1. Bridget Bresee Bryant Interview, History 150 Spring 2019, Conducted by William Bryant, March 8th, 2019

a. My interview was in person with simple yet very effective technology. It was with my mother at my house in our living room. I used a highly rated recording application on my laptop to ensure that our voices would be clear on tape with little to no background noise. Before the interview started, I let my mother know that this was a no pressure deal and that she could say as much of whatever she would like. The biggest obstacle I had was finding a time that we could both sit down to do the interview. She I very busy with work but we figured it out. Another obstacle was making sure my dogs would not bark or make any noise during the interview. This was solved through putting my dogs outside where they could not interfere.

b. Bridget Bresee Bryant was born in 1965 in Syracuse, New York. She spent many of her younger years traveling. She has two wonderful parents and a brother. Only a few years after being born, she and her family moved to Liberia, Africa where they resided for a short time. Mrs. Bryant attended college at Randolph Macon University for three years and worked as a ski instructor in Vail, Colorado for a year after leaving college. She met her husband, Arthur H. Bryant around this time where they eventually moved to Reston, Virginia for a short time. They later moved to Middleburg, Virginia where they had two sons. Ten years later they moved to Orange, Virginia where they had their last son. Mrs. Bryant now works as a manager for an employer with an undisclosed name. Bridget loves spending time with her grown children when they are home and photography.

c. My interview was based on divulging what a woman’s life is like as she grows up moving from job to job. Since my mother was my interviewee, I needed to find articles that consulted my topic with a wide time separation. My first article  Feldberg, Roslyn L., and Evelyn Nakano Glenn. “Male and Female: Job versus Gender Models in the Sociology of Work.” Social Problems, vol. 26, no. 5, 1979, pp. 524–538. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/800039. was taken from a scholarly journal site and was written in 1979. This article compares the similarities and differences between men and women in the workplace. As one can imagine, women had a vastly different experience than men such as having to try much harder to garner respect from their peers.

The next article is “Introduction: Experiences of Gender: Studies of Women and Gender in Schools and Society.” Anthropology & Education Quarterly, vol. 19, no. 2, 1988, pp. 67–69. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3211077. This article was taking a look at women growing and their education. It discusses how women may have been challenged unfairly from the beginning and therfore have had to work harder to get certain jobs. Written in the 1980’s this piece does tie in to women and the workplace because it has always been difficult for women to get jobs in comparison to men but this article argues that women have been sabotaged from the beginning.

My final research article is “Race and Gender in the United States.” Prejudice and Pride: Canadian Intellectuals Confront the United States, 1891-1945, by DAMIEN-CLAUDE BÉLANGER, University of Toronto Press, Toronto; Buffalo; London, 2011, pp. 96–113. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/9781442685420.8. This article is more recent and from 2011 opposed to the 20th century. It offers perspective from a more modern standpoint. It talks about how people of color tend to have more difficulty in the work place, specifically women of color. Being a woman in the work place can be a difficult experience but being a woman of color has intersectional difficulties.

d.

William: [00:00:01] Hello Mrs. Bryant how are you doing today. I’m fine thank you. I’m going to be asking you a series of questions designated around women in the workplace. What a better day to conduct an interview than International Women’s Day.

Mrs. Bryant: [00:00:14] All right.

William: [00:00:15] So our first question is what was it like growing up in a foreign country?

Mrs. Bryant: [00:00:20] So I lived in Liberia when I was, up until I was five or six years old my parents my dad worked for Firestone and he was in charge of the plant and I what I what I really remember is my little brother being born there and my mom talking about how much nicer it was to have a child in Africa rather than in the States I think in the States she was told not to breast feed right at the hospital. And my father wasn’t allowed in the in the delivery room. And I think in Africa she had a midwife and it was my dad was there. It was a wonderful experience. So I remember having a monkey. I remember water being pumped up into the house and lots of fishing and being outside. We had chickens and bunny rabbits and it was it was a pretty wonderful life as a little child.

William: [00:01:41] Great it’s good to hear. All right. You lived in a variety of places as a female. How do you feel job opportunities were?

Mrs. Bryant: [00:01:54] Let me think about that for a minute so we lived I guess growing up I had probably fairly typical jobs. I worked probably from age 12 through my teen years in this summer I worked at a horse stables so I could ride horses and that job opportunity basically was working for twelve dollars a day I got in at 6:00 in the morning and I would pick stalls all morning groom horses and then I got to ride you know for a few hours in the afternoon and I I loved that I would do anything to ride horses so you know I had a boss who was probably 70 and he worked us really hard but he also let us. It was just a really good experience. So that was when I was a teenager. Then I also worked as when my kids were really little. When the kids were little in the summertime I ran a swimming pool at a club and I waited a lot of tables before that. So those were the kind of jobs I had before I got married and when I was young and an early married and then I basically took care of kids and that was my job and I raised three boys and took care of a house and my husband and that was that was a wonderful job but it was fairly traditional.

William: [00:03:40] Now what’d you think about that, the traditional lifestyle?

Mrs. Bryant: [00:03:42] I loved it. I felt very fortunate to be able to stay at home with my children and I had a husband who was able to provide for all of us. And that was wonderful. Nothing’s changed when the when the boys got older and I then moved into a really different job for me where I started being a working for an elderly woman who lives a pretty big life and I take care of the staff at her home. Her main home and I travel with her to.. We’ve been to France with her, Florida. She’s got houses all over the country and all over the world and I do everything for her from driving her to wherever she wants to go to setting up parties to things I probably know her financial world things that I won’t discuss here but it’s it’s been a really really wonderful job and it’s great because the kids are away from home and I since I’m away from home so much now I don’t feel like I’m missing out on the most important job of my life which was raising my children.

William: [00:05:08] Wow what a spectacular answer.

Mrs. Bryant: [00:05:11] That’s the truth.

William: [00:05:13] The next question What do you consider different about gender roles in the workplace between the 20th and 21st century.

Mrs. Bryant: [00:05:24] Wow.

William: [00:05:28] It’s OK. You can’t think of anything but take your time.

Mrs. Bryant: [00:05:30] Let me just think about that for a minute I think well I grew up with a mother that always worked but was able to be home and then I and I was a little not traditional because my father was home more than my mother so my my father worked but then my mother ended up really being the one who… who worked more so I always. I never felt like it it wasn’t. I never felt like it was an issue for a woman to work or to be able to get a job because my mother was always so capable and she never acted like it wasn’t or that it was difficult. She just went and did it and made her own made her own world. I do remember though she was she I do know that even though she worked and loved to work she also was frustrated that her husband wasn’t the traditional husband with a you know a job and insurance and and coming home every day from a job. So I know that it was interesting to see her work in the 60s and 70s and 80s but and want to do that yet be frustrated that her husband wasn’t more traditional. So that was a really it was an interesting way to grow up. But I thought it was normal.

William: [00:07:18] Ok. How did your parents prepare you for life in the workplace when you were growing up.

Mrs. Bryant: [00:07:30] So there wasn’t a lot of talk about it like my mother was very very… the education was very very important to her so she wanted her children to get as educated as possible and to get a good job and to be able to support themselves on the other hand she also felt that being a wife and raising children was really important so there wasn’t a lot of talk about how to how to prepare myself. I think it was more or how they were trying to prepare me. It was really more watching how they live their lives and I never felt like I couldn’t like I always felt like I could do whatever I wanted to do in the workplace.

William: [00:08:20] Right, next question. Have your job experiences changed since you left college?

Mrs. Bryant: [00:08:30] Well.

William: [00:08:33] Or opportunities.

Mrs. Bryant: [00:08:34] You know dramatically changed just because I really spent the majority five years since I left college take raising a family. So that’s one job and then I’ve changed dramatically to having a job where I’m really on 24/7 and completely responsible for a 90 year old woman who has more energy than I had at 20 years old so I feel like.. My jobs is just changed dramatically and I just I don’t have.. I didn’t have a regular career whereas I do now and the career I have is is very different it’s not like just punching a clock. Because I do so many different things. But I think I think the way I grew up and raising a family has given me the ability to do what I do now which is 100 different things in one day.

William: [00:09:49] So you feel that your life in the past job opportunities and all including being a mother has prepared you for this job?

Mrs. Bryant: [00:09:55] Yes absolutely.

William: [00:09:57] OK next question what are some experiences you’ve had you’ve had in life where you feel that your gender has made a difference both positively or negatively?

Mrs. Bryant: [00:10:16] I’ve early on when I waited tables it was very obvious that men reacted to the women around them that were waiting on them in in a sexual way and when they wanted attention or it was they would leave big tips for the waitresses that would give them more attention. I mean I think that that’s so sexist but that’s just the way it was and that people are a lot more careful these days. But you know that was a positive and negative and I think that you learn how to deal with the opposite sex in a way.. That’s a really difficult thing for me to explain or express but..

William: [00:11:32] Just do your best.

Mrs. Bryant: [00:11:33] But I think people are much more careful about the way they treat the other sex and it’s hard for me to explain.

William: [00:11:48] I understand. Were there any male waiters at your job.

Mrs. Bryant: [00:11:51] There were and actually the same thing happened to them with people that the women that were being waited on.

William: [00:11:57] Really?

Mrs. Bryant: [00:11:58] It’s a two way street yes

William: [00:11:59] OK.Do you feel like maybe it’s a little bit harder for women?

Mrs. Bryant: [00:12:05] No because I think I think people learn how to get the best out of their job.

William: [00:12:13] Ok.

Mrs. Bryant: [00:12:16] Through those kinds of experiences.

William: [00:12:19] So they take advantage of those experiences?

Mrs. Bryant: [00:12:19] I think people always take advantage of those things. A lot of people do.

William: [00:12:24] Right, Next question.

Mrs. Bryant: [00:12:29] Its a different world.

William: [00:12:31] It is, do you think opportunities in the workforce in the last 30 years have opened up for women, if yes why do you think so?

Mrs. Bryant: [00:12:40] Well I wasn’t in the work force. I do believe they’ve opened up I do believe that women have more opportunities now and we’re lucky to have women in the workforce. I think it’s a really I think it’s very very difficult. I do not know how people women or men raise a family and have a full time job. I think I would have had a very hard time doing that. And I’m glad women have more opportunities now and but I think through a really tough tough thing to raise a family and have a full time job. I think it’s it’s it’s tough but I’m really glad that men that they’re now more men that are staying home with their families and I think that people in general raising families these days do a much better job of the men and women in the families helping each other.

William: [00:13:53] Ok.

Mrs. Bryant: [00:13:54] So it’s not all on one person’s shoulders.

William: [00:13:58] That’s an interesting opinion.

Mrs. Bryant: [00:14:01] I think men stay home now. Some of them and women worked.

William: [00:14:06] I would agree.

Mrs. Bryant: [00:14:07] I just think it’s important that somebody there with the kids as much as possible. If that’s possible.

William: [00:14:14] OK. And this is the last question that I’m probably the most excited about. When you were growing up you went to an almost all male boarding school. It was originally all male. And during a few years they opened it up to women a very select few. And I think you were one of the 10?

Mrs. Bryant: [00:14:32] Yeah I think there were 12 12 girls when I was there. I was 14. Sorry.

William: [00:14:38] Well what was it like being one of the few girls go into an all male boarding school?

Mrs. Bryant: [00:14:42] So there were three hundred and fifty boys from ninth to 12th grade. It was a boys boarding school and when I was there there were 12 about 12 girls and a few boy day students it was a really interesting experience. I was really young it was really hard. The amount of attention that we got as females was overwhelming. I loved the classes and the teachers. They were great. I loved a lot of the students and I still have really good friends. I met my husband there. But there are so many hormones in high school. And there’s if unless you really know how to handle yourself and it’s it’s hard to know how to handle your self when you’re 14 but I think there were other girls that were put in positions that were really difficult at that age and it was a really interesting experience. I mean we had our girls we had our own.. I played soccer with with the boys I we had our own girls cross-country team which was great. And there are a lot of, there’s several men that I still am good friends with that I love from from that experience but I don’t think it’s a… I would never want to put my daughter in that position at that age. I think it’s too many boys and too few girls.

William: [00:16:31] Understood.

Mrs. Bryant: [00:16:34] There wasn’t a lot of support for for the girls.

William: [00:16:39] Right.

Mrs. Bryant: [00:16:41] But I am. But I for the most part it was a it was a very good experience.

William: [00:16:45] Interesting I have one more question to ask. Just a technicality. Would you…Do I have your permission to use this recording and transcription and publish it for my school.

Mrs. Bryant: [00:16:59] Yes you do.

William: [00:17:00] OK. Thank you.

Mrs. Bryant: [00:17:02] You are welcome.

d. The interview flowed really well and my interviewee loved talking about her life. I think one of the things I would have changed would be getting a real microphone for the interview. While my sound quality was good it definitely could have been better. We hardly went off script but when we did it was not a problem. My interviewee had an answer for every question and I was well prepared so there were no awkward pauses.