Do not call me girl

Women in the workforce

by Susan Grigsby

 

Years ago, when my career depended on my being so much better at what I did than were the men I worked with, and my willingness to work twice as hard for 60.2 percent of their salary, I was forced to walk a very fine line between my feminist principles and my need for that truncated paycheck. I loved the work though; I was thrilled to be paid to analyze the physical and financial aspects of a business and to make a decision. Someone was actually willing to pay me to think. And to deal with abstract concepts, like finance and contracts and tort law. Heady stuff for one who was raised in an era when few women worked outside the home.
Even in my early twenties, I knew that the words we used shaped the way we think. Back before it was called politically correct, when it was merely seen as respect, we stopped referring to adult African American males as boys. But even the most liberal men of that era still referred to women as girls.
One day, up on that tenuous tightrope upon which the first woman in a man's job had to balance, I had a discussion with my boss, a Berkeley graduate working in San Francisco, about the word girl. Politely, with humor and a winning smile, I suggested that referring to an adult in the terms of childhood diminished her standing in his eyes. That it was not possible to see the professional woman when he was thinking of her as a child, as "less than" an adult member of his team. I remember saying that of course, it was his right to use whatever language he felt was appropriate, but that I did wish he would at least think about the word and what it implied, when he was using it.
Today, I am no longer in need of a paycheck issued by a man, so I can say it flat out, "Do not call me 'girl.' " I am not a child, and it doesn't matter how many women use the term to describe each other or themselves. It is inappropriate to label an adult as a child in any professional setting. Or in any discussion of adults in a professional setting.
The reason this needs to be said now, is that we are likely to nominate the first woman as president of the United States within the next year. We have to be prepared for the backlash that is sure to come, just as our black sisters and brothers have had to deal with the backlash created by the election of the first black president of the United States.

Last week Laura Clawson reported that there were United States congressmen who would not allow a female staff member to accompany them to evening events, be alone in a car with them or in a closed door, one-on-one, meeting.

As a result, women are kept out of important meetings and kept from developing the kind of professional relationships that are so crucial to advancing on Capitol Hill. Not because they've done anything wrong, just because someone might think it looks bad. These policies are in a minority of congressional offices, but they're also not a one-off thing. Such policies are discriminatory and illegal—yet they're coming from members of Congress tasked with making the law. Talk about inspiring absolutely no confidence.

Someone suggested that this illegal, discriminatory behavior was to protect the man from a sexual harassment claim. That intrigued my curiosity. How many actual claims of sexual harassment are filed every year? Is this a concern that most men should be troubled with? And if so, what should we do to eliminate it as a threat? According to the Department of Labor:

Of the 123 million women age 16 years and over in the U.S., 72 million, or 58.6 percent, were labor force participants—working or looking for work.

According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Office in fiscal year 2014, there were a total of 26,027 claims filed alleging discrimination on the basis of sex. Those claims include sexual harassment as well as pregnancy and other sexually related claims. The total claims alleging sexual harassment were 6,862. Keep in mind that in order to file a federal lawsuit claiming sexual harassment, all administrative remedies, including an EEOC complaint, must be exhausted first. So in order to sue, a woman must first comply with all corporate procedures for filing a sexual harassment claim, submit to the corporation's attempts to mediate, and then if unsatisfied, she must file with the EEOC before a suit can be brought. There are a lot of hoops to jump through to file such a claim.
Although these numbers include a minority of male victims as well, I am using the feminine pronoun. But even if we were to assume that all claims were brought by women, that still results in a chance of .01 percent (6,862 divided by 72,000,000) that the woman sitting in your office will bring a claim against you if your office door is closed. And that assumes that some type of harassment actually occurs. The odds of a claim without reasonable basis (52.0 percent of filed claims), is .005 percent.
So for an infinitesimal chance that a false sexual harassment suit might be brought, women must be excluded from one-on-one meetings with men, staffing politicians at evening events and even serving as their drivers?
Sarah Mimms, for the National Journal, spoke with a representative from the congressional Office of Compliance about this issue.

"Policies, official or unofficial, that prohibit female staff from being alone with a Member can be discriminatory and create an unequal playing field in the workplace," OOC spokesman Scott Mulligan said in a statement to National Journal. "A practice like this means that women can never become trusted advisors or rise to high positions within an office based solely upon their gender. Employers should concentrate on ensuring that their staffs are trained in workplace rights laws and that the workplace is free from harassment and discrimination rather than trying to build unlawful fences around their female staff."

Women already, (still) face an unequal playing field in the competition for leadership rolls in the workplace.