Report from Santa Fe; Joan Shutz

Report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by grants from the members of the National Education Association of New Mexico, an organization of professionals who believe that investing in public education is an investment in our state's economic future. And by a grant from the Healey Foundation, Tau's New Mexico. Hello, I'm Lorraine Mills and welcome to Report from Santa Fe. We are experiencing extraordinary times now and we're going to take a really unique perspective at what's going on in our world right now. I think you'll really enjoy meeting our guests today who is Joan Schutz. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for inviting me. Well, I really wanted to talk with you because of the kind of milieu. What's going on now with the most recent women's marches? 4.2 million. The largest public demonstration in American history, the Me Too Movement, Times

Up Movement, the Access Hollywood tapes, Harvey Weinstein, all these scandals and even in the New Mexico legislature, they've had to install, establish an anti-heresement policy. So it's really, really, really getting right down to the everyday level. But I've asked you to come, tell us about your background, but you have been in the trenches for so long and I need this put in context. What's happening now in light of what came before? Absolutely. I think that's a beautiful way to approach it. Yes. Okay, I started involvement in this. Back in the 1970s, I was a young person at that time working at AT&T. AT&T had just signed a consent decree which was part of the EEOC, the Equal Employment and Affirmative Action process. As we all know, telephone operators were women, secretaries were women, all the craftsmen were men, and it was an accepted, it was accepted that that was the right

thing to do. Those were specialties. All right, and that was not so. The equal opportunity said there should be no gender identification, and therefore women could move into managerial jobs. It was their competency, not their gender that mattered. And AT&T paid attention to it. It was, it employed over 600,000 people here in the United States alone, the largest corporation at that time. So, and many of them, most of the service people were women. It was an enormous open door for women at that time. It had nothing to do with anything but the sexual gender of the person and the job. Although the Equal Employment Opportunity did not so address it. It did with AT&T, but the sexual harassment, sexual assault, all of that was already in the Title VII part of that law. And so I was there at AT&T, a

little worker, a female worker. I started to get respect for all the other females around me, and therefore we joined forces. And what we did is we started a little group, secretly of course, to address the personnel practices of AT&T, and we call ourselves the sounding board, so that we could talk to each other and therefore pass on to the upper management what we wanted. We didn't want anything special for women. We wanted it special for all people. It, we were the most affected, but in fact, it worked. And AT&T, gladly because it was a monopoly, already looked on by the US government because of antitrust. It, it was very active and pursuing what was right. I was lucky. I was an opportunist. I took it. I took that opportunity. So it's always hard to look back in time. I think for young

people growing up now, the only way they can capture this is, and of course some of the television shows of the period, I love Lucy and Archie Bunker and all those, and to know that for a young woman, in the 60s and 70s, the employment opportunities were teacher and nurse, bank teller, you know, all these really low level things. And so when AT&T was one of the first to open the door and say, if you have these competencies, no matter what your gender, you can have these jobs. It was fun to watch when women came to AT&T after that period of time and got the jobs at three levels higher than any of us were ever hired at, simply because of that new policy, all right. They never knew what happened before. They walked right into these jobs, not knowing the fight, not knowing the little secret meetings

in the policy changes. And some of us were like, hey, look at the history, how you got there, right. And I think that will always be. We forget the history. And just that, John, that's exactly why I wanted you here. Isaac Newton has a quote that's always being thrown around that, if I see the future, if I see further, it's because I stand on this older giants. And we have to acknowledge the work of our foremothers and our forefathers to constantly be eroding these barriers and opening the door. But if we don't learn from, man learns from history, that he doesn't learn from history, we are offering our conversation and a lot of other things that are going on as a way to shore up those advances and make sure to ensure future progress. So how were you treated? Was there any backlash? No, actually, I was kind of an outspoken, fresh person. And that was respected. I don't think they had expected women, because most women were at that time,

you know, subservient. I mean, you were glad you had a job into this big company. But I was the opposite. I was, I'm not going to do that. I mean, I wore pants one day when that was against the dress code and was told to go home and change my clothes. And I said, I'm not going home to change my clothes. Well, then you have to go home. You're wearing pants. I said, well, then fire me. Well, they didn't fire me. And then every other woman could come in and wear pants. You had to break the barrier, right? And once you did, and that's what's happening now, with the Me Too, somebody broke the barrier and then all the dress came on. I can remember, as I started, and when I turned 18, I had to remember the Susan B. Anthony's. When I retired, my carpool, which was all male members, they gave me a little bell system truck. And inside was, I don't know, at least 50 Susan B. Anthony

silver dollars. And I like laughed at that. I said, good job. You guys recognized how we all got here. And I, that's, that's the history. I don't think even today we should forget the torture, the jailings that those women went through so that we, who had no rights, could vote. And now we should be voting for more women. And we should have more women willing to run. So it is, it's history. It's a little slow and we go ahead and then we go back. And then we go ahead and then we go back. But we still go ahead. I'm still delighted that the gender identification of Ma Bell was female. So, yeah. So when Oprah received one of the Golden Globes Awards, she said, when I was an eight year old girl, I want Sydney Poitier, get this very award. And now I'm the first, who is the first

black to get it. I am now the first woman to get it. All you girls out there, I just want you to know that you, there, to break any barrier that you're way and to be sure that there are no barriers stopping you or your, your friends. So, that's, again, that's one of the reasons I wanted to remember this still long, long, long human rights and women's rights, a battle that we've been facing. One aspect of this, I found so intriguing, the term sexual harassment. So when we first spoke, you said, no, it's, it's job access and job equality we were fighting for in the 70s. When did the term sexual harassment come in? And what do you, what can you tell us about that? Well, it's interesting because I was talking about my history in the 1970s. The first time the term sexual harassment got publicity was when Anita Hill spoke up about Clarence Thomas' sexual harassment for her. And both of them were working in equal opportunity and affirmative action positions at that

time. And she, Anita Hill, was dragged through the mud for her statements about his behavior. And the judicial committee that was about to confirm him, they did not support her position. And neither did the women in the public come to her defense because we didn't really understand sexual harassment. Interesting about sexual harassment. When I first came up on there, I wondered, is sexual harassment a crime? What's the, what's the result of this? What's the punishment? I read somewhere that it's called, it's consequence free. It is consequence free to the perpetrator, but to the, and it only implies, it only applies to employers and employees. It's not something that if I went out on the street now and some men came up to me and said, hey, nice body,

you want to go to bed? I could not do any, I could not have him arrested. That is not a crime. But if he and I worked in the same company, and I filed a case against him, the company would pay, I would sue the company. That's why we're seeing these men who are being accused of sexual harassment, being fired from their jobs because the company is liable for their behavior. I think that's, yeah, that's amazing. When I first came out to Santa Fe, I was here a month and volunteered at the rape crisis center. Rape is a crime. Rape, you go to jail for sexual harassment, you ruin your reputation, and you have difficulty going further with your career. All right. So it has some possibilities in that women have to stand up. They shouldn't wait for me to. I'm a big person,

I'm a big supporter of if you see an injustice, address it, address it, then you can't go wrong. They're Martin Luther King's line about there will never be injustice for all as long as they are in justice for one. I believe that. I had a young lady working for me, a young black worker woman when I worked at AT&D, and she and I went to cash our salary checks. I was first in line and the bank teller took my check and cashed it and gave it to me. She was right behind me. She gave her check and the teller says, oh, I can't cash this check. And the young lady said nothing and she's high school intern. And I stopped and I looked at the, I said, excuse me, my check and her check are the same. Why could you do my check and not her check? Oh, I'm sorry, no, I'll cash that check. All right. She was a young black woman and somehow or other,

she wasn't going to do that. Hey, I'll tell you that young lady is still talking to me 40 some odd years later because no one had ever done that for her. So yeah, that's all it takes. It's a one-on-one word, you know. Excuse me. Yeah, speak up. We are speaking up today with Jones shoots and we're looking at, we're looking at the history of women's issues and the many, many long battles and what we've learned from them. There's one other area you're talking about equal job access but equal pay. I've interviewed a little led better for whom the led better fair wage act was. And you're actually the same generation as you Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the dissent. The Supreme Court said, no, you don't have to pay her the same because too much time had passed. The time had passed because it was a co-worker who gave her 20 years after she'd been paid 40% of what her male co-workers had. He just gave her a little piece of

paper written in pencil with her salary for years and all the men's salaries. And it was 20 years after she'd been underpaid that she received the information and fought. But Ruth Bader Ginsburg said on the Supreme Court, I can't do anything about this here. I'm outvoted. It's the ball is in Congress's court and they created the fair wage law and it was a first bill Obama signed when he was in office. So there's another fight there for wage parity, wage equality. What did you see back in the day? First it was enough to get our foot in the door and to get the jobs. But then how long how is the effort to get paid equality coming along? Well that's again when you write a job description and determine what that level of job will be today. That was pretty much handled in an equal way. The difficulty was when you do the job description and describe it differently than the way it's performed in order to justify

a lower salary. When you're in this kind of, you have to look at every T, every I and you have to look at every single piece of it. It's never what it appears on the surface. So that's why we need the courts. That's why we need case histories. And that's why we need the Ruth Bader Ginsburg and people who are alert and aware. We need more than that though. I think what we need is for me, in my opinion, we need respect from the male power group. We need respect of each woman for themselves and for who they are. We need to have respect for the male who respects us. And we need respect from that male. Because we won't go anywhere if we're always one step down, all right? You can't stand on the shoulders of giants if you can't even reach

the shoulder. So, hey, we have brains. I think even better than a college education, we need to identify people's skills and their competencies and reward that. And women need to be proud of what they are and who they are. So it's just so much the issue of the day right now. I'm just so pleased. You mentioned the Me Too movement that was actually started 10 years ago as we know. But suddenly it just caught fire. And there were a couple of weeks on Twitter and in social media where it was everywhere. And then the time's up like no more. For women to defend themselves and to assert their power. Where, if things ever pursued a logical path. But where do you anticipate? Where, what are avenues that are open to us now, considering the grounds well of the women's

marches and all that? Where do you think this tsunami will take us? I like your, I think we need to get young people. I think we need to get teachers to recognize the power of their students. I think we need to get young people to get on their little seats and blow into the embers of the fire that we're just starting and make it grow. If we don't act on what's happening, the fire will go out and we'll have to do it again. And we'll have to do it again. And so we need to be the opus of the world. We need to instill in everyone. This is the time. Let's go. Let's act. Let's do it. Some of the catalysts for some of these things. There was a woman's strike in 1970 and a thousand people marched in New York. And now it was what? Yeah. It's two hundred, three hundred thousand in New York. And then one of my favorite stories

is that in Iceland in 1978, or around thereabouts, the women went on strike. And Iceland was the first country to have a democratically elected female head of state. They didn't do anything, no cooking, no ironing, no teaching, no nothing. And it's a historical attention-getting device that really does get attention. When we look at some of the ways that we've come now, I think that most women can apply for most jobs and education. I think the engineering, medicine, science, STEM, those fields are way open to women. And there are movements to get more girls scientifically oriented. When we look at what we've accomplished so far, I was surprised to see that Title IX and sports is one of the ways that this movement has been most effective. I know you're probably not a sports fiend, but can you address what sure things have come

from all of our efforts? Well, I loved watching Billie Jean King. I forget what movie it was or what show it was. I just said, you go, woman, you go. And I think, you know, there's no stopping anybody. I think it's wonderful that sports have been open to the young women as well as young men and that they can play on the same teams. Unfortunately, I think we only see the tip of the iceberg. I mean, you'd have to go out on the field to find out what's really going on and how is that being treated? It's, it's, you know, yeah. What can I say? No. And you had, I'm sure, I would envy the founder of Elimelkin, the founders of Emily's List. Uh-huh. And Emily sends for early money is like yeast. It makes the dough rise and they identify women candidates and help them with their campaigns and have invested huge amounts

of money and time and energy in getting women into politics. What other areas are women surging now toward equality and besides, how do you, what really women in politics, the defeat of Hillary, how are women in politics doing? I think women in politics is a good place to be seeing as it seems like every job in the world now has a political aspect to it. And I think if you can learn the negotiation skills that it takes to be in that position, it's an open door for you to move on in any place. I think, however, there are areas and I was just reading somewhere about patients and hospitals who will not either be treated by a member of a minority group or by a female because they don't feel, they want quote, the standard male doctor. And the hospitals have to figure out what to do about this. So somehow, we need to get down into more

acknowledgement of our role models in all fields. All right. And I think that's what inspires the young people. If they can see a woman who is the women in the Senate, if they can have an impact, the Elizabeth Warrens who speak out so forcefully about things, that allows them to say, I can do that. I have a voice. No matter how they use it, they need somebody to look at. There's a song, the greatest love of all. And it says, I don't have everyone's looking to find somebody to look up to. And if you don't, you've got to look up to yourself. You have to develop your own role model and limit. But I think it helps if we can have people yourself. You're a role model for the, for being in a television, for interviewing people. Everybody has some goal. You need to find

that one that you can emulate and follow it. Well, that's where I just got a couple of minutes left. So based on your experience, what, and there are people who are watching us who are in the same position as Oprah was when she was eight and girls watching, you know, Michelle Obama. And what advice do you have for particularly our women listeners are men too, because so many, there are so many men in the women's march. And very smart move. But they support their girls and their wives. So what advice do you have for our audience based on your experiences? Keep on keeping on. Don't stop. It's too hard to get started against. Once you stop, take one step, take two steps. Just keep it out there. This is where we should be going. Women are smart. Women, women can do more multitasking than any male has ever had to do. They can raise the children.

They can get the jobs. They can manage the money. They clean the house. They are out there. Keep on keep on. I have a reminder of the movie Wonder Woman. Yes, we wouldn't wonder women. No wonder the men are out there marching. They're scared to death. Yes, exactly. And girls internationally have taken the initiative to do lots of, you know, when they see an injustice, they're very strongly and powerfully moved. There were girls, I think, in Indonesia who wanted to ban plastic bags, and they wrote the president they never wrote. And then they finally said, we're going on a hundred strike. This is like a 10-year-old and a 12-year-old. And suddenly everyone was paying attention. They were time-honored techniques to get attention for cause. And one of which is speaking out and showing up and part of all these demonstrations. So what's coming up that you are looking at that you're going to be involved in?

Well, let's see. I just did my will. What's coming up that I would love to see New Mexico have, oh, probably four or five senators and ladies in the House of Representatives. I would like to see them, of course, being my political bent, but who are we to determine that at this point in time? So I just like to see us being able to have these kinds of conversations without animosity, without lying, without, I would like you to see a lot more truth in our country. From your lips to God's ears. Yes, we do need more truth. So one other issue is how boys and girls are raised differently and to try to let that, you know, the boy doesn't have to have a truck and the girl a Barbie, that there should be more fluidity with

what they're allowed to play with and what color they're allowed to wear. Oh my gosh, pink. I think if you watch young people and you watch parents who try to bring up their children as gender neutral, you will find that the girls play with the dolls and the boys plays with the trucks and that's okay because that's their bent, all right. I think our biggest problem with children is poverty. I have the issue and the try to overcome poverty and be true to themselves is really tough. The food, the housing, that a child shouldn't have to grow up like that. I was doing some mentoring in schools and these kids were fourth or fifth grade and we're doing reading and all of a sudden one of them says, oh my uncle was putting jail last night and I'm like I said to them how many of you think you're going to be part of a gang and one little girl says

I'm not going to be part of a gang and I said why not listen to this profound answer because you can't get out and I looked at her and I said whoa turns out that every male member of our family was in a gang. She knows, all right. Well we're going to have to leave it there. I guess it is Jones shoots and I want to thank you because I wanted to look at the arc of the political movements that are just inflaming our time and you took us from there to the present to the future and thank you for bringing up the underlying currents that we still, we have so much work to do but I thank you for all you've done and I'm so grateful you came to join us. Thank you, Jones. Thank you for being here with me. Thank you. I loved it. You've been and I'm Lorraine Mills. I'd like to thank you all for being with us today on report from

Santa Fe. We'll see you next week. Past archival programs of report from Santa Fe are available at the website reportfromsatife.com. If you have questions or comments please email info at reportfromsatife.com. Report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by grants from the members of the National Education Association of New Mexico, an organization of professionals who believe that investing in public education is an investment in our state's economic future and by a grant from the Healey Foundation, Tau's New Mexico.