By Destiny Perez
When in a professional environment such as a workplace you would expect everyone to treated equally. Opportunity for women have very much evolved since… well the beginning of time. Whenever you read or watch a movie based on the 1950s or produced during that time you see that women are housewives. It was rare to see women working back in that era but even when they were it was never equal to what a man would do.
I have interviewed two different women of different ages and they have both had different experiences but also answers that have shown men are held to a different standard at a workplace. The oldest woman that was interviewed is named Phyllis Cromwell from New York and she is 84 years old and remembers her entire life experiences like she is still living them now. The other woman interviewed was Kaisha Schwegler also from New York.
Each woman was asked a set of exactly the same three questions: How would you describe your work environment? Are/were men treated differently in your work environment? Do you believe that women are underappreciated in a work environment?
Mrs. Cromwell was born June 1936 and explains she went to school only until the eighth grade because she had to help out her family since she is the oldest out of all her siblings. Phyllis worked in a factory dealing with making materials for refrigerators and she was one of the only few young women that worked there, and she said that job was horrible.
When I asked her the first question, there was no hesitation with the answer that she gave me. Then after the first answer she went into the second question by answering “during that time young boys and men were always treated better than us girls everywhere, especially at work.” Mrs. Cromwell at a young age worked at a factory with other young adults and adults. She went into explaining to me that even when women were able to do the same thing as men or even better at the workplace it was never appreciated nor acknowledged. She said “one day I did something at work that the men were having a hard time figuring out and I remember I went and fixed the situation, and the boss did not even come to thank me. He said thank you men for fixing the issue.” Phyllis made it clear that during that time women never were appreciated, and they were expected to stay quiet and stay out of male business. She was shocked when I told her a lot of work environments still treat women the same way and she said, “I guess some things just never change.”
Ms. Schwegler works at a private doctor’s office in Manhattan New York on the upper east side. When asking her these three questions and telling her what the other women said she giggled. I proceeded to ask her why she was giggling, and she said because it’s so astonishing that the work environment for women is somewhat still very sexist. Kaisha grew up in a different era compared to Phyllis, but still says that the workplace is revolved around the accomplishments of men and if a woman does the same thing it does not go noticed. Schwegler’s work environment is very small it only has eight employees and six of them are men. Kaisha went into explaining how she has worked at this private practice for the last 10 years and can tell you by being a woman working there has not given her the same opportunities as the men. She went into explaining that her work environment involves a lot of ‘hardship’. She went into explaining that the men there are held to a higher standard than the women that work there. There was this one instance with her boss, and he was speaking to the men in a professional manner but then when he went into conversation with a woman it was completely different. It was different but not in a good way, the women are being treated like they are rarely there. Kaisha went into explaining she would ask questions and it always seems like that there’s a problem with her asking questions. With no doubt she feels underappreciated at work because her boss doesn’t trust her as much as he would trust a male employee.
When it comes to Equal Rights Amendment it states “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."(Cohen, Codrington III, 2020) Which to my knowledge that means no one should be treated differently in regard to what sex they are, male or female. Although management in some companies won’t tell you the reason that they aren’t hiring you is because you’re a woman, they will come up with some other excuse. They reason that someone that can potentially be hiring you won’t say that is because they know they will get reported and in trouble for being sexist. The ERA is supposed to protect sexism within professional environments, although it is still happening all over. Should being a woman or a man be an actual reason that you won’t be considered for a job?
Asking questions to women both of different eras shows that not much has changed for women in the work environment. There was a man interviewed his name is Justin Reyes and he was asked one question which was. Do you believe men and women are treated the same way in a workplace?
The man proceeded to answer that he believes women and men are treated equally in a workplace although that women might have different hardships compared to men in a workplace.
This answer stuck to me, because the man states that both women and men are treated the same in a workplace but may experience different hardships. So, then that makes me question are men really paying attention to what happens to women in the workplace?
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