The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

I'm going to retell just one of what ended up being many gender transgressions against a friend of mine when she was a firefighter in the Santa Fe Fire Department.  My friend Stacia (I've changed her name) decided to become a paramedic, which in Santa Fe also means you become a fire fighter.  The decision to join the department came when as a waitress, she became aware that upon leaving the establishment, one of the female customers had been beaten and raped.  The victimized woman came back to the establishment seeking help, and the fire department (paramedics) were called.  My friend Stacia, comforted the woman until the paramedics arrived, at which point she made room for the paramedics to care for the woman.  As Stacia stood back and watched, she saw the fear in the woman's face as she was confronted by the male paramedics, who, with great emotional detachment, followed the protocols they had been taught in regard to efficiently assessing the condition of a rape victim.  Stacia said she thought to herself, "I can do that better."  So Stacia went through the classes and the training and became a fire fighter/paramedic.  She was one of the first women admitted to the department, which traditionally had been dominated by Hispanic men, but eventually admitting a few white men as well.  Over the course of many years, Stacia finally worked her way up to Captain of Station 1 (The busiest fire station in the city, and responsible for the greatest amount of historically significant and valuable real estate).  But as a woman, in the Santa Fe Fire Department life was difficult for Stacia.  Stacia married another fire fighter and when she became pregnant with her first child, she was surprised by the blatant lack of support she received from the department.  Many of the men in the department felt that women did not belong among their ranks, and especially pregnant women.  After her baby arrived she wanted to make sure that her daughter received breast milk for at least the first year of her life.  In order to make this happen Stacia pumped her breasts when she was away from her daughter, and stored the breast milk in the freezer at work.  One day when she went to retrieve the bottles of milk she had stored, before going home, she found that the freezer had been chained, and pad-locked shut, by her crew.  Although angry and more than eager to get home to her daughter, she remained focused.  As the well trained and resourceful woman she was, she went down to the fire engine, retrieved a pair of bolt cutters, went back to the freezer and cut the chain off of the freezer.  She retrieved the breast milk she had stored (thankful that it was still there) and went home.  No complaints filed.  Later Stacia had a second child.  Over the course of many years, Stacia was finally honored with the rank of Captain, and with great care and fortitude was able to develop and lead a closely knit, respectful group of men, all the way up to the time of her retirement.

When I first heard this story, I found it first of all hard to believe... then I found it hard to really feel what Stacia must have felt.  I remember as a mother how hard it was for me to leave my children when I was nursing... but to come off of a 48 hour shift just to find that all the breast milk I had so carefully stored was locked in the freezer by one of my crew mates would have been appalling.  And no one... Not one member of her crew was willing to help her retrieve the milk.  It has been 10 years since Stacia shared that story with me.  Now that I am ten years older I look back on the incident and am even more appalled.  That fact that Stacia did not file any complaints was probably, at the time, the wisest thing to do.

Sometimes the best thing we can do, when we have little to no recourse, in our attempts to fight back against bias, prejudice, and oppression, is to make sure that we teach our sons and daughters to not engage in nor tolerate discrimination.