There is a difference between
learning about the ignorance and inequality between the genders in our society
and then there is actually experiencing it. When I came to Ohio University, I
was a budding feminist and almost completely unaware of the inequalities that I
experience everyday as a women. Since freshman year, I have been taking Women
and Gender Studies classes and this year I have declared a certificate from the
WGSS program. Throughout these classes, I learned just how inequalities can be
presented but never shook me to the core in my atmosphere here at OU because I
thought my college was modern and liberal to be above that bias. Those were my
thoughts until my junior year of school and after becoming a supervisor at my
place of work. As a woman taking a superior work position over men that are my
age, and some even older, I become accustomed to being called hysterical, a
hard ass, annoying, needy, and words to the same liking while my male
counterparts have not been called any of those names when we do the exact same
work. I worked hard to achieve this position of employment and its very disheartening
that my efforts go unrecognized because I am a woman in a superior position.
Until I came to college, I was a very meek person. I
think I was meek because I never found anything yet to be passionate about;
there was nothing that really got me excited to do something. I babysat for
money, got decent grades, and lived a pretty average life. When I came to school,
I branched out: went to parties, got close to my three roommates, rushed a
sorority, and broke out of my shell. Living this new, social lifestyle meant
paying for it. My parents provided a small allowance for me at the beginning of
every month but I realized that I want a little more and more each month that
went by. When I came back for my second semester, I began to start the job
search for funding my midnight food runs and other entertainment expenses. I
tried avoiding dining hall positions as much as I could and I wasn’t eligible
for the Ohio University PACE program; I started to run out of options. I
started to reach out to some of my sorority sisters and ask about their
employment situations and where they were looking for jobs. After starting to
get discouraged, my friend, Laura, said that she just got a job at the “call
center.” She gave me the application website and said she’d talk to her boss
for me.
About a week later, I received a
phone call from the manager of the call center, Carlyn Runnells. She said that
she had reviewed my application and that I was welcome to come in for a group
interview. After I got off the phone, I went up and down the emotion scale from
excited to nervous, to happy, to full out terrified. I started asking myself the
typical interview-prep questions: what am I going to wear, what is she going to
ask me, who else is going to be there, what if I don’t get to talk? Finally the
day came, I walked myself all the way day down Union Street, and entered with
head held high and confident.
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