Conference turris::womannotes-v3

    For me there was no "click".  I was raised with the idea of femaleness
    being substandard.  Oddly enough this idea came from my mother and not
    my father.  I had three brothers and no sisters.  My mother showed a
    definite preference for boys, and communicated in many ways how I was
    not as good as the boys.  Fortunately I never swallowed my mother's
    theory and I got support from my father.  I was a wicked tomboy and
    spent a lot of effort trying to "prove" I was as good as a boy.  In
    fact I would have to say that proving myself equal to a boy was the
    major theme of my childhood.
    
    Mary

    The click happened for me when I was 19 and had been managing a movie
    theatre for the past 18 months.  The powers that be decided to move me
    to another theatre and I found out that I was getting a raise to the
    salary level that all of the male managers had started at!  And I had
    to fight to get the raise!
    
    Grrrr!
    
    Nanci

    
    during summer bible school, when I was 7 or 8, I decided to take
    on the challenge of reading the bible.  I couldn't for the life
    of me understand how or why no one ever had male children.  when
    my mother explained female babies weren't considered as important
    for biblical documentation, I received my first lesson in alleged
    male superiority.
    
    Carla
    

    
    First lessons came early - so early I can't fully remember some of
    them.
    
    But the "click" came when, after an 18-month struggle, I got a change
    of job that carried a huge change in perceived "status" and a salary 
    increase.
    
    One of the first things I was asked when this became public knowledge
    was "Aw, c'mon, you can tell us now.......who did you sleep with to
    get this to happen?"
    
    Still makes me see red.
    'gail
    

When I was in 2nd grade. My classmates and I had built a series of
forts in the woods during recesses. When it came time to elect a
"leader," I was disqualified because I was a girl. (This was 2nd
graders talking like this!) I was furious and worked hard to be
voted leader.

I ended up with a semi-win. I was elected "co-leader" along with
my friend Nicky. He made it all "legitimate." (Nicky also thought it was
stupid that our classmates insisted a girl couldn't be leader and
came up with the idea of co-leaders.)

Kathy 

    
    During my childhood and adolesence, it was constantly hammered home to
    me that women should or would only grow up and get married and raise
    a family.  College or career were hardly ever mentioned.  I'm sure they
    would have been supported had I wanted to do either one back then but
    the idea of marriage and children were the things that were emphasized.
    It's difficult for me to say just when "the click" happened for me but
    I would hazard a guess that it was about 9 or 10 years ago.  I think
    the break up of my marriage and losing my only son at 4 years of age
    had a great deal to do with it.  The change of career path around age
    30 was, I believe, my starting point when was turned on to a lot of
    different ideas.  Up until then, there were a lot of dorment ideas
    that just hadn't surfaced for me.  Not that they weren't in there
    somewhere begging to get out.  They got out many many times in my music
    where I got to express myself the way I saw fit.
    
    Sue
    

    I must be slow, or something ;-).  The only "clicks" I can think of
    both happened when I was an adult!  I was a real stubborn kid; if
    anyone tried to restrict what I was doing, I usually would find a way
    to do whatever it was anyhow!  Especially if some school official tried
    to say that only BOYS had permission to apply for X.
    
    The first one was when I was laid off from my first full-time job after
    I graduated from college.  My ex-boss told me that it was OK to be laid
    off (while owing a PILE of college bills - I had graduated only a few
    months earlier) because I was a married woman and my (ex-)husband still
    had a job!  I could've decked him - maybe I should have!  He died of a
    heart attack (at about age 42) soon afterwards anyhow - he was a real
    "driven" type.   His wife was the exact opposite, a very meek lady.
    
    The second "click" was when my father died, five years ago.  I
    discovered that his will specified that if he and my mother died at the
    same time (she is still alive, thank goodness), my younger brother was
    to administer the estate.  Now, I would just as soon not have the job
    anyhow, but that disposition made very little sense to either my mother
    or I.  My brother, as some of you know, is legally blind, cannot drive,
    and has not held a paying job for most of his adult life (he's 35).  My
    mother supports him.  Not your basic logical choice for holding extra
    responsibility of that sort - particularly since whoever it is has to
    do a lot of red-tape-chasing, etc.  I hope my mother has listed a law
    firm or some such in her own will, and not me, but especially not my
    brother!
    
    /Charlotte
    
    

    
    
     i think this is something that "clicked" for me after my dad left home
    and mom was left to play the breadwinner/parenting/everything role.
    
     i remember spending night after night trying to console mom when
    she would come home after having these HUGE battles with the various
    financial institutions just to keep a roof over our head. i guess our
    home turned into the only place mom could vent about the inequity of
    the enviornment she was thrust into through no choice of her own. i
    was ten/eleven.
    
     ~r

When I was 17 I got my driver's license and my Mom wasn't allowed to sign for me.
We had to go home and get my Dad. My Mom was quite insulted.

In my very first "real" job interview I was asked what kind of birth control I
used and whether I had a boyfriend. I was told they didn't want anyone getting
pregnant. back then it was a legal question. liesl 

    I guess I kinda knew more or less all along, but it crystallized as I
    saw interaction in my high school, how differently the boys and girls
    acted, and what they all aspired to do (it was a technical high school,
    and the dichotomy of decision was VERY visible when it came to who
    majored in what)
    
    -Jody
    

    I think that I always knew it but became really concious of it about 
    4 or so years ago when my teenage daughter was sexually harassed by
    her manager and I was told by his manager that he didn't doubt it
    happened but thought I was blowing it out or proportion. Then a week or
    so later I got a review that said I was wonderful with my employees but
    my style was to be "self-assured, poised and agressive" and that this
    intimidated my peers and managers so I had to change to create an
    environment where they would be comfortable.
    
    Let me tell you -- brought me right out of the feminist closet!!

    It clicked for me when my brother was born when I was ten.  Up til then
    my father had been encouraging me to study for medicine as a doctor. 
    After that, he encouraged me to study for nurse.
    
    Dondi

    i wanted to be an altar-kid but the russian church only has altar-BOYS. 
    there was a line in the church (literally!) that no females were
    allowed to cross. too holy for us, i guess...

    
    All my life I'd heard "go to college", "get a good education",
    "get a good job".  I remember hearing it from grade school up.
    
    But when I was getting ready to leave for college (Douglass in
    New Brunswick) my mom sat in my room and cried and cried.  I asked
    her what was wrong, and she said, "I always dreamed that when you
    left home, it would be in a long white dress, to get married."
    
    Miriam

    The first time "the click" happened was when I was in third grade.
    My heart was set on becoming an OB/GYN, but one of my favorite
    teacher's informed me that girls were nurses and boys were doctors.
    I was crushed!
    
    Barb

>When did "the Click" happen to you? I.e., when did you first realize that
>your femaleness is considered substandard in today's world? What was the
>specific event that brought this truth home to you? 

    	For the past day or so, I've been trying to figure out just 
    what it is about this note that just isn't sitting right with me.  
    I had to read the basenote a couple times before I even understood 
    just what was to be discussed.

    	I'm still not sure I understand...and possibly that's because
    I just don't view my femaleness as substandard, and resent the
    implication that it could be.  Perhaps I've been lucky - my
    parents encouraged me to be whatever I wanted to be, I have done
    what I have wanted to do.  I had metal shop and home ec classes
    with guys in high school, I certainly competed with them
    scholastically (as well as other females)...in fact, growing up,
    more of my close friends were male rather than female.  My brother
    and I both had matchbox cars and dolls for toys...  In college, in
    classes that were well over 50% male (comp sci, math), I never
    felt "substandard"...and so far at work, I see myself as an equal.

    	Some will read this and think "what a sheltered life" or 
    "she's young - it's a different day and age" (I'm 25)...but I
    guess I just have yet to experience this "click" you're all
    talking about.  (I do see replies from others my age, so it can't
    really be an "age" thing.)  Yes, I realize that there has been a 
    history of discrimination, I'm not ignoring that, or discounting 
    anyone elses experiences.  All these things mentioned in previous 
    replies are realities, I know and accept that.  

    	But quite frankly, thinking of women as substandard *today*
    bothers me.  I'm not so naive as to think it doesn't happen in
    certain cases, but to accept it as an overall truth??

	Sure, females are *different* than males...perhaps it was just 
    the use of the word "substandard" that really got to me.

    	amy

re:     <<< Note 526.13 by AV8OR::TATISTCHEFF "tim approves, too" >>>

	and I always thought my sisters were lucky because they didn't

	have to show up early and take a turn.
						kb

    What Amy said.
    
    Additionally: it never "clicked" for me.  i never had a realization
    that I was less than a full person.  While I do realize that some of
    society does treat women, in general, as less than full people, it was
    never personal.  Whatever else is going on out there, *I* am a full
    person, have always been, and will always continue to be.
    
    (Maybe this is because, like Amy, when I was growing up, I never
    encountered the "substandard" concept, so even when i recognize it
    happening, it isn't *me*.)
    
    D!

    	No one has written here that she considers femaleness to be
    	substandard, folks - and the suggestion *is* good cause for
    	resentment (for a culture that would hold such a preposterous
    	assumption!)

    	I'm happy for anyone who's never felt it, but the view of women
    	as substandard in our culture is not a mere matter of perception
    	of some women.  It's well documented - it's even written up in
    	great detail in my Encyclopedia.

    	If it never clicked - great.  It clicked for the folks at Britannica
    	when they wrote about the women's movement (and it's clicked for a
    	lot of other folks in our culture as well.)  

    	Let's keep in mind that we're talking about something real here.

    
    .13 -
    
    Where was the line? Did it just prevent females from going on the
    altar, or what?
    
    D.

    re .20 the line
    
    females were permitted up to about where we'd take communion (near the
    front) and put candles.  the priest's wife was permitted to change some
    of the velvet/linen coverings on some of the furniture but not all of
    it because she was not permitted access.  there was a screen we could
    not approach or go behind - the priest would occasionally go behind it
    (with altar boys) to do some especially holy things.
    
    lee

    
    .21 -
    
    Thanks..this is probably a loaded question, but, why should females be
    considered any less holy than males?
    
    D.

    i don't recall the russian church's specific reasoning, but assume it
    is along the same lines as the catholic church: females are tainted.
    
    fwiw: the russian orthodox church does consider the catholic church
    extremely lenient about certain issues.  the nuns wear an incredible
    habit, for example: black velvet, skirt down to the feet, head piece
    completely covering head, neck, ears, forehead, all extending down past
    the elbows.
    
    on the other hand, priests may marry (unless they are monk-priests).
    
    lee

    RE .19 (Suzanne)

>        No one has written here that she considers femaleness to be
>        substandard, folks - and the suggestion *is* good cause for
>        resentment (for a culture that would hold such a preposterous
>        assumption!)

    	Suzanne, the base note reads "when did you first realize that
    your femaleness is considered substandard in today's world? What 
    was the specific event that brought this truth home to you?" And 
    then there were 15 replies to that with events.  That to me says
    people consider femaleness substandard.

    	I *know* that historically this has been true.  As I said, I 
    don't deny that or invalidate anyone's personal experiences.  I
    have taken a few women's studies courses, I have heard stories - I 
    don't need Encyclopedia Britannica to tell me it was part of the 
    women's movement and it was real.

    	But the basenote was not talking *historically* - it was
    referring to *today's* world.  And yes, there are still examples
    of it happening today.  But I just don't see it as this universal
    truth, and that's what I was having problems with.  To me, the
    basenote seemed to imply that we have made no progress over the
    past howevermany years, and that it's a given truth that females 
    *today* are still considered substandard.  This is an assumption 
    I don't believe is correct.

    	amy

    >Let's keep in mind that we're talking about something real here.
    
    Suzanne, I didn't, and I don't think Amy did, even suggest that
    societal sexism and misogyny is merely a "perception", or that it was
    something less than real.  I know it's documented, I know it's real, I
    see it, I percieve it, I fight it.  But I don't *feel* it.
    
    The original question was about when it "clicked" - my interpretation
    about the word "click" was that it was very personal.  
    
    For instance, I understood what derivatives were when I took calculus -
    I could define then, I could calculate them, I could use them, I could
    manipulate them.  But I didn't really, *really* understand what a
    derivitive *was* until one day, in the middle of physics class, I said
    (out loud, embrassingly enough) "oh!" because the *concept* of
    derivitives suddenly *clicked*.  What had been an abstract concept which
    I had learned by rote suddenly fell into place, interlocking with my
    concept of the world.  It wasn't a "theory" anymore in my mind, but a
    concrete understanding, like addition.  (Surely you, of all people,
    should understand this analogy.)
    
    So it is for the societal "female=substandard" theory.  I know it's
    true (that society equates the two), the same way I knew that
    derivitives were the slope of a curve...I never questioned that, just
    as I never question (past the initial proof) that derivitives
    calculated slope.  But it wasn't *personal*.  I didn't *feel* it.  That
    understanding was (is) just a theory, not a part of me.  
    
    I understand that for some women, the understanding has clicked into
    place into their more complete perception of the world.  It hasn't for
    me, and frankly, I hope it never does.  This does not mean that I don't
    believe or accept that it's true.
    
    I think you are too ready to believe that I am questioning the validity
    of your experiences.  I'm not, I was just relaying my own.
    
    D!

    
    re: last couple
    thanks for clarifying. i confess my first reading suggested to me
    that you didn't believe it was real. i now understand that you are
    simply very fortunate.
    

    > When did "the Click" happen to you? I.e., when did you first realize 
    > that your femaleness is considered substandard in today's world? What 
    > was the specific event that brought this truth home to you? 
    
    No disrespect intended, Dorian, but I'd like to change the question
    slightly; for me, the click that brought home to me, that femaleness
    (not mine, as I'm male) is considered substandard by many people and by
    many default situations in today's world, was when a friend of many
    years, with whom I was approaching sexual intimacy (she was 16, I 17)
    was completely, emotionally, tearstrickenly unable to deal with any
    degree of physical intimacy at all...because she had been raped at the
    age of 12, by a stranger at a horse show in a dark stable.  She hadn't 
    ever told her mother, or the police...and very, very few of her friends.  
    My younger sister, who'd known her far better than I for years, didn't 
    know.  It was a secret, a fear, about which she was embarassed and 
    ashamed; she was an emotional basket case over it.  What kind of
    society do we have, that forces a young girl to struggle with such a
    monstrous crime in isolation and nonsupportiveness, for years?  We 
    have a society that monstrously devalues the women in it.
    
    DougO

    For me, there are two types of "clicks"
    
    The first when I somehow instinctively *knew* or inherently *knew*
    not to expect the same privileges that my brother got at home,
    or not to expect the same attention in school that the boys got,
    or to this day, not to expect the same sports coverage of
    womens' sports as say, the coverage that football, or other mens'
    sports get.   
    
    The other click is the one when I realized, 'hey waitaminute--*they*
    are wrong' and 'I am OK.'  The second click is my own self-ness
    coming aware and awake and saying that all those messages I received
    growing up were wrong; and I've been rewriting those messages for
    years.  Now I'll I have to do is believe them.
    
    Maia
    

    
    .27 -
    
    What a very sad story...by all means, if you mean by changing the
    question, including men among those who have experienced the Click --
    meaning the realization that women are considered substandard (or, in
    your words, are monstrously devalued) -- yes, let's broaden the question
    to include men as well as women. 
    
    Maybe I wasn't clear enough in the base note. I never meant to say that
    women *are* substandard, but that they are *considered* substandard,
    all too often, by society.
    
    Does anyone know about when "the Click" was coined as a phrase? Did it
    come out of the CR groups in the 60s/70s? I wasn't paying attention then...
    
    Dorian
    

    .28
    
    Maia, you are right on on the double "click."  Thanks for putting it so
    well.  
    
    My first clicks came when I was six, and couldn't try out for midget
    league baseball.  Repeated clicks occurred through a fight to get into
    shop classes, fight (which I lost) to get into "VOC ED" in High school,
    fights to get jobs, and the wages that have gone with the "better" ie
    not female traditional occupations.
    
    Now I realize that I am okay, just parts of the system are not.
    
    Meg

    Being one of the Major Baby Boomers ('46)  (NINETEEN-46, wise gys)
    it was a long time coming for me. I knew when I was in high school 
    that the boys had althetic teams and the girls had "intramurals".
    I knew girls didn't play Little League. I knew girls were going to
    be teachers, nurses, or social workers. Period. I was told when going
    to bowl with a summer camp friend (male) at age 12, "Now remember
    to let him win."
    
    I knew about "good" girls and "bad" girls, and that girls lost,
    either way. I knew The Girl was supposed to be responsible for 
    The Boy's sexuality - whether you "did it" or "didn't do it", you
    were doomed to be marked socially.
    
    Men ran business; women were secretaries.
    
    Boys/men talked; girls/women listened.
    
    Boys/men *did* things; girls/women *were* <adjective>.
    
    None of this seemed the least unusual to me until I was about 28.
    It was simply The Way Life Was.
    
    The sheer unfairness of it finally struck me. And the problem is,
    once you see it for what it is, you can never "un-see" it again.
    
   You can never get "unclicked".
    
    --DE
    

    I'd never before heard "The Click" as an institutionalized phrase,
    so I've had to more or less guess at the meaning.

    I guess I share (to some extent) the experiences of the other women
    in their mid-20's who have responded here.  For years, I viewed the 
    "women are seen as substandard by society"-type viewpoint as a 
    historical vestige of times long past, which seemed to have enjoyed 
    a revival during the years my parents were growing up (50's).  As 
    far as *today* was concerned, it was entirely inapplicable.  

    Then it began to be clear that that wasn't the whole picture.  That 
    in today's society, a *different* standard (as opposed to a reduced 
    version of "the standard" that would lead women to be regarded as 
    "substandard") was often used for women by default, but that they 
    were not exactly *held* to it.  In other words, I could "overcome" 
    the "limitations" of being a woman by simply refusing to accept them.  
    This was not a sudden realization, but a product of the same 
    growing-up process that teaches us other facts about our world and 
    the way it works.

    For the most part, I still think that describes contemporary reality
    for women of my generation and background who live in this country.
    It hit me in the face that it was not *always* true when I was refused
    two jobs (neither at DEC) on the stated grounds that I was female 
    (one was actually offered to me orally, and the offer retracted 
    after the hiring manager's manager found out I was a woman), and I 
    discovered that I (surprise!) had *no* legal recourse in either case,
    and that the men who told me these things did so with impunity.

    I'm not sure whether "The Click" would be an appropriate phrase for
    these experiences, either, since these seem to be best summed up as
    isolated incidents and written off, just as the people who try to 
    tell me that "women can't do XXX" or "women are inherently inferior"
    can be written off as confused and out-of-date.  Forty years ago 
    when those attitudes were generally accepted by society, they were 
    far more often stumbling blocks.  Today, the opportunities generally 
    exist to prove them wrong, so they are very rarely true obstacles, 
    and often have the potential to be opportunities in disguise.

    But a "click"?  Maybe, in the sense that they caused me to view the
    world more critically, and not assume unconditionally that I could 
    work my way through all gender-based barriers.  But in the sense
    that they've changed the way I live my life, no.  They haven't.  Nor
    have they changed my view of how society regards women in general.
    It's still my view that, generally speaking, your limitations are 
    not those that others try to place on you because you're a woman, 
    they're the ones you accept.  That if you're a little more careful
    and a little more circumspect about what you do than you might be
    otherwise, you can still persevere and remain relatively unaffected.

    Now, I don't pretend that society sees women and men as being on fully
    equal footing right now.  I know that women still make 70 cents (or
    whatever it's up to now) for every dollar that men make doing the same
    job.  But I've "seen" that figure go up from 59 cents, too, in just
    a few years.

    I say "seen", because in *my* life, I never saw that inequity in the
    first place.  To be honest, I initially expected to.  I expected to 
    because that's what all the older women said: "you won't have the 
    same opportunities as men", "you'll find the men get paid more than 
    you for doing the same job".  Now, I know they weren't making this up, 
    because several of my friends have seen that, or had to face the harsh 
    reality of being told they "had to" start as a secretary while they
    watched men with equal training start higher up... and then work
    hard to prove themselves at a job they _weren't_ trained for so that
    they can have a shot at doing the one they _were_ trained for.  It's
    just that that hasn't been *my* experience.

    So, in summary, I have to concur: to my 25-year-old ears, "the click" 
    sounds like yet another anachronism.  Maybe even a tad sensationalist.

    Hallelujah.

	Sharon

    Re -.1

    	YES, Sharon, that's it exactly!  Very well put!

    	amy

    re the last 2 or so..
    
    to this 26 year old..I agree..I never really felt a "click", and the
    times when I felt I was treated unjustly for being female almost always
    were the result of dealings with a man who was much older.  I have
    never felt that way due to a man about my age or so......anyone else
    notice this?  

    "The Click" refers to the emotional equivalent of suddenly having
    a fractious puzzle piece snap into place.
    
    Hypothetical example:  You're working with people who are trying to
    hire someone new.  A woman is among the interviewes, and she has all
    the stated job requirements: A, B, and C, and does them all very well.
    After the interviews, you learn that a man, who doesn't do A & B & C
    quite as well, will be offered the job first, because he can do D,
    and the woman can't.  You realize that the woman was never *asked*
    about D, so no one really knows if she can do D or not.
    
    The "click" about this would be to realize that (1) it is assumed
    that a man can do a task N if it is related to other tasks he can
    do but (2) it is assumed that a woman cannot do a task N if she does
    not explicitly say or show that she can do it.
    
    							Ann B.
    

    re the age thing
    
    well, I'm 27 so maybe that's where the line is (<=joke), because I
    clicked waayyy back and later events kept on clicking.
    
    To those who haven't clicked [I'm sorry: I can't help but add a "yet"
    to that - I know it sounds supercilious and I don't mean to be], I
    think you have been lucky.
    
    Yes the world has changed a lot in *our* lifetime - my mom burned her
    bra in the early 70s (only to put it back on in the late 80s). 
    Industrial Arts *and* Home Ec were required for both girls and boys in
    my school.  A girl joined the Little League team, and it's been co-ed
    ever since.  The schools my dad taught at went co-ed, and when we moved
    back down to Massachusetts he refused a job offer at his old school
    (very prestigious one) because they would not admit his daughter.
    
    Perhaps I clicked earlier than you both because of my mom (who was
    clicking while I was approaching puberty) and because Old Russians have
    some peculiar ideas about women.  
    
    And, like many of you, I did not notice any sexism from my peers up
    through my college years; sexism was something to watch for from OLDER,
    TRADITIONAL men and women - and their sexism was something I could
    excuse morally (while fighting, always fighting) in them because they
    were not raised to know better.
    
    So I thought sexism is something that happens to *other* people: older
    people, poorer people, uneducated people.  The male-female ratio in my
    math and science classes didn't make me click.  Nor did the fact that
    the only person who didn't cheat and didn't get an A in my AP Physics
    level C class (and the only one who got a 5 on both sections of the AP
    Exam) was also the only girl.  I applauded the improvement in the
    male-female ratio at MIT - my class was more than 20% female, and the
    freshman class my senior year was something like 33%.  I ascribed
    "trickle-up" theory to my co-op jobs: I was the only woman in the
    group, the building, because we were only now being educated in those
    fields.
    
    I got radical when I came to DEC and met YOUNG sexist men.  I had to
    work with them, so I could not bring myself to make a stink.  Coward?
    Yes.  But I couldn't get them stripped of power or removed from a
    position of authority, and anything short of that would have left them
    able to sabotage my career here.
    
    I'm not talking about little bits of sexism here - I'm talking about
    YOUNG men who would not interview a woman, much less hire her.  No they
    wouldn't *say* no women - they'd say no resumes available, women are in
    too much demand what with Affirmative Action.  Funny, I got them female 
    resumes (extremely qualified, but not over qualified, hirable within
    the limitations of the requisition), but no female interviews happened. 
    One of the resumes I handed on got hired in another group and she says
    she was never telephoned.  I put the things IN THEIR HANDS and no phone
    call was placed.
    
    I'm talking a salary survey made in my old group where they found the
    women were paid 10% less than the men in the same job title and
    performance slot ACROSS THE BOARD - older women, younger women, new
    college hires.  That didn't even account for the inequity in job
    titles: female supervisors had lower titles (and therefore pay scales)
    than male supervisors, and so were paid less than the men who were
    DOING LESS than they were - and that was AFTER compensating for
    experience and seniority.  Salary planning was fun the year they had to
    adjust us, I'm sure.
    
    This is DEC.  This is while I've been here - in the last 4.5 years.
    
    So my take on it is: if you haven't clicked, you've been lucky.  The
    world is changing.  But not fast enough, and you'll be beat over the
    head often enough than sooner or later you will click.  You won't
    accept inferiority, but you will never, ever forget that "they" think
    you *are* inferior.  *That's* the click.
    
    Lee

    In 8th grade the students at my junior high school were given the 
    opportunity (for the 1st time) of choosing the courses they wanted to
    take in 9th grade.  The school was offering a brand new shop course.
    Unlike the other classes, it would be taught on a trimester basis, and
    would cover a different shop discipline in each.  
    
    Also for the 1st time, girls were going to be allowed to take shop.
    Yes, allowed.
    
    I have always liked mechanical things, and would probably have gone
    into engineering if I had an abstract mind, so I was thrilled.  
    
    I signed up for the course.
    
    I came back to school the following September, and was handed my
    schedule, and a note that the vice-principal wanted to see me.
    
    I looked at the schedule.  No shop.  HOME-EC!  I could already cook as
    well if not better than the teacher (my dad was a cook, and taught me)
    and I hated sewing!
    
    When I went to see the V.P., there was another girl there.  She was 
    our resident hippie/non-conformist/rebel/trouble-finder.  (Gosh, I 
    admired her! (*8  )  We had both signed up for the course, and had
    really been looking forward, for the first time, to the start of the
    school year.
    
    Mr. V.P. took us into his office and said "You were the only two girls
    to sign up for the special Shop class.  I knew that would make you
    uncomfortable, and you probably wouldn't like it anyway, so I switched
    you into Home-Ec."  He *really* thought he had done us a favor!
    
    I wish I hadn't been so cowed by authority, I would have insisted.
    You should have seen my friend's face, though!  Douza in Home-Ec was
    a cruel joke.
    
    Anyway, the upshot of it was that 3 years later I had to teach myself
    how to fix my car, using just a Chilton's.
    
    Sigh.
    
    That was the biggest one, anyway.
    
    E Grace

    The click is definitely not sensationalism; nothing sensational IMHO
    about realizing that you've be dealt an unfair hand in life because
    you're were unfortunate enough to be born female.  Infuriating, yes,
    but not sensational.
    
    And, I'm not sure that those who have not heard the click yet are
    lucky...for me, the click saved my life, in almost every way.
    
    (I guess then my presumption is that there is a click out there for
    every female...some just haven't heard it yet.)
    
    Maia
    
    

>    The click is definitely not sensationalism; nothing sensational IMHO
>    about realizing that you've be dealt an unfair hand in life because
>    you're were unfortunate enough to be born female.

	I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say when I said
	"sensational".  The fact that females are not dealt a fair hand
	in life was not hidden from me in any way.  *Quite* the contrary;
	my mother made sure that I was prepared to recognize it and fight
	it at every juncture.

	But the picture she (and others) painted, while true to her (their)
	experience, has not matched up with mine.  If there was a "click" 
	at all in my understanding of "how things really are", it was the 
	realization that they're not really as bad as I'd thought, that 
	these inequities aren't *necessarily* true [anymore].  Except that
	"click" didn't match up with either theory I'd heard (i.e., the
	"women and men are totally equal in today's society" theory, or
	the "women are second-class citizens and you'd better believe it"
	theory.)

	    Sharon

    
    
    
    RE: .39
    
    
    I feel *quite* fortunate being born a female....and *society* has
    never dealt me an unfair hand.  Certain PEOPLE have.  I guess I fall
    into that "younger generation" luck thing.
    
    
    
    
    How do I label the reverse click when it finally dawns on me that I 
    got the job over someone with the same qualifications BECAUSE I was
    a woman?  The fact that I am a woman has given me more advantages than
    it's EVER given me disadvantages.
    
    	I had more chances at scholarships upon entering college.
    	I have more support groups.
    	I had a better chance at getting study help in college.
    	I had my CHOICE of lab partners in my engineering courses (picked
    		the one that would benefit me the most).
    	I have better social skills than many men.
    	
    
    I've always felt, in fact, that I was, in some cases, manipulating
    men and playing on their need for female attention, to get ahead.  I 
    used their desire for power over me to me advantage.
    
    Yes, I've been mistreated by men on some occasions.  I've fought and
    won a sex discrimination suit with 100+ other women.  
    
    
    However, I suppose I'm "lucky" to have learned how to use certain
    male's attitudes to my advantage and to become the victor in the end.  
    
    
    I feel that if someone is going to mistreat me and not respect me the
    way they should, then I have the right to use that power against them.
    	
    Maybe there is a "click", but I sincerely don't feel that I've ever
    suffered majorly from it, but rather I use it to my advantage.
    
    
    kathy
    
    
    

    I think its wonderful that so many women can't identify with the click.
    It's good to hear stories about women whose families supported their
    femaleness.  Most of the replies talk about incidents of sexism from
    outside the family.  As I said in .1 my *mother* treated me substandard
    for being female.  It wasn't until I got outside my family influence
    that I discovered is was OK to be female.  Before that I spent a lot of
    energy trying to be male so I would be OK.  Am I the only one who 
    experienced sexism at home?
    
    Mary

    re .42, I experienced sexism at home, but from my father, not my
    mother.
    
    The first "clicks" that I remember may seem like small, insignificant
    incidences to some people, but the fact is that I was very young when
    they happened, I have never forgotten them, and they did cause me to
    begin to realize that some people didn't think "girls" were as
    important as "boys" and/or should have the same options.
    
    The first time I can remember realizing that some people thought 
    girls were not as good as boys was when my brother and I were getting
    new sneakers.  This was in 1954 and I was 4 1/2 and he was 9.  He told
    me that he was getting high top, black sneakers, but that I had to have
    low red ones, because that's what girls and sissies had to wear.  I was
    outraged and told my mother I wanted black, high tops, too.  When we
    went to the shoe store I told the salesclerk that I wanted black high
    tops and the sales clerk (a woman) said, "But, little girls don't wear
    those, honey."  This seemed to make my mother angry, because I remember
    that she said, "Well, I don't see why not!  There's no law against it! 
    If she wants black high tops, she can have'm!"  The sales clerk was
    very displeased but my mother bought them for me, and in a picture
    taken of me on my 5th birthday I am wearing them with my jeans and
    plaid, flannel shirt.  (This is ironic because I wasn't a tom boy at
    all.  I hated "rough stuff" and loved playing with dolls.)
    
    The next incident that really brought home to me that some people, in
    this instance my own father, valued boys over girls happened when I was
    about 8 or 9.  My brother and I were out shopping with my parents and
    my father ran into a co-worker.  My father introduced my mother to the
    man, and the man then turned to my brother and said, "This must be
    Ronnie!  I'm certainly heard a lot about you!"  (with a big smile) 
    Then, he turned to me with a puzzled look and said, "And who is this
    little girl?"  My father said, "Oh, that's my daughter, Lorna."  The
    man then said, "You have a daughter!  I had no idea you had two kids. 
    You talk about the boy all the time, but you never mentioned having a
    little girl, too!"  I was crushed.  I had suspected that my father
    liked my brother best and I felt that really confirmed it.  I remember
    discussing it with my mother.  She was clearly uncomfortable with the
    incident but refused to say anything against my father, either.  She
    kept saying things like, "Men always make a big deal about their sons. 
    Just forget about it."  (Obviously I never have.)
    
    My father never paid any attention to me until I was about 20 yrs. old. 
    I was forever trying to get my brother interested in his favorite
    things - carpentry, gardening, the violin and discussing politics and
    current events and reading certain types of books.  To his
    disapointment my brother never had any interest in any of them, but it
    never even occurred to him to try to show me anything about any of
    them.
    
    Another odd thing is that my father would not ride in a car if a woman
    was driving.  My mother never got her license.  I got mine when I was
    17 and my father died when I was 27.  In all that time, he never once
    rode in my car with me.  He just couldn't seem to comprehend that a
    woman could be capable of driving a car.
    
    Lorna
    

Re: .44

You want to see just how unequal we are, try entering your note in Mennotes.
Just try talking about internalized misogyny, internalized misandry, wanting
to be caring and nurturing and NOT BEING ALLOWED TO BE. Talk about the problems
of being a *whole* man. Listen to the supportive replies.

	"Problem? What problem? I don't have a problem!"

When did it click for me? That femaleness was considered substandard in this
society? Honestly, there was no "click" no moment of revelation, no single
event. It has been a gradual accumulation of bits and pieces, layer upon layer
of sediment till the weight of it has become opressive. Looking for strong
female role models, and finding precious few. Looking for women to work with
as equals, and finding almost none. Asking *why*? Why, when I *know* that women
have as much native wit and intelligence as me, why I have so few women peers.
*Why* do I do a double take when I discover the operator of that backhoe is a
woman? *Why* am I surprised that Kai's nurse in the ICU is a man? *Why* is
every single personnel person I deal with a woman? Any single little thing
could be an accident, could be personal preference, but the pattern, the
structure of it all reveals that it is no accident. Sexism is deep, but it
*IS* getting better. Even in my lifetime I've noticed things getting better.
They aren't yet "good" or even "good enough", but we're getting there.

	-- Charles

    The biggest Click I ever got was my first week at college, when, for
    the first time, I was privileged enough to hang out with well-educated
    upper class guys and hear them talk about going to the local junior
    college because "smart girls don't have sex" (news to me!), about
    "getting women drunk", about what would now be called date and gang
    rape, about women who MUST'VE gotten ahead in their careers by sleeping
    with men, about women who were bitchy enough to actually ARGUE with
    them, about, well, about a week's worth of whining with a hostile edge.
    
    In retrospect, it seems obvious that boys who went to single-sex
    schools and who had everything to lose by having to share power would
    be more vicious in their sexism than the folk I grew up with, but it
    was a shock at the time.
    
    As regards internalized sexism (in us het white men, anyway), Samuel R.
    Delany's novel "Triton" Clicked loud enough to wake the dead.
    
    Ray

The first time I saw "The Click" in print?  It was the title
of an article in one of the first issues of Ms magazine.
The article read quite a bit like this note.

As for my first time ... You know how a little kid will 
take a stick and run along a fence to make it say 
"Click Click Click Click Click ..."  Well, that pretty
much describes my first 16 years.

Gawd! I can still see our 4th grade classroom with the
boys sitting in the front, listening to the world series
on the radio the nun had brought, while the girls had
to do extra work "because girls don't like baseball."

And the teacher explaining that men die in war while
women stay home with the children (where have we heard
this before). Oddly, this was the week the US Steel Hour
showed the bulldozers shoving bodies of all sexes and
ages in the mass graves. 

And I can still remember that jackass of a social science
teacher explaining that men make more money than women 
because men have to pay for dates. 

Frankly, I can't remember a single area of my life that 
was not squashed or limited in some manner by sex rules, 
conventions, and attitudes. I clicked everytime it happened. 
But it took me until 16 to be able to start shoving back.

Well, I'm about 20k notes behind and just read this string and have my own
CLICK to add.

I've always been *slow* in life;  my major  CLICK  didn't happen until a women's
studies lecture in graduate school.  (Of course, the fact that I attended this
lecture when my major was chemistry, shows I wasn't completely brain dead :-) )

All of my life my father has told me that there certainly is no systematic
discrimination against women -- that women were highly valued for what they do, 
but what they are good at is *different* than what men are good at.   His 
favorite examples of OBVIOUS male superiority are mathematics and, 
especially, spatial relations.  Every exam ever given shows that 
boys/men have more "spatial ability" than girls/women do.   

And I bought this!!  I was always the top of my math class; I *loved* geometry,
but I knew that I had difficulty visualizing three dimensional objects . . .

And then I heard a feminist lecturer tackle THE SPATIAL RELATIONS theory.  She
said that it is certainly true that boys do better on these tests.  It is ALSO
true that boys do much worse in reading than do girls.  Both genders improve
in both fields with help and practice.  So -- what do we have??   Federally
*mandated*  remedial reading classes (populated 90%, she said, by males) and
tests in spatial relations that continually prove male superiority.

Now -- either Spatial Relations are important and should be taught (like 
remedial reading), but it isn't    OR   it isn't important  . . . 

There it was -- the same data, my father used, but examined in a different 
light with an entirely different emphasis.   CLICK

    WOW.  That's new to me and I love it.  What a great CLICK.  Thank you
    Barbara.
    
    I have always had a difficult time with math (starting with the
    freshman year in high school when the teacher noted that the class was
    all female and probably wouldn't learn anything and you know what? few
    of us did).  But I can easily think in 3D and do drafting and graphics.
    And developed my own way of doing long division in grade school because
    I couldn't do it the right way.   But boy, I sure can read!
    
       Margaret

    
    	Well, when you read SciFi since grammer school and build things
    with the boys in the neighborhood, you get to be real good in spacial
    concepts and thinking in 3D.  Barbie and Ken just don't cut it!! :-)
    
    
    Debbi