IT'S STILL A MAN'S WORLD — Sharon Mark Cohen

The Barbie movie notwithstanding, it’s still a man’s world. I found that while working in an office, and it even extends to communication over the telephone.

Our daughter, billed for services not rendered by an exterminating company, called to report the extraneous bill. She ended the conversation frustrated and without resolution. Soon after, she told me that her husband called the company and notified her that a refund would be forthcoming in 3 to 5 days.

We were both not surprised. My reply was, “The inefficiency of the world. There’s no hope. Nothing resolves the problems. Hard to believe it’s 2023.”

That was August 22, 2023, when Leo, a worker from the water company, was at our house that day to change the water meter. When I told him about our daughter’s communication with the exterminating company minutes earlier, he concluded, “Men give off a different energy.” He said he is always with his mother to negotiate such situations.

At work in an executive position in 2015, as the only woman on the board, and his senior at that, one of the men asked me to make him coffee. He realized his error soon after and rescinded the request, saying that he would make his own. Title or no title, the fact that I was a woman was enough for him to try to demean me. It’s fascinating how ingrained certain things are in our culture and that any change takes years of struggle.

While the movie made it across the ocean, and we saw advertisements for it in Dublin in August 2023, and candy products with the Barbie logo, how long will it take to see real change? It’s 2023, and my Barbies are tucked away, but as a woman, there’s no denying that I’m still living in a man’s world.