When I was seventeen I was shopping with my young nephew in the nearby mall. The manager of the sporting goods store struck up a conversation with us which resulted in a job offer for me as a cashier. I was flattered. I gave notice at the expressway rest stop where I was currently cashiering and where, by the way, a fellow employee had just grabbed my derriere. I was moving up. I would receive a higher wage, be closer to home and work in a safer environment. Unfortunately a couple of weeks later as part of my training, I was chased around the back room while proof reading the Sunday sales flier by the same married middle aged manager that had hired me. Luckily I was able to stave him off with a sharp awl, a few harsh words and a very loud "I QUIT".
At age twenty I was married. My husband and I had opened a service station. Always enjoying art and being on a strict budget, I painted all of the signs for the business. I was particularly proud of a large billboard boasting the state inspection seal. An established businessman in the community also admired the sign. He asked if he could hire me to paint signs for his miniature golf farm. I was flattered, and I said that I would be happy to take the job. In less than an hour, hurling an armful of signs, I was running from his barn.
In my forties I was running my own corporate food service. One particularly powerful executive said that I really did a great job. He was impressed. I was flattered when he stopped by my office with a gift of candy he had bought on a recent trip abroad and quite surprised at how quickly this man I identified as fatherly could turn predator.
At each of these times I was angered at being treated in this manner. I dismissed those involved as dirty old men and moved on with life.
In reflection, I see how women can confuse the measure of their worth with the measure of their beauty because at those moments what I was really made to feel was worthless.
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