This little thing called "fair"

This little thing called “fair”.

By the age of two or three I was hit by a car and I was fortunate to be thrown into the street still upright on my tricycle.

When I was born my family was middle-class and we lived in a big city and our neighborhood was 40% white.?There was crime and as a child I saw it.?My childhood friend at and I at age six came very close to being victims of crimes at the hands of five teens that weren’t the same as us.?It doesn’t matter how different they were physically it was the fact that a few were excited about committing a horrible crime and two prevented it allowing us to get away.?

What I learned while in lower level education is that many males don’t care how old a girl is. Likewise a lot of men will defend a woman in a bar but not in the workplace.

I was fortunate to grow up looking much like my father an attractive person. I always had watched what I ate and exercised to be height and weight proportionate because I knew that if I were beyond that it would close doors for me.?Those doors of opportunity spanned work that required physical fitness to perform, athletic sports, event invites and of course love.?So I worked as hard as most to be the right weight for me.?

I knew in my teens that I needed to develop a skill that would garner a job that could afford my own life plans.?I knew that historically male roles paid a lot more than typical female jobs.?I took welding when minimum wage was $3.27 because a welder was paid $20 per hour.?In this past ten years there has been a lot of conversation about how women’s career ladders that have rungs removed by men making it impossible for a woman to climb the same ladder.?Well, back when I was completing my welding course the instructor told me two things, #1 “You’re really great at this” and #2 “Nobody is going to hire a female as a welder”.?This wasn’t the only thing he had done.? The same instructor placed a student who had daily seizures in the booth next to me and every day I almost got burned with his torch.

Among many jobs I’ve done in my lifetime I managed a law firm ironically, one area the lawyers practiced was civil rights.?One attorney twice my age pursued me against my wishes and broke many rules.?I was very good at my role but my employer made work miserable for me.?Telling a male that you’re not interested does not mean that he will retreat or that anybody else will intervene. In my lifetime I’ve left five roles between the age of 18-40s because of relentless unwanted advances.??

I’ve been told by recruiters that I have more experience in construction management than all other candidates that have applied for the same role.?I’ve interviewed with their client(s) only to hear them say “You’re not qualified”.?With a follow up call from the recruiter to me arguing the matter of – outright discrimination.?I have been greeted by women at those same offices lighted up with joy to see a female candidate and they express how unusual it is.?But they also see how I’m interviewed, what a difference in questions I am asked, how I am looked at, how it appears that I am dissuaded by the controllers.?Frequently I’ve been asked to interview after an underqualified male was relieved of his duties because he was hired because they “liked him” and felt that he could grasp the necessary knowledge over months. – Don’t let “liked” be code for Good Ole Boy system.?

In the field one out of twenty men will act up towards me.?That single male will openly decide to be vocal about his opinion about being instructed by a female, that he does not want a woman telling him what to do.?He will act like he doesn’t hear my directive, he will call the office and make up stories.?I've heard lots of them. That one male will eventually ask to work only with other males.??– But even though his entire schtick is discriminatory, the company will not correct him.?

I have worked with people that don’t look the same as me, I’ve been called discriminatory names, I’ve been excluded because I didn’t look like them, I’ve been spoken to in a manner that is strikingly different than how others that look like them are spoken to.?I’ve overheard many conversations about how people that look like me aren’t trustworthy, they “lie” and want to “takeover”, that we are all “privileged”. Try working in that environment, it’s pretty tough.

These statements above are not all-inclusive of the obstacles I’ve stood in the face of and probably are worse than some peoples and not as bad as others.?Regardless workers arrive to work to perform.

I am a white woman and there isn’t a tanning spray that will ever change that fact.?I don’t need to get into any argument about who is poorest, richer than, had a more difficult life than, better than - like most conversations around the subject of being _______ or ______ or ______ or _______.

My message is simply this: A blanket statement does not cover more than a small group of people.?We are all human and we all have the same financial obligations and needs.?

Next time you notice a female driving a $20,000 Camry and a male driving an $80,000 pickup truck think of this:

When men close the door of opportunity on the other half of the workforce they forget how that impacts the future of other men.?

More than 1-out of-2 males are raised by their single mothers of that number 30% of non-custodial fathers do not pay child support.?While an additional 30% of fathers underpay the amount owed.?The burden of raising a child for 18-years is 80% of the time placed on the mother.?25% of fathers stop visiting their children.?50% of non-custodial fathers visit their children on a “monthly basis”.

Have you asked yourself recently "why a males employment is considered more important that employing a female?" - It's tied to the fact that up until 57 years ago males were required to pay all the bills for his household. That ended 57 years ago.

This difference in obligation defaults all anticipated costs onto the custodial mother.?

Both men and women each have the same exact basic needs and financial obligations but not necessarily the same burdens.?

Poverty for healthy adults is a multifaceted problem. ?If you are skilled up then it’s probably an “opportunity problem”.?If opportunity’s door knob is most often operated by males then it’s time that a change be made of the operator.

You can call me privileged if it makes you feel like you’ve won an excuse for being wrong in your opinion.?

The sooner ALL of us begin to consider each other as “the same”, “human”, “worthy of equal treatment”, responsible for our own training, instead of “queen of”, “king of”, “power of”, “ruler of the world” is the time when poverty will dissipate, people will begin to actually relate to each other and life will be best for children.

I know that I am not the same as all of the 5,000 ethnic groups around the globe.?I am of at least four ethnicities.?As loud as another person can shout that I am privileged it does not make it so. I will say that hardships slowed me down, but I didn’t let hardships prevent me from stepping forward.

This little thing called “fair” - life is not fair, but it should be.?