One thing I wasn’t prepared for during my younger years was the pervasive sexism I have encountered in professional settings. In school, you earn the grades you get. Sure there’s sexist instructors and departments, but a solid GPA and good test scores have opened many of the doors that I have tried in academia.
I went to the University of Oregon to be a photojournalist. I had worked a school paper at my high school and I had taking pictures since middle school. At first, I had a lot of opportunities. I got on our college’s premiere magazine project as well as other assignments for different departments that needed photography.
As I neared graduation, I started getting some resistance when applying for some of the bigger jobs I went for. As a photojournalist in the 1990s, it was unusual to see a female working in the press boxes. I had tried out for a photographer position at the main college paper, but was rejected without much consideration. I kept trying and finally I took a good look at all of the photographers. They were all guys and they wore a certain brand of sports jacket and a certain brand of shoes. I had long hair and wore a sweater and long skirt to present my portfolio. I didn’t own a the right jacket, but I borrowed one from a friend and I got my haircut to sleek bob. On my third attempt, I was given a trial assignment. One of those pictures ended up winning second in the statewide college newspaper awards that year. I made $125 shooting at least four stories a week and extra features. More than once, I was directed away from the press area by some person that wasn’t used to seeing a female there. I usually didn’t shoot games, but occasionally went as a back up. I was told “the players girlfriends sit over there.“ There was only one girl who wrote for the sports section of the paper and she held her own pretty well by memorizing statistics.
That summer, I was promoted to photo editor. I lost position however the following fall to a male who took my job. I protested, but “his high school was bigger” than mine, so they felt justified in giving it to him. The whole department was such a boys club. They used to talk about going to strip clubs all the time. I just came in and developed my film, scanned my photos and took off. I didn’t really feel included in the group.
When I got hired at the city paper, it was even worse. Of the six full-time photographers not one of them was a female. There was only one woman who came in to photograph food for the recipe section once a week. As a part-timer, they expected me to file the negatives and clean and maintain the photography equipment. After working there six months, I finally got an opportunity to apply for a photography position, but they ended up hiring some guy from out of state. It was very disheartening. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have anyone to talk to. No one tells you how to break the glass ceiling.
In the end, I took a job at a radio station. I was hired as a receptionist, but asked for and received some tasks in media. I did pre-interviews, helped book guests, wrote ad copy and even produced an interview show, but my title and pay never reflected it. So, when the head station closed down our studio, I couldn’t even go work at headquarters because nobody there knew what I had done beyond answering phones. It was super frustrating.
After that, I got a job teaching English overseas. I went with a teacher placement organization that worked with the Chinese government to put Americans with bachelors degrees in colleges throughout China. Each city had a team of two or more teachers that worked there. I was at a very small school, so there was just two of us; me and other female teacher. After the first year she went home, and a couple came and replaced her as my work colleagues. Because I was the returning teacher I was automatically made the team leader. At a larger college a few miles away, the placement organization had made the single guy on their team the team leader, even though there were several other female teachers who had been there much longer. Additionally, in teams where the team leader was a married couple, the organization was only paying for the male spouse to come for the trainings. Since I was going up to Beijing, the women asked me to speak up for them at the conference. At the big meeting, I made an appointment with the head of our district. I asked him if they meant to discriminate against the women teachers. To my surprise and chagrin he said “yes.” He thought that the Chinese leadership would respect males more than females. I countered with the fact that the head of the English department at the college I taught at was in fact also a female. I ended up writing some letters to the American headquarters telling them that they should be clear in their recruitment package that the organization was sexist. They backed down and changed their policies after that.
I have a dozen other stories I could tell, but they are all pretty similar. If you are a female, people have a preconceived idea of what you can and can’t do. Jobs like nurses, secretaries and preschool teachers are full of females because that is what they are expected to do. Jobs that are traditionally held by males continue to mostly be filled by males. Women are allowed to do well and to move up until there’s male, and then it is very unlikely that the woman will be selected over him for a leadership position. It’s important that women really push for fair pay, proper titles and acknowledgment for what they do. It is also important men support their female colleagues; we can all do our best when we are all given a fair chance.
