Marla and our chief

Yesterday, when I was working, my chief told me to please come near his office in order to help my partner Marla. She was cleaning the kitchen of the establishment and when she ended up that task, it was the time of her to throw the trash into the garbage can. I knew that she could do it by herself, and, in effect, she looked at me with a face gesture like “seriously?”. And it was because she also knew that she could do it by herself, and not necessarily with my help. I ended up by giving her my “help”, and she stayed in the kitchen. This kind of things are really frequent. Is there a problem with letting a female throw the garbage alone? Is she incapable? I honestly think that there are other things to consider, but not those, and if so, the answer is negative. A female, like a man, can do it by herself, unless she needs another help, but not because she is female she can’t do it alone. It is an underestimate of her capacity. Actually, that is not all: there are moments when he command us (the male employs) to never come close to the kitchen –that is because it belongs to females-, and the female employs cannot come to our area. Here we can appreciate the segregation because of the “gender role”.

I really think that the problem here is the mentality of my chief. He has a really strong male-chauvinist ideology which leads to these kind of things. It is like if women, by default, are not as useful as men (treating them –the women- like inferiors). My partner, Marla, is kind of tired of this situation, and she also have this right spirit of feminist. She had have told me that there will be a time, when she will not tolerate these wrong decisions made by our chief anymore. I think, when she talk to me like that, that she will yell at him very loud, so I’m scare not to see her again in the establishment, but actually, I’m with her. I agree with her because there is no reason to think like my chief does. Women do not belong to the kitchen, furthermore, no one belongs to a determined task, a determined role.

I must confess, sometimes I think of changing of job. Not only because of that, but because of a lot of more related to discrimination. Now, talking about the discrimination to those females in the establishment, I would say I feel angry, because when the situation occurs, I feel like I need to say something to refute my chief’s order or thoughts. Sometimes I get really mad but I can’t show it; otherwise I could be dismissed. In order to not be a “rebel” employ, I also have to smile to my chief and (not agreeing with his argument) say something like: “Oh, okay chief, it is good to know that, I’ll continue with my job” and give him a smile. But inside my head I’m yelling, wanting to let him know all the things he must improve. But I cannot.