Looking for advice. Was I assaulted?

I am talking about raising kids. Education. Families and teachers do that. Often, women in families and in the education sector do that. One of the first feminist books I read (Les Enfants de Jocaste, by Christiane Olivier) decades ago was precisely about that, about the vast power that women have in education, and how they use it sometimes to enforce and maintain gender inequality.

Women are not powerless. The last thing you want to minimize when wanting to change things, is the extent of your power to change things. It's self-defeating to negate your own power. Educators hold more power to shape the next generation than anybody else. Tripping about the 'patriarchy' will never achieve anything, but raising our kids differently might help.

In Canada, education is controlled by politicians and administrators - not teachers. Once again, male-dominated. It's the reality here.

When I started as an engineering student at university about 40 years ago, I was one of 6 women in an entrance class of 720. I was the only woman working in a non-clerical role at the government ministry I was first hired by.

I was moved out of my first job at that ministry as my direct supervisor felt it was unfair to his wife that he worked directly with a woman.

I sat in front of the regional director's office along with the region's token Innu, so we could be pointed out when there were visitors to the office.

Things are better now, but there is still a significant distance to travel before there is anything resembling equity. Gotta be clear-eyed about this.

You are distorting things I have said. Please read what I have said more carefully so that you clearly understand my thinking. I am generally a very clear communicator.

You are also altering your thinking and conception of your "awareness campaign" and failing to see my reasoning for deeming it absurd.

And, most puzzling to me, is that you seem to be trying to pick an argument with me over things we agree on. Again, that seems to be due to your distorting, or misinterpreting, or not even remembering, things I have just said or pointed out. Or do you just like to argue, rather than discuss, so you manufacture points of disagreement where none actually exist?

For instance...


I labeled your idea for an "awareness campaign", based on feminists trying to woo and reassure men that they loved and respected them, as absurd.

I never said that whites who show up to support black rallies, for black causes, or men who show up at feminist rallies for women's causes, were being absurd. So why are you implying I did?

And when people show up at protests and rallies, organized by other racial groups or gender groups, it's because they support the causes and goals of those demonstrations--it's not because the protesting group had campaigned to reassure them they loved and respected them as you suggest feminists should be doing.

And when whites showed up to march behind Martin Luther King Jr,, it wasn't to reassure other whites that blacks weren't trying to gain an advantage, it was because they agreed with his goals. In fact, during the civil rights era, blacks most definitely were protesting and seeking to gain an advantage, the advantage of equality, an end to the institutionalized segregation that oppressed and disadvantaged them. That sure as hell was a profound threat to the white power structure in the U.S. South.

You seem to be confusing what specific advocacy and special interest groups should be doing, with what individuals, of their own accord should be doing.

You want special interest groups, like the NAACP, to support issues, like discrimination against whites, irrespective of the fact that's not their purpose or reason for being--other, less racially specific groups, like the ACLU, serve that purpose. You want advocacy groups for women, like N.O.W., to come out against practices like male circumcision, although that sort of issue is not within N.O.W.'s reason for being. Individuals within special interest groups, like N.O.W. or the NAACP, can speak on their own, and support any cause or issue they want to--as Gloria Steinem, one of the world's highest profile and highly regarded feminists, has done in opposing male circumcision--but special interest groups and organizations have a right to retain their own interests and identity as aligned primarily with the group, or cause, they were set up to serve and benefit.

I don't see the NAACP as promoting racial conflict or warfare, and I don't see N.O.W. as promoting gender conflict or warfare. But, those opposed to the issues and goals of either group, or opposed to change from the status quo, might see it quite differently, and you're not going to change the minds of those people through what you are calling "cross-militancy ".

Better yet, it's a good thing to have male feminists. Which is why N.O.W. had a man on its initial board of directors--it was never about excluding men from feminist advocacy.

It's up to Islamic women and feminists, wherever they are located, to define and address their own issues within the context of their cultures and religious beliefs--and that's just what they are doing. The same is true for orthodox Jewish women, many of whom, even living in Brooklyn, NY, are "forced" into pre-arranged marriages with men they have never met, as their religious sects dictate. It is wrong, and unbelievably arrogant, for outsiders to try to impose a Western conception of feminism, or a Christian conception of feminism, on other cultures and religious belief systems. If individuals within these groups want to effect change, they must be the initiators of it, it must come from within these groups and not be imposed by outsiders who do not share the religious beliefs, and values, and traditions. They must arrive at their own solutions to issues of concern to them.

And the same is true for those groups, like Jews, where male circumcision is tied to religious belief and practice, if change is to come, it must come from within Judaism--Jews are quite capable of thinking for themselves, so are Muslims. There are, and should be, limits to outsiders meddling in other people's religious beliefs and practices. Freedom of religious expression and practice is an important value too.

Anyway, I think I've exhausted my interest in this particular topic.

Where do you live, Oliver?

I am of the impression you don't live in the U.S., or didn't grow up here. Is that the case?

I so relate to that - as you already know.

France

When I went to the interview for my first real job, in about 1972, after completing all of my schooling, it was for a position that included an administrative title as a department head. I was very well qualified for the position.

I met with the CEO, and the interview went extremely well, couldn't have been better. And, at the conclusion, the CEO said that I was one of the most impressive candidates he had ever interviewed for the position. At that point, I began to feel elated because I was sure I had clinched it. And then came the BUT...

The man looked at me and said, "I can't hire you as a department head because I just don't trust women in that kind of position of authority. I wouldn't put a woman department head in any department here, I never have. You can have the job, at the same salary you'd have with the title, but I'll search for a man to get the title. Do you want to accept the position?"

I was so dumfounded by what I had just heard, which was illegal gender discrimination, and also insulting, that I really didn't know what to say to him, and I finally said, "I need a few days to think about this, " and he agreed that would be fine.

I went home and called a friend of mine, who was also the County Attorney, and he asked, "Do you want to sue him, which you can certainly do, or do you want to take the job anyway? If you want the job, I wouldn't trust this man, given his feelings toward women, and you should let me draw up a contract for you that will best protect your interests, and that he must agree to sign, rather than use one of his standard contracts."

So, I mulled over my options. The job was exactly what I wanted, and the salary was significantly higher, much higher, than comparable positions elsewhere, and I wasn't sure what I would personally gain from bringing a lawsuit against him, all things considered. I decided I would take the job and prove to him his bias against women was wrong, and he agreed to the contract my lawyer friend had drawn up.

He wound up hiring a much less qualified man to get the title, although in reality, that man and I performed the exact same job functions, the title didn't really involve any particular authority. The man knew I was much more qualified than he was, even just for the basic job, but, fortunately, he was the sweetest, nicest, funny guy to work with, we couldn't have enjoyed working together more, and we became very close friends.

I did a fantastic job for that CEO for the next year, I initiated all kinds of creative programs that increased productivity and profits, as well as the quality of what was being done, and earned more money for him than anyone that ever held my position before. When I went to meet with him, for renewal of my contract, I handed it to him and said, "I hope you realize you owe me an apology, both for withholding a title from me, and the negative views of women you projected on to me, and the insult and offence involved in that." I got my apology, along with heaps of praise for the work I had done in the past year. But then the old bastard looked at me and said, "You are a very remarkable and highly exceptional person, and, if I could do it again, I'd certainly give you the title and make you a department head. But I'm still not sure I could, or would, trust any other woman to be a department head."

Anti-discrimination laws alone don't always change attitudes.

You are wrong, that was legal discrimination for at least another decade. Having authority was part of the job description, and in a time where huge numbers of people thought that women are less capable at management being a woman makes one less less worthy of the management job. I remember reading in the early 80's that this was just beginning to change so far as court rulings and thus business behavior went.

No, my friend the County Attorney, assured me that CEO was in clear violation of existing law. He couldn't believe the man's chutzpah in being so upfront about his bias against women.

No, management ability actually didn't go along as part of the job description. It was only a 2 person department, me and the less qualified man who subsequently got the title, we equally shared what organizational things we had to do. I actually wound up expanding the department, and brought in non-salaried workers to increase productivity, and I was fully in charge of them in a supervisory and managerial capacity. My male colleague always deterred to me because I was just better qualified period, and he knew that. That's why it was great we got along so well on a personal level, otherwise there could be problems in situations like that.

It was flat-out illegal discrimination on the basis of gender, Hawkeye.

And applicants and employees have even less recourse when the fool won't openly admit to discrimination like he did in your case.

No, Hawkeye, you are wrong.

What I described took place in 1972, the law went into effect in 1964.

Ick! At least he apologized.

I started my college years (college as a u.s. term) in 1959, gung ho pre med. I changed from a smaller school to ucla in '60 because no one who had studied at the smaller (catholic) school had ever made it to med school.* A few years later, I read the data - it wasn't just that smaller school, but by far the majority of med schools in the country accepted no women. Naturally I now forget the data but of the remainder, some schools took 1 or 2 or maybe 5, out of, say 90. There might have been one or two eastern schools who took, say, 8. There was a women's med school somewhere back east. As most of us know, some of this stuff changed with a mix of the civil rights act and some agita from people usually slightly younger than me. I figure the change was '65-66.

In southern California, lots of people, including women, ventured to schools in Mexico.

Anyway, I was treated well as a lab technologist, my first real job being to set up and run a clinical immunology lab and I was treated well after that too.
I grew to understand that I am not, and was never before that, a premier medical investigator type (though I'm author on some papers, I was never the main brain) and didn't want to go back to school to get a doctorate in one of those fields. I'd learned to love art, and from that, design.

A new road, better for me, and I had both fun and immediate respect in that. But - there was a kind of art going on in our med labs and a bunch of data process mixed with what if's in our design world. I'm happy I got to be in both.

Meantime, I've not been mad at men, generally I like them, sometimes love them, personally, with some flawed encounters. As a group, they are hard to put into a group, why try? That seems solipsistic re the hetero mode when things are more complicated.

I'm from Los Angeles, still pay attention to the rest of the west coast u.s., have had women pals do very well. On the other hand, the obey-the-husband bit is still going on in many places right near by, slap. Patriarchy in a small space.


*My high school nuns had refused to send transcripts to UCLA. This particularly hit a friend who wanted to study engineering. I'm not sure if her folks sued or not. I have a mild memory that she, one of the smarties, got a D in chem. Same nun who knew I had a calling. (On, never mind).

Art in our design labs? Stay tuned.

What bullshit? I posted the actual Civil Rights law to show you where you were wrong, and when that law went into effect

Try using your brain. A job that requires wearing a bikini, a two-piece female bikini, may only be suitable for a female, and only a female could fulfill that aspect of the job requirement, so that would provide an exception that doesn't violate the law. The same is true when hiring models for clothing--you need male models for male clothing, female models for female clothing.

For most jobs, a specific gender is not required to do the job. The job I applied for had no gender-related requirements, it was blatantly illegal to deny me the title of department head solely on the basis of gender.

You just can't admit when you are wrong.

Wow, reading all these comments. I'm pretty sure now that Olivier5 and nono are fore sure misognyists, and nono is also a rapist.

All this discussion about feminism. The only person in this thread who I think I can for sure agree with is Firefly. I'm pretty sure we think alike and are the same kind of femnists. So I don't know why she has attacked me for essentially saying the same thing that she says. She has been discriminated against by men when applying for a job. That's why we need feminism. And it's those same kind of men who were like the boy I've described here. When young men don't learn to respect women, they grow up to hate them. It's been like this forever in our patriarchal society where men run the government and control all the high paying jobs. What firefly described is why men don't have a right to complain when we have affirmative action and sometimes it allows women to be hired who are less qualified than a man. Because for every underqualified woman who gets a job, there are probably 5 under qualified men who get a job. And women get paid 77 cents to a man's dollar. And then all these misogynists on this page are ranting about feminism being hateful? LOL!

And yes, like firefly has said, right wingers and republicans are hostile and full of hate. That's why people in this thread have attacked me simply for defending myself and protecting my classroom from a misogynist student. And also, the reason boys sometimes need medication more than girls is because overall young girls are better behaved than young boys.

But I really don't care if I am criticised. I know I did the right thing for the safety of the situation. Misogyny knows no age limit. And it's not a laughing matter when women are sexually assaulted.

And to the people saying that I shouldn't have been wearing a tank top, it's none of your business to tell me or any other woman what to wear. That's what society has always done. I guess it's my fault I was assaulted because of what I was wearing. Just like how it's a woman's fault when she's raped.

I did exactly what was needed to be done and what I was wearing had nothing to do with it.

You're incredibly dishonest nono, and blessed with no integrity whatsoever. You have no legitimate arguments left against what firefly is saying, so you bring back your vile sock puppet creation and have her say she agrees with firefly. Totally pathetic. Like knocking over chess pieces because you're losing.

EDIT -- And ... what a shocker, as soon as "whitebars" appeared, firefly's score dropped from "3" to "2", and hawkeye's went up from "0" to "1".

So you're saying that I'm other people on this page. Not only that, but that I'm nono. LOL! You people have serious problems

The style and tone in this excerpt is completely different from the style and tone in your earlier posts in the thread.

I wasn't aware that I was expected to meet certain requirements to write here. Make sure you call the police and make them aware of this terrible offense I've committed.