April 2007 Archives
Ken was two years younger than me. We met in the school parking lot because he caught my eye with his distinctively different clothes. He was handsome in a Clark Gable way, stood about 6 feet tall, smoked a pipe, wore a leather aviator cap and, in the cold, snowy winter, favored an old mouton fur coat with big shoulders. Everything else was normal—blue jeans and engineer’s boots were de rigueur on campus. And I suppose the novelty of his gentlemanly manner was an attraction, too, just as it would be today.
“Oh, yes, this is the art department and it feels great!” She had been in sales for a decade and had abandoned her dreams for cold cash. But she hadn’t forgotten her passions rooted in a Masters of Art History—she twirled in my office with glee. Now she was in meetings with senior management to sell her entrepreneurial effort to a large company for a nice nest egg. Management likes to keep key personnel within easy reach for those last minute queries during due diligence. A member of senior management prefaced his financial probings with “I don’t mean to make you feel like I’m looking up your skirt, but . . . ” So no matter that she was the president of her company and they were trying to acquire it—the fact that she was female was still grounds to remind her of where she stood in a room filled with men. These are the same men who will use looks as a basis for less pay. This is just a more subtle form of bullying.
