A woman's place

[Guest guest]

Tammy, I applaud your work as an electrician and I don't think it is

un-feminine at all. We have these really crazy ideas about what a

man should do and what a woman should do. Only a few of them have

any validity - for instance, it really is a waste of time for a man

to try to have a baby.

As an engineer I really regret that women make up less than 5% of the

profession. It gets so old just seeing sour-faced men who only think

of money and stabbing each other in the back to climb the corporate

ladder. And who don't want to work with women. Just another thing

where I am in the minority. Sigh.

- Dan

[Guest guest]

Dan wrote:

Tammy, I applaud your work as an electrician ...

Hi Dan,

Yeah, that's really neat.

One of the things our nadas/fadas denied us KOs was *choices*. I

think I'd still like to drive an ice cream truck -- like Free

did. I remember they use to have a " Good Humor " ice cream truck.

Obviously they didn't employ BPDs.

<chuckle, chuckle>

- Edith

[Guest guest]

---

Dan,

Cool! What kind of engineering do you do? I agree about the whole

sexist definitions of what is 'mens' work and what is 'womens' work.

I don't really think of myself as being un-feminine, I'm too

obviously female to be mistaken for a man anyway! lol! I just know

that I tried the 'traditional' female jobs like secretarial and data

entry type stuff and thought, " NO WAY! " I hated every minute of it.

I'm really overqualified for my position. I specialized in digital

circuitry for years and even worked as an engineering tech for a year

before I had my son and chose to stop working for several years. I

tried teaching (electronics, of course) for a couple of years, but

that was too stressful for me. I like my job because I can just go

and do my thing and not worry about anything after I go home. My

husband owns his own business and we need health insurance and we are

not yet at the point where we can afford to pay $900 a month for it,

so I went back to work again in December. Eventually, the plan is

for me to specialize in servicing CNC machines for the cabinetmaking

industry. I would travel around the southeast US servicing machines

at cabinet shops. We thought we could do that last summer, but we re-

did the math and realized our income couldn't quite handle the

overhead costs, so off to work I went.

My nada hates what I do for a living - which is my first clue that I

made the right choice. I have to admit there's this really childish

side to me that goes 'NANNY-NANNY-DO-DOOOOO' just thinking about her

reaction to my choice of careers. The fact is, I'm very good at

anything electrical or electronic and most of all, I LIKE IT! I have

also proved to myself that it is possible to do a 'mans' job and be

very feminine at the same time, so I've basically shot all kinds of

holes in her ideas of what a 'lady' should do. I'm more of a lady

than she ever thought about being.

I'm sorry you're stuck with all those stuffy old men. Throwing a

woman into the mix always makes things interesting, as long as she

knows how to conduct herself professionally, of course. I've always

worked with mostly men and I thoroughly enjoy it. My nada also

thinks that if a woman only works with men, then she's just looking

for sex partners. That's also a bunch of hooey! I do what I do

because I enjoy it. The men respect me, and if they don't, frankly,

they don't stay around very long, usually. I'm good at taking care

of myself. I've had a LOT of practice!

Thanks for a great post, as always! You always give me new things to

think about!

Tammy

In ModOasis , " Dan " <danc19fr@y...> wrote:

> Tammy, I applaud your work as an electrician and I don't think it

is

> un-feminine at all. We have these really crazy ideas about what a

> man should do and what a woman should do. Only a few of them have

> any validity - for instance, it really is a waste of time for a man

> to try to have a baby.

>

> As an engineer I really regret that women make up less than 5% of

the

> profession. It gets so old just seeing sour-faced men who only

think

> of money and stabbing each other in the back to climb the corporate

> ladder. And who don't want to work with women. Just another thing

> where I am in the minority. Sigh.

>

> - Dan