Speaker 1: 0:26

Welcome to A Witch, a Mystic and a Feminist with your hosts Marlena, jamie and Christy. Today, our episode is in honor of Women's History Month, and we are going to examine and discuss the evolution of women in the workplace. Jamie, marlena.

Speaker 2: 0:42

Hello ladies. What a topic this is.

Speaker 3: 0:44

Woo. Yes, one of the things that we did thanks to Jamie was Jamie had found this documentary on Netflix nine to five, and there was so much information in there that I really was unaware of I didn't realize that nine to five and, for those of us in our age bracket, we watched that movie with Donald Parton All the time. Yeah, you know, we sing the song and but I didn't realize that nine to five was based off of this activist.

Speaker 2: 1:18

Yeah, I found it in when we were researching topics for this month and wanting to do something focused on women's history. We had to single out like an actual topic, because it's so broad, there's so many things. We would talk for hours about women's history. So we decided to discuss women in the workforce and our involvement and I found this documentary and, same as you, marlena, I had no idea that that's what inspired the movie and as a child watching it, I watched it because my mom watched it and it was funny and it was satirical and it was like I didn't realize how important that movie was, especially for where women just came from and what they were still fighting for in the eighties. So it was very interesting. Watching that, I have a whole new perspective on the movie, but I loved it. I still watch nine to five like the actual movie, like maybe a few months ago, because it's like a comfort movie for me. My mom watched it all the time and it was just so funny. It was just it was a funny movie but it's so real. Yeah, it's kind of disturbing how realistic that movie was at that time.

Speaker 3: 2:31

I haven't watched the movie for a long time, but I do remember. I do remember that the boss, the male boss, was just very chauvinistic and just a dick and so they were planning on killing him, which is funny. I mean, at some point I think everybody at one point in time is like, oh my God, I want to kill my boss. We don't actually mean it. It's one of those things that are said. But in this and it's a comedy and it's funny but there's a lot of things that we're actually transpiring during that time of treating women like they're less than and in the documentary, women were basically doing clerical jobs, basically told you, don't have to go to college, just go get a job as a secretary, kind of thing.

Speaker 2: 3:23

Yeah, clerical and administrative, secretarial, that's what they were held to, even if they did have an education. That was the field that was deemed for women not to be in powerful positions, not in director positions, not in a position to make decisions. And I think that's where they were forced to start and forced to stay into when they started in the workforce. And I even interviewed my mom in talking to her, because she's been working ever since she was 18 years old and with the same company. And so, 18 years old, she started working in the 60s, when the movements were really starting to happen. She said, yeah, I started off in accounting as a clerical assistant. And she's like, granted, I didn't, I didn't finish college, I was just starting college, like I was in my second semester of junior college and, of course, like that just seems a fitting position. I don't have any experience, I'm going to start somewhere. But she did say that, yeah, women in her department and in the company at that time in the 60s and 70s, were very much held to this is your lane, your lane, you are either clerical or a secretary and that's it. And she said it was just. You didn't really think much about it then and I think because she didn't really have the education yet. She didn't question it Like this is where I fit in right now, right, but yeah, very much. So from the beginning, women were like this is your lane and don't step out of it and don't step out of it.

Speaker 1: 5:01

So well, I mean, but even if we go back farther, and not even that far in history, because I did interview my mom and I know originally I told you guys, I don't think my grandma's, you know, really worked. I was so wrong, so wrong. They're like, excuse me, I mean like, yeah, my mom's, like they did work. I was like, oh okay, yeah, my like, my grandma worked as like a housekeeper and a nanny to put herself kind of through high school and she actually moved from Vermont to Massachusetts to do this for this family that her family knew, and it was terrible work and not fun at all, but she was able to finish high school by working this job and and then she met my grandpa and then she was a waitress for like a day and had a ruptured appendix and then the owner of that shop actually paid for a whole or medical bills for some reason, but she never went back. And then she worked at a hospital, in like a lab, and it was kind of the gist of it was like who she knew, right, like that was how she was getting these shops, like somebody knew you know, those kinds of things. But my Nana was a secretary, right, so that kind of that fits in. Like that was what she did before she had kids, and so, yeah, those positions. And then, even farther back, like my great grandma, she was a teacher and she lived during the time where, once they got married, they could no longer teach. So they had to make the decision am I going to get married and stop teaching or continue teaching? So it was right around the 1900s this was happening and she, when she got married, they fired her. You're done here. Wow, yeah, which is terrible, right, like so. So, yeah, just a little. You know history on my side, but very interesting to me that all the women in my family had some sort of job going back a couple of generations, whether it was clerical or laundry. Taking in other people's laundry to make ends meet and washing it, like that was one of the jobs.

Speaker 3: 7:04

Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, my, my Nana. So all my dad said to the family I don't know much about my grandmother but my Nana on my mom's side of the family. So she was a teacher in Guam and I had asked my mom if she continued teaching after she had started having children my mom is one of eight and after having a few kids they then came over to the States and in the States she didn't work, but again, you know she was taking care of a kid. So, yeah, kind of difficult to work. So I don't know much about her life in Guam. I just know that she was a teacher Prior to coming over to the States. My mom, however, didn't get an into any clerical jobs. She went into the automotive field, started in retail selling tires and batteries and then became a, just continued to work her way up. She became a parts manager and then I Know another manager, but then she became like the store manager. So my mom's actually had two different careers. She started off in automotive and managing stores and I had asked her. I said you know, was there any Like? Did the guys give you a hard time? Because you know she's back there with the mechanics and everything and and she never had any issues with them. She said that they were always very respectful to her. Even though she didn't know much about the cars themselves and engines and how you know how to do all of that stuff, they were always very respectful to her. She never had anything like that. And then she went into tech. So the big tech boom. My mom had had a limited education but she went in there and she killed it at the beginning of the tech game and you know, it's something I'm I'm super proud of my mom for. I went into being a secretary. I started off as a legal secretary. I was a secretary and I would literally bring my my boss's coffee. There's been a couple bosses where I would go and pick up their dry cleaning, you know as well as like doing all of my legal work and but I continued to stay in administration, now manage law firms, but so I'm like, oh, you know, my mom didn't go through that, but I'm I'm going through that, but we'll get into that later.

Speaker 2: 9:46

Now it's. It's nice that it's a choice, right, because I'm in administration too. I've always been in administration. I've been, I'm always the behind the scenes running their operations. I don't want to be the salesperson and making all those decisions, and I've also been in the automotive industry since I was 20. So now it's nice that it was a. It's a choice. You know, I can choose to be a secretary, I can choose to be, you know, administration, whatever. Whereas this is where you fit in, this is where you, if you want to work, this is what you're chosen for. And then it was also teacher roles, right. So teachers, education, daycare, childcare, those were the roles driven for women, and still very much caretakers. So not just at home with the children, but also in your job. Um, that's the role that they've just always seen for women. And in doing some research for this particular show, I think it really blew my mind. Um, first of all, of course, the struggle of women over time period. So I mean, it's it's been a struggle, it still is for women, uh, in this day and age. Um, but I was really blown away with how recent the movements have started um in the last hundred years, will say and how we still don't have certain things Past or ratified in the constitution. For example, talking, we're in a voting year or an election year, but 1920 the 19th amendment to the constitution is ratified, ensuring the right of women to vote. So Just a hundred years ago we got our you know what? 104 years ago, we had our right to vote actually added to the constitution. I mean, my god, there's people who have lived that long and they're just now. You know, we just got that right in 1920. Like that. It just blows my mind. I guess the timeline just Kills me, because I think, wow, this is not that long ago. Um, and then, just a few years later, 1923, the first version of the eora, the equal rights amendment, is Introduced and it actually says men and women shall have equal rights throughout the united states and every place subject to its Jurisdiction. This really bothered me because I I don't know if I'm just ignorant to history, because I don't, I don't know, I just don't know my, my history. But the fact that it's still not ratified, I think I just thought it was, I just thought it was part of the constitution. Now Come to find out like what, 40 years later, we're still trying to get this done. Um, we tried to pass it and In 1982 it was finally like Nope, sorry, we didn't get enough states to ratify it. The ra is still not part of our constitution, which blows my mind Right. I can't believe it.

Speaker 3: 12:43

I'm obviously ignorant to history as well, because I really thought that that was something that was like a given. It's like a break.

Speaker 2: 12:51

It's obvious Like are you Seriously? And I think what even more blows my mind is that we do have very progressive women now, and I mean we have an African-American female vice president we had, you know. We have women on the Supreme Court, we have women in legislations, they're everywhere and yet we can't get the ERA ratified. Like what is wrong with us? Why can't we get this into our Constitution? And I also found a lot of women over time who were very much against the ERA. Because you're destroying the home picture, you're taking away families because the mom's not at home now and you're breaking that up. And why would I want to have, you know that equal right of my husband? It's his job to work and it's my job to raise the family. Like I just get very annoyed, yeah.

Speaker 1: 13:47

I mean and I think that's on their part ignorance, maybe right, because they're not understanding. It's not. We're not taking away anything. We're giving you the right Like we want everyone to have the same right to work. If you choose to stay at home and keep that picture where the husband goes out and works and you stay home with the kids, that's your choice. We're actually fighting for your choice. We're, you know, we're wanting to get that ratified for you and then you can make whatever choice you want in this world. But people don't understand that and they just think we're trying to take something away and break up the beautiful home picture. Break up the nuclear family.

Speaker 2: 14:27

And you know what about the women who don't want children? Like that's okay, right, you know. And being told you can't be progressive because you have to stay home, because you're a woman Like that's not okay.

Speaker 3: 14:38

You know, in my home with Vince and Alexis, I had Alexis. I went back five weeks postpartum after having a cesarean and, you know, could have taken a couple weeks, couple more weeks off, but I was the one that pursued my career and Vince, you know, took care of Alexis. There were days where I took Alexis to school maybe once or twice a year, whereas he was taking Alexis to school all the time and filling that role. We just had, you know kind of a role exchange One, because I always commuted and he always worked close to home. But also just it made sense for us Right.

Speaker 1: 15:28

Did people, did people ever have a hard time with that? Yes, yes, because we had a similar role reversal for a couple years where Brian stayed home with the kids and I worked, and I can't tell you the amount of people that, just like, I don't think they belittled Brian, but I do think they thought less of him because he was a man staying at home with the kids. Yeah, but it was a choice for us, right, like it was the right choice for us, and I pursued my career like you did In that time made more money, so it made sense for me to pursue the career, right, and he was willing to stay at home with the kids when they were little and it was amazing. But, just yeah, people had a really hard time wrapping their minds around it.

Speaker 3: 16:10

Still, Right, and for me it wasn't anybody in our families, but it was those in, you know, like on the outside, on the outskirts, yeah, like some of my family members, friends or whatever would have an opinion about our home life, you know, and our choices, and I was like, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 16:34

Yeah, and why do you care? Like in my life, Don't worry about it. Yeah, so, yeah. So I think in doing this timeline and doing some of the research for important dates, you know it blew me away to think that the ERA still hasn't passed. There's actually been kind of a rebirth of it. We actually got the 38th state to sign because we needed 38 out of the 50 to ratify it and put it into the Constitution. The 38th state signed it on like in 2019, I think it was, or 2020. So Nevada, being my state, now only signed it off in like 2017. So now here we are. We got 38 states, but it's almost what 30, 40 years after we should have passed it because it's expired now. So now it has to be all reintroduced again, put back on I don't know what do you call it, the docket that I don't know for people to. We have to start all over, basically, and it's just, it's ridiculous. It wasn't and even just thinking about all these ridiculous things, it wasn't until 1963 that the Equal Pay Act is actually passed by Congress, which promises equitable wages for both for same work, regardless of race, color, religion, national origin or sex of the worker. So it wasn't until 1963 that our country actually said, oh, we should do this. That makes sense, Like I mean, and it probably wasn't, like you know, the president who suggested it was probably some group of women, maybe the nine to five movement, that all decided, wow, this is not right. And so, you know, women have already been in the workforce. In 1963, we decided to make pay equal. That's amazing.

Speaker 3: 18:25

But was it really equal?

Speaker 2: 18:27

during that time. No, I still don't think it was, but it was a law. And now you know you have to fight against men to prove that. And well, in 1968, I don't know how far that went. So yeah, you're supposed to, though it's a law.

Speaker 1: 18:46

It's a law, but there's still. There's still studies that women make what 75% of men's or something like that. I don't know their actual statistic, but I've seen it Gosh in the last couple years we'll see.

Speaker 3: 18:59

So that timeline, you know, being in the 60s, I didn't know it went that far back that it actually that passed a law, because I don't feel that I have an age, not age. There's a pay discrepancy, but hearing about it, you know it's been more recent than that. You know, hearing about the pay discrepancies with men and women that you know this law passed in the 60s but no one has ever been able to enforce it.

Speaker 2: 19:29

I don't know you know, it's a law, so why aren't people doing these things right?

Speaker 1: 19:33

I don't understand that's not appelled, why it's not regulated, why it's not. You know what I mean. Investigate it. I don't know.

Speaker 2: 19:42

You need a whole committee and then someone to crack the whip and say I'm the equal pay police. You're breaking the law.

Speaker 3: 19:49

Yeah, but I mean really, I thought it was like back in the 80s that that law passed, not back in the 60s, oh, 1963.

Speaker 2: 19:56

Yeah, right, yeah, and then yeah, go ahead, christy.

Speaker 1: 20:00

I guess the act says that they get equal pay for equal job, equitable wage. Yeah, for the same work, equitable wage. So maybe we're talking about two different things that are related, because there's the wage gap, right. So just women making 17% less than men in 2022, just on average, right? But then we're talking about if I worked the same job as Vince, will I get paid the same amount, right, by the same company? So maybe two different things, but yeah, still sucky, still going on. Yeah, yeah, in 2024. Yeah, it is still sucky yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:45

And just a year later, 1964, title VII of the Civil Rights Act passes prohibiting sex discrimination in employment. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is created. So in 1964, they're saying no sex discrimination in employment, which I think of the movie that we watched, the documentary, I think of the movements that were going on during that time. I don't think it really changed anything. Just women had the opportunity to challenge it. Now, right. So if they thought there was sex discrimination happening in their role or in the company, now they had this Civil Rights Act to say look, you're doing something wrong and right here says I can challenge that. So it is important. I just don't know how much it changed because it's still an issue I definitely. I don't think I have experienced in my career anything personally towards me, definitely being in the automotive industry. Here were the good old boy salesman kind of mentality in the industry In my particular place of business. I don't feel like I ever experienced it, saw it with the men who were there, but definitely observed it from afar with others and even talking to my mom. I asked her. I said you know, and maybe I don't know, maybe it's because, like we were in California and same with you know, your mom, marlena, and I'm Christy I'm not sure if that your whole family came up in California. I don't know if it's because of the state, but my mom said you know what I really didn't experience sex discrimination or being overlooked for a new job because I was a woman, she goes. I really felt education held me back because once I started working I didn't finish my college degree, so if I was up for a role against someone else who had a degree, they always got picked first. So right. But when she talked about it, she goes. I will say, though, for me at least, where I was working, discrimination was like ramped with the LGBTQ community. What else did she say? I have to look at that, but she's oh, and racism, still race discrimination? She said that's where I saw more than against the genders, it was racism and discrimination against the LGBTQ community. She said that was just like that was not a discussion, and definitely people from that community who were very open about who they were were definitely challenged in their positions. And she said because she eventually retired in an HR role and she worked adamantly against you know anything of that nature, of course, but that's what she saw growing up and working as a female in the industry, so maybe a little bit different. She did say there was definitely clothing restrictions. Women had to wear their skirts and dresses and pantyhose. They weren't allowed to wear pants. Very much had to look feminine, if you will. But she said, as a female she goes. I really had progressive managers and bosses and they knew I fit the role, I would get that job or I would get that project. But she did say she had to fight for herself a little bit when it came to an education dilemma. But she kind of built a name for herself and progressively kept working her way up. She stayed with the same company until she retired. So yeah, her experience is a little bit different. I don't know if that's because it's California. I mean the nine to five movement happened back east in New York, so they're supposed to be progressive too. I don't know.

Speaker 3: 24:53

I'm not sure, but I know my mom with her automotive career. When she started being the actual manager of the entire operation, she was only one of three women. My mom's a woman in a person of color and in this male-dominated field, and so that was the only thing that she noticed. But it was a job that she ended up getting. And then, as far as in the tech industry, when she went into that again, she didn't feel any discrimination based off of sex or even being a person of color. But talking about clothing and stuff like that, being in the legal field, female attorneys when they went to court for a long time had to wear skirts. They had to wear skirt suits. They couldn't wear pants suits. Even just a few years back it was frowned upon Women would wear pants suits, but it was preferred that they wear skirts. Not this current firm that I work for, but the firm before that. There were, I want to say, 10 partners For the longest time, only one female partner. Then I went over to my current firm, and before we merged it was predominantly female partners and people of color, which was another reason why I went with that firm too was because of the fact that the majority of the partners were women.

Speaker 2: 26:31

Yeah, I'd like to know when the pantyhose went away. I feel like in the 80s. I still remember my mom wearing pantyhose and the knee highs.

Speaker 3: 26:40

I wore pantyhose to the office.

Speaker 2: 26:41

Yeah, I don't. I'm like when did it go away? Because I think about it now and this might sound not so progressive of me, but I'm like when did we go bare-legged Like we wear dresses now? In the 2000s, in the 2000s?

Speaker 3: 26:55

right In the 2000s, because I was working in San Francisco for a large firm and we had to wear pantyhose if we wore skirts. That was around the time Alexis was born, so around 2006. Okay, but we also had rules in our policies and procedures handbook that we couldn't have any tattoos that could be seen and things like that no nose rings. Now I have tattoos and nose rings and I don't wear pantyhose. I mean, you know so, but I think it was probably around between 2000s, 2005, 2010, when, like the pantyhose, people just stopped wearing them.

Speaker 1: 27:37

Yeah, yeah, I stopped wearing them much earlier. But my Christian school I had to wear, you had to wear skirts, you didn't have to wear pantyhose, but everyone wore knee highs because you wanted to look cool. But yeah, and then after that I was like there is no way I'm putting pantyhose back on Like these. It's just I mean, and I'm pale, so like if anyone should wear pantyhose it's probably me, but I just spend more time in the sun trying to get naturally a little bit less white so everyone can deal with my white but, yeah, my white legs, because pantyhose are not comfortable. I don't understand. They're not. They are not.

Speaker 2: 28:15

I remember wearing the knee high one, sometimes under pants because I had heels on or whatever. And I'm like these are still not comfortable. I don't like these. But I was just thinking because that's always been a thing right Like skirt, stresses, pantyhose you could not come into the office. Now, if you're wearing a skirt or a dress, great, wear your pantyhose, like you couldn't come bare-legged. So I was just sitting here thinking like when did that change? Because I do remember my mom having to wear pantyhose and everything when I got into the industry in the late 90s. I don't recall having to, but I also didn't wear a lot of dresses. So anyways, it's a fascinating and eye-opening journey of a timeline and we could touch on the three pages of bullet points that I put. But to know that we have women of color and in powerful, powerful positions and yet simple laws like you would think the ERA would be a no-brainer is still not ratified, just blows my mind. I'm grateful for what the women have done prior to our generation, the fight that they've put up for us to better our futures and our daughters and going forward, I think Stella, my daughter, will have a million more opportunities than even our mothers maybe did or our grandmothers, and I'm adamantly grateful for that. Anything that has to do with women, empowerment, fuels my fire. It's everything to make it a better world for our girls going forward and for us. I think the three of us have been pretty fortunate that for the most part, we haven't had those battles. For the most part, let's be honest.

Speaker 3: 30:07

Yeah, I mean that's. One thing that I'm really grateful for is that for the women that have stood up for women in the workforce, they did so so that I didn't have to feel the things that they felt go through, the things that they've gone through, and so grateful to them for paving that way.

Speaker 2: 30:30

Yeah, absolutely. I mean we could do a whole episode on the Me Too movement. Obviously, the battles and struggles of women are still out there and very much a challenge. Men wanting and using their power to get what they want is still an issue, but I think it's coming out in those forms now, versus just you can't be promoted because you're a female. Now it's you want to move up. These are the things I need and the Me Too movement has really highlighted that and we could do a whole episode on that and we will. Yeah, maybe we will, but again, very grateful for all of our women before us who have fought so hard to make this a better life for us.

Speaker 1: 31:13

So happy Women's History.

Speaker 2: 31:15

Month.

Speaker 1: 31:16

Yeah, and with that, thank you for joining us on another episode of A Witch, a Mystic and a Feminist. Please go to wmfpodcom to look at past episodes and interact with us and then, wherever you get your podcast, please like and subscribe. We would really, really appreciate the support and we will see you next week. Bye.