When I was finishing up my senior year of college, I went on a job interview for a huge corporation in our area. I wanted the job so badly I actually followed all of the interview preparation tips given by my least favorite but very successful Marketing professor. I researched the company, practiced shaking hands “like a man” and interviewed myself in the mirror.
I wore my most professional skirt suit to the interview and breathed in through the nose, out through the mouth to keep from keeling over while waiting for my name to be called. I brought my portfolio and strategic answers to the questions designed to bring out your negative qualities.
The interview was not difficult. Two men asked me questions and the air was so casual I wasn’t quite sure how to handle myself. Was I being too uptight? Should I offer my portfolio even though they didn’t ask?
I called my parents on the way home to tell them I was pretty sure I had gotten the job. I remember telling my mom, half-joking that if I got the job it might be because I had worn a skirt to the interview.
And I did get the job. And the notion that I got the job because I was wearing a skirt ate at my newly graduated self because, quite honestly, it was true.
When I left the interview that day, the interviewer looked me up and down as I left the room and he did the same as I entered a room every time I came across him in my new corporate world. I was once called the “Brittany Spears of our department” after putting in an insane amount of hours to complete a huge project and thought often about dying my blonde hair even though I liked it outside of my 9 to 5 day.
None of this bothered 20-something me as much as it bothers 30-something, mom-of-girls me. I should have never been told to “shake hands like a man” or left a job interview wondering if my skirt was to blame for my success.
I’m the first one to admit that yes, there were times in my 20’s that I dressed for male attention but I was headed out for a date or to the bar with friends. At work I dressed and acted like I wanted to be noticed for my grade point average, long nights of studying and desire to move up the corporate ladder.
McKenna is seven, in several years she may ask for off-the-shoulder tops and four inch shorts. I will tell her no. A few years after that she will select her own clothes and buy them with her own money and I will cringe yet respect her choice to wear what makes her feel good when she walks out the door.
My boys are 5 and 7. In several years I will talk to them about treating girls the way they want their sister to be treated. A few years after that I will explain to them how it makes girls feel when you look at them for too long and how much we appreciate a guy who likes us for our brains and tells us so.
The way women are treated does not begin with how they look, it begins with how they are looked at.
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Kristin says
Love this. I was a blonde all through college, and went to brunette as soon as I hit the corporate world.
Angela Youngblood says
Yes! Woot! Woot! I love that you wrote a post about feminism!! Love it.
Jessica says
Yay! I was hoping I would make you proud.