I remember the day I was denied a job that I was very well qualified and suited for because I was a divorced woman. It was in May, 1980. I applied for a job at a publishing company in a small Northwestern Iowa town. They were looking for someone to manage several small weekly newspapers and had been impressed with my application, resume, and clips. When the publisher called and expressed his interest, he asked me how long it would take me to get there to start the job.
I really needed this job and I was so excited at the offer, I missed the implication in his delayed response to my, “Just as soon as I get my daughter out of school, pack up, and get there!” When he answered, he hesitated and then said, “So, does that mean you are a single mother?” “Yes,” I said. “Is that a problem?” “How long have you been divorced,” he came back with. Remember, it was 1980. It never occurred to me then that he had no legal right to ask me that question, or that it really was none of his business.
“Well,” he finally said, “You do have the skills and experience I need for this position. Why don’t you come on up here for an interview and we’ll see if we can work something out? I’ll even reimburse you for the gas.”
“Okay!” I agreed and we set the day and time for the appointment. This was also the day the people of Iowa were to vote on ratification of the Iowa Constitutional Amendment approving the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). The town he was in was on the same highway, farther west, where my son and his family lived, so I decided to go the night before and stay with them to be sure I would make my appointment the next day on time. I was naively confidant that this job was “in the bag.”
This man owned three small weekly papers, all staffed by women, and in addition to management duties, I was also expected to report on the county board of supervisors’ meetings. I was well qualified to handle all of the responsibilities he listed. I was sure I could persuade him that he really needed me.
After our tour of his newspapers, he ushered me into his office and closed the door. I expected we were to talk about salary and local rental possibilities. “While you are exactly the person I am looking for, I am not going to hire you,” he said, looking me straight in the eye.
“I don’t understand. You just said I was perfect for your job.”
“Well, you’ve been divorced for some time, you’re a single mother, and I just don’t think you would fit in very well in our traditionally Christian community,” he said, looking away from me then. “For instance, if you were covering one of our board meetings and one of the men (apparently they are all men) refused to answer your questions, what would you do to get the story?”
What? He honestly thought that because I had been divorced for so long I would be so desperate for a man that I might try to get personal with some of them for the sake of a story. Wow!
Needless to say, I started home without the job, without the promised gas money, and in a very angry frame of mind. It was to get worse. As I drove back across the country to my son’s to pick up my things, I turned on the car radio and caught the news. What I heard was so unexpected, I pulled over and stopped the car. The voters of Iowa had failed to ratify the Constitutional Amendment for the ERA. I had campaigned for this issue for several years and started to cry, knowing the efforts of myself and many other women who had fought for it were for nothing, and my experience earlier that day was a perfect example of why Iowa, and indeed, America, needed this Amendment.
Later, back home, as I related my bitter experience to an Iowa legislator friend of mine who owned our local newspaper, he declared, “Pat, he broke this federal law and this law…you have a good discrimination case against him!”
“Phil, you know that the worst mistake a journalist can make in this business is to be a trouble-maker against an employer or a prospective one. No one would ever hire me. I won’t bring any suit or make a complaint. Besides, the door was closed and he will just say he didn’t hire me because I have no college degree. My word against his. But I will tell you this. I know better now and no one will ever do that to me again!”
My point in recounting this episode in my early career is pertinent to today’s ‘Me Too’ movement. There were many reasons why the women coming forth now, speaking out about the offenses against them so long ago did not talk about these events when they happened. Those reasons were as complex as the women who experienced them and the actions themselves.
Today, in the current self-centered social environment, where we believe everyone needs to know everything we think, do, and act upon, we seem also to believe correctness in everything, especially proper acceptable behavior, has always been the norm rather than the exception. But it hasn’t. People may have changed, values may have changed, and opinions may have changed. But the one thing that apparently has not changed over time is basic human nature, especially male aggressiveness. Once we embrace an attitude about something and are convinced we believe it, we are reluctant to change. We currently remain entrenched in misguided, overindulgent male impulses, and until we can get that under control, things will not get better. Our sons need fathers to teach them proper respect for the females in their lives, and respect for laws designed to protect us all from aggressive behavior, regardless of whom it comes from.
Families also need to find their way back to the Lord and follow His teachings regarding how we should treat each other.
