,

and the Myth of the Gender Monolith

Before and After Oncale," 11 Yale J.L. &

Feminism 155, 161-73 (1999).

 We have not finished with the Title VII

claim. Delco advances an alternative
ground for affirmance, one urged below

but not reached by the district court,

that Spears’s conduct toward Frazier was

not sufficiently egregious to render the

workplace intolerable for her, and so the

company’s failure to remedy it did not

alter the conditions of her employment

and so was not a violation of Title VII.

E.g., Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524

U.S. 775, 788 (1998); Pryor v. Seyfarth,

Shaw, Fairweather & Geraldson, 212 F.3d

976, 978 (7th Cir. 2000); Minor v. Ivy

Tech State College, 174 F.3d 855, 858

(7th Cir. 1999); Baskerville v. Culligan

International Co., 50 F.3d 428, 430-31

(7th Cir. 1995); Burnett v. Tyco Corp.,

203 F.3d 980, 982 (6th Cir. 2000). The

argument occupies less than three pages

of the defendant’s brief, with one of

them being given over to generalities.

The brief points out that Spears did not

make sexual remarks or gestures. But as

we noted earlier, that is not the kind of

sexual harassment alleged here. The brief

says that Spears never touched Frazier,

but if not restrained by a coworker in

the November blow-up he might well have

done so. A threat to kill cannot easily

be explained away as merely "rude or

childish behavior" (as the district court

had put it). It is true that the threat

itself was not actionable; Delco did not

violate Frazier’s rights until it failed

to take effective action to protect her

against Spears. Hostetler v. Quality

Dining, Inc., supra, 218 F.3d at 811. The

threat, however, provides the essential

context for appraising the gravity of the

later acts of harassment. See United Air

Lines Inc. v. Evans, 431 U.S. 553, 558

(1977); Kortan v. California Youth

Authority, 217 F.3d 1104, 1109 (9th Cir.

2000); Rorie v. United Parcel Service,

Inc., 151 F.3d 757, 761 (8th Cir. 1998).

To be glared at by someone who is

irritated by your having barged into line

ahead of him is a very different

experience from being glared at by a

person who has threatened to kill you.

 Delco’s last point concerning this issue

is that Spears never "stalked" Frazier

because the dictionary defines stalking

as "pursuing quarry or prey stealthily,"

and Spears wasn’t stealthy. But as the

words "quarry" and "prey" reveal, the

definition refers to hunters stalking

animals, not to men harassing women by

following them about. It is common in the

latter form of stalking to make your
presence known to the victim. See, e.g.,

Wis. Stat. Ann. sec. 940.32 (2000), which

defines stalking as inducing fear of

bodily injury in a person by repeatedly

maintaining visual or physical proximity

to her. The stalking victim who doesn’t

know that she is being stalked is not in

fear of being injured.

 A jury may conclude that Spears’s

conduct was insufficiently egregious to

make the workplace intolerable for a

reasonable person, but the conclusion is

not inevitable. A jury might find that

Spears’s persistent, crazy, hostile

behavior toward Frazier after his threat

to kill her was sufficiently ominous to

make the workplace intolerable even to a

person of average steadfastness.

 So the dismissal of the Title VII claim

must be reversed, but we agree with the

district court that Frazier’s ADA claim

has no merit. She argues that the nervous

collapse that she suffered as a result of

Spears’s conduct and the company’s

failure to do anything about it was a

disability that the company failed to

accommodate. She did not return to work

until Spears transferred to a plant in a

different state, and she argues that the

company’s failure to isolate him from her

prevented her from returning to work

sooner.

 The ADA defines disability as the

impairment of a major life activity, such

as walking, seeing, and reproduction. 42

U.S.C. sec. 12102(2)(A); Bragdon v.

Abbott, 524 U.S. 624, 638-39 (1998);

Amadio v. Ford Motor Co., 238 F.3d 919,

925 (7th Cir. 2001). Frazier does not

have a disability in that sense. She is

perfectly healthy. She can do anything

that any normal person can do--except

work in proximity to Bester Spears.

Working in proximity to Bester Spears is

not a major life activity.

Affirmed in Part, Reversed in Part,

and Remanded.