It’s time for ‘America’s neglected middle child’ to use our voice | Women’s Day 2019

For this year’s Women’s History Month, the Inquirer asked five Philadelphia women at different life stages — a Generation Zer, Millennial, Gen Xer, Baby Boomer, and member of the Silent Generation: What’s the biggest issue facing your peer group right now?

We thought we’d put our heads down, do the work with no complaints, and the work would speak for itself.

What we didn’t fully appreciate is that we, the “forgotten generation” — Generation X — were sandwiched between two larger groups with better public relations, who knew how to promote themselves and their accomplishments while we self-deprecated, undersold, and undervalued ourselves into invisibility.

When I think about the greatest issues facing women of my age, I see two: visibility and voice. We aren’t the youngest in the room, but we aren’t the oldest. We are just as comfortable leveraging technology in the workplace as we are with more conventional skills. We have plenty of years of experience behind us and plenty more ahead, but we’ve allowed ourselves to be erased — to be known as “America’s neglected middle child.” According to a 2018 poll, we’re America’s most stressed working professionals.

This erasure is only compounded by additional barriers. Many of us face racism and sexism. All of us are staring down ageism in a culture that obsesses over women’s youth and punishes us for losing it. As a woman of color in the U.S., I was prepared to fight for representation. I just wasn’t prepared for the sell-by date that society attached to it.

So, what next? Now we have to go against our natural tendencies. We cannot quietly stand by waiting for the elusive recognition and reward (the promotion, the raise, the title) for our loyalty and hard work. We have to demand it. And that means we have to say no. We have to stop giving away our knowledge and power, stop allowing people to “pick our brains” without giving us credit in return. Reports show that despite taking on leadership roles and heavy workloads, we have been the slowest to advance.

As uncomfortable and infuriating as it is to feel as if we’re forced to beg for appreciation, we have to claim our space even as we make room for others.

It isn’t easy. When we assert ourselves, it is often as much of a shock to our systems as it is to the systems that have grown accustomed to our consistent dependability. Because that’s not been our M.O. Because for so long we went along to get along. And now, as we stand in the middle of the road, looking back and forward, we are realizing that’s not working for us. It calls for retraining ourselves as much as retraining those around us to recognize all that we have done and all that we have yet to do.

Helen Ubiñas is an award-winning columnist at the Daily News and the Inquirer. She belongs to Generation X, born between 1965 and 1980.