Category Archives: Narrative

This Could Never Happen to Me: Part 3

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After we got the results of the comparable worth study in April 2001, two female coworkers and I realized how much we were being underpaid compared to our male coworkers. I myself was being paid 34.4% below the predicted pay level for my position. We tried to work with the city and with the union (two of us were in the union), and we had no luck. In fact, they gave four foremen merit raises instead, which were outside of the union contract. It was crushing to us. The city administrator seemed to be on our sides but he was also on the chopping block as he was new in his position and the city council did not like him.

So, we filed claims of sexual discrimination based on pay against the city and the union with the department of Human Rights and they found probable cause over a year later in October of 2003. All three of us had different situations since the two other women had worked at the city much longer than me and one of them was wrongfully dismissed from her position in retaliation of the filing the claims. By this time, I moved on to another job. Once we filed the claims in the fall of 2001 I knew I did not want to stay in such a toxic environment. My husband worked active duty for the MN National Guard and his position was very demanding plus we had two small kids at home.

The three of us hired an attorney who was wonderful. She was an older woman who was very stern and kind of bull-dog like but she helped us through a trying time. First we had a mediation with the city. By now there was a new city administrator because the previous one was fired. The new administrator was our colleague who worked in community development, which was awkward for us. During mediation we went back and forth with our attorney and the city’s to come to an agreement. During that time, we had to tell and retell our stories. Since I had moved on, the story telling was not as painful for me. One woman was still working there and the other was unemployed from being wrongfully dismissed and the pain they carried was incredible.

Fortunately, we prevailed with the city and because they settled with us, the union did not have to pay anything to the two of us who were in union. Our attorney took pity on us because it was such a sad and long-drawn out case that she only charged 10% of our settlements, which was generous since the fee is usually 35%. Since this was before the real dawning of the internet, and we were public employees, it was covered extensively in the local newspaper. The newspaper was online but most people still had it delivered and many would comment on the articles online. We endured so many comments about wanting to get paid as much as men. I was shocked then, and now I have grown weary of knowing it is just a reality. I got hate mail from anonymous people and I featured an example in my last blog. Our fellow union brothers told us that we didn’t need to be paid the same because we were married and we weren’t the bread-winners. It was just unbelievable.

One woman stayed working there for a number of years before filing another claim and prevailing. Part of her settlement was quitting her position. I found it hard to get support from hardly anyone except my husband. When friends and family heard about the claim, they were not that supportive even though I prevailed. At times I felt guilty of being greedy but I know deep down that is not the case. The other woman went on to have a successful career. We are still all friends today. Our experience made our bond stronger. I think there are a lot of women out there who are not getting the pay they deserve and they will never stand up for themselves because of the treatment they might receive. I think their stories about how earning less money for most of their careers and lives should be told and how it affected their ability to provide for their families.

I have provided a copy of the settlement below. Also, please visit Instagram or TikTok for a brief video highlighting this case.

Settlements: City to Pay $133,145

“What did not happen”

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Speaking about relationship and dating, how many times did you ask yourself “what if?” What if we were just friends? What if we didn’t break up? What if I told him/her what I really felt on that moment?  This question turned to be a good writing prompt for me and made me write this story about one of my relationships that I had a long time ago. No real names, no concrete dates, just a story. 

What did not happen to me?

I used to believe that one day we would get married. Because people said we were the perfect couple. We were both blond, tall, full of ambition and crazy about each other. Too crazy I would say. Overall, we dated for about two years. I was the most welcome guest in his family, so was he in mine.  Him and my mom became the bests friends which sometimes drove me mad. Everyone, including me, was sure we would get married. But we did not.

Scenario 1

The proposal, marriage, and “goodbye master’s degree”

If I had not broken up with him, sooner or later he would have proposed me. He would have done it before my graduation from university, to make sure I was not going to apply for any M.A. programs. Otherwise, I would not have been able to dedicate myself to family, to become a good and caring wife. If I had agreed on that, I would have given up this “crazy idea” of continuing my education. I would also have limited my communication with my best friends because they had a “bad influence on me and took too much of my time.” Of course, we would have invited them to our wedding, but shortly I would have stopped going out with them. I would not have sung with my girls in karaoke anymore. No bars. No drinks. No stupid jokes. No friends. Even if I did so, I would have always invited my husband to join us. Because that is how it is supposed to be – always together. Anytime and anywhere.

Scenario 2

Moving away from home

While XX and I were dating, he had a job offer from some petroleum company. If he had accepted it, we would have moved to the Russian High North. His father would have found a place for me in the same company. I would have been a written translator, working in the office from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday. I would have earned about $460 a month, a salary (“fair enough for a woman,” right?) Anyway, my husband would have got much more than I did, and I should not have been worried about money at all.

I would have called my parents sometimes and tried to keep back tears not to make them feel worried. My husband would have soothed me and promised me that we would come to my hometown one day. Together. I would not have gone without him anywhere.

I might have called his parents too. His dad would have asked me if XX treated me well. If I had said no, he would have given my husband a good kick in the ass, explaining to his son that the world had been not spinning around him. That he had to be responsible for his wife and care of me as much as I cared for him. They would have had some arguments but finally, it would have been fine. Everything would have been fine. Except for me.

Scenario 3

Kids

In a few years, we would have had children because everything should be done in time. The kids would have had blond hair just like their parents did. They would have had the short temper of their father or saintly patience of their mother. I would have started hating my life, dreaming to escape the prison I was trapped in, but it would have been too late.

One day I would have had a nervous breakdown. After some stormy arguments and numerous negotiations, we would have finally got divorced. Then I would have had to start my life from the very beginning.

Eventually…

None of these happened. That story would have been continuing for years if XX had not left me for a one-month business trip in 20YY. It would have been continuing if one day I hadn’t heard him yelling at me over the phone for…not checking the phone frequently enough and not missing him enough. Once I realized how much better I felt without that person, everything was over.

Does any of these sounds familiar to you? How often do you think women might be stuck in abusive relationship? How often do you think they choose to end it?

 

 

Mental Load: A Day in the Life of a Woman in the Pandemic

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This is a true story about my Veteran’s Day 2020 and the Mental Load I experienced, which I posted about on Facebook. We also post videos and stories about gender equality including mental load on TikTok and Instagram.

This Could Never Happen to Me: Part 2

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I attended my first union meeting a few months after I started my position. The union meetings were held in the Public Works building where most of the men in the union worked. The only two women—I was one of them—who were in the union worked in City Hall. Upon entering the building, there were men gathered around a table drinking beer. Mind you, this was a city government building and drinking alcohol is illegal. No one greeted me or welcomed me so I sat down and was fortunately joined by the only other woman in the union. We had no chance of running for any of the union officer positions because we would not be elected over any of the men in the union.

The most vivid memory I have of my first meeting was sitting across the table from a man who was wearing a t-shirt that said “free mustache rides” with no shame. I considered myself a worldly person and open-minded but I will never understand why he decided to wear that t-shirt to a union meeting. Between the beer-drinking and the t-shirt, I felt intimidated right from the start.

Although I no longer remember the business at hand at that meeting, the union went on throughout my 18-months of employment to undermine all my proposals and the proposals of the other woman in the union. The city underwent a comparable worth study from an outside firm and the study showed that both of us, plus a non-union woman, were not earning what we should be, especially in comparison to male union members. The union denied me vacation time during my first year of employment although they granted two other new male employees vacation time during their first year of employment. When I got a copy of the union contract I realized that I was hired at $1.54 less than what the minimum amount was supposed to be for my position. It took me six months to convince the union and the city to even consider adjusting this discrepancy that was clearly spelled out in the contract.

I am a supporter of unions. I have been a union member for several of my jobs throughout the years, and currently I work for a union and I am in a union. Unions are there for worker’s rights and I could not for the life of me figure out what was going on. The big difference in this union was the male to female ratio. When we asked for equal pay we were told outright that we did not need to earn as much as a man because we were married and our husbands were the bread-winners. I mean, seriously, what year, what decade was this? It was 2001! It was years later that I heard the term “gaslighting” and I knew right away that was what I experienced in this mostly male union.

When the three of us women finally filed claims with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, even though probable cause was found against both the city and the union, it was the union that refused to mediate with the two of us. By that time, we were worn out and we gave up. In my next blog I will talk about filing the claims and mediation. (To be continued in Part 3)

See our posts on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok too!

Thank you Amazon for free image

This Could Never Happen to Me: Part 1

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The year was 2000, I was young and had two small kids, and I thought that the world was moving in a direction where marginalized people were gaining momentum. The LGBTQ+ community was coming out and telling their stories after talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres came out a few years earlier. Famous women of color were entertaining the world and at the same time they were telling us their stories. Women were creating their stories as they attended college, took over the work force, and still managed their households and took care of their kids. We survived Y2K, we had a president I believed in (Bill Clinton), and I started a full-time position in local city government.

For me working at the city was like stepping back in time. At first I could not put my finger on it, but I started to notice that it was mostly men in city hall who had the offices that surrounded the outside of the building and they had windows to the outside. In the middle of the building was an area of cubicles where most of the women worked in a window-less environment. The two men who also worked in the cubicles spent most of the day outside smoking or in the break room drinking coffee while the women were working, answering the phones, and helping people who came into city hall. I worked there for about a month when the city administrator asked me to make a pot of coffee and bring it in to the meeting. I didn’t even drink coffee. I had no idea how to make it. I couldn’t hide my shame and disappointment of being asked to do this. In the back of my mind all I could think was, is this why I went to college? Is this why I spent nearly four years in Europe broadening my horizons? This may seem very inconsequential in the big scheme of life and work but it was a turning point for me. The worst part was that the two men I worked with knew very well how to make coffee since they drank it non-stop, but they would have never been asked to make it and serve it to a board meeting full of men.

Thanks Mike Kenneally for image

I worked for the building inspector, who I admired; however, his office was a mess. Although he did not ask me nor expect me to, I ended up tidying his office weekly. He was often at inspections and I would have to help contractors with their licenses or building plans and if his office was unorganized, neither he nor I could find what we needed and we wouldn’t be able to help the contractors. Once I cleaned his office, I couldn’t take it back. Regardless whether it became expected or not, I felt I needed to do it in order to do my job.

My value and worth as an employee was based on doing these sorts of jobs around the office that no one should be expected to do in a professional government setting. Some days I had to ask myself if I was being unreasonable because my coworkers acted like it was normal. I struggled one moment thinking that I should just do it and not think about it and then the next moment putting my foot down. The women who worked with me were super nice and we became good friends and although they were sympathetic to my situation they had worked there longer and they were at a point where they were happy it wasn’t them performing these household sorts of tasks while at work. Plus, in time I learned that they experienced their share of oppression throughout their years at the city.

I continued to do these tasks for months. I thought the atmosphere at city hall was oppressive for women. I didn’t feel good about it and I felt helpless in trying to make my situation better. It wasn’t until months later when I attended my first union meeting that I realized the discrimination was much worse than I could ever imagine. (To be continued in Part 2)

We posted a brief video about this claim on TikTok and Instagram.

Being a Woman. Personal narrative

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I remember two times in my life when I felt insulted by people’s comments related to me being a woman. The first incident took place in one of the classes back in my home country when I was pursuing my B.A. in teaching. Once I was giving a presentation to my groupmates, and a few times I stumbled over my words and said something incorrectly. My attempt to apologize to my groupmates was disrupted by the teacher who said that I was free to make any mistakes since I was a pretty woman with a nice voice and good manners. Saying that I was shocked to hear such a remark would be an understatement. I was angry. Frustrated. Furious. Because what I heard was that no one cared if I had any intelligence – it was all about my appearance. Another comment that I heard from a different person was related to taking up a job with an X the size of the salary mount salary which, according to him, would be fair enough for a woman. What the person meant was probably that there was a limit that a woman should never exceed when it comes to a career.

Does it sound familiar? Do you think it’s all fair?

For a while, I used to think it is. And unfortunately, many women from all over the world still have an assumption that they are what people might call “a weaker sex.” What can we do about it? Maybe…at least stop being silent and start talking about it? Even though it seems impossible to immediately solve the issue of women’s oppression and underrepresentation, I do believe people ought to be aware of such a problem because it is global.