Some men do not like women. This is just a simple fact. Maybe they were scorned by an ex-lover or their mother was abusive or they are secretly in the closet. There are many reasons why some men hate women and the unfortunate truth is that many of them are CEOs. Currently, I am working for a CEO that appears to hate women. During his initial introduction to our team, he held up his ring finger on his left hand and stated emphatically, “I don’t have a ring on this finger and I never will”. I think he probably thought that was a positive comment because he could be fully committed to the team, but I read it as being more than that. I am not sure how the other women in the room felt, but I felt a distinct hatred toward those of us in the room with vaginas and I am sure that he would also hold that hatred for trans women as well. Anyone that identifies as a woman probably shouldn’t get too comfortable working for this CEO.
At the time of his introduction I felt like, perhaps, this was just his awkward, introverted way of presenting himself to the team. That he was just nervous and not good in front of a crowd. But I recently found out that he actually made the same comment during the hiring process. And now things come into clearer focus. We have a VP that is not great with women in the workplace and I am certain that he loved this CEO candidate. Our former CEO was an introverted empath who I do not believe would have been able to follow through with all the dismissals that will come along with the sale of the company. Especially due to the fact that he knew us for a long time and had knowledge of our personal lives. Maybe not the details, but enough to make it difficult to let us go without cause. Bringing in this new CEO served a dual purpose. It allowed the old CEO to retire before the dismissals took place and it seems to have been strategic because a man that has a dislike for women will be much better at cleaning house since the majority of the first round positions to go will most likely be customer facing and, of course, all the customer-facing positions at the company I work for are held by women. The engineering, IT, developer, and sales/marketing positions will also be eliminated, down the road, but they will not be first.
After considering all of the above, I am ready to be done. I am a feminist. I am a sociologist. I am a future librarian. None of these things sync with me working for a misogynistic pig. I need to make an exit plan so that this dude does not have the chance (or get the satisfaction) of letting me go himself. The time is coming, sooner than we expect, and I would rather leave on my own terms. It is time to make some moves. Make something happen so that I can leave before I am asked to follow him into the office to ‘let me down easy’. Fuck that. I need to find something better and drop the mic on this job. Five years might seem like a lot, but in the grand scheme of things, it is not worth staying somewhere just because you have been there for a while. There are no longer lifetime careers that allow us to collect a pension when we reach 65 or 68 years old. Those days are over and all we have left is our dignity. I will not allow a woman-hating man to take that dignity away from me and neither should you. If you are stuck in a position where your boss is a misogynist, get out as quickly as possible. Stop giving yourself to a company that does not care about you and will continue to accept your emotional labor until you are completely spent.
Peace, Chantale
