I have a question for all the women out there in light of today being International Womens' Day

[Ohiogal]

Was there ever anything you were told in the past that you couldn't do just because you were a girl?

I'll start .........

In my elementary school (this was in the early to mid 60s), a fifth or sixth grader was chosen each morning to raise the flag out in front of the school.

When the teacher asked for volunteers for that day, I raised my hand. She looked at me sternly and said, "Kathy -- not you. Only boys are allowed to raise the flag."

I was not bold enough to ask why, but I do remember feeling humiliated.

[happybird]

1. College courses

Not that I couldn't do it, but that it didn't matter what I chose to study because the only reason for women to go to college was to meet a husband.

This was in 1992, not 1952.

[Ohiogal]

3. Yeah, that tired old joke

about going to college to get an “MRS” degree .... heard it many times ....

[happybird]

10. I heard it from both my guidance counselor and my parents,

despite being in the honors program. I had a wide variety of academic interests and only wanted some advice on how to narrow those interests down to "the one."

It was so disheartening, and it pissed me off so badly, I stopped looking at schools. I didn't go to college until I was 21 and had regained my self confidence.

(In hindsight, I'm glad I didn't go straight out of hs, but the underlying reason why still pisses me off.)

[2naSalit]

2. Which time?

When I was told I couldn't drive a semi?

or be a single woman with a career other than hatching out offspring and being forced into maternal servitude?

or buy a house all by myself?

or make changes to my bank account without some male's approval?

or that I couldn't enter trade school?

or when I was told I couldn't have a job at certain businesses because they didn't have a women's bathroom?

or stand up for myself when being offended or physically attacked by a man?

or...?

[Ohiogal]

4. Wow

That’s a whole lifetime of injustice....

[2naSalit]

24. Yup

more than half a century and I am sick to death of it. I am tired of fighting, have absolutely nothing to show for it except the admiration of a couple siblings who took decades to see what was happening to me. It's all in my head, I was being "silly" to think...

Sorry, I'm a little bitter today, I haven't been feeling well for a while.

[eShirl]

5. I couldn't have outside chores like my brothers.

I hated dishes, laundry, dusting, cleaning; thank goodness I liked cooking.

[Ohiogal]

6. Oh gosh yes.

And a boy mowed the lawn once a week but dishes had to be washed multiple times every day.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. Lots of things.

And often it wasn't even necessary to directly tell a woman she couldn't do some job just because of her gender. Everyone just knew that.

It was assumed that all women were going to marry, have babies, then stay home to raise them so there was no point in ever promoting them in a job.

In 1969 I went to work for an airline, at National Airport in Washington DC. Some three years later I became the first female ops agent that airline ever head. Ops, Operations, was the place where the pilots reported in and out from flights, and where the weight and balance for the planes was done. I quickly got better at it than most of the men doing the job.

I wasn't treated as badly as a lot of first women in a man's job often are, but when a layoff bounced me out of that department and back to the ticket counter, I never wanted to return.

Back then you had to have male genitalia to be a pilot. Someone I went to grade and junior high school became one of the first female pilots for United Airlines in the mid 70s. Women in the cockpit remained a rare novelty for far too long.

It wasn't until some time in the 70s that newspapers stopped publishing two different types of help wanted ads: help wanted male, help wanted female. I do recall picking up some newspaper somewhere that still separated out the genders some years later, and being shocked that they were still doing it.

It was made clear to me as a little girl that of course I couldn't possibly be good at math, and I internalized that for far too long. Fortunately I had a high school math teacher, had him for two years in fact, who assumed that the girls would be every bit as good as the boys, and we lived up to his expectation. Some thirty years later I started taking math classes again, and called him up to tell him that thanks to his excellent teaching all those years earlier I tested into Algebra 2, went on to take College Algebra, then Calculus. At that point, I was now in my late 40s, my sense of my math ability had nothing to do with being a woman, but everything to do with knowing I was plenty smart enough to do it.

[Ohiogal]

8. Wonderful story.

No reason why women cannot excel at math or piloting an airplane.

I remember those divided up help wanted ads, too.

Thank you for sharing.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

9. Thank you for appreciating my post.

I'm old enough, 70, that when I was very young I didn't generally question those rules, both explicit and implicit. It came over me gradually, as I realized I was smart and every bit as competent in my job as any man was. Alas, I didn't go forward in college in math and science the first time around, because I was two immersed in the conventional wisdom of the day.

I eventually became a stay at home mom to two sons. For me, personally, that was an excellent choice, but I was concerned that they'd see women as lesser because of that, and because their dad went out and earned the money. I explicitly said things to them to counter that possibility, and I think I succeeded, just because of the way they behave as adults.

[Ohiogal]

11. You pretty much described me!

After college, and working for ten years, I became a stay-at-home mom after my first son was born ( I eventually had three boys) and I had the exact same concerns you had about role models! And, I think my boys turned out fine with good attitudes towards women, as well.

I might have kept working if I had help with childcare, but back then I did not have any family help, and day care was out of the universe as far as cost.

I like hearing some of our Dem candidates talk about providing a stipend for stay-at-home moms. I believe they do that in Canada, maybe other countries too.

[Lifelong Protester]

12. As the first woman to hold a Laborers Union card in the Twin Cities,

I had a lot of harassment-like the time I was told I was taking a job away "from someone hanging around the union hall"!

[Ohiogal]

14. Ugh!

I had a union job, too, but I was lucky I was treated very well. I can imagine how male laborers must have felt about a woman encroaching on their field, though.

[Lifelong Protester]

31. They were angry

other unions I belonged to were pretty good about it. ( teamsters , upat nea)

[CrispyQ]

13. Years ago when I was single,

& had been single for many years & working & paying my own bills, I received two credit card applications in the mail on the same day. One was for an American Express card addressed to Miss CrispyQ & the other was an American Express Gold card addressed to Mr. CrispyQ.

[Ohiogal]

15. Well, of course!

Par for the course back then!

[leftynyc]

16. I got in trouble for wearing pants to school

They called my mom in who promptly told them when they were paying for my wardrobe, they could tell me what to wear. Here's to you, MOM on International Women's Day.

[Ohiogal]

17. That's another horrible old fashioned sexist issue

I remember not being allowed to wear pants to school until I was in 10th grade. And even then, girls were not allowed to wear jeans ... but boys had been wearing jeans to school forever.

WHY???

A woman I worked with told me that in the mid 60s, her college daughter was not allowed to wear pants to their school’s FOOTBALL GAMES! And this was a small state college....

Good for your mom! I don’t think that would have flown around here.

[leftynyc]

18. Living in NY has its perks

This was back in the late 60s.

[CrispyQ]

25. Girls couldn't wear pants when I was in grade school either.

I think I was in 8th grade when that finally changed, & like the poster above stated, we couldn't wear blue jeans although that's what most of the boys wore. We lived in a rural area where many of us stood out in the cold waiting for a school bus. We wore pants under our dresses (cuz we didn't have cool things like leggings back then) & went to the girl's room to take them off & store in our lockers.

[Ohiogal]

26. I remember doing that on bitter cold days.

Unbelievable, but that’s the way it was back then.

[Hekate]

19. Newspaper "want ads" were clear on the subject. Very clear. When I was in high school...

...it was understood in my family that we would get summer jobs, and I worked through college, so I was well-inculcated in society's expectations and limitations by the time I graduated HS in '65.

Someone else brought up airline pilots. Not a career ambition of mine, but still. I remember at one time (probably in the 1970s) reading that one of the reasons women were having SUCH a hard time breaking into the commercial airline piloting field was that all the men had achieved so many hours in military service starting in WW II, so the men were miles ahead. That's why women couldn't get hired: no military service. Oh, and size. Then the struggle began to get women into the Air Force as pilots.

Fast forward decades, when one of my mother's dearest friends died, essentially of old age. The whole time I'd known her, she'd been a secretary. At her memorial service I read some things in her scrapbook and had to pick my jaw off the floor. That little woman had been a WW II pilot of military aircraft.

How? You may well ask. Well, while Rosie the Riveter was building aircraft, Penny the Pilot was ferrying the planes across the US continent to military bases, where they were then flown across the ocean into battle by men. Manly men.

It made me furious to learn that. I had no idea, not only about Eileen, but about all the other women who flew military aircraft before I was born, and the lies of omission we were taught as history.

[Ohiogal]

20. Wow, what a story!

I had read in a book a while ago about these women pilots who flew the military planes into combat areas for the men to use. How astounding that your mom’s friend was one of them!

Lies of omission ... that’s a perfect description.

[malaise]

22. A great story

It is the sad truth

[treestar]

21. i really wanting to be a journalist

in jr. high, when we had to do reports on what we wanted to be, a book on the subject of various careers mentioned under journalism, that as a woman I could report for the fashion and society pages.

At least they allowed for women being journalists. But they were limited to womanly-types of subjects!

[Ohiogal]

23. Sounds about right

Hey there was the cooking section, too ....

[llmart]

27. Where do I begin?

Ha! I'm 70 also and most of us women have plenty of these stories. I worked at one company in the steno pool and when I got engaged to a guy who was a college intern there (he only worked one semester a school year) I was told I would have to leave the company when I married. I was full time and had full benefits. He was an unpaid student, but I was made to leave, not him.

The next company I went to work for, I was married and pregnant with my first child. My boss told me that I could no longer work there after my 5th month because I would start to "show". That was the company's policy.

After my second child was born, I was adamant that I wanted no more children. I had a boy and a girl exactly four years apart (planned that way), so I told my ob/gyn I wanted a tubal ligation. He (most ob/gyns were men back then) said I would have to have my husband's permission. He had to actually sign a paper that he approved.

Growing up I had three brothers who were all avid and excellent baseball players. I was always the fourth player in their games and was just as good as they were. They were all in little league and I spent every summer sitting at ballparks watching them play on teams with some boys who couldn't hit the broad side of a barn and yet I couldn't be in little league. My parents said girls were only allowed to play on softball teams. I had never played softball in my life.

Of course it was just understood by every single one of us girls of that generation and others that there was no way in hell you could ever become President of the United States. No one needed to tell us that. It was just understood. Thankfully, Hillary Clinton who is, I believe, about the same age as I am, never listened to that garbage. She is our rightful President.

[Ohiogal]

29. Great post, Ilmart

Younger women now must think we make this stuff up - how could any of it possibly be true!

And most men, well, these kind of injustices just never crossed their radar. Especially the baby boomer men who are used to privilege.

Thank you for sharing your experiences.

[akraven]

28. Go to college and be a teacher. nt

[Ohiogal]

30. I remember

(and I wasn’t supposed to be within earshot) ...when I was a kid I heard my parents talking about an older, unmarried woman teacher in my elementary school and my Dad referred to her as “ that old maid” I hadn’t heard that phrase before but it certainly didn’t sound complementary.

[MLAA]

32. It never occurred to my Dad I could be an engineer.

He never said I couldn’t, but he never offered any career suggestions to me that had to do with math or science. I graduating from one of the top engineering schools in 1982. Many, many times since he has expressed how proud he was of me. I don’t recall anyone ever suggesting I couldn’t do anything else. Wait a minute....I do have a real story.

Back in Atlanta at my college in the 80s, once you had a job offer you could take the letter to car dealerships and buy a new car. I went to one. When I arrived the older experienced dude, took one look at me and sent over a woman to help me who just started working there a few days earlier. I selected the car I wanted and we went inside. She took my offer letter and left the office. 2 seconds later the dude came flying in and tried to take over. I told him I did not want to have a down payment. I had also heard there was a $500 rebate on this particular car. He worked up the paperwork came back and it showed a $500 down payment. I questioned him as I had clearly stated I didn’t want to have any down payment. He said, oh honey, I applied a rebate for you. I said, you never told me there was a rebate. I want the car but don’t want to buy it from you.

I left, called another local dealer, who got the car from that location and sold it to me with no down payment.

That is the last time I recall dealing with that kind of misogyny. I was lucky enough to work for a large company for 30 years that was a forerunner in equal treatment and did not accept any sexual harassment or discrimination.

[Ohiogal]

33. Car dealers - ugh! Bastions of male chauvinism!

I recall looking at a car at a dealership with my husband, before we were married. I had made it abundantly clear that I was employed, and I was the one buying the car. The car salesman proceeded to ignore me altogether, and talked to my husband as if I wasn’t there. At least I finally bought the car all by myself in the end, and didn’t need a man’s signature for anything. This was in 1984.

Congratulations on your successful engineering career!

[MLAA]

34. Sounds like neither of us can stand be pushed around 😉

[Hekate]

35. Oh gods I just remembered the letter my mother sent me after she read Betty Friedan...

I was born in 1947, my sister was born in 1953. (For contrast, we had two brothers, but this is about us girls.) Frankly, I was raised to be a wife and mother, and as the oldest child I got plenty of practice.

Now, to do Mom credit, she thought a college degree was akin to the Holy Grail, and she pushed all of us hard to go to college. And despite having little money, we did. But she literally told me that for a woman it gave you "mental furniture to push around," and that you would raise bright children.

So I'm slogging along toward my BA in History, working 20 hours a week as a salesclerk, figuring Mom will be proud of me -- and I get this letter about Betty Friedan's book that has just knocked my mother for a loop. "I raised you all wrong, but it's not too late for your sister," she says. Pardon me, but
"Oh, and by the way, here's $1.50 so you can get a copy of The Feminine Mystique and read it too."

Fck. I mean, just fck.

Well, my sister had an interest in math and science that Mom could encourage (I never did), and came out of high school and jr college at just the right moment in time to get into Engineering School at UC Berkely, and have an internship with one of the major software companies -- and I love her and she's the best sister ever.

But I've still got that letter somewhere, buried deep in my files: "I raised you all wrong, but it's not too late for your sister."

And that, too, is Women's History.

[Beringia]

36. I remember finding out how strong boys were

There were a couple of boys who took over the roller slide and wouldn't let me and my girlfriend on it. I took a tumble with one of the boys. He pinned me down and I couldn't move. No contest.

[lunatica]

37. I was a tomboy and could run faster and

swim faster, climb trees, and punch harder because my older brother taught me to defend myself. The problems came later when I was older when teachers were subtle about putting me down. It wasn’t anything overt but it made me feel that I was being unjustly treated because I was a girl. It’s hard to fight back when the messages are subtle.

It’s been a lifelong battle, and it really pisses me off that after finally getting our right to choose and decide our own lives along came the fucking Republicans to reverse everything!

I mean that really, really pisses me off!

[Raine]

38. Only one time..

When I was in high school the teacher wouldn't let me use the power saw to cut out a wood project I had designed. I had to stand and watch while one of the boys in the class used the power saw to cut it out for me. "My" project won an award and was put on display but I never felt it was truly mine. When I brought it home my mother insisted on putting it out and would tell visitors I made it. I always said "no I didn't" which annoyed the hell out of my mother. I was glad when finally I was able to remove the thing and stick it in the garage and forget about it. It's still a sore point with me, I don't even know what eventually happened to it or where it is.