University vacation jobs in the 1970’s
and early 80’s –
the café society yet to be invented –
no baristas or bartenders
summer work invariably manual and tedious :
warehouses, factories, and animal processing plants.
Macho,
a man’s world, filled with men
the odd secretary – PA still in the future
fair game: catcalls and innuendo ..
no offence or action … boys will be boys and
girls should be flattered.
10 years abroad
workplaces changed, legislation defines
and punishes sexual harassment –
channels and procedures – actions and sanctions.
In the mid and late 1990’s
I oversaw an exclusively female Department
one day on my desk
a photocopied page of A4
“ only the uncircumcised can work here
because you need to be a complete prick.”
Orphaned Islands (Un)poetry 