Anonymous

When I was 13, a young man (about 20 years old) regularly followed me in his car as I was walking home from school. My step dad told me I should be flattered, and the best way to solve it was to start going out with him.
I did well at school, but wasn’t allowed to go to uni as step dad felt it was more important for me to learn to help my mother.
I did get a job after a-levels, and my employers paid for my training. I eventually became a qualified accountant. I was a bit stressed leading up to my final exams (who wouldn’t be?). Dad’s solution: stop studying, don’t take the exams, after all, I was engaged to be married.
I’m now a chief finance officer, still married, and a proud mum. And the sexist parent still asks me how much more a man would get paid to do my job. (I work in the public sector, so jobs are evaluated, not the gender of the employee. )
Don’t let old fashioned attitudes hold you back.