Kathy Froede Interview, History 150 Spring 2017, Conducted by Jacqueline Froede, March 26, 2017
- This interview was conducted over FaceTime, a phone-like app exclusive to Apple. The interviewee used her iPad to communicate to the interviewer, who communicated with her MacBook Pro as well as recorded the interview with the Apple product exclusive app GarageBand. The interview was conducted in the dorm room on the interviewer’s end, and the computer room of the interviewee’s house on the other.
- Kathy Froede was born in 1959 in the USA, and grew up through the 1960s and 70s, during the large “Second Wave Feminism” movement. During her childhood, it was encouraged for women to not pursue a career. However, that mind set changed when she became a teenager with the rise of “second wave feminism.” She’s had many jobs over the years, experiencing discrimination from both men and women. She became divorced around the same time she had her only-child. She worked as a lunch-lady in public school, while at the same time went to graduate school to get her master’s degree in psychology. She now works as a full-time counselor for a private practice in eastern Virginia.
- Some gender differences only seem to apply in specific situations, as referenced by the “gender-in-context model” (Deaux and Major 1987; Deaux and LaFrance 1998), one needs to identify precisely those situations where gender has an impact. Situations where gender differences are applied are task or communication oriented contexts (Thimm). However, most argue that “gender is such a salient dimension that interaction is typically viewed through “gendered” spectacles most of the time (Holmes).”
- Interviewee: Mrs. Froede
Interviewer: JF
JF: This is my interview with Kathy Froede. I’m going to let her talk a little bit about herself. So-
Mrs. Froede: Ok.
JF: What kind of jobs have you had over the years?
Mrs. Froede: Well. One thing, I think it’s important to note, is that I’ve had a lot of different jobs, but I really didn’t start my career until, boy, almost into my 50s. And the reason for that has partly to do with my gender. I’m 58 years old and when I was growing up in the; I was born in the 50s and grew up in the 60s, that was prior to the days of feminism. So when I was being raised as a child, my parents would tell me that I didn’t need to worry much about school, that I definitely didn’t need to have a career, because what I needed to do was get married and stay home with my children. And so that’s how I was pretty much raised, and, I guess when I was about 15-16, um, the feminist movement, came into force, and that really changed everything. So that sort of influence though; I was still under the influence of how I was raised so I wasn’t really pursuing a career. I did go to college and I got a degree in psychology, but I didn’t advance beyond that point because I got married and planned on staying home and raising children.
JF: Hmm. How have people treated you over these different jobs?
Mrs. Froede: Well. So I had a lot of different jobs, um, some of them were related to psychology, most of them were not. My first job out of college, I was a secretary. And I worked for; it was pretty much a male dominated, profession, I worked for a research laboratory. And, I would say, pretty much, it was okay. Because I was in a secretarial role, I had a lot of people giving me orders. I did typing for a lot of different male scientists. And sometimes, some of them were sort of rude and demanding and would talk down to me. So, and I think that was partly ‘cause of my job and partly ‘cause I was young and maybe partly ‘cause I wasn’t a great secretary.
[Both laugh]
JF: What other jobs have you had?
Mrs. Froede: Well. I actually advanced in that job as a secretary to a marketing director for an artificial intelligence department, so I got to travel and, market technology to the government, and that was pretty interesting. Then I moved with my husband to Virginia Beach, and I had a difficult time finding a job at first, there was a, kind of a difference in, salaries and everything from up in the D.C. area where we lived. So I took a series of odd jobs, I worked as a secretary again for the American Heart association. I worked doing some defense contracting. And then, finally, I got a job at the YWCA, working with a program called “Women in Transition” where we helped women who were leaving domestic violence, transition back into the workforce, and that’s when I really started working in the domestic violence field.
JF: How were you treated at these jobs? After secretary?
Mrs. Froede: Well, pretty much it was ok. When I was marketing director, I had some difficulties with, one of the, the head of the department that I was doing the marketing for. After I left the company to move to Virginia Beach, I was, I would visit with people from the company, and they told me that he was spreading rumors about the fact that he and I had a relationship, which was absolutely not true, at all [laughing]. So I took that as, sort-of, sexual harassment. But luckily, everybody, that I worked with knew him and didn’t believe that that would have ever been possible for me to have a relationship with him. So those rumors didn’t go very far [laughing again]. So. And then in my other jobs, when I- when I worked at the YWCA, it was, a very diverse population. I was very close to the director of “The Y,” and then she left, and the next director that we got, did not like my friend. So there was friction there. And, she was at times, inappropriate with me, where that was the other time where I felt like I was sexually harassed. She, was a lesbian. She had her partner working with her at “The Y.” But sometimes she would make inappropriate comments to me. She would complement my physical appearance, in personal ways. And it made me feel uncomfortable. But she never, came out and propositioned me or anything, she would just sometimes say things to me that weren’t, didn’t make me feel comfortable.
JF: How’s your job now, that you have?
Mrs. Froede: Well. What I did was after I got divorced, um, I worked as a lunch lady for a while, while my daughter was in school, ‘cause I didn’t want her to, have to be in daycare, and I wanted to be home on the times she was home from school and during the summer. And during that time, I went back to graduate school, and I got my master’s in counseling. And I worked as an intern and a resident; which, there’s a two-year residency program attached with my field to become a licensed professional counselor. And, then I got my license in 2013, and I’ve been practicing as a counselor since then. And it’s really the career that I love. It’s something that I’ve always to actually do. Started a little later in life then I planned, but it’s the kind of job where you can do this as an older person and it’s probably more beneficial to your clients.
JF: How was-. You said that you worked as a lunch lady how was that?
Mrs. Froede: It was, it was predominantly women. We had one guy that worked there and he lasted about an hour, and then he quit [laughing]. It was, very loud. I worked in a middle school, so it was very loud. I would be yelling at the top of my lungs to take the child’s order who’d be standing, like, right in front of me, and they couldn’t hear me; that’s how loud it was. And there was; our supervisor would, yell frequently. So there was a lot of yelling that went on [laughing]. But it was- it was a good job. It was- it was one of the best jobs I had as far- and also one of the worst jobs. It was the best because I got health insurance, I worked part time, I had, the same days off from school that my daughter did, I had summers off, and it allowed me to, it was the type of job where once I left I could go home and go to graduate school and, that worked out well. The worst was, about it, was just there was- it was a lot of stress, there was no air conditioning, and a lot of heavy lifting and a lot of yelling. I got to work with some really interesting people though. There was a lot of people from other cultures, other countries; some of them spoke English pretty well, some of them didn’t. And, it was interesting to get to know them. I ended up becoming friends with them outside of work and, got invited to some really cool things. Went to a Chinese New Year- authentic Chinese New Year party and, met some people from the Philippines. So that was really nice. I enjoyed that.
JF: So, do you feel that your gender has influenced a lot of your experiences with the workplace? With your jobs?
Mrs. Froede: I think, predominantly, my gender, really sort of set my career path, which was the biggest influence for me. Because I was, raised with a very pre-feminist view, of marriage and family and career and the workforce, I really didn’t start preparing myself to have a career like I would have in today’s society. So in that way I feel like my gender and my gender and my gender expectations, really, were the things that influenced me the most. I was told as I was growing up; my mother would say ‘well, this couple is getting a divorce, and the reason is because the woman has a career, and you can’t be married and have a career.’ That’s the kind of things that we were told when we were kids growing up [laughing]. And so, it was just a very different climate, it was a very different culture and-. So I think that more than anything, influenced my- my, career as far as my gender. I did get to work in some feminist fields and, that was really interesting for me. I worked for 10 years in the domestic violence field and-. So there was, again it was predominantly female. Most of the women I worked with were feminist. But I felt like my orientation, helped me in some ways because I could work with- because I had worked with men before, I could work with men and women. And, I was able to do that in the domestic violence field, and that ended up, helping me out sometimes. There was times when I was- like, I was, appointed by Governor Allen to the committee that drafted the, what became the pro-arrest policy in Virginia. And because of my connections to different people, in that field, I got to be involved probably the most important piece of legislation in Virginia, which was pro-arrest for domestic violence, which meant that, instead of the victim having to press charges, the police were now, the ones who pressed charges. And-. That was maybe 20 years ago and I’m still- I’ll still see sometimes in my clinical practice as a therapist, I’ll see victims of domestic violence, where the Pro-arrest policy has worked really well for them. So that makes me feel good. So a lot of ways, I feel like, my, that my views on feminism, maybe negatively impacted my career in the beginning but ultimately, there were- I had a lot of opportunities because of feminism to, be able to advance in the workforce.
JF: Alright. Well. If you have any lasting thought, I think I’m done. But would you like to add anything?
Mrs. Froede: Well? I just, I think that, for the most part the feminist movement has been helpful for women, and that it’s opened up a lot of opportunities, for us that we didn’t have before. And I know when my mom was, growing up, the only two careers that a woman could have would be a nurse or a teacher. There were certainly a lot more opportunities for my generation than for hers, and I think for your generation, there will be even more. Maybe someday a woman president.
JF: Allright. Well. Thank you so much.
Mrs. Froede: Thank you.
- I feel that the interview flowed decently well. I found it hard to start in the beginning, but as time went on I became more confident and relaxed. I felt like our track was a general “gender and how it has affected you and what you have viewed about gender in the workplace.” There wasn’t too much divergence to be had. The things I would do differently is prepare more questions for both the interviewee and me.
Works Cited
HOLMES, JANET and MARIA STUBBE. ““Feminine” Workplaces: Stereotype and Reality.” The Handbook of Language and Gender. Holmes, Janet and Miriam Meyerhoff (eds). Blackwell Publishing, 2004. Blackwell Reference Online. 27 March 2017
THIMM, CAJA, SABINE C. KOCH and SABINE SCHEY. “Communicating Gendered Professional Identity: Competence, Cooperation, and Conflict in the Workplace.” The Handbook of Language and Gender. Holmes, Janet and Miriam Meyerhoff (eds). Blackwell Publishing, 2004.