Letters to the Editor
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NJ Sue
What if I were to respond that, I've had both wonderful and mediocre of bosses regardless of marital and parental status? As a matter of fact, two of my BEST bosses (both female, one married) had children. If they had to leave early, they were still working from home and completely available for help. They did not expect me to do their work, and ABSOLUTELY did not regard me as a second class citizen.
I've also had single males, single females, married males, and married females who were jerks, and those who were genuinely pleasant. I can say the only condescending treatment I've received due to my "barren" womb was from a MAN with a family (ladies: am I the only one creeped out by men who say I'll "change my mind someday" about kids? Yuck).
Sometimes the single boss who devotes his or her life to the company expects you to do the same...then again, I don't even consider this kind of boss to be "bad," but you just have to discuss what's expected from you beforehand.
I'm pretty sure my work experience is comparable, so hopefully my anecdotal evidence will count for something!
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Yes, work does suck
that's why they call it work.
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Hear that giant sucking sound?
It's the sound of your job flying off to India, China, or some other Third World sweatshop. And yeah, that's all women's fault. It's those eeeeevil working women who made your job miserable, not global competition, the elevation of short-term profits over long term planning and good management, outsourcing, soaring health care costs, and everything else that's whittled away the number of your coworkers but not the work that needs to be done.
Nope, it's all the fault of those nasty, villainous, wicked feminists for *gasp* wanting ridiculous things like careers and financial independence and stuff. Those harridans have completely ruined it for everyone.
Pay no attention to the CEO behind the curtain who's laughing as he sails off with his golden parachute while you put in yet another overtime night to prop up his stock options and get pinkslipped for your pains. If you're unhappy, it must be the fault of some woman, somewhere. That's right: your job sucks because of those uppity chicks.
Now, get back to work.
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What’s gender got to do with it?
“We all need to fuck the system.”
- System of a Down
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The editorial both irritated and pleased me.
First:
Some feminists are women.
Not all women are feminists.
I see this constantly. It is assumed that to be female is to be a feminist. It implies a certain activism and assertiveness on behalf of women that is just not present in people just because they are female. Feminism has opened doors. Women in general must respond to their opportunities by shaping them, and -- if the opportunities are inadequate -- reshaping them or demaning more and better opportunities.
I did not like how the editorial seemed to see women and feminists as interchangeable.
Second, I liked it that the editorialist basically said that women needed to be more assertive. How right she is! Unfortunately we went though a sad era where women were always saying: "I am not a feminist, but ..."
If a woman is afraid to claim the label of feminist, chances are that she is more of a whiner than a doer. She is afraid of being labled strident or shrill if she demands better workplace conditions. No one said the revolution would be risk free. Women need to stop worrying about being perceived as feminine or being teamplayers or pleasing men.
Women need to reclaim the right to be angry about economic injustice just as much as they are angry about domestic violence or rape.
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I blame both.
It is everybody's responsibility to stand up for a sane and reasonable work culture.
It is men's and women's responsibility to stand up for each other's well-being and that of their families.
I have no problem blaming anyone who has made things worse for us all by enabling a sociopathic system. Not that I don't also sympathize with the compromises to their integrity that anyone might make when perceiving that their livelihood is at stake.
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Jane Minty
My male bosses never asked me about my single state or whether I didn't want to get married and have kids some day and wouldn't I change my mind. They might discuss their kids occasionally after we got to know each other (if they had them), I met their wives a few times (if they were married) when I was invited over to their houses or at corportate functions but the only ones who ever brought up the 'you're missing so much and isn't there something wrong with you' was the women I worked with who were married with children.
If it has worked out for you, that's great. But I now have 3 male business partners and I will never go near a married woman with kids as a supervisor. Never. My career died at that company after I started working for them and they shoved me into a department that they knew was going to be exterminated by layoffs as the company outsourced after I complained. If a man had done what they did to women and given the promotion to men who had wives and children I believe they call it sex discrimination. I called I lawyer but they said even with the documentation with the HR claiming it was false there was nothing I could do. If I had a male boss, it would all have been different, you see. So, I guess it doesn't count when you are a woman and other women screw you over. Sorry. Give me men to work with, any day.
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Why the sudden explosion of intelligence?
Suddenly I see a slew of articles all basically agreeing with my long held positions abotu women, feminism and society.
Anyway, not look gift horse in mouth.
As for this theory that feminists are guilty of destroying the workplace and making everyone have to work harder. Yes, but not in the way women, or this author, or this blogger, think.
Men do not have a choice when it comes to making demands at workplaces. We just work, if we do not, our wives have convenient excuses to divorce us for being lazy slackers.
Women have options, men have obligations. Women have rights, men have responsibilities. With the average intelligence level displayed by the women on here verging on matching their weight in kilograms, I have no confidence that men will EVER be freed of this slavery by women-- only forced to work harder for less reward. Women seem to totally lack any ability to see beyond themselves, their needs, or have any compassion for men or their plight. Maybe it is just me, but it sure seems that way to me.