Corporate Inequality

Wore green shoes –
a shock of colour
to highlight business –
attire aimed to succeed.

Walked ten blocks
rode fourteen floors
passed security,
heels continually clicking.

Navigating male-dominated
passages, I was driven
ignored patronizing comments
exercised for corporate ladder

But the lies, the betrayal,
the dirty little secrets,
they taunted me –
sold me out in back rooms

Broke under pressure
vile accusations, improper
propositions – How did
gender equate with progress

How did firmness of pert
breasts, the flash of muscled
calves, exempt me from rising –
Why should my efforts fall short

By refusals to drop my panties
and who could I go to –
boss and boss’s boss
all male, in on the plots

Big business banking –
financially fruitful
personally demoralizing –
I walked away, morals intact.

(For Reena’s Exploration Challenge:featured image.   Sexual harassment was rampant during the 70’s and 80’s.   Although we have known progress, the struggle for equality continues.)

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VJ

Permission to write, paint, and imagine are the gifts I gave myself when chronic illness hit - a fair exchange: being for doing. Relevance is an attitude. Humour essential.

34 thoughts on “Corporate Inequality”

  1. Pingback: Reena's Exploration Challenge #126 – Reena Saxena

  2. Those nests of snakes are found in all lines of business, but banking is one of the powerhouses of it. Government is another. You’ve described it with unerring accuracy.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. True. My daughter works for a large corporation, mostly female employees. The handful of men fill the upper positions of authority. Drives her crazy. Change takes time and a completely different mindset, I guess.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Change is slow moving…I don’t know the source of this information but at a International Woman’s Day Event I attended Friday this speaker stated that research shows that the estimated date of true equality will be 2123

        Liked by 1 person

  12. IMO, this is the best of your work, because I could relate to it so well. Kudos to you for the courage! #MeToo has not succeeded, because the density of male bonds is outrageously high.

    Liked by 2 people

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