Who remembers life for women before RBG?

[MustLoveBeagles]

64. I was too young to have it affect me directly

I know my mom had difficulties in the 70's and 80's. She worked for Kmart from 1981 to 1988. She didn't have problems with her first boss but the replacement who took over in 85 was awful. A horrible sexist in a goofy religious cult who thought women shouldn't work, even in crappy jobs, because they took work away from men. This jackass didn't even have the excuse that he was old and set in his ways. He was only a few years older than her. It also didn't help that my uncle (mom and him didn't get along at the time) was friends with the jerk and gave him pointers on how to get her goat.

Among the things he did: he took her off the forklift which she was qualified to do because it was "mans work". He made her scrub the men's room floor with a toothbrush while him and others mocked her. He made her retar the parking lot all by herself when it was a 3-4 job and once wrote up a male coworker who felt bad for her and tried to help. He often humiliated her and other female workers in front of customers. It got so bad that customers (this is a very conservative town, mind you) called into their complaint hotline threatening to boycott the store until he was gone. He often threatened to fire her and ruin her chances for getting another job. I often heard her crying in her bedroom with the door closed. I could go on and on about the abuse she and other employees endured. She wound up on Xanex to cope with the stress and went from 1 pack a day cig habit to 3 packs a day.

Needless to say there was at least one Class Action lawsuit against him and he eventually "encouraged" to resign. When she did quit she found out later he'd made good on his threat to give her bad evaluations. Fortunately she eventually found a place to work that didn't take the bait and sympathized with her situation.

I've dealt with sexism in the workplace but it was nothing compared to what mom endured. I did work as a temp (was later hired) in a bank that required women to wear skirts and dresses with pantyhose and dress shoes. Walking several blocks to the bus stop during wintertime was hell. The men were required to wear ties. What was so stupid was that we were in the basement and had no contact with bank customers. This was finally changed in the late nineties when the bank changed ownership when new dress code became business casual.