The essay that inspired "Skirt! Rules for the Workplace..."

...appeared in Skirt! in March 2006, one month after Betty Friedan passed away. I'm including it here in its entirety, and there is actually a chapter in my book called "Being Betty" that goes into a lot more detail.

Being Betty
by Kelly Love Johnson

“The problem that has no name—which is simply the fact that American women are kept from growing to their full human capacities—is taking a far greater toll on the physical and mental health in our country than any known disease.”
~Betty Friedan (The Feminine Mystique, 1963).

Last month, one of the loudest voices of the modern women’s movement fell silent. Betty Friedan died at her Washington home on February 4, her 85th birthday.

A founding member of the National Organization for Women in June, 1966, Friedan and Dr. Pauli Murray co-authored its original statement of purpose, which began, "The purpose of NOW is to take action to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society now, exercising all the privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men."

She was a staunch feminist, yes. But I’ve always considered her more labor activist than consciousness-raiser. From the time The Feminine Mystique was published in 1963 until just a few years before she died, Friedan worked to push equal pay, sex-neutral help wanted ads, maternity leave, child-care, and many other issues of gender parity in the workplace.

As NOW's president from 1966 to 1970, Friedan led efforts to lobby the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce laws against sex discrimination in hiring practices, and to ban employment ads that were segregated by sex. During that time, NOW also convinced President Johnson to sign an Executive Order barring sex discrimination by federal contractors.

As recently as 1998, at an annual Association of Work/Life Professionals conference in Miami, Friedan issued a clarion call to redefine work so that women can care for their children, stating that it is necessary to create genuine equality. She said (and I’m paraphrasing from memory), “Women have always juggled a lot; it’s just what they are juggling that has changed.”

Considering that what we are juggling has changed, and that the glass ceiling has scarcely budged in response, who will step up to fill Friedan’s shoes? Unless you have 30 years (which is how long it will take, according to Economic Policy Institute statistics) to wait for the wage gap to close, I nominate you. All of us, really, should think about being Betty once in a while.

Look how far we’ve come—in this country, women can vote, drive cars, walk in public unaccompanied, run for office, run companies, and wear whatever the hell we want while we’re doing it. But it’s not far enough, baby, as long as there are women out there who have so few options that they take jobs that require them to perform the same tasks as their male counterparts, plus fetching coffee, stocking the office fridge, wiping the counters, and wearing pantyhose so no one has to be offended by a bare knee. As long as these women exist, it is our responsibility to ask, “What would Betty do?”

Being Betty means we are prepared to organize a walkout, boycott, protest at the drop of a hat, even lose our jobs. Being Betty means that we use facts about our actual performance on the job to negotiate a better salary instead of our emotions. Being Betty means that we leave our “need to please” at home. Being Betty means that we insist, as often and as loudly as necessary to be heard, “This is not fair.”

Being Betty means that we know the law, that we seek out powerful women and support them instead of running them down. Imagine how much more you could get accomplished at work if you knew, like many men know about their “good old boys” network, that your female colleagues were watching your back instead of waiting to stab you in it. Other women are not a threat. We should be offering opportunities and encouragement instead of opposition and envy.

Being Betty means that we don’t blame our moodiness on PMS or our mistakes on being “just a girl.” We don’t talk baby talk in the office. We don’t cry until we get home. And we don’t bake cookies for our co-workers. A woman doesn’t have to act like a man in the office to be considered CEO material. She just has to stop acting like his mother.

Being Betty means that we’ve done enough research to know that companies actually perform better with a higher percentage of women in upper management and executive positions. Brute strength is required for some jobs, but in the white collar world, intuition, strong social skills, and compassion go a long way. Women naturally excel at managing staff because we balance competence with concern. We consider morale and the bottom line equally important.

Being Betty means choosing your battles intelligently. Fighting for the cause of co-ed bathrooms may not be as valuable a use of your time as fighting for the cause of promoting women as frequently as men.

Being Betty means understanding that the glass ceiling is not a myth. Although women make up almost half of America's labor force (U.S. Department of Labor), still only seven Fortune 500 companies have women CEOs or presidents, and 90 of those 500 companies don't have any women corporate officers (Catalyst.org).

But even Betty couldn’t pull off a one-woman revolution. Whether you want to move up the ranks or settle happily where you are, it’s difficult to understand how it is possible, in the year 2006, that woman can be seen as “lesser-than” in the workplace. Sure, some of us have children. Some have children and work—that’s two jobs. Some have children—and that’s their one job. However, the potential for a woman to choose to stay at home following maternity leave isn’t reason enough to relegate women to a lower position. Should she choose to leave, there are hundreds more standing by, competent, educated, and ready to take her place.

Betty herself was fired, from Trade Union Service (ironically, a company that edited newspapers for labor unions) in 1952, when she was pregnant with her second child because her boss knew she’d want to take maternity leave. She might have wept and decided to stay home and bitterly accept it. But she spent the next years at home freelancing and bitterly writing The Feminine Mystique instead.

The Feminine Mystique was published 30 years before I got my hands on it. One would think that, since inroads were made and the foundation had been laid, I wouldn’t have found the book relevant in the early nineties. What I did find, as I entered the workforce for the first time, that the outmoded ideals Friedan argued against were still prevalent. I was lucky—the product of a feminist mother, childless, and relatively responsibility-free—to be able to walk away from one misogynist boss who thought boob jokes were the height of hilarity, another office where I was required to wear “one-inch defined heels and nude (not taupe, not black) pantyhose” as part of the dress code, and a third where a male supervisor kept imploring me to “smile, honey.” For me, no job was worth compromising my integrity or self-respect. But it wasn’t hard to imagine what women who were single mothers, sole breadwinners, or lacking other means of support had to contend with every single day.

Unless you have another 30 years to wait for a fair and balanced workplace, someone has to be Betty. Find your voice. You don’t have to risk your job to do it. Sometimes people don’t realize policies aren’t fair until someone else speaks up.

If no-one speaks up, we’ll continue to live in a world where “acting like a girl” is a derogatory statement. "You're such a girl" means you earn 75 cents on every dollar he makes. "You're such a girl" means there's a good chance you won't be taken seriously when you should be. We are girls, we are females, we are women. But don't let them take those things and turn them into reasons why we deserve less, why we should be considered weaker, lacking in intelligence and run by our emotions.

It’s high time to stop fetching coffee because you happen to be the only female at the conference table. Time to stop wearing pantyhose because some male CEO with a corner office deems it “appropriate and recommended attire.” Hell, stop wearing anything that isn’t consistent with a dress code that affects everyone in the office, as opposed to just the employees who wear skirts.

Stop being afraid to ask for a raise or promotion—or to ask what you should be doing to get one. If you’ve done your research and are reasonably certain your pay is lower than that of male colleagues, don’t just bitterly accept it. In the simplest terms, here is what men do that you don’t: Have a meeting with the boss. Explain what the desired outcome is. Ask how to get there. It sounds scary, but it’s as much part of your financial life as filing your taxes or paying your mortgage.

Other people—other women—made the opportunities we have today possible. We owe them for being able to define our lives by who we think we are, rather than who other people think we should be. But the progress women made in the 1960s and 70s has not continued. We’ve lost momentum, and we’ve lost focus. And now we’ve lost Betty.

You don’t have to lose your job, march on the capitol, or even carry a sign. You don’t even have to raise your voice. Think about your actions in your working life. If you can’t name any instances of standing up for women’s rights, then it’s time to settle up. Be Betty just once this month: Show him where the coffee machine is. Teach him how to use his own e-mail. Tell him to change your title from “My Assistant” to “My Colleague.” Visit Salary.com or Pay-Equity.org and find out if you are making what you’re worth. Mentor another woman. Network with other women.

Less than 100 years ago, women endured jail time, public scorn, and physical violence for standing up for their rights. Can you spare a few words of candor or a one-hour lunch meeting for yours?