Something that I wrote a few years ago....
I thought things were getting better. More equal.
Gone were the days of 20 years ago when I was asked in an interview if I was an ultra-feminist. I didn’t have to worry about being propositioned, paid less, wandering hands or rumours circulating if I had a work conversation with a male colleague.
Part of it, I thought, was that I was older. Less attractive to men. Or maybe that now as I was more senior, I was perceived as less of an easy target. Definitely getting out of working solely for transport companies and moving into distribution lessened my exposure to sexism.
Yesterday, I got a wake-up call during a job interview that shattered my illusions. The recruiter had put me forward to the client as the preferred candidate, the one who best fit the skills and company culture.
The interview went for 1.5 hours and the questioning included:
“How do you react when you get upset? Do you cry?”
“You are a Mum. How are you going to handle this job with being a Mum?”
“Do you get angry?”
“How do you handle problem male employees in logistics?”
I let the questions roll off me, left the interview and called the recruiter to give them a rundown of the interview. (“Well, I guessed that they were interested enough in you to ask the questions that others think.”)
And I went home and thought about what I have experienced in the past few years:
In an interview with the Chief Supply Officer of a large retail company, I was asked if I had kids.
At an initial meeting with colleague and a Production Manager, the first words out of his mouth were, “Two blondes!”
A Distribution Centre Manager who wasn’t going to convert an excellent female casual to permanent as she was just going to go off and have kids.
A State Manager of a transport company told me that he chose another trainer, who had never worked in the industry, for his drivers as his drivers would “relate to this (male) trainer better”. The State Manager would try to get me in the train the ladies in the office.
The head of another transport company telling me that he was pleased that he had found an excellent lawyer to employ and that she didn’t want kids.
So the next question is: What do I do?
Leave the industry I love and have worked in my whole career?
Get angry? What will that achieve other than get me labelled as an emotional man-hater femnazi?
Lean out and take an office job in logistics?
Right now, I feel angry.
Angry with myself that I have been ignoring the sexism.
Angry that if I display my feelings that I can be considered “over-emotional”.
Angry that I am not judged solely on merit.
Angry at the feeling of hopelessness that I cannot contribute to the industry that I love so much as easily and in the same capacity as my male peers.
I don’t have any answers right now.
But I do have a choice.
So I am choosing to pick myself up, not be a victim. There will be a company out there who sees my skills for what they are. The others can go jump.
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