Vote on Desiree Davidson's Story
Were They Afraid We Were Planning a Coup D'etat?
I spent my first summer during Columbia Law School at a firm in Philadelphia described as one of the best places in the city for black lawyers. I believed that if there was any place where I would have an equal chance at opportunities, be treated fairly and succeed, this would be it. There were three black female summer associates out of sixty that year but any time all three of us were in an office talking, one of the partners would knock on the door to see how we were doing.
Olga Kensington's Experience
Overtime, from all the travel and...computers...I've developed a really bad back and neck. I think my decision to leave the corporate world was very significantly to protect my neck and protect my bac
When my company was acquired, I went from having a window office and all the perks of being a manager in a major corporation to sitting in a cubicle, where everyone sat in a cubicle. They had this value of "everyone is equal." This was the place where values were a really cool thing so it made it more tolerable to have lost my office.
I worked at one place where everyone had to fit a certain mold; everyone had to be extroverted. They wanted everyone to be a Myers-Briggs ENTJ. I happen to be an ENTP/J so I was very close to the mol
They had a very active LGBT group, but it was a secret that you were in the group. So people would meet secretly at off places.
On a business trip one of my superiors called me at 2AM from his hotel room and said he wanted me to come to his room and have sex with him. I was so shocked. I couldn't go back to sleep. I thought, "What am I suppose to do about this?" At breakfast the next morning, he didn't show up, even though we were suppose to go to the airport together.
I ended up being more slowly promoted than a coworker. I was a better performer, brought in more money, supervised people better. But it was the good old boys' club and I was a woman. I really do think that, had I had a husband, I might have been taken more seriously.
My friend, who knows I am a lesbian, becomes my boss. The woman who had been my executive assistant was also a closeted lesbian, very closeted, and she started to hate me because she feared I would tell my friend.
There was a dress code at the ad agency and at this oil company where you had to wear short skirts and heels. That was a published dress code policy! For someone who considers herself a butch lesbian, everyday of my life I felt like I was in drag having to go to work in drag.
I would attend company dinners at executives' homes. People would bring their wives and husbands, but I could never bring my partner. People always thought I was single and couldn't find a date, so th
When my boss said, "I hear you're a lesbian." I just looked at her and said, "So?" I was in management already. I wasn't a worker bee - I had a title. It was the first time I stood up to something in