I cannot believe N. Pelosi Speaker of a DEMOCRATIC House could not get this ERA bill passed!!! What has she done as Speaker? We need to write to our elected officials to resurrect AND PASS this ERA bill!

Ladies, Here is a link to send a email to your senators to support the ERA bill that was defeated by Republicans 2 days ago. This link will tell you how your Senators voted. This bill is not dead- they only need 3 Republicans to vote humanely. http://www.congress.org/congressorg/webreturn/?url=/now/issues/alert/?al…

About four years ago I was approached by a company and offered a job outside of my normal sector. They actively pursued me and I decided to give it a go. WIthin a month they had promoted me. They then offered to send me on a specialist programme that would have effectively fast tracked me to a significantly higher position. I had my first apraisal and was given glowing feedback and once again offered further opportunities within the company. The next week I discovered I was pregnant and overnight my life became misery. I was effectively demoted, my working hours were slashed because ‘I couldnt be trusted to work unsupervised’ (remember only the week before I had recieved the glowing apraisal), my boss would discuss my pregnancy with everyone even though I hadnt told people yet, calling me a ‘slapper’. he refused to allow me time off for a medical appointment and shouted at me in front of the other staff for asking for an hour off to attend. I was undermined at every turn and then a vague unspecified implication of stealing was levied against me as I was suddenly not allowed near any finances and people were told not to let me do anything regarding money. When I was in the toilet he would shout at me through the door saying I could not use the bathroom. When I started to bleed at work and left to see the Dr he told everyone I was ‘bleeding my kid out’ and then objected to me taking time off as directed by my Dr. In the end I resigned. I know I should have fought but I was so exhausted and ill from all this rubbish I simply did not have the energy. The actions of this company still disgust me

Wow! I’ll try to keep this short. In the 1970’s, my boss told me, during a review, to “just get married” if I needed more money. My first experience at reaching the “glass ceiling”. When I had a cash inheritance from my grandmother, I took it to a bank and tried to purchase my first home in Colorado. I was divorced and had two children (1972). My realtor went to the bank with me. When we walked in the door, the banker said, “Is this your husband?” He explained he was my realtor and I explained I was divorced. Oops! Sorry, no loan. I said the magic word! Then, when I finally found one bank in town who would take a chance on me, 30 days before closing they gave the house to a man who made a higher offer…and somehow, got away with it based on the initial contract I signed at the bank. I was once fired based on my lifestyle from a high tech company, in 1987. I had been there 5 years (almost). They “fired me” (uh, “downsized…”) one month short of being there 5 years and vested in the company. I was at my mother’s death bed. They called me long distance to tell me the news that week, by phone! My job was filled with two men who I trained, who had moved to our company from California from a branch that had closed down. I won the employee of the year award the year prior. I went to local attorneys who would not touch the case as the company I worked for “employeed many of the people in the city” and was too big to fight. I called an attorney out of town and it would have cost me $175 an hour which was unthinkable as I was then without a job so couldn’t pay…still raising two children by myself. Lost my house, that I designed and had built, my cat, my mother all in three months. And, a drunk driver totalled my car! But, I survived. Packed up my things (my kids had grown up), hit the road and went to Florida and worked cleaning boats and landscaping to get my head back on. Life is now good, back on the rock and I worked for a woman who gave me a good management position from which I just retired after 13 years. I just don’t want the women of today to forget what we had to endure to get women where they are today…and we still have a ways to go. Don’t slip backwards….

I did. I sued. I lost.

As the above comments prove, discrimination against women in the workplace is still very very much alive. How many “administrative assistants” or secretaries do you see when you walk into an office of the female v. the male gender? That kind of says it all. We are still office slaves. In the ’70s, I got turned down a lot for just being a female, and in those days, they could tell you that to your face with impunity. Things haven’t necessarily changed, but because of the laws, potential employers are just a lot sneakier in discriminating because they have to be.

I have experienced discrimination, sexual and racial. I am a 51 year old Mexican-American woman born and raised in Los Angeles, CA. When I was young I was very pretty and very naive. I had plenty of dirty old men make passes at me and make filthy suggestive remarks that caused me to blush and feel very ashamed of myself. As a Mexican-American I was treated no less than a servant in the workplace. I was the ONLY person in the office who wasn’t caucasion. Everyday I was sent by my supervisor to go buy her lunch. This was a woman who would then chastise me for not completing my work on time! Once, I actually had the nerve to tell her no but she “gave me permission” to leave my work, handed me her money, gave me her order and off I went. Long story short I had to go back to the hamburger stand for her food three times because she kept changing her order. Yes … I totally know discrimination. This was back in the days where there was no recourse for this type of abuse. I’d like to ask the good doctor (who thinks that it is easier for women to get into medical school) what he’d tell his daughter (if he had one) about the world out there. It is because women like myself and the many others who were victimized in the workplace that laws were changed and until you’ve been on the receiving end of that type of harassment you have no idea what you are talking about.

I sell guitars for a living, and I experience discrimination from customers on a daily basis. They usually manage to be somewhat subtle about it, but last week a customer actually admitted that he preferred dealing with a “guy”. That was bad enough, but my coworkers for some reason decided that they would not have my back this time (they have in the past). If a customer told me that they preferred to deal with me because I’m white, I would suggest that they shop elsewhere. Unfortunately, my coworkers didn’t respond in kind. Infuriating.

I think the question might be, have you ever not experienced sex discrimination. It’s so subtle sometimes. You have to pay attention. When the political campaign heated up I noticed that Barack Obama suddenly began referring to Hillary Clinton mostly as “she” in his speeches instead of “Senator Clinton.” It was like “she” was a subversively dirty little word that had the ability to irk voters and he was capitalizing on it. Pundits who have a negative view of Hillary use it constantly. I imagine David Axelrod actually held a meeting with Obama’s speech writers to make sure they injected “SHE” into the text as frequently as possible. Sometimes it’s small things like that.

Yes, all too many times because I worked for a sexual harasser and a sex addict. Ten years later, when I was applying for another job, I was asked if I knew him. “Yes,” I said. To which she said, “I mean, HOW WELL did you know him?” Apparently word had spread about his behavior. Today, I reckon, he’d be drowning in sexual harassment suits brought against him. I couldn’t even begin to list all the offenses because it would take hours. His method was truly insidious. You didn’t get punished directly if you didn’t “put out” for him. He would simply reward the one woman there who did by re-assigning stories to her that some of us had worked long and hard to set up. Within a year’s time most of the women were so angry they quit. Today we all would have marched right down to the court to file a suit instead of leaving work we loved. If I hadn’t felt so angry, I might have pitied him instead because that woman made a complete fool of him. She would complain all the time about how he called her at home all hours of the night. Later, after she became pregnant by some other man, she lived at the editor’s apartment. Dumped on his doorstep! In the office she’d scream at him in front of eveyone. Or she’d beg for protection on some story. Maybe we didn’t have to sue, after all, because she made a bigger fool of him than any of us could have. We were too busy just trying to do our work, fair and square.