Speak Out Against Sexism
In my early thirties, I sat across from a much older man and told him a straight up lie. The occasion for this lie was a job interview: my prospective boss had just asked me if I was planning on starting a family in the next few years. I told him that I had no plans for children and that I just wanted to focus on my career. He accepted my answer and ended up hiring me for a job that I really wanted. The truth was, I’ve felt bad about this lie ever since. Not because I told him something untrue, but because I didn’t stand up for myself and push back about why he was asking.
I have always been a big planner, and at the time of the job interview, I already had a detailed plan worked out for my life. I’d work for two years, get pregnant and then hopefully be in a position to come back to work part-time. Remarkably, this is exactly what happened. And despite my misgivings during my job interview, my work place ended up being very supportive of my decision to start a family. But by not telling my interviewer that it was inappropriate to ask about my maternity status, I know I made things a little harder for the next woman who sat in my seat.
Why didn’t I push back and tell him that when I was planning to have children was none of his business? I think for the same reasons that Hillary Clinton says she stayed quiet when she felt that Donald Trump was trying to intimidate her during a debate. As she says:
"It was one of those moments where you wish you could hit pause and ask everyone watching, ‘Well, what would you do?’ Do you stay calm, keep smiling and carry on as if he weren’t repeatedly invading your space? Or do you turn, look him in the eye and say loudly and clearly, ‘Back up, you creep. Get away from me. I know you love to intimidate women, but you can’t intimidate me, so back up,'" Clinton said.
"I chose Option A, I kept my cool, aided by a lifetime of dealing with difficult men trying to throw me off," she added. "I did, however, grip the microphone extra hard. I wonder, though, whether I should have chosen Option B. It certainly would have been better TV. Maybe I have over-learned the lesson of staying calm, biting my tongue, digging my fingernails into a clenched fist, smiling all the while, determined to present a composed face to the world.”
As women we face intimidation, cat calls, inappropriate comments and inappropriate suggestions all the time. Every woman I know has multiple stories of men, especially in the workplace, who crossed a line with them. And almost all of them responded the way Hillary did. We know too clearly the consequences of calling men out for this behavior. We can be disbelieved, we can be turned down for a job, we can burn bridges, we can even be fired. And so we usually stay calm and try to pretend that nothing is happening.
I got to know the man who interviewed me well over the years that I worked for him, and I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean to cross a line by asking me when I would have children. He is a nice man with daughters of his own, and he seemed genuinely happy for me when I came into his office to tell him that I was pregnant. But almost 20 years later I remember how it made me feel that he asked me about my plans to have children. I took the job knowing that I had something to hide. I wondered if I would have been offered the job if I had been candid with him. It made for an insecure start at what should have been my dream job.
The only way to stop sexist behavior is for more of us to call it out when it happens and to say loud and clear that it is not ok. This is true whether the bad behavior is meant to intimidate us or whether it is the result of unconscious bias. Even though the consequences of speaking out against sexism are very real, speaking out is the only way we are ever going to change things. As I look back on all the times in my life when I should have spoken up, I know how incredible hard it is. Even Hillary Clinton found it difficult. I don’t have the answer for how to make it safe for women to confront inappropriate behavior, but I know that unless we challenge the status quo, women will continue to face obstacles that undermine their confidence on a daily basis. Next time someone says something to me that crosses that line, I’m going to let them know. I’ll tell you how it goes!
