We, too.
LOREN BENOIT/Press Joan Genter, with Windermere Realty, shares her personal testimony about her mother during an International Women’s Day panel with other women Friday afternoon at the Human Rights Education Institute.
From left, Patty Shea, Julianne Holt, Jessica Bonar, Eve Knudsten, Joan Genter, Gynii Giliam, and Karen Thursten all share personal stories about role models during an International Women's Day panel Friday at the Human Rights Institute. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)
By DEVIN WEEKS
Staff Writer
Long before the Me Too Movement, Jobs Plus Inc. President Gynii Gilliam had a harrowing Me Too experience.
It was late at night. She was working with one of her bosses, who she thought of as a father figure. She received a call from him that they needed to finish a project, so she went to meet him without thinking anything of it.
“I don't think I was more than 6 feet into that room and I was up against the wall," she said Friday, speaking on a panel during the International Women's Day event at the Human Rights Education Institute.
Besieged by unsolicited romantic advances, Gilliam's fight or flight instincts took over.
"You're getting groped, you’re getting kissed, and whatever else is happening to you, that’s kind of in the background because I’m trying to look for things that I can hit this dude with," said Gilliam, who was in her mid-20s at the time. "I’m trying to figure out, 'What moment do I have that I can slip out of here? I’m only that far to the door, if I could just get out of the door.'"
He released his grip and she was out of there, running down the hall and racing down six flights of stairs because she just couldn't take the chance of waiting for the elevator.
"I get to the lobby and it was like shaking, breathing, ‘OK, I’m still here,’” she said. "I believe I got out of that one by the skin of my teeth, really."
Gilliam and seven other well-known local ladies shared their perspectives and experiences during the Women in Leadership panel, moderated by HREI executive director Jeanette Laster.
Laster asked the women a series of questions, including how gender roles have changed in their lifetimes, what challenges they have faced in their professions and what discrimination they have experienced or witnessed.
Joan Genter, a retired 22-year Air Force veteran who now works in real estate, said when she joined the military, women were limited in the jobs they could take, and they certainly couldn't fly fighter jets.
"When I went in, that was very taboo, no woman could fly," she said. "They didn't think we had the ability to do that."
She said it was called the Women's Air Force until the 1970s when women were finally integrated into the regular Air Force. But in the years since, things are getting better.
"I watched those jobs for women become more and more available," she said. "I've seen a huge evolution of the acceptance in the military of women being side-by-side the men."
Knudtsen Chevrolet President Eve Knudtsen, who knows all too well what it's like to be one of very few women working in a male-dominated industry, had these words for females everywhere: "Take your seat at the table."
"We're so good at walking into the room and sitting in the back row. We have to stop that. Take your seat at the table," she said. "You need to be in the front. Make yourself heard."
International Women's Day is celebrated annually on March 8. It's a day that recognizes the movement for women's rights and puts the focus on all things female.
HREI's all-day event also included these panels: Diversity within the Women's Experience; Men Supporting Women; Women in the Arts; Crimes against Women; Women in Sport; Opening Opportunities in Education; and Inspiring Young Professionals.