Gould: Interview Assignment

Keep the Movement Moving


Cynthia Swan is in her mid-50s, and has been a fellow co-worker of my mother’s for the last couple decades. In fact, it was my mother who suggested that I interview her for this assignment, given her background and the fact that we’ve been acquaintances for most of my life, but had not had the chance to converse beyond small talk. She was also an appealing interviewee because she, like my mother, is a successful lawyer for a major bank, which may have been an unattainable position for many women a few short decades ago. Upon speaking with her, I came to realize how much she had to offer, not only from the earlier years of her life, but from the feminist struggle she remains involved in today. Growing up in the fifties, sixties, and seventies, Cynthia was around for the heart of the second wave of the movement, was able to reap its benefits as an adult, and remains opinionated about the continuing struggle of women in our society.

The sixties, recalls Cynthia, were not a time of far-reaching opportunity for teenage girls. Her immediate thoughts on the issue brought her to the example of athletics. Being an athlete, she began to recall the sporting options presented to her around this time, which were few and far between. There was synchronized swimming, cheerleading and gymnastics, period. That was it. In fact, she remembered that the general mood towards women’s athletics was that no one ever imagined them deserving spectators or support. When the school finally started a women’s tennis team, the athletes were told that because of funding issues, they had to choose between being provided tennis balls or meals on the road. I nearly broke out laughing after hearing this story, trying to imagine an administrator explaining to a tennis team that they would be provided tennis balls only with the provision that they not be fed. When she was in college, she had the opportunity to play intramural basketball—well, kind of. Clearly, thought the recreation department, women couldn’t possibly handle the structure of a normal basketball game. So instead they were only allowed to play half court, and with no more than three dribbles by a player before they had to shoot or pass. Even through the most condescending, stereotypical, patriarchal lens I can muster in my imagination, I can’t explain that one. No more than three dribbles by a player at a time? What, was someone’s head going to explode after the fourth or fifth? Go figure.

Besides the recreational opportunities of the time, or lack thereof, Cynthia remembers the myths regarding early feminists of the second wave. Of course, there were the mythical and iconic bra-burners (that no one seemed to actually witness), but there were other stereotypes, as well. She recalls that the common conception of feminists were that they were all ugly. I, myself, have heard this one during my lifetime. As it goes, ugly women become feminists because men are not attracted to them, hence leaving them in a state of angered hysteria. Another fable about the movement, as Cynthia recollects, was that its members were in some way defective. She explains this theory to me with a sense of puzzlement, as though she were perplexed by the thought of people actually believing it to be true. But, indeed, people around her felt as if a feminist were breaking out of her natural role in the human race. It was as if a lamb strolled up to a lion and said, “Hey, move over buddy. We’re splittin’ this jungle fifty-fifty now.” Stories and examples like these from a few measly decades ago remind me, especially when told by someone I know personally, how far women have come and how much of a disadvantage they were at when they began their quest for equality.

The burning question I had for Cynthia, however, hadn’t to do with the ridiculous public ideals of women back when, but rather how far she thought they had come now. It was with this question in mind that I chose to interview someone who had achieved a highly respected, highly paid, professional status. Upon this inquiry, she immediately referred to the “glass ceiling” that is commonly referred to in feminist rhetoric. Not only did she believe in it, but she has experienced it first hand. She, as well as my mother, received an email a few years back that was accidentally sent out to the department by their boss. As luck would have it, this classified message contained the list of the salaries for everyone in the law department in which they both worked. Much to their chagrin, they were to find out that not only were they being paid less than their male counterparts in the same positions, but the pay margin was significant and universal. No female was making what a comparable male was. I still remember my mom coming home crying that day. She was so upset that her company would disrespect her to that degree, and do so in this day and age.

According to Cynthia, that example wasn’t the only one she could take from her work. When asked about the state of women’s professional opportunity today, she responded with an interesting thought. It isn’t necessarily the opportunity for employment that seems to her to be lacking, but rather the opportunity for advancement and promotion. Once again, this is a perfect illustration of the “glass ceiling.” Having been in the same law firm for over twenty years, she attests to the department’s record of hiring with a gender-blind eye. Advancement, on the other hand, she believes comes only with male help. The term she used, in fact, was “male protector.” Needless to explain, this means that the women who have achieved advancement in her office have done so, in part, because they had a certain male looking out for them. “Show me one of those women,” she claims, “and I’ll show you their ‘male protector.’” This concept is one that I, too, have noticed in various facets of society. While many areas, professional or otherwise, seem to be advancing past patriarchal control, it often turns out to be a charade upon further inspection. It’s the little things really, or as Cynthia agreed, the fine print. I suppose this is where the feminist struggle resides today, dealing with all the fine print and oppressive overtones. Sure, more women are going to college than men and increasingly more professions are seeing their gender barriers broken, but what about the disparities in pay? What about the lack of female representation in executive, judicial, and other highly sought positions? You don’t hear men, at least informed ones, defending the equality of those areas because there is no equality to defend.

Our interview moved on to politics, and Cynthia proved to be most insightful in this area of the discussion. We got to politics by discussing the reactions to women playing the “discrimination card” at her work. In the case of the aforementioned salary scandal, she explained to me that the women’s situation was only made worse by approaching their boss about the injustice. He dismissed their case outright when confronted, demanding that their accusation of sexism was ludicrous and unfounded. She found this reaction provocative considering the hell that gets raised if a similar accusation were made in the name of racism or another form of discrimination. She then drew her parallel to politics, and more specifically, the current democratic race. Using Barack Obama as the obvious example, she talked about how much media whoopla there would be in the event that people showed up at his campaign rallies yelling racial slurs. Can you imagine the coverage that would get? Comparatively, however, people have yelled things at Hillary Clinton’s rallies along the lines of “Hillary, go iron my shirts!” I can think of few clearer sexist slurs, however, far short of outrage, the media’s reactions to these occurrences were mainly subdued suggestions at sexism. As Cynthia suggested, and I tend to agree with, this phenomenon can be attributed to the fact that people don’t see sexism as much of a problem anymore. We have become content with the advances made by feminism, and as a result have lost interest in the true goal of the movement: equality. She made a point of referring this theme throughout our conversation, and sounded distraught, and even a little hopeless when discussing it.

It wasn’t knowledge of new injustices or experiences, per se, that gave me the most value from interviewing Cynthia. Rather, it was the sense of camaraderie and purpose that I felt while we discussed feminism. It was a sense that, maybe, if we all took some time from our busy lives to give new life to an oft-ignored movement, even with little more than some intellectual discourse here and there, then perhaps it would continue to flourish. After having the chance to chat with a woman who has gained so much from the advances of previous generations, I feel that not only do we owe it to ourselves and our kids, but we also owe it to them.