It’s time for those of us in rail preservation to put an end to sexism. Host Nick Ozorak released a survey for women to anonymously share their stories of sexism, harassment, and discrimination. We hear from these women, and Nick shares his thoughts on why fighting this ongoing systemic issue matters to the future of the industry.

https://theroundhousepodcast.com/2021/0 ... servation/

Reading the survey results is painfully honest, and I appreciate the time collecting this information. I often feel as a man I am very ignorant about what women go through, especially in the preservation field and I always feel like these stories open a view into problems I only know the surface of. I feel like everyone should take the time to read the survey stories in particular.

Wait, you have to end something you presume to exist?

Seems like we need a hotline for Gubernatorial employees.

Oh wait....

Where I volunteer, we openly welcome women to show up. We had a female steam engineer for some time, and she now runs everything they have at TVRM.
A while back we had a African-American woman ask for a volunteer form and I was disappointed that we never heard from her again. If someone can do the job, I really couldn't care less what their demographics are (and I'm not writing that just to sound enlightened).
That said, I can easily imagine some crusty old guy looking snidely at a woman and deciding she can't do the job just because she's a woman. How many times have we heard (or in my own case experienced) that happening to a white male? I know for sure that happens, so that why I fully accept it'd happen to a woman.

Reading your survey, I didn't see too many surprises, either good or bad. However, I think you made RyPN a little bit better place by stirring the kettle, because I am now seeing more posts from women than ever before. It started when the thread was active a few months back.

Perhaps you should read the actual responses to the survey that Nick ran:

https://theroundhousepodcast.com/wp-con ... _Part1.pdf

https://theroundhousepodcast.com/wp-con ... _Part2.pdf

Then come back and say something that contributes to the conversation.

There's one factor that isn't considered here, and I think that's what "superheater" is getting at.

DECADES ago, before the Internet, I saw the results of a survey that stated:
*If you like your car purchase, on average you will tell three people about your positive experience.
*If you DISLIKE your car purchase, and think it's a "lemon," you will tell an average of nine people.

In the Internet world of today, this is now the Yelp Syndrome.
People with a bad restaurant, retailer, or "e-tailer" experience will fall over themselves to trash them verbally online on as many websites and social media ASAP, whereas it's like pulling teeth to get someone who had a satisfactory or good experience to leave a positive review--and a lot of the positive reviews are quite blatantly reviews by friends of staff or owners. (Even more confoundingly, people at sites like Amazon or eBay leave a review for the product with that of the retailer, or a review for the seller as the product review.)

Thus a cynical approach to raised issues like this.

1) There is no way to rationally deny that sexism (or, for that matter, racism, ageism, or other bigotry) still exists in some given field--workplaces, hobbies, social situations, education, etc.
2) Nonetheless, it is entirely appropriate to ask exactly to what degree the given problem actually exists and is a problem--to demand to know whether the self-reported examples are outliers, representative, or "the tip of the iceberg"--or, to use the current "buzzword" now being abused into meaninglessness, whether the problem is "systemic" (as usually alleged in 2021).
3) The typical response by activists to such questioning is to attack the questioner and accuse them of denying the problem exists, or perpetuating the problem.
4) The antagonistic approaches of #3 above discourages the people who can, or need to, make change happen (from within, by edict, personally, etc.) from taking the problems seriously, because they can (somewhat rightfully) consider themselves as being under attack by someone simply looking for a fight.

This is IN NO WAY confined to rail preservation, nor to sexism. We could raise the exact same suppositions about the supposed prevalence of "rail museums are a buncha good ol' boys that won't take young people seriously."

Americans, and Western civilization, has become well-trained in the 21st century to be antagonistic, divisive, and "tribal" in the pursuit of political and societal power and influence.
We don't need to fall for this tactic.

Thank you for your efforts, Nick. It was interesting to read through the survey results.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised by the responses, but many of them were oriented to the public interactions and not those from the organizers or crew.
That is not to diminish what is an unsurprising amount of poor interactions noted from staff and other crew, but I can't see any way to overcome public reactions. To be blunt, the public can be quite stupid and you can't fix stupid.

I found your discussion to be measured, even handed, and supportive of gender equity. The invitation into railroading, railfanning, and rail preservation has to be based on merit, not gender. Plenty of women want to be a part of their grandfather's or father's career in train operations. I want little girls to grow up seeking rail related jobs because their mother's career was in railroading. When women in railroading is no long remarkable, we will have achieved something.

So what's your suggestion for dealing with it then?

Dick, I'd say by your standards, we've achieved something. Women working for Class I railroads is no longer remarkable, and hasn't been for some time. IMHO... A fella posted on another thread a few years back, saying his mom had been a switchman for the DM&IR Proctor ore docks during WWII, in the winter no less. THAT was remarkable (IMHO).

Like many white males, I was vehemently against affirmative action because it made it nearly impossible for me when I hired out. It became obvious after a few days, to both the company and myself that I was promotable, and I turned down many more promotions than I took during my RR career.

Eventually I met, and worked with, or under, many fine "minority hires" who would never have had a chance without affirmative action, and my attitude has largely changed towards it. Like many of my co-workers, I no longer object to recruiting and hiring minorities --- the only thing we ask is: Please hire GOOD ONES. But, that goes for white males, too. Equality, you know. (IMHO)

"Then come back and say something that contributes to the conversation."

I'm not sure that anybody that thinks we should spend millions of dollars because he travels in a group of effete snobs who think that busses are for "poor people" and shouldn't have to share a conveyance with them is in any position to judge the utility of anybody else's comments.

Gee, Ed what are your friends going to do when the poor people discover the charms of riding trains and having alcohol at the end of the day-set up "special cars" with restricted admission?

The idea that people are harassed in railroad preservation is certainly is certainly believable.

I know of one individual was routinely abusive to other crew members-on one occasion having to have been separated from another individual by armed law enforcement in a locker room. He would use his 280 pounds and position of authority to bully other crew members.

When he issued one of his threats of physical violence to me, and my response was "you got me by forty pounds, but I've got you by twenty years [compound expletive deleted] and I live in a gym so how about we settle this outside the gates?" That was the end of that.

On the other hand, he treated the occasional female crew member with charm and deference.

I've rarely worked with a woman in railroad preservation who wasn't more than up to the task. The late Lucia Petrosky comes to mind. Who gives a rats posterior about sex if your fellow crewmember is dedicated and competent.

On the other hand as a professional manager, I endured a multi-month investigation into completely contrived threats because a deranged female employee waived a banana like a pistol complete with sound effects of automatic weapons fire and the employee assistance line instructed me that I had to document the incident, discuss with my C of C and "counsel" her that the behavior was inappropriate and constituted workplace violence. She was insulated from discipline or even (professional) counseling as a condition of continued employment because she was in a "protected class". Shortly after the call, I was in my boss's office soliciting his direction, when she knocked and said "gentlemen, is my sanity in question". If you are asking, there's no question.


I was informed that despite the "no evidence" finding, the allegation would remain in my permanent record and could be used in any future allegation, no matter how long or unrelated. So you are "not guilty", but on double secret probation.

I also worked a special train in the late 90's that was catered (with alcohol, more proof trains and booze don't mix) in the Steamtown Core Complex for some school teacher's group, and both me and my conductor were pawed up-so it goes both ways. Do Bob and I get to complain?

And oh my God, I have a female coworker who calls me "sweetie". (Reverse it and it's sexual harassment).


It's always been my contention that the males that accuse all other men of treating women with disdain are engaged in projection-and if it's "systemic" its among politicians and their symbiotes in the C-Suite (Ask Steve Easterbrook-I'll wait while you look him up) hence six years ago Andrew Cuomo promised to end harassment on college campuses; now we know he merely hated competition with his target population.

The vast majority of us have mothers, sisters and wives and we treat other women like we want our loved ones treated.

If Mr. Ozorak had asked about abusive behavior regardless of sex, that would have been a far more interesting and encompassing conversation. Instead, he pandered to woke ideology and calumnied the male sex with the word "systemic".

Don't respond until you have something informed to say.

Just to clarify, in saying this is an ongoing “systemic” issue, what exactly is that intended to mean? How do these acts of sexism rise to being systemic rather than just an individual choice of the perpetrator?

I read the PDFs and took a look at the content of the comments. About half said no, so that raises the issue that sexism is not "systemic" in rail preservation. I think that word was chosen without very much thought being put into it's definition and proper usage and is being used here to mimic similar accusations being made in other industries.

I want to comment on a few specific comments from the first PDF.

"I run a railway museum. While I have not had any egregious harassments it is more of
a subtle thing. My husband goes to museum and rail events with me and invariably
everyone assumes he is the train person. He knew nothing of trains before we married
while I grew up with trains as my father was a railfan and I have been in my position for
over a decade and over twenty years in the greater field of museum preservation."

I don't know if I would consider this sexism. We all know that females tend to be more interested in people and males tend to be more interested in things, so naturally when a couple attends a railroad event, the vast majority of the time it is the male who has the interest. This is not sexism just a recognition of how the sexes are wired. It would be absolutely wonderful if women were as interested in things as men, but that just isn't the case most of the time.

" I had a DSLE tell me 'not to make it a bullshit sex thing' in reference to me wearing my
hair up in a bandanna (ala Rosie the riveter) instead of a hat, when I said the uniform
policy does not take into account what women wore when they worked for the railroad
and only men. He wanted to take me out of service or get me fired for this."

This DSLE just seems to be one of those rules oriented pricks. It could have been sexism or perhaps just his strict interpretation of the rules. We could all use fewer people who adhere more to the letter of the rules than the intent of the rules.

"I've been told I'm not allowed to use the communal changing area after I get done
because it makes people uncomfortable and instead I have to change in the bathroom or
use a coach. "

A lot of stuff in our society has been changed because a few people in a group were uncomfortable or offended. We can't have it both ways. For the sake of prevention of sexual harassment claims and to appease the sensibilities of modest men, perhaps separate but equal changing rooms for the sexes are appropriate. Separate facilities have been the norm, putting both sexes together has not been and I don't think we can assume that everyone would be perfectly fine with it.

" It's rare, but it has happened. I can't pin all disrespect in sexism. Some people are
asshats and asshats are gonna asshat."

It is often difficult to tell the difference. What is really sexism and what is just people being difficult. Many times it is up to the interpretation of the person being disrespected.

So given that half the respondents said no and that some of the yes comments cannot be positively attributed to sexual harassment, I again say that the word "systemic" is being misused and that connotation could have a deleterious effect on our industry. Systemic also refers to practices that are ingrained in the "system" of rail preservation, but no organization has rules that precludes women specifically nor do they have widely adopted practices of excluding women. What we are seeing here in this survey points more to isolated incidents with asshole bosses and coworkers and not something systemic.

Our job is to minimize sexual discrimination to the extent possible and to continue to call out those who perpetuate it. Things are far better now for women in railway preservation than they had been, but regardless of the progress, some SJWs have no patience and demand perfection NOW and with no consideration given to human nature.