a. My interview was conducted in person in my grandmother’s living room with nobody home so it was very quiet. I did not have to edit the recording at all. To set up the interview I had my grandmother sit on her couch with me, both of us facing my phone which was being used as the voice recorder. I used a voice recorder app on my phone called SmartRecord to record the interview and email it to myself.

b. Freda Cox is a mother of five and she is my grandmother on my father’s side. She started having children when she was 15 years old and she was not able to finish high school or attend college. She began working as a bus driver for the school in her county in Prince William County, Virginia. She then moved to Florida and continued her passion for bus driving and got a job working there. After thirty years working for the transportation department she became a supervisor and worked for another couple of years. She is a hard-working, determined person who cares very deeply about her family and friends and is still very passionate about her previous career of being a bus driver.

c. The era in question is the 1960’s and I’m trying to research the women in the workforce trends that emerged in this decade. I found an article on Tavaana.org called “The 1960’s to 70’s American Feminist Movement: Breaking down Barriers for Women” which explained that women were expected to get married in their 20’s, be a housewife, and raise children. The article mentioned that “The 38 percent of American women who worked in 1960 were largely limited to jobs as teacher, nurse, or secretary” (Tavaana). I found many different articles that all talk about how women were very restricted before the 1960’s and this decade was their chance at liberation. They fought to overcome and alter the unfair treatment they received by getting an education and trying to get jobs to fill their lives with a sense of purpose other than being a caregiver for a husband and children like the traditional role expected them to do. It was difficult for women to compete against men for jobs because they were seen as biologically inferior and everyone believed they were not as strong or as smart as men. They were expected to conform to men’s expectations, they were not supposed to be free willed and determined, which is very interesting to me because my grandmother is a very strong woman who fights for what she believes in. It will be interesting to see how she felt about the way she was treated in the workforce in the 1960’s. I will go on the library’s data base search and look for more relevant articles to do more research for the paper that we will have to write later.

d. Transcription:

KB: My name is Kayla Barker and I’m conducting this interview with my grandmother for my History 150 class. What is your name?

Mrs. Cox: My name is Freda Cox.

KB: OK and do you give consent to have this interview posted on my class page?

Mrs. Cox: Yes, I do.

KB: Where and when were you born?

Mrs. Cox: In Bute, Montana in 1944.

KB: Where did you live after you lived in Montana?

Mrs. Cox: After Montana I lived in Pennsylvania.

KB: And where after that?

Mrs. Cox: Then West Virginia, then Virginia, then Florida, and now I’m back in Virginia.

KB: OK and where were you when you first got married and had kids?

Mrs. Cox: First got married and had children I was in West Virginia.

KB: How many kids did you have while you were working?

Mrs. Cox: Five.

KB: You had five while you were working?

Mrs. Cox: Five.

KB: OK and what type of job or jobs did you have while your children were under the age of eighteen?

Mrs. Cox: Always school bus driving.

KB: Do you feel that you faced particular biases or obstacles when applying for jobs?

Mrs. Cox: No, I’m very self confident.

KB: Can you remember what feelings you had when you were applying for jobs.

Mrs. Cox: If they were available I felt I would get it.

KB: How long did you work for the… as a bus driver until they made you a supervisor?

Mrs. Cox: About 15 years all total then I became a supervisor for about 15.

KB: OK and where did you start working as a bus driver?

Mrs. Cox: In uh Prince William County, Virginia.

KB: And you were in Prince William for 15 years?

Mrs. Cox: No, I drove in Prince William for ten years then I moved to Florida and I drove down there for a total of twenty year and part of that eight years was driving a bus and then it was like two years uh as a specialist then I became a supervisor for the last ten.

KB: And can you explain some of your responsibilities as supervisor?

Mrs. Cox: You’re responsible for, I was responsible for 44 buses and I really don’t remember the total number of children but you were responsible for getting them picked up to school… picked up and taken to school safely um you had to make sure that all of the drivers that you hired were doing a safety specified job for all of the children.

KB: OK and what were some of your coworkers like when you were at the supervisor level?

Mrs. Cox: Responsible. All of them were very responsible. We took our jobs very seriously.

KB: Did you see any gender bias um in the workplace, for instance like more males than females at like the manager level not like the bus driver level?

Mrs. Cox: More males than females.

KB: Yeah?

Mrs. Cox: Yes.

KB: Was it a considerable… like uh was it a considerable amount of more males, like very noticeable?

Mrs. Cox: Yes.

KB: And would you consider bus driver a gendered role typically held by men also, or did you think that the bus driver role was pretty equal?

Mrs. Cox: It used to be a gender deal, not any longer.

KB: Yeah, OK. Um and then yeah the next question was has this bus driver role changed since you were working as one, so how have you seen it change?

Mrs. Cox: Um there have been a lot more ladies put in positions with the transportation department than what there was at one time. I believe that has a lot to do with more women working these days.

KB: And what was it like being a working mother?

Mrs. Cox: For me it wasn’t too bad because my schedule coincided with the children’s schedule for school, and that was the reason I originally started into transportation.

KB: Did you know any other working mothers at the time or were most of your friends and acquaintances stay at home mothers?

Mrs. Cox: Most of my friends and acquaintances were drivers as well.

KB: And when you were at the bus driver level did you see more males than females also?

Mrs. Cox: Yes, yes.

KB: OK, and did you notice any biases like this in any other positions that you might have been familiar with?

Mrs. Cox: No not really, no.

KB: Like with any acquaintances that worked somewhere else?

Mrs. Cox: No, no.

KB: OK, and how did you feel you were treated at your job?

Mrs. Cox: Very well. Very well.

KB: At the bus driver and supervisor levels?

Mrs. Cox: Yes, yes.

KB: OK.

Mrs. Cox: And I think a lot of it was because of the responsibility that I felt and I had that same feeling with my employees, my drivers.

KB: And were the other employees very professional, as well?

Mrs. Cox: Yes.

KB: Um, and have you seen um more opportunities for women as you’ve gotten older um for working outside of the house, not just in like the bus driver position but in all positions?

Mrs. Cox: Yeah, I believe that has, yeah.

KB: And have you noticed any obstacles that women have faced as they transitioned to work outside of the home?

Mrs. Cox: Yes, I would say so but most women learned to overcome them.

KB: Um, do you have any ideas on what might be the main reasons why gender roles have transformed over time?

Mrs. Cox: The need for women to work.

KB: Um, did you see any differences between the way, um, the bus driver role or the supervisor of transportation role was carried out in Virginia or Florida?

Mrs. Cox: Really I wouldn’t be able to answer that because in Virginia I only drove then in Florida I was on the ladder if you will going up because I was a driver then a specialist so different ladders going up till I… you have to pretty much know the whole circle of transportation to be a supervisor so you know you learn that on your way up so I really can’t answer that for that reason.

KB: OK and when you were a specialist what were your jobs?

Mrs. Cox: A specialist, we routed buses by knowing the roads themselves. We didn’t have a computer to do it, so if you got a new student that lived on a certain road, you had to mentally know how long it would take the bus to get from one point to that new point to the next point just by knowing the area. Now it’s all done by computers.

KB: And you mentioned that you had to climb up the ladder to get to supervisor, um, after supervisor  what were the other top positions?

Mrs. Cox: OK, after supervisor you became the um general, well he was over all the supervisors, he was like the general over supervisors then the next one after that is the transportation director and that was the end of it that was as high as you could go.

KB: And were you familiar with the people that were in those two top positions?

Mrs. Cox: Very much, yes.

KB: Were they… did you also see maybe a gender bias within their positions for who held them?

Mrs. Cox: Yes [laugh]. Even in Florida even within the last ten years. It’s still there.

KB: Oh so it is still prevalent today?

Mrs. Cox: Yes, yes.

KB: And, uh, how did you manage to move up the ladder within your position to get to the supervisor role?

Mrs. Cox: First off you have to let them know that you’re a very caring, um, well-organized person but next you need to know everything in the system and you learn it as you go up and they like to rely on you as a person that they can count on to fill the spots that these gentlemen don’t really like to do, and I did that quite often.

KB: So you saw it as, um, when the men didn’t want to do the jobs they found women that they trusted to do it for them?

Mrs. Cox: Exactly, yes.

KB: Um, did you ever run into any conflicts with your kids schedules as they were younger or did it get easier when they were out of the house?

Mrs. Cox: Once they were out of the house that allowed me the opportunity to devote more time to my job and that’s when I became more involved with transportation and able to move up the proverbial ladder to supervisor.

KB: And do you think that if you stayed in Virginia you would have had the same opportunity to move up as you had in Florida?

Mrs. Cox: I am not really sure of that. I would think not because I think in Virginia it was more of a man, when I drove in Virginia I did not have a female supervisor. There were none that I know of.

KB: So, oh, so most of the managerial positions were held by men in Virginia?

Mrs. Cox: Right, right.

KB: So do you think that in society back when you were in your 20’s or 30’s, was it more male dominated and did men have more of a privilege within the society than women did?

Mrs. Cox: Yes, I truly believe they did. Yes, um, it was always um, I can’t remember ever working anywhere that there wasn’t a male in charge of the whatever the job happened to be. Even as a teenager in high school I worked uh you know on different little jobs, odd jobs and that was like 50, 60 years ago and it was definitely all male.

KB: Do you remember what kind of jobs those were, like part time jobs?

Mrs. Cox: Yeah they were part time jobs, they were with um, one was with a little restaurant, I worked there like two nights a week. Um, I, uh, what else did I do? I babysat but of course that was for a woman. Um, I also, oh little stores, little um little popcorn place one was a little popcorn place. That was run by men. Um, later on when I started doing a CPA, or not CPA but just bookkeeping it was always men, always men, and now there’s more women I believe doing that than men. I really believe.

KB: Um, do you think that the role of the man has changed differently, do you see that they played a more business role back then and now do you think that they play more of like the stay at home role than they used to, like is it more common to see men at home nowadays than it was back then?

Mrs. Cox: Yes, it definitely is. Um, this goes to show you that the women are now making pretty much equal what men are and sometimes even more so the men are tending to stay at home with the children while the wives are out working so, that definitely points in that direction.

KB: Do you think it has anything to do with educational opportunities and how if there were not equal opportunities for men and women back then, do you believe that it was an unequal educational opportunity bias?

Mrs. Cox: Yes, yes. It was just common knowledge that if a man applied for a job, he was gonna make more than the woman in the marriage or whatever it was, um back as far as I can remember I do not know of any stay at home dads during that period of time, so yeah I definitely believe it was more male gendered in that era.

KB: And what, um, can you explain exactly like what era you’re thinking of, like between, like when you were a teenager um what decade was it?

Mrs. Cox: When I was a teenager it was uh 60, 50, 60 somewhere along in there.

KB: And where did you start to see a significant change?

Mrs. Cox: Oh it was, OK, that was more in the 80’s, it would have to be in the 80’s.

KB: Oh so it took a while?

Mrs. Cox: Yes, yes.

KB: OK.

 

 

Citation:

Freda Cox Interview, History 150 Spring 2016, Conducted by Kayla Barker, Gender Bias in the Workplace, March 18, 2016.