Blog 2....

I interviewed my mom, Carla Calhoun. She has worked with Southwest Airlines for 27 years. Through her hard word and perseverance, she has accomplished a lot in her lifetime. I strive to be more like her everyday. 

what is you experience with gender?

I'm very conscious of my gender everyday.  l live in a male dominated world. I have a boss who listens to the men in our office over the women. I hold a managerial position at Southwest Airlines and as a supervisor I work in an office with 3 men and 2 women. My co-worker, Ruthie, and I are continually fighting for what we believe in. But, we keep getting pushed out by the men and their opinions. Their opinions always have full control of our office. I feel like my opinion doesn't matter. But, despite it all, I don't let this take over. I'm not passionately fighting to be equally taken seriously. I keep a strong opinion but I don't put my job in jeopardy and I always keep a positive attitude. I voice my opinion but I don't demand that my opinion be heard over everyone else. 

Describe one experience in your life that made you conscious of gender. (weird story)

One day we had information coming through OKC in reference to a piece of luggage that had some oozing coming out of it. When we took it off the airplane we discovered there were body parts in it, We couldn't tell if it was human or animal. I had the police come to investigate it Three MALE officers responded to the call. When they were told the story they refused to take any reports. They refused to deal with the situation. They wanted me to just pretend like it did not happen. When I explained to them that it was against Southwest procedure, they still refused. They felt it should just be looked over. They just didn't take me seriously. I feel very passionately that if i had been a man in that situation they would never had questioned my authority. They just did not want to deal with it. They wanted to cover it up. I was the only manager on duty so I had no choice but to direct the situation to someone else. I had to call Kansas city and get in touch with the FBI there in order for them to investigate the suitcase. In the end, it was a situation in which the man who had checked the bag originally was wanted by the FBI for questioning and 60 minutes had even done an investigation on him. If this would have just been "brushed under the carpet" like the officers had wanted, this man would have continued to be loose. This is just one of the many times I have felt handicapped by my gender. 

history?

I haven't ever really been an activist but your great-grandmother was an activist in Texas fighting for the 19th amendment. But I did start out in pants in go go boots and I wasn't taken seriously when i first began my job at Southwest. Being the girly-girl was the role I played at work. As there years progressed on, we got different uniforms. At first Southwest Airlines only hired females at the front desks. After years went by they slowly started to hire men to work at the ticket counters, too. In the beginning, only men were in the management positions. There were very few women being hired at the higher positions in the company. Throughout my 27 year career at Southwest, I've watched more and more women take on these higher positions, myself included. Although I cannot say that our positions are evenly distributed between gender, I can say that we have gradually come along way from originally being hired for our looks. 

define feminism?

Strong compassionate leadership with a servant's heart

Response to Readings:

In reference to Chapter 5 of the F-word I noticed something when describing the 3rd wave the author used a lot of excerpts of other women's opinions describing in their own words the progression of the third wave. A lot of their opinions showed aggression towards the direction of the 3rd generation.  The problem with is is that if women continue to just complain about what should be happening instead of acting upon it, maybe there would be more of a direction for the 3rd wave. Instead of waiting for someone else to fix the problems of our generation maybe we just unite. Although there are many problems with this because obviously there are a lot of different opinions because some want to unite and fight for every one's rights and others just want to unite to further only women's rights. But the more we contemplate who to help, the longer we have to wait for our goals to be continued. Maybe if just one person decided to stand up for change and begin to lead the way....everyone else would follow?

In reference to the taking sides issue....

I had the NO issue

Although biologically there are things that keep us gender divided. A lot of things could be different though. Like when it describes competition. Although men do have competitive tendencies, this does not apply to all men and the idea that all women cooperate doesn't always only apply. A lot of the terms allotted to each gender can change depending on where you were raised and what situation you are in. It's hard to put labels on genders because everyone is their own person and everyone has their own qualities, as we've evolved through each generation those so called gender delegated tendencies have now become meshed between both genders.