By The Reverend Renee Solano
Sexism is not new. I and every other woman in the world have been dealing with it all of our lives. It seems that men are assumed to be qualified for jobs without any facts, but women are assumed to be not qualified, again without any facts.
I am going to give two real-life examples.
1. Most of my life I have worked in male-dominated professions. I started as a seasonal firefighter at age 20, then made my way up to seasonal inspector/investigator, then permanent full- time inspector/investigator. During these years, I was told over and over that I only got my job because I am a woman. Here’s the problem with that: when I started, I was already in school getting my degrees in fire science and criminal justice. I graduated both with honors. When I applied for the seasonal inspector position, I had the two degrees, had put myself through the Firefighter 1 academy, and two of three levels each of inspector and investigator certifications from Asilomar. I was told by my bosses that I was miles ahead of any other candidate that applied. Every other candidate was male and had seasonal experience like me, but no education at all or very little. But I still had to hear every day how I only got my job “because I am a woman.” Yes, if it wasn’t for affirmative action, women and POC would never have jobs as police officers or firefighters, so it gave us opportunity where we were previously shut out. BUT, and this is a big but, we always have to work twice to three times as hard to even be seen as somewhat equal to any of our male counterparts. To be honest, most of the sexism I experienced came from outside the department, from the public and men who didn’t get jobs because they didn’t do any of the work to get experience and education and wanted to blame it on something other than that they just had not done the work.
2. Now let’s take the anonymous “Publius” and their (I am pretty sure publius is male, however, in order not to misgender them, I will refer to them as “they”, as women can be sexist too) assessments of Councilor Gerly Adrien vs Councilor Fred Capone. They call Capone qualified and says he knows budgets because he has been on the council for 18 years. First, what does sitting on a board and collecting a stipend have to do with experience running anything (No shade to Capone, publius has not stated what he has or hasn’t done so I have to assume publius doesn’t really know)? Second, any person who has seen any city budget outside of Everett knows that this city’s budget is a joke, it’s all salaries and no one really knows where any money goes, but that is a subject that would take another letter/post to talk about. Capone is an intelligent man and an attorney, so I am sure he is much more qualified to read a budget and assess legislation than many on the council, but Adrien isn’t one of the less qualified. You see, Gerly has a Master’s Degree in……. wait for it…..FINANCE! Adrien has also worked in the field for years. So if anyone knows numbers, it’s Adrien. Sure, Publius probably didn’t know that, but maybe get your facts straight before you open your mouth.
Reverend Renee Solano has many followers and friends in Everett