Girls Rule!

I’m not saying sexism is dead, but it’s been a long time since I walked into a meeting feeling apologetic because I didn’t bring the coffee pot.  This is a bit embarrassing but I actually had a secretarial job once that included not only making the coffee but having a hot cuppa joe in my hand as the boss walked by into his office.  This came after the job where I typed the exact same letter (I’m talking typed here, folks, as in the key hitting the paper and having to erase same if said key was the wrong one) for eight hours a day for two straight weeks so the coffee making/handing thing seemed like a small price to pay to get free of that damn letter.

Remember how Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said he couldn’t define pornography but he knew it when he saw it?  Once you get past the obvious like huge disparities in pay and opportunity, that’s what sexism is.  It’s a bad electricity a woman feels the minute she walks in a room.

It’s something I can feel in an instant but can’t explain or define.  It’s the feeling of being tolerated, considered to be taking up space, not possibly being able to contribute, regarded as fundamentally nonessential.  It brings on a visceral, angry, fear-like feeling that dips really fast into believing that maybe some of that disregarding, dismissive attitude might be warranted.  The sickening thing about any ism is how quickly its victims absorb its judgement.

I’ve often told people that I decided to get a Ph.D. so people would listen to me in meetings.  Sounds flippant, but it was actually my driving force.  I wanted to be taken seriously – I figured the extra letters would help.  It did.  But hard to tell if the Ph.D. lessened the extent to which I absorbed others’ sexist attitudes or whether the degree changed other people’s attitudes toward me.    Chicken-egg.  All I know is the degree coupled with the fact that I now look like everyone’s mother has really made my recent encounters with sexism pretty darn rare.  But not non-existent.  Not yet.

Jan Wilberg Janice Wilberg