ethnography shyea.

Taylor O’Neal

Ethnography Project

Women’s Studies

Are successful working women intimidating to the men in their lives?

Lisa Belkin’s Opt Out Essay really caught my interest when it came to women and their success in life, which is why I chose Missy Coker. My dad has a best friend named Scooter Coker; they have been friends for years. Scooter is married to Missy, who is one of the most successfully savvy women I’ve ever met, and she‘s merely 32. She has always been around, teaching me funny life lessons, by telling me her wild college stories. She’s is a pharmaceutical rep, and she makes twice as much salary as her husband Scooter. She’s very outspoken and outgoing. Many men are actually intimidated by this 5 foot 2 pixie red head, I know my dad is. She’s very witty, and always stands up for herself. She graduated from OSU with a degree in Marketing. I got to travel with her on Friday in her very expensive BMW business car as she went to two different companies to distribute her brochures and packages of samples of an allergy medicine of some sort. ( My dad loves it, because we get samples of good medicine from her all the time). But I loved just watching her answer her business cell phone in her business car in her business-like voice, and intelligently give others orders about where to visit, and deadlines, etc.

I had two main questions for Missy, to help me better understand success for career women, along with many others after reading Lisa Belkin‘s Opt Out, but mainly:

Does she ever have problems with her marriage because she brings home a greater income than her husband? And she laughed as she told me, “ Nope!, I warned Scooter before we got out of college, that I was going to make more money than him. Since we were high school sweethearts, I’ve always kinda worn the pants, he’s just use to it by now.”

And also, if any men that works under or above her ever acted intimidated by her, for being such a young successful woman? She replied by saying, “ Well Tay, there’s always going to be pig headed men that are intimidated by more successful women, but mostly no. I haven’t come across any that have had the guts to say anything about it.”

It was fun to drive around Oklahoma City while she sang along to Taylor Swift and smoked her cigarette. She told me she works in an office most days, but that day I was lucky because we got to just “cruise“. When we visited this one office, we walked in and I sat in a waiting room in front of receptionist desk where Missy delivered her pharmaceuticals. But there wasn’t any really intimidation coming from the nice woman filling out paper work. (Maybe jealousy at the fact that we got to leave).

I also was wondering if she would become a stay at home mother when and if she and Scooter ever decided to have children, as they currently do not. When I asked her, she said cleverly, “ I love my job, Scooter hates his, if anyone is going to give up their career, it’s gonna’ be him.” (Missy’s husband works as an outside salesman at Drive Train Specialists, which is trucking company.)

I asked her if she always knew she wanted to have a career, and be working a full time job at her age, and she replied with, “ Yes, yes, and yes. Not that I knew this is the career I wanted, but I knew that I would be the first one in my family to graduate college, and I always wanted to be able to support myself - by myself. Just knowing that would be an achievement for me.”

Missy helped me better understand the situation of working women, as well as Belkin’s essay. But to better answer my question, I believe I’d have to study more women as Belkin did. In this day in age, I assume most men are intimidated by successful women. Our society still mainly assumes that men “bring home the bacon”, while women cook the bacon. But women have increasingly become the money earners. So, it’s just a matter of time, til men are no longer intimidated by successful women, yet encouraging and supportive. But you know what they say, “ Oh, they’re just jealous”.