Day 24: The Stuff We Put Up With

Last night at our book club, we were discussing career vs. vocation. It was natural to share our career stories and how they unfolded over the decades. One thing that every woman experienced was deeply embedded discrimination and harassment because we were female.

One woman was told she was not welcome in the staff room at her private school because it was only for men.

One woman was the first woman in a position in her company when they were forced to allow women to apply. The upside was that her salary tripled from what she had been making in her administrative role. The downside was the constant comments, and I quote, “on her tits and ass.”

We just put up with it.

I had a manager pin me down and try to unbutton my shirt when I was a teenager working in retail and cleaning up after the store closed. Fortunately, I started screaming, and he got off me.

It isn’t just one woman’s story. Every one of us had stories of sexual harassment and discrimination. Every time we resisted or pushed back on the men who refused to see us as equals, we were changing things.

Mostly, though, we put up with things. We were women, and we had internalized a lot of messages about what that meant, including the message that we were not equal to men.

It’s part of our collective story.

And although Boomers are often disparaged in the media, we know that we made changes that benefit the women coming after us. We didn’t change everything. We didn’t even always know what needed changing. But we pushed against some of the boundaries we had inherited.

And the women coming after us will push against others.