Bias Against Women

Thank you for your explicit article outlining the discriminatory practices against women in the Sheriff’s Department (Metro, Aug. 13). I read it the same day I fired a client for similar kinds of practices.

As a single parent with two daughters to put through college, I am not “brave enough” to buck the system the way Susan Paolino has. Instead, I am an entrepreneur who goes out of my way to provide good service to clients who appreciate me but will refuse to do business with anyone who devalues me or my services simply because I am a woman.

Like thousands of other women who have hit the glass ceiling and opted out by starting their own businesses, I am coping the best way I know how. I like to think I am changing the system in my own small way.

But when I read about how flagrantly the men in the Sheriff’s Department debase women on a routine basis, I realize that the subtlety of firing an occasional client is lost in a system that doesn’t even acknowledge the heinousness of the comment, “What do you expect, she’s female.”

ELAINE FLOYD

Lomita