Women on the job

On Morning Joe today they had a lengthy discussion about sexual behavior and one thing that caught my attention was speculation as to what might have happened if the close scrutiny we are now experience had been the case over the years. They concluded that in the past women would not have been invited along on business trips, they would not have been allowed in private business meetings one on one with men and other limiting accesses and the result would have been fewer opportunities for promotion. In the late 60’s and early 70’s I was a plant manager at different locations around the country and this meant I arrived as a new comer at the plants. Most of these plants had a large number of women working there and one of the things I would do when I first got there is to go through the plant during operating hours and meet the employees. I recall specifically making it a point to look at the women in the eye with the same look I would give to my sisters. Whenever a woman came into my office I always left the door open or I had another person in there with me. At that time we had no women in management positions so I don’t know if I would have acted differently with them. I once had some college women ask me how I dealt with women engineers and I replied not only did we not have any women engineers the thought of a woman engineer never entered our minds. Times have definitely changed for the better in that way.