The Cheese Grates It: College, Family Dysfunction, Patriarchal Attitudes, and Sexual Assault

This post is a response to Gail Dines' excellent essay about the patriarchy's fear of women's empowerment and the rise of pornography and suppression of courses such as women's studies in response to that fear.

http://www.feministcurrent.com/2017/10/04/hugh-hefner-represents-neoliberalisms-win/

The fear of truly liberated and empowered women does indeed terrorize those who are caught up in patriarchal beliefs. When I was bound for college in the early 1980's, I was signing up for courses, and one of the courses I signed up for was women's studies. My parents threw a huge fit and demanded that I withdraw from the course. They said that if people heard that I was taking "courses like that" they'd think I was "a dyke" and that I'd be ostracized and have no friends. I said that if someone thought that I was a lesbian simply because of a class I was taking, or that they would refuse to be friends with someone who was a lesbian, that was not someone I wanted to be friends with. They then stated that they would refuse to pay for college if I took this course. Because I didn't have the financial means or the knowledge to pay for college myself, I backed down. I lasted one semester. I was sexually assaulted early on in the semester, and I knew that because I was drunk at the time my concerns would be dismissed, so I never reported it. When I tried to tell my father what had happened, he asked why I had put myself in a position where I would be vulnerable to such an assault. I had a nervous breakdown and ended up getting married too young to the one person who treated me with any compassion. There is some positive outcome to this tale. I am still friends with my ex-husband. We divorced in 1994 but were able to repair our friendship. We had a son together who is now 27, and we are a family. Sadly but understandably, my son cannot stand my mother.

My father passed away near the end of 2010. In spite of his awful reaction to my assault, I hope that no-one will say it's good that he's dead or good that he suffered for many years before dying. He was a good man who had some stupid beliefs and I did love him in spite of these unfortunate ideas.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

The Cheese Grates It: Women at Work in the Patriarchy

The image comes from the following article:

https://www.citycalling.com/employer-advice/are-you-a-controlling-boss/bp251/

I wanted to talk about this but wasn't sure how to start. Tinfoil the Hat gave me a great lead in with her comment on this article:

http://www.feministcurrent.com/2016/10/31/sugar-sisters-third-wave-feminism/

Tinfoil the Hat:

No woman can escape having to work within the patriarchy. That's why patriarchy sucks. You do whatever you have to do. You need wages and a place to live and health care and food & drink and all the various and sundry things we ALL need. You're not responsible for patriarchy; you alone can't fix it, and its magnitude is DEVASTATING. A suggested mantra if you are struggling and doing the best you can, and still feel terrible: "Everything I do is okay, and there is nothing wrong with me." It feels alone but you're not alone!

Cie:

Indeed. Even as a contractor, it still prevails. I work for one home health agency but the patient that I was working with transferred to another agency. I applied at that agency with the assumption that I would be doing fill-in work for the same patient while my current agency found me a new full-time case. Just last week I applied for a position I never thought I'd be able to land, but the first interview went well and I'm now going for a second interview. My case coordinator went bonkers when I emailed him to say that I was considering this new position and if they wanted to put someone else on the case they were considering me for, I'd understand. He acted more like a jealous boyfriend than a supervisor, telling me that I needed to declare my allegiance to the agency, and that when they find cases for me I'm expected to fill that position, not be looking for extra work. It isn't that he's sexually attracted to me. I'm probably 20 years older than he is, and I look far more like Eccentric Aunt Bedelia, or even Grandma, than some sort of "MILF." I expressed my dismay at his reaction as he demanded to know why I hadn't informed him earlier that I was still considering other work. I found myself explaining how my high-functioning autistic son still needs me to take him to appointments, how my new glaucoma medicine is making me queasy, how my brother had been in town--all stuff that his none of his damn business! Unless there is a serious emergency, I always show up at work, usually on time. I work extra hours. I was working 60 hours a week for the past month. I was flabbergasted. Most home care nurses are female, and most of the case coordinators are male. Even though they don't expressly say it, they still expect us to defer to their male authority, even when we are old enough to be their mother.

Additional information not included in the previous comment:

I currently work with pediatric patients. I found, purely by accident, a position with an agency that works with retired nuclear and uranium workers who have respiratory issues. I was interested in the position but have no experience with this niche of nursing. I applied anyway. The first interview went well, and I'm hoping to get hold of the lady with whom I need to schedule the second interview soon.

I emailed my case coordinator on Saturday night to let him know. He cussed me out for not calling him over the weekend. I said "I've never before had a supervisor who would be okay with me calling them at home for anything but a serious emergency. So I apologize, but I hardly thought that calling you with this would be all right."

He basically made me out to be a traitor of some kind. I finally said to him "look, I know for a fact that you have other employees who work for several agencies. Why are you giving me grief for being interested in diversifying?"

He said that the trouble was I had agreed to go on Thursday for a meet and greet with a potential new family to work with. I said that was why I let him know as soon as I could that I'd had this opportunity. He demanded to know when I applied for the job. I said "I don't know. Wednesday, maybe? I stumbled over the link while surfing the Internet. I honestly never expected them to call me back."

None of which I should have to explain to him. It's none of his business. Again, I am an employee of the company he works for, not his girlfriend. Also, if I had a boyfriend who grilled me that way, I'd be having serious second thoughts about staying with him.

He said that if I wanted to remain as a full-time employee, I needed to remain on board all the way, otherwise I needed to go to PRN.

I said "fine. Put me as PRN."

He seemed to be surprised. He said "well, if you go to PRN, you have far fewer opportunities to get hours..."

I said "I'm aware of that. Put me as PRN."

"Well, okay," he said. "But if you ever in the future want to have full time hours, we can get them for you, but you need to be one hundred percent on board."

If the opportunity working with the retired uranium and nuclear workers fall through, I'm going to ask the agency taking over my current case for full time hours. I don't like working with control freaks. I've dealt with enough control freaks in my personal life.

A contract employee is not under any obligation to be exclusive to their employer unless it is fully disclosed that they have to be at the beginning of their employment.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~