Stop whinging and get on with it!

There’s a saying, Evil exists when good men do nothing.  The evil of gender inequality was fought by women of the sixties and seventies during the second wave of feminism.  I have always considered myself a feminist because I believe women should enjoy the same rights and opportunities as men.  However Julie Bishop’s claim recently she is not a feminist and telling women to ‘stop whingeing, get on with it and prove them wrong’ confused me and brought back some unsavoury memories.

     I began my articles in 1990 and was surprised the legal profession was more male oriented than I had anticipated despite many female professionals.  The discrimination presented as an entrenched practice, but maybe it was just a small group of cocky males in one firm, desperate to stroke their egos. I recall bloke-only drinks and male staff being given premium desks and offices over female staff of the same experience.  I left them to it and got on with working.

     However, I wasn't comfortable with boss regularly whistling to get my attention and that of the other female staff members.  It was the same single sharp whistle one uses to call a dog to its master.  Ironically, an Articled Clerk is articled to his or her Master!. 

     Countless times I was working at my desk and I was jerked to attention by the whistle then, ‘Oi, Catherine, get in here.’

     He didn’t whistle for male solicitors or clerks.  He called out for them by name in a respectful tone. 

     Nor did he yell at the male clerks and solicitors with enough force to turn his face radish-red.  He spoke to them in a calm or terse voice, depending on the circumstances.

     We females banded together to support each other, a sort of sisterhood.  There was only one rule; DON”T CRY IN FRONT OF THE BOSS. 

     We suffered the screaming, the flying spittle, the gouged comments on our draft letters and court documents - BULLCRAP! - with subservient politeness, and if necessary, explained his misunderstanding in which case he’d mutter, ‘Okay then’ and shove the document to us indicating we should leave.  And if we were feeling emotional and verbally assaulted, we hurried to the toilets in such fashion that members of the sisterhood followed.  Only when we stood at the sink on the other side of two doors did we allow ourselves to weep.

     ‘He’s such an arsehole.’

     ‘He got it wrong.’

     ‘He just jumped to another fucking conclusion without reading the whole document.’

     ‘There, there,’ our sisters cooed, ‘it’s all right.’

     At no point did any of us (and those before us) think to challenge the man and demand equal respect, that was, he speak in a calm and rational voice.

     One day, a female staff member burst into tears when he was berating her loud enough for the entire floor to hear.  She rushed, hysterical from his office to the toilets and as the terms of the sisterhood decreed, we followed her.

     Instead of listening to her sob out her humiliation, we stood over her in disbelief.

     ‘You’re not supposed to cry.’

     ‘For God’s sake, couldn’t you hold it in?’

     Afterwards I was disgusted with myself for promoting repulsive behaviour.

     I wearied of my boss's manner and of the roving hands of a male colleague (I was told, ‘oh, he just does that to some of the new female clerks’).  Eventually I'd had enough. I had cried torrents in the privacy of the toilets and my home, never once breaching the oath of the sisterhood.  I had got on with my job, but it was humiliating and dispiriting.  I hated my work environment and the law and I saw no capacity for change.  There was one solution.

     I went to a male solicitor, kind and wise and announced I was resigning.  When he asked why, I said what I’d said before to this effect; I was sick of the discrimination, others could tolerate things if they chose, but I wasn’t interested and if discrimination was condoned in the legal profession, well, there wasn’t hope for the rest of the working world.  Of course I never mentioned the man who had groped me because I wasn't a victim.  Ms Bishop also advised women, 'Please do not let it get to you and do not become a victim because it is only a downward spiral once you have cast yourself as a victim.' 

     I expected the man to say, ‘Good on you!’  However, he leaned back in his chair and said, ‘As a woman, anything you do, you have to do it twice as well as a man.’

     I remembered studying Animal Farm in year 12 (still one of my favourite books). Napoleon the pig and comrades rewrite the seven commandments to their benefit, ‘All animals are equal except some animals are more equal than others.’

     Of course! Men were more equal.  We were half as equal and so had to try twice as hard.  It had mathematical certainty.  I got it.  Then I got on with it, I didn’t whinge and I proved them wrong.  At my farewell, one of the men said, ‘At first we thought you were a bit of a wild child, but you turned out to be a good kid.’

     I reckon I did Julie Bishop proud.  I just got on with my job, but I also perpetuated gender discrimination the women of the sixties and seventies had fought so hard to abolish.  I was a good man who did nothing.