“Women are systematically
degraded by receiving the trivial attentions which men think it manly to pay to
the sex, when, in fact, men are insultingly supporting their own superiority.”
– Helen Keller
There’s this pesky rumor
going around about Millennials. Something along the lines of how we hate to
work, and when we do, we essentially suck at it.
Let me set the record
straight.
I’m 26 years old. I have a
Master’s degree, I teach college English, and I have multiple publications to
my name. And until about two weeks ago, I worked two jobs.
I’ll do that math for you.
That’s six days a week where I did work that someone actually had to pay me for
(which is completely different than the crafting work I do in the hopes of one
day dethroning Martha Stewart in a cuter, less 10 to 15 kind of way). Four of
those six days ended up culminating in 15+ work hours, which isn’t counting
grading I took home with me. So here’s my point: I work hard. I always have.
I’m not a slack ass.
Yet, with a few clicks, you
can find a host of condescending web articles, including this incredibly
special video "Millennials in the Workplace
Training Video," which details all the ways in which Millennials pale in comparison to their
predecessors in the workplace. But don’t take my word for it. Just Google it.
There are plenty of articles out there describing how exactly managers can
“deal” with their up and coming Millennial employees. As if we are the ebola of the workplace - an entity
that needs to be handled. We, the needy,
self-absorbed, whiny, and lest we forget lazy Millennials destined to plummet
the American economy into the worst recession it’s seen since the Great
Depression. Oh wait…
But I digress.
The most
frustrating part of this whole ordeal – the ordeal being that I am a Millennial
worker in a Boomer run world – is the fact that women still face the added challenge of actually being women. So on top
of being young and thus subject to skepticism, millennial women and I also have to
deal with men who challenge our position in the workplace for no reason other
than the fact that our junk turns inward.
Case in point: recently,
after a year, I left a job at a small business – a gourmet pizza place,
actually – where two male bosses twice my age repeatedly undermined my
intelligence. Never mind the fact that I have somehow with my feeble woman
brain managed to acquire not one but TWO degrees. Or the fact that my
colleagues (most of whom have PhDs and M.As) seem to find my performance up to par. OR the fact that an article of mine was just published in a scholarly collection examining Girls and Millennial angst.
Put that aside for a
minute, and what do you have?
You have one boss who
apologized to one of MY COLLEAGUES for anything I might “do wrong” while he sat
at the bar with his wife. A colleague I asked to come eat and drink a beer while I worked in an attempt to
promote the restaurant, mind you.
You have another boss who made
several jokes to me and other female coworkers bordering on sexual harassment. A
man who thought nothing of flippantly announcing that I wanted to “go
through the initiation process” as I joked with a fellow Sons of Anarchy fan about how I’d make a killer old lady (on
account of being small and innocent looking – I'm a tiny ginger with a baby face. Who would ever suspect me??).
Now, I know I’m young and I’m burdened with this damn lady brain, but I do feel as if casually jesting to a
coworker half one’s age about having a train run on her (or more accurately, wishing to have a train run on her)
might, just might, fall under the category of sexual harassment. I could be
wrong though.
You have two men in their
forties who repeatedly called ME, a
woman in my mid-twenties, immature and disrespectful because I demanded to be
treated with common human decency. That uniquely Millennial desire for
something more than simple acknowledgement of existence from an employer and an understanding that there are lines that should be respected. And when they aren't, we are allowed to say so, regardless
of our age.
So yes, I’m annoyed. I’m bothered
by the fact that my age, gender and intelligence are characteristics that somehow
make me suspect or threatening or uncomfortable. Even more frustrating to me is
the very fact that I feel the need to justify myself for sounding like a
snot-nosed, entitled Millennial kid who’s never known a day of real struggle in
her life, let alone the tribulations of women who fought the good fight so I could stand up to two men twice my age,
hold up my finger, and say, “Let me stop you right there, you RAGING ASSHATS.”
The truth of the matter,
though, is that Millennial women have been taught to fear the F word: FEMINISM. (Eeeek!) That scary bra-less condition
that may turn us into those Rush Limbaugh-imagined feminazis with lasers for eyes,
loaded missiles for breasts, and God knows what between our legs.
So what we have then is women, particularly young millennial women new to the adult workplace, living in a world of catch 22s. It’s like Claire Shipman
and Katty Kay say in their book, The Confidence Code: The Science And
Art Of Self-Assurance – What Women Should Know, “Women suffer consequences
for their lack of confidence—but when they do behave assertively, they may suffer
a whole other set of consequences, ones that men don’t typically experience….
If a woman walks into her boss’s office with unsolicited opinions, speaks up
first at meetings, or gives business advice above her pay grade, she risks
being disliked or even—let’s be blunt—being labeled a bitch. The more a woman
succeeds, the worse the vitriol seems to get. It’s not just her competence
that’s called into question; it’s her very character.”
Basically, kids, the moral
of the story is this: there's still no place for a capable woman who relies on
her brain in a man's world.
But I have another F word for just such occasions:
FUCK.
That.
All day long.
But just in case that isn’t
clear enough, here’s a chart that breaks it down a little further:
Things
I Do Like a Girl
|
Things
I Don’t Do Like a Girl
|
Earn 77 cents to every man’s
dollar
|
Think
|
Fuck
|
|
Cry
|
|
Throw
|
|
Have and/or express emotions
|
I think that covers it.
Now, I don't imagine my diatribe will stop anyone, even those who do sympathize with the plight of the millennial women, from actually eating there. They do serve good food, after all. And very often our ethics take a back seat to other, more pressing needs and desires. And I'm even more sure that both of my former bosses could list on cue every reason why I was the most terrible employee to ever grace their threshold.
All original content copyright Kimberly Turner, 2014-2014.
