“It’s comforting to know that a lot of the insults I’ve put up with in my life are being experienced by people everywhere. I, for one, am sick of being nobodied.”

—From www.dignityforall.org

I had occasion to visit the Social Security Administration and could hear that blacks at the head of the line were being treated disrespectfully. I was about to attribute this to American racism when I realized that the civil servants behind the counters who were dishing out the insults were themselves black. It doesn’t make much sense to call denigration of this sort “racism,” but that’s how it would be described if the bureaucrats were white.

—Simon W.

I left the “working world” from the time my first child was born until my second entered preschool. Except for nap times, stretches without the children were rare. We couldn’t afford babysitters on one salary. Once in a while we’d manage to escape and attend parties given by my husband’s co-workers, most of them young and child-free. At first I looked forward to getting out into the adult world again, but soon I began to dread it because of the inevitable question, “And what do you do?” Having never before worked so hard, on call 24 hours a day and overwhelmed by the demands of two toddlers, I began to resent being made to feel apologetic for being “just” a mom.

—Janet H.

Going from eighth grade to freshman year in high school was traumatic for me. I was awkward, skinny, and had poor social skills. Almost from the beginning, I was teased by the other students, both boys and girls.

One of my most vivid memories is of getting so frustrated that I started to hit one of the jocks. The other guys had to pull him off, or he would have really creamed me. Shortly after that, I went trick-or-treating with these guys at Halloween and, taking a dare, I threw a lawn chair on someone’s porch, just to be accepted.

One thing I did to make myself noticed was carry a $100 bill to school, show it to everyone, and then tear it in half.

I also had an act where people would point their finger at me like a gun, say “bang, bang,” and I would moan and groan and fall over in a death agony. At least I was noticed. I’d even do it while driving, throwing my arms out the driver’s side window and flopping down the outside of the car door for as long as I could before losing control of the vehicle.

—Thomas P.

At Washington cocktail parties people ask what you do for a living during the first 30 seconds of the conversation. When I was executive director of a national nonprofit working on transportation safety issues, I was of no interest to the would-be movers and shakers. They would simply walk away from me (sometimes without even a contrived exit line). But when I started working for a news organization, things changed. Because the media is considered to be a second god to government, a shadow power unto itself, these same people suddenly gave me their full attention. Similarly, when my wife became a producer for All Things Considered at National Public Radio, people started to give her attention in a way they never had before. Some of them even started “playing me” in the hopes that I would help them get to her.

—Anthony G.

During my freshman year at college I enrolled in a course in English literature. There were only about 16 students and I was looking forward to the kind of learning experience that a small class would afford. The professor conducted the first meeting in his home. As a kind of “getting to know you exercise” he began with, “I’d like all of you to introduce yourselves and tell the rest of us what your father does for a living.” I was dumbfounded. My father was a bus driver. He was a hard-working man and had always taken satisfaction in the fact that he could send me to this prestigious school without even a request for financial aid. Knowing that he was proud of himself and of me, and that suddenly I felt ashamed of him, made the shame doubly acute. One by one the students introduced themselves and followed with their glamorous pedigrees: “My father is a Dean of Harvard Medical School.” “My father teaches at Temple.” “My father is an attorney.” As my turn approached I felt my mouth getting dry. I simply couldn’t bear to tell the truth. I introduced myself and followed with a quick “My father is a transportation engineer.”

—Jan K.

The dean of the law school would hit on the lower paid workers, groping them, but would flirt only verbally with the high-ranked staff (e.g., the registrar). The liberties he took were a function of women’s rank and position. The ones who didn’t get paid much got fondled; the more highly paid got cozied up to but were spared any greater humiliation.

—Name withheld by request

Upon graduating from college I took a job in food service at a local university teaching hospital to earn money for graduate studies in music. My job—delivering trays to patients while wearing a polyester uniform and hair net—was certainly not a glamorous one. Often, as I wielded my cumbersome cart through the halls, I was blocked by clusters of medical interns on their rounds. They exuded self-importance and ignored me and I was forced to maneuver ever so carefully around them. After a while, in anger and frustration, I would deliberately run over toes. One day I stepped into an elevator in which there were two handsome young male interns. One looked at me, smiled and gave me a shy, friendly “Hi.” I returned the smile and hello. His buddy, eyeing the exchange, nudged him and said to him in a low snicker, “Slumming in the elevator?” That was 25 years ago and I still remember it. To this day I regret not having had the presence of mind to object to his behavior.

—Janet K.

I was in the out-group. I was a sweet, sensitive girl who followed all the rules, but I was ugly. Frizzy hair. Big nose. Bad skin. Often I’d come home in tears because of the teasing from my classmates.

I remember there was a school talent show. Tim, a fellow outcast, somehow gathered the courage to sing “The House of the Rising Sun.” He’d probably imagined this moment over and over—it was his chance to be somebody. Well, as soon as he got up on stage and started singing, the catcalls started. He could barely finish his song.

You’d think that after being the target of similar abuse I might have stood up for him, or at least stayed quiet. But instead, I joined in the jeering. “Yeah, that Tim is such a jerk.” I felt so relieved that for once the target wasn’t me.

—Claire S.

Most of the contractors I worked for during my apprenticeship were “screamers.” If you asked for help, they’d yell, “You should know that by now.” If you made a mistake it was the end of the world.

There are contractors who just put you on foundations. You never get a chance to do the framing or the trim work; you’re just a grunt. How can you learn the trade like that? And when they’re through with you they send you down the road.

The worst is working for a contractor who has his son working, or a cousin, nephew, or friend. As someone without connections, you get the digging, the form stripping, the concrete pouring. You’re also expected to have a good attitude. Only the boss’s relatives are allowed to bitch. You feel that you’re judged on a whim and not on what you produce.

One contractor told me, “All I want to see are your elbows and your ass.” He wanted me bent over, working at all times. Even lunch was a walking sandwich. The ultimate humiliation is when contractors don’t provide temporary toilet facilities, so you have to relieve yourself in the bushes.

—Chris C.

I had a succession of ever more impressive business cards during my career. On my way up the ladder, they defined me—title and company. The response was always very positive. When I retired I printed up new business cards with only my name, address, and phone number. The response to this name-only ID was that I had become a nobody. Without title and institutional affiliation, people didn’t know how to calibrate my value. They no longer saw me as having anything to offer, and for several years, I’m sorry to say, I believed this myself.

—Peter C.

People are always telling me what to do. Older women will see me outside and say, “Where’s your coat?” I know it’s due to my disability. Respect doesn’t come easily. I often feel dismissed when someone without a disability wouldn’t be.

At work people think it’s OK to belittle me in front of others. My boss calls me “sweetie” and “honey,” but when I do something she doesn’t like she’s quick to criticize.

Often employers have acted as though they were doing me a favor by hiring me, and then used that as an excuse to pay me less. Once I get an advanced degree and have a private therapy practice, I think this kind of discrimination will disappear.

What really brought the importance of a higher degree home to me was a dissertation I read on physically disabled women whose children were taken away from them by state agencies. In every instance, the women who lost their children were poor and uneducated. I simply have to be in school. If I’m middle class with an academic job, then nobody will be able to take my children away.

—Jody S.