Women Need to Take Another Stand

What's a woman to do in a society that is still male-dominated? That is the question that every woman who desires to get ahead in her respective fields has asked. I know that it is a question that has plagued me since being passed over for a promotion at a local community college. I was passed over for a position that I had been training for two years. That promotion was given to a male employee who had been in the department for under a year. When asked the reasoning for the choice, my supervisor explained that the male employee had something extra to bring to the table.
Since that disappointment, I have had the shades ripped from my eyes and I see the struggle that women endure in the workplace. Oh, sure, we have our "equality". If earning less money for the same position, being unable to better our position in a company and being made to feel as if we should still be bringing the coffee and bagels instead of participating in the lively meetings.

Searching for a position is almost as demeaning as actually working for these companies. Almost as demeaning because at least you can walk away at the end of the interview and never have to face them again. Interviewers have hinted that I was too smart or too young or too experienced; but the best one to date is when a potential employer informed me that I was too pretty to work in their company. What? Okay, before I continue, I should probably tell you that I am in the IT field, the wonderful world of Information Technology. When I asked this potential employer to elaborate, his response was that when you think of an IT professional, you think of your stereotypical nerd; and I obviously was not a nerd.

I thought we left that way of thinking with the Women's Rights Movement. But what do I know, I am just a young, smart, pretty woman who shouldn't be in the workplace; at least that is a paraphrase of the "compliments" that I receive from potential employers. So, I took the bull by the horns and thumbed my nose at all of them. I started my own business. Since 2004, I have expanded my business to encompass the concept of the one-stop-shop. I still have people who look at me and decide to do business with the next "guy". People still tell me that I need not worry with running a business. To them I always respond that I do not wish to be under the tyranny of male chauvinists in the workplace. My self-preservation is too important to me and I will not let my daughter grow up thinking that this way of business is acceptable for women.

I have contractors who work with me, most are women, I tell them when they first contract with me that women need to take another stand and demand that we be given equal opportunities.