Category: work

Woman Hating and Hatefilled Women

Woman Hating and Hatefilled Women

I was going to do a confessional post about my personal history of sexist, borderline misogynist thought and behavior, and I will, soon. But I have been confronted again by a me-averse woman in a position of power, and this history deserves its own investigation. Doubtless some of the same fucked up motivations will stand out when I turn the light on myself.

I’ve experienced plenty of sexism in my life, but all of the blatantly punishing sexist behavior I’ve been forced to put up with has come from women. Once in high school, once in grad school, and now at my job.

When I was a Junior in High School, our retired, male drama teacher was replaced by Ms. Martin, a bland, mostly forgettable blond woman in her 40s. I was disappointed by the previous teacher’s departure, in large part because he clearly liked me, and as a junior, I might now (juniority!) have a chance to earn good roles in the school plays. The now departed senior class was filled with talent, but this crop of seniors didn’t have a lot of dedicated actors. This was my chance! Yay, ME!

Or so I thought. After a semester of me working my ass off (you ask for a monologue, I’ll give you a one woman play), and of course trying to get Ms. Martin to like me (because that is a weakness of mine), I auditioned for the musical, Oliver! I knew it well because I’d been one of the urchins in a production when I was a kid. I’m not a great singer, but since we were an all-girls school (my two year punishment for skipping much of 8th & 9th grade), there were plenty of roles open. And we didn’t have great singers. After a long audition and callback process, all my classmates agreed that I would surely be Dodger or Nancy and I was antsy with excitement on the day the cast was to be announced.

But before that happened, Ms. Martin asked me to come to her office. She closed the door. She said, “Z, before the cast list goes up, in case your name isn’t on it [she was the one and only person who put the names on it], I want you to know why.”

“Oh. Okay.” I was already hurt, but curious, and took the “in case” seriously. Was there something I could do now, here in this office, to earn that spot?

“Well, even if you did give the best audition, I feel that if I cast you, you would rile the troops against me. I mean, why would I cast someone who’s great who I can’t control, when I can cast someone perfectly good who I get along with fine?”

“Oh. Okay. Thanks.” (Yes, I said thanks. I was in shock.)

I walked upstairs to my Physics class and told my best friends, my drama friends, what had happened. They all agreed it was awful. I had never “riled the troops” against her, or anyone. I had asked questions in class, I had wondered why we were doing things – the kind of behavior that made confident teachers love me, and the kind of love that made me feel comfortable in school in a way I never had at home or, since, at work. In school, in the schools I went to, good teachers genuinely wanted students to question them, challenge them, bring in new ideas. I’ve never consistently experienced that in any other type of institution.

So the cast list went up, and the friends with whom I had sought comfort were on it, and I wasn’t. And they stopped talking to me. Junior year was miserable. When I finally got one of them to communicate, late in the second semester, and asked why they cut me out, she said she didn’t know. It just happened. But I knew when it started. And, ridiculous as it was, my existence apparently undercut their talents. If I hadn’t told them, they wouldn’t have rejected me. But I had to tell them, because when you have been targeted you feel alone and you feel a little like you’re losing your mind and you seek solace in your friends. Ms. Martin didn’t just take away a stupid performance, she indirectly deprived me of my support system. Fortunately, I had friends who weren’t actors, in the class above me. I made sure to get the fuck out of that school once they graduated. I even moved across the country to do it. I took my chance making friends in a new state my senior year over staying with a bunch of lost souls who left me to drown alone. I don’t hate them, but their weakness was a crushing revelation.

Over a decade later, I was happily studying literature in a small Graduate program in Southern California. It was intimate and the professors were challenging and smart and I was super excited about my second semester, because I’d decided that 20th century American lit was my true love and I’d be able to take two classes in that genre. Both with the same professor, it turned out, who was also the head of American Lit in the tiny department, which had only 3 full professors. The first day in my first class with her, she asked a question about something in the play we were reading. It wasn’t a very good question, and the dozen folks in the class met her with silence. I have always felt bad when teachers are met with apathy, deserved or not, so after a minute I took a stab at it. She was unimpressed with my answer, and responded in a way that misinterpreted what I had said. I attempted to clarify, and was met with

“Z, you shouldn’t be so contentious.”

Again, I was stunned into silence. Was I picking a fight? I thought we were just having a discussion. I was thrown and dizzy and didn’t say anything else. She rambled on with her theory. No one responded. At the mid-class break, a half dozen people, most of whom I didn’t know, surrounded me outside the building.

“What was that about?”

“Do you have a history with her?”

“Why is she after you?”

I was so grateful, again, to have my perceptions and my sanity validated. I told them I had never met her before that night, and there was a lot of head shaking. As I trudged on through the semester, two of my three classes with this so called Feminist, Ms. Martin (I am not shitting you), I found out that no one thought she was a good teacher, and legend was she found a female student to pick on every year. Though no one directly stood up to her behavior (it was hard, because it was subtle), I was still comforted when classmates, some now friends, confirmed that she regularly dismissed my contributions as irrelevant or offbase, then attributed them to other students with praise. She gave me A minuses on every paper, and when I would ask what was missing, where I could improve, she never had an answer for me. Her class was the only one in which I received less than an A for my semester grade. (Why did I keep making comments in class? Because I love discussing literature with others more than I hated validating her leadership by actively participating)

But the greatest comfort (and most shocking part of this story) was when the head of the department and my randomly assigned advisor, an equanimous, brilliant little woman with whom I had taken a few Early Modern Lit classes, met with me to discuss my current classes and plans for the next year.

“So, how are things with Ms. Martin?”

I was a bit surprised by the question. “Well…” how much could I tell her?

She got up and shut her door, then returned, sat down, and waited. I told her just a little of what had transpired between us. She told me that Ms. Martin tended to feel intimidated by certain female students. She said she thought Ms. Martin was “not very smart” and “not a good teacher” and was probably threatened by me. She said she was sorry that my interests lay in Martin’s so-called area of expertise. But she was a full professor and there wasn’t much that could be done. Maybe I could avoid her classes going forward?

But she taught most of the American Lit classes, and if I attempted to earn a doctorate I would have no choice but to have her on my committee. So I completed my Master’s and left. At the top of my class, despite Martin’s machinations to cut me down.

Most of my teachers and bosses have been female. Some were good, some weren’t; but until recently, I’ve only had clear, personal problems with those two. Most of my close friends are female. My beloved online sangha is almost entirely female. My fortifying DEI Officers were, until recently, all female.

So it was shocking to get hit with another vindictive female authority figure, at my age. Or not so shocking. The head of HR definitely falls into that pseudo-feminist, going after women, category as well, but I’ve dealt with her for years now. As much as I wish she weren’t there, I at least feel like I’ve seen her worst and can handle it. But now there’s this new CEO. And it is so hard, friends. It is so hard feeling hated and gaslit.

And alone. I attended a training today where the CEO sprayed her hypocrisy all over the Zoom, talking about how important it is that we talk about things in the open and have difficult discussions. Meanwhile she is actively blocking my work and excluding me from opportunities because I’ve questioned her decisions and stood up to her abusive behavior. And none of my like-minded homies were there to text our frustration at each other. I was literally screaming at the screen, with my video and mic off, while she blathered on with her lies. Could you hear me? I’m sure my neighbors could.

So what’s the lesson in this moment? I can find at least a couple.

  1. I gotta get out of this place. Every time I’ve been fired (once) or laid off (once) or quit a job, it’s always pushed me in a better direction. I have to trust that it will likewise do that this time.
  2. Being covertly targeted feels awful. It’s been so long, I had forgotten what it feels like. It is a form of gaslighting and even though I know that term comes from the titular play/movie, it is far more apt than that. It burns and consumes. I feel it eating away at me, and feel the self I bring to the workplace markedly diminished, weakened, charred. Not having allies present to confirm the behavior makes it worse. As I sat writing, burning up in the glow of hypocrisy this week, I thought about all the women and Black and Native and LGBT and other members of non-dominant groups who have been disbelieved and ostracized and shamed and laughed at and had their stories and their feelings dismissed as fantasy or paranoia. My heart opens to them. I don’t like being back in this space, but it does me good to get another taste of their pain and recognize my own complicity in some of that marginalization (again, Feminist Failure blog to follow).
  3. Being decent, honest, well-intentioned, or even right does not mean people will like you. At times it is precisely why people won’t like you. And you gotta decide what you’re willing to risk to keep doing what you think is right, and what it is in your nature to do.
  4. Nothing is certain. You can’t control anything but your own reactions.

I keep telling myself that. One day it will sink in.

Thanks for letting me get this off my shoulders. I’d like to keep it there.

Why Work, Anyway?

Why Work, Anyway?

As I struggle with when to leave my job, what I’m qualified to do, and what I want to do, and my partner/roommate deals with the same, I am haunted (or is it distracted?) by the bigger issues. The personal is political.

I don’t need to make a lot of money. I don’t have huge expenses; my mortgage payments are low; I don’t own a car; I don’t have a kid; I’m not paying off college loans and haven’t been for years. I am lucky/privileged/whatever you want to call it to the extreme. If I just had to earn enough to live on, I’d have lots of potentially fun options to choose from – freelancing, working book or grocery retail, working part-time somewhere that doesn’t bore or hate me. But, of course, we aren’t working to earn a living, We’re working to be able to live. Work has to provide not just enough to pay for my necessary and quality of life expenses: I need supplemental income to contribute to my retirement, because social security ain’t gonna cut it; to provide for inevitable major expenses (like replacing my roof), and likely expenses (like treating the illnesses of an aging dog or buying a car); and, of course, in the United States, I need for my employer to provide health care, because in this country medical care is only a given for the rich, the well-employed, the old, and some of those with disabilities. And if you don’t agree to bring the government into your relationship, you can’t even rely on your partner of 13 years to share their benefits, because since the legalization of gay marriage most companies no longer allow employees to pay for the care of their non-spouses.

[Of course I support and supported the legalization of same-sex marriage, but there were several predictable downsides to the legislation. The first, and more minor, was giving companies a good excuse to remove domestic partnerships from benefits packages. The greater issue was the reduction of the gay rights movement to a desire to be just like straight people. Some LGBT+ folks are undoubtedly happy with that, but the more radical and transformative folks were looking towards a future beyond the nuclear family, beyond domestic comfort, to a world of mutual support as well as individual freedom. And that was largely swept under the rug when Gay Marriage became the Gay Cause Celebre.]

Beyond the fucked up political forces that force us into work, or into more work than strictly necessary, there is a culture of work in Western society that I find, frankly, toxic and malicious. According to our culture, Work

  • gives my life purpose
  • fills my otherwise dull and empty days
  • makes me a good citizen
  • is the center of my social life
  • is where I learn new things

Most jobs don’t do most of this shit, and many jobs don’t do any of it. I know this. And yet even I, the enlightened one, buy into so much of our work-obsessed culture. I feel guilty about leisure, especially anything I can’t clearly tag as helping others or educational. I feel guilty about working less than 40 hours a week, and have to supplement my paid work with enough time volunteering to make up the difference. I feel guilty for being in a financial position where I don’t necessarily need to work 40 hours/week. I will do mind-numbing, soul-sucking data cleanup for hours rather than take time off because who am I? too special to do shit work? I feel I haven’t lived up to my potential because I don’t have a career. I feel unsuccessful because I can’t easily categorize my work with an admirable label. I won’t pull every trinket out of the box of bad thoughts, but you get the idea.

The tragic drama of the pandemic created a crisis response that had so much potential to change this country (all countries, probably, but I’ll just speak to the US) for the better. We could have come out of it with

  • universal health care
  • universal sick leave
  • a universal basic income (UBI)
  • flexible, or at-home work for many jobs

Instead, we only got the latter, and only because companies realized it was a great way to save money. Child poverty plummeted during the pandemic. People were able to pay off haunting debts. Workers were able to step back, take a breath, and look for better – more remunerative or more satisfying – employment. People took classes and pursued degrees. Parents were able to spend more time with their children (and children were sometimes traumatized through social isolation from their peers – that’s another story being told by other people).

But we obviously don’t value wellbeing, family time, health care, financial security, education, or children, because we did not, as a voting public, prioritize policies that would allow these basic benefits to continue. I think this is emblematic of our obsession with work. We actually believe that paid work bestows value on people. That belief has allowed us to diminish the value of at-home moms (and, now, dads), to create sweeping “welfare reforms” that take away people’s ability to buy groceries if they’re not working, to see disabled citizens as a burden, to shut the unemployed elderly away from society in facilities where they wait to die, and to mark any other officially unemployed folks as lazy, greedy, stupid, and generally worthless, whether that state is due to mental illness, lack of opportunity, time consumed with providing unpaid work to others, or simple choice. We talk a good game about individuality and personal freedom in the good old US of A, but woe be to they who do not tow the capitalist line. You are here to earn money, and then give that money to others (ideally large corporations) in exchange for things you need and, most importantly, things you don’t need but which will make you feel better about yourself, since you spend most of your time working or exhausted from work and can’t actually live a life that would be sufficiently fulfilling to you.

Allow me to correct myself. We did get more than the *freedom* to work at home. We got lots of exposure to the culture of young adults who have not been fully indoctrinated, have learned from changing ideas of relationship and gender to question everything, or have just been through enough economic instability to challenge the expansive depiction of work. Whether its the refusal to stay *loyal* to the unfeeling entity that is a place of employment, an insistence on more flexibility and free time, unionization, doing only what is required of your role, or simply extracting their identities from their jobs, I applaud all of it. I hope the movement is understated in the media. I hope we keep calling attention to it. Because if we deprogram ourselves from the cult of work as a society, it could move so many other things in the right direction.

For example, if we stop buying into the lie that work makes us full members of society, we might rebel against the American standard of tying healthcare to work – we might reject the idea that we are only worth caring for if we are bringing home a paycheck. People who don’t spend all their time working might have more energy to invest in their communities, their kids, their interests. Do we want more mediocre, amateur guitarists cluttering our neighborhoods with Friday night porch concerts? I fucking do. A recent Harvard study determined that deep relationships are the key to happiness. How much time do we commit to them?

Yes, of course we need some workers. And some people truly love their work. I know teachers and PCAs and computer programmers and construction workers and entrepreneurs, and of course the lucky artists who get paid, who would do what they do regardless of respect or compensation, but most of the folks I know are either neutral or averse to their employment. And yet they have to keep going.

I can’t tell you how many unfunny jokes I’ve recently heard from broadcasters about Chat GPT taking over their jobs. Do I want a robot as a news anchor? No. And they probably don’t want to leave. But how many jobs do people actually want to do? Why are we fighting over AI replacing grocery store checkout workers and fast food cashiers instead of asking whether those workers really want those jobs and giving everyone a universal basic income instead, and letting them figure out what they actually want to do? No, I’m not an economist and I don’t have the deets on how we could pull this off, but if we sufficiently taxed the companies that replace workers with machines in order to support those who’ve lost their jobs because of automation, we might do alright. The CEOs could still make a fine living. Tim Cook just took a widely lauded 40% pay cut, and this year will earn only…

$49 million dollars

Who needs that much fucking money? People with lavish lifestyles, multiple homes, etc. Of course. What if we lived in a world that just didn’t allow quite that much excess? What could we do with the rest of that money? What if we kept CEO salaries to 20 or 30 times more than the median worker instead of 350 (average) or 3500 (high) times more? What if workers were paid a good wage that allowed more of them to own homes, take vacations, work little enough that they could pursue hobbies or supplemental education? I have certainly been less irritated by unexciting jobs that paid well than by the same job where I was scraping to get by.

Sorry – off track again. I’m not saying it will be easy or quick (barring an apocalypse!), but I do think it will serve us all better – the employed and the unemployed, the abled and the disabled – if we stop tying our self-worth to our employment. It’s an oversimplified and ridiculous point system, where workers are valued more than non-workers, but workers who put in 70 hours a week but can’t pay their expenses are valued less than people who, with a few hours a week shuffling investments, have money to burn. We value workers who literally keep people alive and healthy – nurses, PCAs, hospice workers – less than people who spend their time making more money for rich people. We value people who spend their time doing petty, mindless, paid tasks more than people working for free to improve their communities. How long can we keep going like this? Who does this serve? Who does it harm?

And yet I keep putting in my hours and hoarding my PTO that I may well wind up cashing out. Out of fear. Indoctrination is hard to overcome, friends. One of my favorite Ram Dass anecdotes: he comes back from India, a guru in his white robes, very high on the spiritual plane, teaching and lecturing and being a Karma Yogi. And then he goes home to visit his dad, and his dad asks, Do you have a job? and everything falls apart. He’s defensive, he’s irritated, he’s not loving or forgiving in that moment. If Ram Dass, post Baba Neem Karolyi, can get thrown by the culture of employment, I guess I can give myself some grace in crawling out of this mire.

Work Drama!

Work Drama!

My excuse for my uninspiring job (defensively crafted in case anyone asks) has always been that I work for a company that isn’t doing harm, the work is fine, I like the people, and it minimally infringes on the things I care about more: volunteering, writing, my spiritual growth, my peeps, my life in the world. My theory is that doing plain old work can be as good & ethical as a mission-driven career, and that the nature of the work itself does not determine the Rightness[i] therein (e.g. there are public school teachers who enshrine racist treatment of their students; there are sexist and unethical environmental lawyers). All of this was true for many of my years at Nonprofit, but it has not been true recently. The work is no longer fine: I have been underinvolved in engaging projects, so I find necessary but mindless and soul-sucking data cleanup work to fill my hours. I search for problems to fix. I spend time on my DEI Committee work and documentation of that work, which has been the most important part of my job for the last five years, even though it’s not actually part of my job. I keep being told that I will soon be utilized on various projects which need my considerable expertise, but they keep being pushed back. During a three week, at-home, meditation intensive in April, the downside of spending 1-2 hours every day paying close attention to reality forced me to concede that I have got to leave this job. Not urgently, but eventually. I can no longer pretend that I can hang on until retirement. The work is now doing harm – to me.

And in the last few months it’s been doing harm to others. Our new CEO has demonstrated a firm commitment to toxic masculine leadership. They [CEO referent from this point forward] have led a massive structural transition in the organization with the compassion of Elon Musk, and it no longer feels like a good place to be (though it has, like most tragic events, brought much of the staff closer together, if covertly).

I am committed to being compassionate at work. It is part of my spiritual practice. I do get annoyed when someone sends the same question multiple times or phrases a request in a way that seems demanding or rude, but I recognize my own snobbery and defensiveness and remember my goal of kindness and empathy, and always try to respond with open-mindedness and supportive pleasantries. As far as I know, no one has complained about me in any way for 5 years (prior to that, my directly worded emails were a bit much for some Minnesotans. I checked my communications ego and started adding 😊s and !!!s. It worked! 😉)

The focus of my DE & I work has likewise shifted to the I part lately. As much as I want to push changes in the equity of onboarding and stakeholder analysis and conflict management, since COVID shook up the world I am most concerned about how our employees, in particular, are being treated and included every day. It informs how I run meetings and trainings and facilitate any discussion. I am far more aware of taking the needs not only of BIPOC and LGBTQ+ folks, but neurodivergent employees, including those who exhibit characteristics as common and ignored as introversion, into account.

This commitment to compassion & inclusion, and knowing my days at Nonprofit are numbered, has put me on the CEO’s shit list. When I see Them dismiss employees’ feelings as irrelevant; or take over other people’s meetings to demand that every participant make a verbal comment about an insignificant topic; or accuse Committee members who do not behave, process, or communicate exactly like They do of incompetence, I have felt it is my responsibility to speak truth to organizational power. I am willing to lose my job and other people at the organization can’t afford to do that, because they may not have the financial safety net, minimal familial responsibilities, or other privileges that I do. The times that I have felt compelled to do this (twice in my analysis, but as the CEO may perceive every disagreement as insubordination, maybe 6 times), dozens of staff have reached out to thank me, express their concerns, or share their plans. I won’t say I don’t appreciate that, but that’s not why I did it. Being engrossed simultaneously in my spiritual responsibility to my fellow humans and issues of equity and inclusion for years now, the urge to bring the darkness to light comes naturally. I am as propelled by ego as anyone, unfortunately, but I don’t believe ego compelled my actions in this regard. They were organic, and with the fear of job loss removed, the barrier between desire and action dissolved.

I have zero criticism of any regular staff who haven’t spoken up (though I am disappointed in some of the leadership). Jobs are important. I haven’t heard of many instances of people standing up to Them. One who did, quit. Another was quickly shut down and their competence questioned. So I shouldn’t have been surprised when my supervisor told me, a few months ago, that the CEO was questioning what I actually do in the organization. Or when he confessed yesterday that They told him They don’t want me added to any projects. They are actively limiting what I am allowed to do in the organization, apparently in retaliation, since there is no evidence anywhere of me being bad at my job. No one from HR or anyone, including the CEO, has openly responded to, questioned, or formally disciplined me for anything I’ve said or done either – presumably because the objections are ego-driven and indefensible. Instead, the plan is apparently to shut me down or make me miserable or in some way push me to the point where I quit. Because Nonprofit doesn’t want to pay for my unemployment. Or get sued for wrongful termination.

Of course a person without the compassion to care about people’s feelings and relationships and fears, and a person without the humility or self-awareness to apologize or course correct when an error is called to their attention would hold a grudge and use their power to put that grudge into action. It should be no surprise, but it still hurt. Because, let me repeat, I take kindness very seriously, and even though wanting to be liked is a definite weakness of mine, if being liked comes out of an acknowledgement of decency and respect, why should I dismiss it?

So here I am. The new CEO of the company I have worked at for 8 years wants to push me out. It’s weird to know that. It feels so unjust. I was riding an anger rush for an hour or so after I found out (and anger fumes for a few hours more). I don’t love this org, but I like it, and I care about the people in it. And it breaks my heart that in an effort to increase profits at Nonprofit, the board has brought in a person who has built her management philosophy on … I don’t even know enough about this shit to give you another example … how about Gavin Belson from Silicon Valley? … but in an organization where most of the staff makes less than $25/hour. Not to mention the backsliding on goals of universal inclusion. I’m not sure what to do. Part of me wants to hang around indefinitely just to annoy her – to show up and comment on every insensitivity at every open meeting and force her to fire or confront me. Part of me wants to fuck off with all my exclusive knowledge of systems and processes and leave the whole damn place in the lurch. But neither of those is in my nature. I will probably stay for a while, see if my job gets any better, maybe cut my hours, work on my resume, and make a promise to my worthy self that, barring Their departure and other massive changes, I will get out by 2024. I will also, after the next meeting where I ensure that our plans for the future get heard, step away from the DEI Committee entirely. I’ve simultaneously resigned/been forced out of my leadership role on the DEI Committee, which would be fine except that the way it was done felt punitive, and now I know why. Knowing that the DEI Director (a competent and kind woman, but in a role created without consulting or even informing the grassroots DEI Committee) is reporting to Them and their toady, THE ONLY TWO PEOPLE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD WHO DON’T LIKE ME 😉, it might inhibit the advancement of good ideas if there is any suspicion they are coming from *this bitch*.

In honor of my Life Themes, I made myself take a moment after the anger subsided to ask what this series of events was teaching me. Even though I grew up with activist parents, one of whom was repeatedly beaten and thrown in jail for their activities; even though I refer to John Lewis as a personal hero and have undying admiration for anyone who sacrifices their wellbeing for the greater good, there is some weird little thing inside me that seems to think I will be appreciated for doing the right thing, who believes justice will prevail, and who somehow, bizarrely, thinks that the world in which I move carries more or less the same make of moral compass as I. I can’t defend this position intellectually or historically, but perhaps because I sometimes view the world from a place that is beyond human frailty, that higher, irrefutable, eternal truth may get blurred into the realities of our fucked up world. If I am generous to myself, I can put myself somewhere in the ranks not of Gandhi & MLK (topical reference!), but of those who point out that maybe we should make the effort to caption this meeting for folks with hearing loss, or say, hey, Bob, do you realize that you just repeated what Ngozi said without acknowledging her? or suggest that we provide a range of times for Parent-Teacher conferences, so that parents can attend regardless of their work schedules. I see you, friends. You may be punished directly or indirectly or not at all or praised for your actions, but they matter. Moments of deliberate kindness and inclusion matter. I hope you know that.

[i] In the Buddhist sense of Right Livelihood; much more on this in an upcoming post.