The More Things Change...

  Sounds great in French doesn't it? The more things change the more they stay the same? The French just have a way about everything they do - or say. From this you can extrapolate that the topic of today's blog has to do with the way things change, or don't as the case may be.

  I was contacted through my LinkedIn this week by someone I knew a long time ago. And actually, I was pleased to hear from him. His wife used to work for me in another life. Receiving his message made me think back to the time when I was young and single and trying to figure out who I was and what I wanted to do with my life. As an aside, I am not sure I know even now who I am or what I want to do with my life, though if I had to guess, I'd say it would have something to do with writing and maybe digging through early Native American burial mounds because pre-contact culture is fascinating. Those people talk to me, they really do. But that's a subject for another day. In any event, I was young and had been promoted to a job I was probably too inexperienced to do, but I worked cheap, so there you have it.
 
  The company was a department store retailer - not like Meijers, Walmart, or Target - those bad boys did my type of shop in during the 1990's. Rather it was old school, if you needed someone to help you find socks to go with your parachute pants, or Members Only jacket, you could find someone. We had all the amenities, gift wrap, alterations, inter -store transfers of merchandise, and available managers if you wanted to complain. I typically wore someone else's name badge on my nights on duty. Easier that way when I had to tell someone, "No, I'm not going to take back the onesie your baby spit stewed plumbs all over," and they wanted a name so they could go over my head. And believe me, when you are twenty-five years old, and a woman, in 1977, they always wanted to talk to your boss - "the man" as it was so often pointed out to me. "I want to talk to someone who can do something about this, the man."

  (I will admit to getting some perverse pleasure to telling people like that, "I am the man - or at least as close to him as you are going to get tonight.")
 
   At that time I managed three ready-to-wear departments and had fifteen sales associates reporting to me. The wife of the man who contacted me this week was one of those associates. At that time she was single. Not only was she single, she was a mom. She was younger than I was, and a single mother in 1977. The reasons she found herself a single mom I don't recall, nor are they relevant. Let's just say that she had her hands full supporting herself and her daughter on very low wages, even by 1970's standards.
 
  It was annual performance review time. Our system for reviews was that each department sales manager would write a review for each person they supervised and make recommendations for raises based on the pay scale for each specific job. We would then present our reviews to store management to sign off on. This single mom who worked for me was terrific. She worked her tail off, was beloved by her customers, and received many customer compliments. When given a directive it was always performed to perfection. She could multi-task her way through the most grueling priority shifting day. In retail, priorities shift on a minute by minute basis. It's a great skill to have. I recommended that she be compensated at the top of the pay scale. My store manage saw it differently.

  "I realize she does a great job, but we can't pay her this much."

   Puzzled I asked, "Why not?"

  " Because she's not a man," he answered.

  "What do you mean?" I asked. "What does being a man have to do with it?"

  "She doesn't have a wife to support."

  "She has a daughter to support." My argument went nowhere. She didn't get the raise she deserved. Nor did I for that matter. Even though I ranked outstanding in every category available to rank me (well, other than the 'she loses her temper and yells at her boss' category) I didn't receive top dollar either. But the guy that ran the men's department did. Because you see, he had a wife. Never mind that the wife also worked, he needed the money to support her.

  That's the way it was in 1977. Women didn't get paid as much as men. Still don't for that matter, but I think we do get approved for credit cards without having our husbands or fathers co-sign for us.  There's progress for you.

  In 1977 women weren't fully human people with all the rights associated with being citizens of the United States. As part of that unequal application of rights was the unequal application of whether or not the word of a woman was as credible as a man. That somehow it's the man's job to set the situation to rights, and solve the pending problem. Those of a certain age will remember the incredible disappointment we all felt at the failure of the Equal Rights Amendment. We needed that amendment.  (Hope your eternal rest isn't restful Phyllis Schaflay, anyone who would opine "Virtuous women are seldom accosted by unwelcome sexual propositions or familiarities, obscene talk or profane language,” doesn't deserve to rest in peace- I hold you responsible for that, lady.)

  My little trip down memory lane to 1977 brought up some not so great facts about the good old days. For white guys of a certain age I guess they were pretty good. For many women, not so much. I'd like to think we've made up some ground in the intervening years, but I'm not so sure.

  Fast forward to the present. Let's have a chat about language. Because I follow basketball -stay with me now - I follow a couple of online fan websites. Keeping in mind that most of these sites are administered by men, one would expect that most the observations etc. would be more masculine in nature. However, I would take a wild-ass guess based upon no verifiable evidence what-so-ever that at least 25% of the viewership and a small amount of the commentary is provided by women. Women like sports. I would even go so far as to say that some women, like sports as much as men.  So it has become increasingly annoying to see a meme pop up on these sites, more than a few times, using the verb "to rape".  Let me unpack this.

  Last night as I was reading a review on the good and not so good things that the basketball team did or didn't do during the game. I read the sentence, "They raped us on the glass." I watched that game. Not once did I see any basketball player with his pants down around his knees. So no, the opposition didn't rape us on the glass, on the grass, or on the hardwood. They may have overwhelmed us, beat us out, accomplished their rebounding better, but there was no evidence of the violent act of forcing someone on our team into an involuntary sexual act.

  I will climb up onto my soapbox now. Language is everything. I realize that the men who comment on these sites for the most part aren't meaning to be insensitive morons. On the whole these communities treat each other's commentary with relative respect. What I don't understand is why some men don't comprehend why using the word "rape" in casual conversation as if the discussion was about buying a bag of apples, is okay? 25% of women will be violently sexually assaulted at some point during their life. (those are the ones who report it)  Line up a random grouping of four women. Which one is the sexual assault victim? How do you tell? Is there red lettering on her forehead that identifies her as such.  If you knew that someone in the room had been actually raped-not just figuratively, would you be a bit more tactful?

  Women live with this every. damn. day. How many of you guys would park next to a van in a parking garage if the engine was running? Probably all of you. Ask a woman if she would. How many of you guys are willing to walk alone at night? Out to the parking lot? Probably most of you. How many of you worry that the person who cat-called you on the street might follow you home? Oh-that doesn't happen to you, does it? Trust me, it happens to women, and sometimes they get followed. Maybe it's just a joke, right? Maybe he's just giving a compliment. How does she know? When someone who outweighs you by fifty pounds is harrassing you, how do you know he's just kidding around?

  Guys, I will state this as a fact. Someone you know has been raped. You just don't know who. Your mother? Your sister? Your best friend's girlfriend? Any of the women you work with?

  It's time to clean up the language - even with your guy buddies. This isn't P.C. This is about being offensive - this is about rubbing salt into a life altering, traumatic experience, tearing open a wound.  Many of you aren't even aware you are doing it. Why? Because, for the most part, rape isn't something you have to worry about. It's just not on your radar.

  But we worry about it. And when we are older and have become invisible as middle aged women do-we worry about our daughters and granddaughters. We worry that the carefree, ebullient young women that we love so much will be shattered with a life altering experience. Some will survive, some don't. But for those that do, their lives and the way they look at the world will be forever changed.

  So quit with the 1977 repartee. I repeat. Language is everything We should be way beyond that by now.  Women are whole real human beings. We deserve to be treated that way.  And by the way, we still need that Equal Rights Amendment.