HOFBERG: The “War” on Women

I hear that there’s a war on women these days.

It’s not that I don’t believe it. The literature, statistics, history and the stories told by discriminated women say plainly, that it’s true. The war on women is real.

But I’ve got to be completely honest. I feel pretty unaffected by the tragedy of the war against my gender. Perhaps it’s a gift to have never felt the plight of my gender’s inequality and injustices. Sometimes, part of me wishes that my own personal collection of life experiences could help me understand what it feels like to be a lesser human in the eyes of the world that I live in.

In terms of wage, for example, women face inequalities in the workplace everyday. Doesn’t it frustrate and anger me that on average, in America, women only make 78 cents for every dollar that is earned by a male counterpart in the same position? Of course it’s not a statistic that pleases me, but, in my own experience, wage inequality is never something that has affected me personally. In fact, my own experience in the workforce has taught me that hard work is compensated with fair pay and that my gender is irrelevant when it comes to determining my salary.

When I was an undergraduate college student, I began working as a hostess at a popular beachside restaurant in Santa Barbara, California, to help pay my rent, to keep my fridge stocked with Bud Light and to keep my pantry full of boxes of Kraft Mac N’ Cheese and Cocoa Puffs. When I got hired, I was offered minimum wage, plus cash tips, which was a rate no better or worse than the hired males, and because my stock of mediocre beer was dangerously low, I quickly accepted.

Shortly after being hired, I quickly moved up the ranks from hostess to food runner to server to bartender and then, when I was just 23 years old, I was offered a management position that offered salary pay. After the quickest deliberation, I accepted the management position at a salary rate that many people who work their whole lives in the restaurant industry are never offered.

When on duty, I was in charge of a full front and back of house staff restaurant full of people. It was my job to build the schedule, manage staff and fix problems on the floor and in the kitchen. It’s an understatement to say that my days were busy. Busy is a word that just doesn’t do my days justice. Mad. Insane. Crazy. Chaos. Those are words that seem to fit better.

But, for all the money I was making, it was well worth the stress and exhaustion because it wasn’t just a paycheck that I received for all of my hard work. But, perhaps, a form of payment that was just as satisfying to me as the money was the respect that I earned from my staff and regular customers. I did my work with a smile on my face, because the recognition I was earning as an instrumental part of the team that contributed to the overall success of restaurant was rewarding to me.

I was woman, hear me roar.

The male members on staff? They were my equals, not my superiors. They weren’t paid more than me just because we had different reproductive organs. Equal pay for equal positions. That’s what we want, right ladies?

It’s not to say that women with jobs in other industries and fields don’t feel devalued, under appreciated and discredited, but, again my own personal life experience in this realm makes those feelings of frustration and anger difficult for me to relate to.

It could be a lucky circumstance for me that I haven’t personally experienced gender inequality in my own life and I’ll admit that I’m slightly ignorant to the problem that many women feel victimized by. I am not trying to come across as unsympathetic or oblivious to the disadvantages that my gender face. What I am saying, however, is that my personal experience in the work force leaves me little room to complain.

I can only hope that women feeling disadvantaged and betrayed by the reproductive organs that define their gender start to become the exception to the rule rather than commonplace sooner than later. I know that I am a lucky girl to have grown up in a place and time that has made me proud to be a fierce woman at work in this world, and, although I know that there are many other women around the country and the globe who are have not been as fortunate as I have been, for now, all I can do is hope that one day all of you ladies will feel as powerful, influential, smart, deserving and proud as I do.