I was born in the early 60's, I am the last of the Baby Boomers. I was born to a generation of women who wore girdles and were many times stay at home moms. Their most important role was to take care of their home and family while her husband provided for them and that was how my family basically started out as. But by the late 60's and early 70's free love became the slogan and my family fell apart. My parents separated permanently when I was 4 years old. My life was filled with turmiol until about my 26th birthday. I was always considered cute and pretty as a child but just because you are young and pretty dose not neccesarily make you stupid naive yes but not stupid. Growing up I was "leered" at, "groped", and propositioned many times by males who thought they had the right to do so because of their gender. It never seemed to matter how old I was or for that matter how old they were. I have been abused by males and actually let them get away with until I learned how to fight back.
For some reason at the age of 41, I thought I no longer had to fight for respect, for cooperation or just plain old common curtesy. I really thought I had earned the right to expect these things. Apparently I am very wrong. Several incidents have occurred in the past month or so that has made me suspect that who I am has nothing to with the problems I have come up against. I have come to the conclusion that maybe what I am is the problem. I am a woman and because I am only a women some men think that my gender is less capable than theirs. I will not say that all men behave this way because I know they don't but I do beleive they have all acted like male chauvinist pigs at least once in their lifetime. Unfortunately for me I seem to keep bumping heads with men in authority who think because there is a strong femine voice on the other side of the phone or radio that dose not coo or giggle that I am incapable of doing my job properly. I have been treated as if what I say is not important and I am ignored or dismissed when I speak firmly and with confidence. Even the pretense of common curtsey is lost when I try to exert my authority and abide by the rules that are set up by my agency to follow. Because the rules that I follow do not coincide with the wants or even demands of the authoritve figures I have had a complaint made and been accused of being argumentative when all have done is simply stated the truth politely but firmly.
I have over looked and even dismissed this train of thought for a while not really believing it could occurr at this time of my life especially with men who are of a similar age and grew up with similar backgrounds. Regardless of the fact that I grew up in the south where chauvinism like the KKK is still found in small pockets of our communities, I was surprised to finally have to come to terms with the fact that chauvinism is exactly what I have come up against and I am not happy. I am at a lose as to what I can even do about it.
As a person in general, I try to be leader that my peers can respect and hope that they will follow my example. I am strong willed and self confident. I am the type of person that if you ask me a question and I am not sure of the answer I will find the answer. I am honest sometime to a fault and very blunt so do not ask the question if you are not prepared to hear my answer. I am usually self motivated (I am a procrastinator sometimes) and I rarely need anyone to tell me how to do my job but even I have been known to learn a new trick or two. I crave knowledge and I read and study as much as time allows me. I am open minded to new things, people and experiences. I can be tempermental and demanding but I also possess patience and I care about the people in my world.
See me as a man and what do you see...............
see as I am a women and some men may see me as nothing more than a mouthy bitch and not anything I can say or do can change there opinion, sometimes you just cant win.
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