The responses to my retirement post are a real eye opener.

[appleannie1]

101. Actually, in a lot of ways, it got better for women between the late fifties when I first joined

the work force and the late eighties when I started my own small business. When I first started working women made a lot less an hour than men even though they both did the exact same job. In 1965 I was a waitress in a high end restaurant where business men came for lunch either to sit together and eat, drink and make merry over lunch or brought their clients to feed them over a "working" lunch. It was the type place where you took a tray of salad dressings to the table to dress the salads to the diner's liking. The rolls were always warm and covered with a white linen napkin in a wicker basket. The large silver trays we carried on our shoulders were heavy and held a lot of food in covered plates to stay hot. I had 6 tables of 4 and 4 tables of two. The boss usually sat at the bar until lunch and then would go to the kitchen to help oversee food going out. Sometimes on the edge of just plain drunk. There were people seated at all my tables. I came into the kitchen, put 4 salads for one table, the dressing tray and just finished filling 4 baskets with warm rolls when I hear "Hey bitch". I looked up as I started out the swinging door. He was looking at me. I said "Are you talking to me?" He said "yes, get your ass over here and pick up this food". I dropped my tray on the floor in the doorway (making it impossible for other girls in the kitchen to go out to their tables) and said "Pick it up yourself" and walked out of the restaurant taking my book with me. No one knew where any orders went or how much money the tables already eating would owe. But that was common for a working woman. That and pats where you did not want touched or a boss sliding passed you as you bent over doing your job. Your only option was to quit and try somewhere else or put up with it. If, like me, you had kids to feed, it was tough luck. And then you could not own anything unless a man signed for it. Same with a credit card.