Self-Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia

By Molly Ivors

I would like to tell you a story about a woman, one which may, perhaps, be instructive to some of the “get out of the way, grandma; you're blocking progress” folks out there.

Once upon a time, there was a young woman who was pretty good at school. She read when she was three, and when she started school, her teachers didn't know what to do with her. Shyness and bookishness kept her modest: she didn't see “smart” as something worthwhile. To her, it was like having dark hair or big eyes: just a thing that was. School continued like that through graduation, but she bobbled a bit in college. Still, she got her degree summa cum laude and went on to grad school. There, she did everything right: won awards, became assistant to the chair, edited a journal. She finished her dissertation more or less on time (a rarity in her field) and went on to a lectureship in which she intentionally sought out harder subjects to increase her familiarity with them.

But life interfered, as it often does, although somehow always with greater reprecussions for women. Her mother was diagnosed with cancer while she worked on her dissertation, and her sister died of a preventable but serious illness (Hepatitis C). After the death of her sister, she determined that she did not want to be over a thousand miles from home when her mother's health started to fail, so she headed home with her spouse, a brilliant and funny man she'd met in grad school, and her young daughter. She took a job teaching at a high school for the benefits, and adjuncted at a local community college. Her spouse also adjuncted there.

She wasn't too surprised when he was offered a tenure-track position first: no one had more respect for his intellectual gifts than she. Of course, he was ABD at the time, and she had completed her degree, but this was a community college and that sort of thing didn't really matter so much. She continued to adjunct and get part-time administrative jobs to keep the family afloat, and had two more beautiful children without the benefit of maternity leave or family leave—that sort of thing just isn't available to part-time employees.

It was a couple of years later that she learned how things really worked, however. She had an impressive CV and years of experience. She had friends and a strong application. She gave a good interview and was told, confidentially, that she was the first choice of the hiring committee, a female friend was second, and a third colleague, a young man who was very popular with the students (as in, sleeping with at least one) was the third.  She went to interview with the dean, who she knew socialized with the male candidate, but was confident, even when he told her he didn't have anything much to ask her and essentially made her run her own interview. The interview with the academic vice-president was similarly bemusing, but again, she knew her position was strong.

It was the several days of waiting afterward that started to fluster her, until finally the news came down: the dean had re-ranked the candidates in reverse order to throw the job to his drinking buddy, and the VP—who also frequented the same bar—had accepted his recommendation. (Not to be left out: the re-ranking may also have been to thumb his nose at the administration of the department, all of whom had confidence in the female candidates, but were cautious at best about the male candidate and had tossed him as a bone to some hesitant committee members.) The female candidates, upon being twitted, went through the appropriate channels, but were told two things by the wan Affirmative Action officer charged with protecting the college: that they had no business knowing the rankings of the committee, and that unless the dean had made some remark about their breasts, there was no way to prove sexism.

It was a disturbing lesson, an embittering lesson. I tell it here not to garner sympathy, but because one of feminism's main tools has been to share experiences to reveal they systemic processes at work in the workplace. I daresay many women, maybe even most, have some story like it to tell. We keep them quiet, generally, because the accusation of sour grapes is always quick on their heels, ready to belittle and dismiss very real experiences with prejudice.

And so we who look at this primary season as another example of systemic prejudice often have reasons for doing so. Dismiss them as personal or petty if you like, but don't pretend that we are emotional and you the disinterested arbiters of what is and is not fair game. I have been accused of everything from willful stupidity to “vaginal solidarity” over these last weeks. It's insulting and demeaning, and intended to be so, as much as major opinion pieces on how dumb girls are and how Hillary should just climb on the Obandwagon.

Indeed, it seems that Senator Obama will be the candidate, not because of (or in spite of) my vagina, but because of his ground game.  I respect that. But I also ask respect for my position, for my experiences. Win with grace, not with sneers at old ladies who have repeatedly been told that it wasn't their turn yet, only to be told that sorry, their turn has passed by. That's about as alienating as you can get. I don't think his followers are shallow—at least not most of them—but many are rudely dismissive and do not seem to know whose framing they're adopting.

Just my two cents.

Comments

[noblejoanie]

Thank you, Molly.

[Echidne]

I have been in that twilight land, Molly, and so has my sister. It hurts and it angers and it's wrong.

Thank you for telling it so very well.

[Gromit]

Thank you, Molly. Dr Mrs Gromit has a similar tale to tell.

There are way too many of these stories, and even some where the powers that be are themselves women. Insidious.

[LauraJMixon]

Me, too. Thank you. It hurts a lot, and it's hard to talk about.

By the time we reach our 40s and 50s, after playing by the rules for so many years, being held back and held down and passed over, we look back and realize we've been had. It's painful as hell.

We don't begrudge the successes of our brothers, our spouses, our male colleagues. We just want our own fair shot at a chance to make a difference in the larger world, and realize our own full potential.

[bbbustard]

I join in thanking you Molly. It's as if the African-American community condemned the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr for using the word "negro" in speaking of his dreams.

[jawbone]

In the late 60's, my mother, one of the highest rated teachers in her school system (they gave her the problem kids and she usually turned them around), applied for a summer grant to develop new curriculum for reading, her specialty although she taught a regular upper elementary classroom.

A new teacher, a young man, was chosen instead, as, she was told, 1) he was younger and would be around longer to impart his wisdom and 2) the education field needed to encourage men to teach in elementary schools.

My mother was aggravated, learned a lesson, but accepted this. What else could she do?

The young male teacher left mid-way through his next year of teaching for a better paying job.

Fun times. Still fun times....

[jnfr]

Thanks, Molly. That was beautifully written and exactly to the point.

[actor212]

Good going, Molly.

The hubris of the Obomabers has been pretty icky, to say the least, especially once you think about his clay feet.

What happens if John McCain wins, Obombers, and beats the tar out of the rookie Senator? What will you do then, and how will you make it up to the rest of us?

[actor212]

Damn, broken tag. Sorry.

[Ramona Quimby]

Thank you, Molly. I hope you realize how much your writing touches your readers. This story brought me to tears. So many other women can identify with you.

[K. Ron Silkwood]

Well done.

[sdf (Stu)]

Molly, if dr. mrs. sdf, who is still an adjunct getting effectively paid not much more than minimum wage, ever did the blogging thing, she would chime in with a few stories of her own.

[Mr.Murder]

Ground game built by refusing to participate in Committee tasks he is chair of.

How's NATO, the poppy crop in Afghanistan?

Yeah Hillary should stop being such an obstacle to his great ground game!

Turkey invading Iraq still? Kosovo independence and its destabilizing influence? Major Euro banks(a big part of the foreign buyout of US manufacture at home to keep it solvent) going into debt or being nationilzed?

Ground game- football terminology!

A loss to McCain isn't the item, it's taking the floor having already surrendered the policy. We're going to win over the long term using their game plan?

[ql was in NY]

Great, great piece. Thank you for writing what so many of us old ladies have been feeling these days. Still, I am heartened that if isn't only us older vaginal Americans who are perturbed. Both my daughters are as well.

[Betsy]

Thank you Molly. What a great piece. I read this column often but this may be the first time that I share.

I would love to have a woman in the White House. Unfortunately, Hillary Clinton is not the woman I would choose. I would rather wait and elect Obama instead.

[Molly Ivors]

Betsy,
Completely honest and fair, but not the tone of much of what's out there, as I'm sure you know.

[Betsy]

Not at all. Way too much infighting. Not good for the party nor for our chances in November.

[Betsy]

Molly, my 16 yr old niece wrote an interesting piece yesterday about Hillary's Texas campaign ad invoking Ann Richards. Think you'll like it. Why Hillary?

[shaker o salt]

Thank you for writing this piece. I'm seriously insulted that folks (i.e. mostly men) accuse me of voting for Hillary just because she's a woman while stating they are not voting for her because she's a woman. Go figure.

I take my vote seriously and have studied the candidates and the issues.

I feel that people started
getting on board with Obama because there is a lot me too-ism involved and they just don't want to appear uncool. (Note: I'm not accusing all Obama supporters here with my theory. But face it, there are too many ill-informed folks who vote with their emotions, not with any concrete knowledge.)

Perhaps Obama will be the candidate and that will be all right. But I'd rather the candidate be Hillary.

[SweetSue]

Molly, that was magnificent. Thank you for sharing. I'm sure that must have been difficult to write as it summoned up anger and sorrow even from a distance. But writers and actors have to "go there" to bring us all to the light. Thanks for being willing to experience that pain again.
I witnessed the vast sorrow of an older woman, passed over. She had been assistant head teller at a local bank for thirty years. When the head teller quit suddenly, she saw her chance even though she would be retiring in three or four years. The powers that be wouldn't even throw her that crumb; she was made to train some twenty three year old man to be the head teller, effective immediately. I'll never forget the tears streaming down her face as she showed that kid the ropes. I was twenty two and training to be a teller at the time. Bingo! Snap! Instant feminist.
I ask my sister, "Hey, when was it our turn? I keep hearing that we've had our turn?" She says "It was five minutes in 1972. You must have blinked."
Again, thank you.

[Melissa McEwan]

Right on, Molly. Great piece.

[zoe]

Thank you, Molly.

[Hecate]

I love you. Thank you.

[pie]

Thank you! Yet, even as I read this, I continue to see Hillary the woman, get criticized, as well as Hillary the candidate. It's like they can't help themselves. They won't allow even one sentence of admiration to creep into their screeds. It's more than frustrating and infuriating. I wonder what she'll have to say when this is over. Many men and women would have packed it in long ago. One thing I do know - she'll move on and keep doing what she's doing.

It's also nice that we have husbands that appreciate and respect us as a much as we do them.

I have tremendous respect and admiration for you, Molly. You definitely inspire all of us.

[Hecate]

I'll just add that it's been interesting to me to watch people who swore that they favored Edwards because he was so much more progressive than Clinton suddenly switch to Obama when Edwards dropped out and begin insisting that there's no problem with his comparing himself to Reagan, offering a less progressive health plan, cozying up to the fundies ("Called to Serve"?), floating Hagel as a cabinet member, etc., etc. It's surely due to the fact that I'm an emotional woman who thinks with her uterus, but I can't help but wonder if, whether they admit it to themselves or not, they just don't want to vote for a woman.

[Gentlewoman]

Win with grace, not with sneers at old ladies who have repeatedly been told that it wasn't their turn yet, only to be told that sorry, their turn has passed by.

Oh, yes.

Thank you, Molly.

[noblejoanie]

May I recommend an excellent piece, Robin Morgan's Goodbye To All That #2, on why she's supporting Hillary Clinton.
http://www.womensmediacenter.com.../ex/ 020108.html

[madamab]

Molly, that was wonderful. I also wrote a piece about sexism, misogyny and Hillary Clinton today.

At the very least, Senator Clinton should be applauded for bringing the squirming shame of American woman-hating into the light.

[vmorris]

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

[Willendorf Venus]

Thanks for your story, Mary. You are mostly preaching to the choir, but we can only hope that reading your post will cause people to examine their motivations.

[Interrobang]

Ouch, yeah. I want several paragraphs of that tattooed backwards on the forehead of everyone who's ever accused me of "reading too much into" any of my experiences with any kind of prejudice...

[Delphyne]

Beautifully expressed and written. Thank you.

[Nan]

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I have seen way too many talented, smart, incredibly skilled women get shafted the same way.

I also recall seeing a bad joke making the rounds a few weeks ago about the dilemma the average white man would face when forced to pick between hating women and hating blacks -- now we know the answer.

[Mimi in Texas]

Thanks so much for this! It touched me deeply and made me think in particular of my mom who is still waiting for her turn.

I also want to say that I am African American professional woman who is also outraged by the sexist vitriol in the media. Please remember that it's not always "African Americans" versus "Women" even though that's how it is always portrayed. The category, African American, is further differentiated by class, sex, and gender (and we have a whole lot of sexism and homophobia in our community). And the category, "Women" is further differentiated by race, class, sex, etc (and there is a whole lot of problems within the female community as well).

Having said all that, GO HILLARY!!!

[Linda]

Thank you, Molly. This is the story of our collective lives. And of course we are seeing the same dynamic at play with Hillary Clinton. No matter what happens, though, she has surely been the greatest example of courage I've seen against all odds in many a year. Few men could ever go through what she has gone through and stay whole.

[Ali]

Very moving, and so true. Thanks for writing this.

[actor212]

Please remember that it's not always "African Americans" versus "Women" even though that's how it is always portrayed.

You know what this is?

This is the all-county quarterback v. the girl in high school who ran the yearbook, got the prom together, held protests about animal testing at the biology department, subsitute-taught a history class at the last minute, and re-wrote the menu at the cafeteria for the last month of the semester when the assistant principal left under mysterious circumstances for about nine months, running for class president.

[dave™©]

Well, really - what do old white women know about "rocking out", anyway?

[Linda]

I didn't realize how much America could benefit by having a woman president until I watched Maya Angelou's video for Clinton on Taylor's Marsh's website. I stayed awake that night thinking about all of the latent and overt sexism that's been launched at the Clinton campaign, while Obama has been the beneficiary of a media and political commentariat that is terrified of suggesting a hit of racism.

[Tyro]

This is the all-county quarterback v. the girl in high school who ... [ran] for class president

Perhaps so, but she never recovered from the time when she was on student council that she openly advocated for the principal's idea to increase the homework load and shorten lunch period.

In any case, I might add that in real-life high schools, it's better for the overachiever to accept that she's probably not going to become class president, and she's better off accepting that she'll be valedictorian and go on to become a successful doctor or lawyer and leave the high school quarterback/class president to make his fortune in car dealerships.

[ginaswo]

Thank you so much for this, I know many many women who have had this experience, including myself, we are in no way past these issues in America as the media reminds me every day. It is about experience and who is ready for CIC and that person is Hillary Rodham Clinton.

[RglrLrkr]

Wow! This is why I come here. Thanks, and best wishes for less crap in the future, both for you and your daughters.

(Regular lurker @ Eschaton)

[tbhull]

Any front runner's people can be obnoxious, however, politics is brutal and unforgiving. The same obstacles that have stymied well qualified women have also stymied blacks.

The road to victory neither necessarily means pity gets assuaged nor homage gets paid to Hillary's hurdles past. This is just the game and everybody needs to quit whining and get on board with the dem winner, no matter who it is, unless you want another repub president.

By the way, please help me remember the last time in the last 11 defeats where Hillary ever recognized Obama's accomplishments.

[actor212]

By the way, please help me remember the last time in the last 11 defeats where Hillary ever recognized Obama's accomplishments.

Which, um, are....?

[actor212]

Perhaps so, but she never recovered from the time when she was on student council that she openly advocated for the principal's idea to increase the homework load and shorten lunch period.

Curiously, so did he, but no one seems to notice that.

[Molly Ivors]

This is just the game and everybody needs to quit whining and get on board with the dem winner, no matter who it is, unless you want another repub president.

Gracious.

[pie]

This is just the game and everybody needs to quit whining...

Whoosh!

[thepoliticalcat]

Thank you. Thank you. Puts me in mind of the time I was passed over for a job as a beat reporter for an industry rag (the industry in question being shipping and air transport, it was assumed I wouldn't want to get my shoes dirty, or summat).

The interviewer rubbed a little salt in the wound by informing me I had scored highest of all the candidates in the interview, but they would prefer to hire a man because women, after all, wouldn't stick around. Something about straying vaginas or wandering wombs or marriage and children.

They hired the second-rater, who up and left a few months later, and then called to offer me the job. Wish I could toss my curls and tell of how I sneered at them in turn, but money's hard to come by and jobs are scarce, so I took it. Pah!

[thepoliticalcat]

Thank you. Thank you. Puts me in mind of the time I was passed over for a job as a beat reporter for an industry rag (the industry in question being shipping and air transport, it was assumed I wouldn't want to get my shoes dirty, or summat).

The interviewer rubbed a little salt in the wound by informing me I had scored highest of all the candidates in the interview, but they would prefer to hire a man because women, after all, wouldn't stick around. Something about straying vaginas or wandering wombs or marriage and children.

They hired the second-rater, who up and left a few months later, and then called to offer me the job. Wish I could toss my curls and tell of how I sneered at them in turn, but money's hard to come by and jobs are scarce, so I took it. Pah!

[Sparkle Plenty]

That's a horror story. I'm a woman, I've heard many of them, and I've not a single thought about whether or not speaking of it is just sour grapes.

The stories should be told, the solidarity should endure.

But being dismissive and condescending and bullying and arrogant is a two way street.
.