Day 071 – Women and progress

Welcome to Day 71!

Firstly, when it comes to the broken ankle, officially OVER IT!  That’s not being recovered, that’s over the healing process. Standard recovery post cast removal is at least six weeks or 42 days and I’m only at day twelve.  Okay, so expectations are high for my recovery.  If the ankle wouldn’t hurt to do it, I’d be stomping my feet right now.  The swollen ankle is the universe’s reminder not to gloat to my mother about not having had any swelling while the cast was on or even when the ankle broke 🙄.  Can you spell, karma! Karma … Boom!  

The physiotherapist appointment is freaking me out.  My friend Connie was due to come over and asked if to reschedule so I could recover because I might be too exhausted to entertain after physio. Really?  While watching New Amsterdam (Netflix) one of the characters is getting physio for a broken ankle/ lower leg thing and the physio is putting her through agony (the show doesn’t specify what the injury is).  OMG!  What if I can’t handle it?  I’m already pushing myself quite hard.  Will she push beyond my capacity to cope?  Don’t think I’m capable of more. What if I faint? Will they make me continue physio after the fainting?  Okay.  That’s what letting the imagination run wild can do.  Centre….  Calm!  Calm.  How about changing the subject?  Hmmm…. good idea.

Today is the last day of International Women’s week which reminded me of some of my experiences growing up.  A large part of my working life has been spent adapting to new roles and positions.  My first job was for a fast-food chain which sold fried chicken and the male-female dynamic wasn’t even considered as far as I was aware.  It was based on whether you could do the job required and if you were available.  Then I worked as a stenographer* in a loans department with a manual typewriter and the bank had multiple counters functioning for cash and cheque transactions – ATMs didn’t exist at the start.

Despite the fact that the majority of workers were women, it was always men in charge.  Usually because they came from an accounting background and accountants were typically male.  It was the classic conditioning of the time that men were good at maths and women were good at English.  

Part of the sexism was because a large portion of customers at the time, didn’t recognise female authority in the banking context.  Customers would demand to speak to the accountant, who was visible to the public at the back of the office. Once the female bank officer walked up to the accountant describing the issue, the accountant got up, walked to the customer and said, “is as she said”.  The customer was satisfied with this and walked away. 

The accountant, who had a sense of humour and knew the staff, asked me to remind him at Christmas when the tree came down to hand all the girls two Christmas balls each, to use whenever customers asked to see the accountant.  He often joked that his skill was not as an accountant, but as a qualified “nodder”.  Sometimes his nod was all that was required when he went to see a customer asking for the accountant.     

The bank had a “relieving role” which was a two-year stint, requiring skills as a stenography, teller, and signing officer not travel-fatigue staff members performing the role. It was the coolest job!  Able to travel across greater western Sydney filling in for staff who were away on leave or filling in for someone who had gotten sick.  There were 33 branches from Katoomba to Parramatta arc.  It was amazing to be able to have lunch overlooking the Blue Mountains and The Three Sisters.  Occasionally, relief took me outside of the circuit, which was even cooler.  This was a neutral gender role, although men were placed in their preferred branch at the end of the two-year stint. Women got placed.  

It was my placement as an Administrative Assistant that saw me resign and worked for structural engineers with a magical location near the foot of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.  When I started the office had 71 males and three female employees.  The three women were admin.  Not because the directors were sexist (maybe one was and so was the accountant), there were so few female structural engineers trained in Australia to employ.  

The Hungarian boss I worked for used to say that in Hungary the language does not discriminate because it has so few “male”, “female” specific words.  The discussion took place so long ago the exact phrasing was is lost to me.  A lot of languages have words that women use, and men don’t.  The Hungarian claimed Hungary didn’t have this. Not knowing Hungarian (despite my father’s heritage), I argued that was because women weren’t considered.  

However, when reading Wess Roberts’ Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun my thoughts began to believe the Hungarian director.  It’s only been 30 years, but my perspective has changed a little.  In any case, about a year into the job the company employed the first female engineer from Sri Lanka.  

On a side note, it was interesting to learn that men could be just as bitchy as women – different words but just as gossipy.  There was a perception that it was just women that had bitchiness and coming straight from the female dominated bank industry to the male dominated engineering world, the similarity was uncanny.  Made me realise that the perception was sexist.  The strange thing was that women bought into the perception too.  Perhaps, they’d never been in such proximity to so many men without women around.  

From there, it was over to the computer industry.  In my role as executive secretary, it was a privilege to work for a self-professed male chauvinist, Harry.  However, none of his actions, in the work environment, supported his claim.  When he hired a woman to head up the MIS (IT department) of a BIG IT company, I had to question his chauvinism.  His reply was, “I might be chauvinist but I’m not stupid!  Grace is clearly the best person for the job. Grace’s history, knowledge and skills will make her the best person for the job, making my life easier with my bosses.”  Harry hired people without ever considering the sex or age of the person, it was solely based on skill.  

Left computers and then became an admin temp for an agency for about seven years.  During that time, I probably worked for about 40 different businesses.  In all of that, there was probably one company that stood out to be sexist beyond a doubt. There was an internal hierarchy that saw white females at the bottom of the pecking order.  Since there was no proof, whenever there was an error or a gap in the process the while female got fired or left.  

In 26 weeks, there had been 16 women in the role before me.  Twelve weeks later I left to go on a planned vacation.  The company rang the agency to have me back and/ or offer me a permanent position, I declined. The processes I put in place covered the gap and clearly identified where the failure point in the process was.  At the undeniable point, the white male that had been the culprit for so many leaving, was now being kept honest.  The company should be able to retain someone apart from me. 

Speaking to the other temps, some of them had stories that were worse but there were pockets of sexism – it didn’t seem outright rife with it.

Back in computers but not a computer company, it depends on the area of computing you work in.  If you work in a help desk or the like the male-female ratio is pretty good.  It’s when, you get into the “uber” technology areas the odds change.  It’s not even the techs that have the sexism, it’s the management of the tech groups.  That area where squabbling over management roles happens.  That’s right, middle management.    

From a personal perspective, I think women have come a long way.  There’s still a way to go, but the women’s movement is at a dangerous point.  The pockets that were there twenty years ago are still there.  Even as recently as 2019 women in the technical IT fields were leaving. Not because of the men they were working with, but the men they were working for.  Particularly, if those men lacked understanding of the skills the women possessed.  

The danger of having pockets is that those not exposed to the pockets of sexism, are starting to believe that things like International Women’s Day seems too women heavy.  If you are not in one of those large pockets, you could believe that the balance has been achieved.  Certainly, there are a lot more men like Harry in existence and the balance may have shifted from 90-10 percentage to an 80-20 but the gap is still too large.

Let’s see what the cards say!