Friday, September 10, 2010
Blog 2
For this blog, I just wanted to do an introduction to viewing the world as a feminist. I decided to really think about the actions and words that are said at work this week and think about it as a feminist. I work a construction company, which is very male dominated, and there are only 4 females that work at the company, all in the accounting department. The first thing I noticed is how the guys have different views of what women should be doing. For instance, a good example happened this week and actually frustrated me quite a bit. One of the toner's in the owner's printer ran out of ink, and we purchased refills instead of buying a new cartridge, but in order to refill it, a 1 inch diameter hole had to be drilled into the cartridge. Automatically, all the guys assumed that none of the girls could do it and no-one would even let me try, even though I am well aware of how to use a drill, and I am more handy at home than my husband is. I got very frustrated that no-one would even let me try, and just said things like "Don't worry about it honey, one of the guys will do it". I also get very annoyed because every time one of the guys find out that I am married, they automatically ask me if I have kids and when I am going to have kids. It's like that's whats expected of me. I kind of hope that it's because I work with guys that are mostly older than me, in their late 30's and early 40's and maybe their views are still a bit old-fashioned and expect certain things of women.
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As a very well-know ex-president used to say, " I feel your pain!" In many ways, it seems the workplace is still as heavily male dominated as it always was.
ReplyDeleteIn the mid 1990's I sued a company in my city for sexual harassment. I was a supervisor, and their was a man at the company who would order the women to get him a drink of water, and call them foul names. I followed the chain of command ( all male1) and was told I was putting the whole situation out of perspective and making too much of it. There were many other infractions by this man. I was told my upper management that the company was afraid of a lawsuit by this man if they did anything ( he was black).
One day, he called one of the women a C- that was the end of it for me- I went to the offices here in this city and filed a complaint and I also filed with an attorney.
I was immediately blackballed within the company, and became a pariah. No one wanted anything to do with me, and everyone shunned me.
I continued with the suit, and found another job.
In the end of it, I lost a pretty good paying job and the man continued on.
The lawsuit was settled for a fraction of what I lost.
That was the world of work for women as late at the 1990's in this part of the country.