This thought arose from the interesting (to me) WaPo article by Tracy Moore: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/16/how-covid-19-gave-me-back-my-southern-accent/?arc404=true
Here I will briefly recount the months I spent (not so much lived) in Houston (Feb-Aug) a few years into my marriage. While there I managed to get a job during tax season (which my brilliance pushed past April 15th) at a CPA firm with two born and bred male Texan owners. All other employees were older (than me in my 20's) women. What was most notable to me in the entire span of my employment was how my interview went.
I was sent by an employment agency who apparently paid little attention to my skill set and/or their client's requirements. They sent me for a job as typist in the reception area with principle phone duties. First: I did not represent myself as a typist of any sort and Second: I clearly lack the accent to communicate well on the phone with Texans. I was unaware of this, as I had applied as a tax preparer and bookkeeper which I had done in Denver.
Upon arrival, I was escorted to a typewriter for a speed/accuracy test. I could have passed a 10-Key test, but nooooooo. I typed ineptly, and upon "completion" angrily said I thought this was a preparer position which is what I sought via the (clueless, useless) agency. They left me there to (as I found out later) consult an owner about someone they might want to look at. Hence, I was taken to an office with two youngish Texans who I could (just) understand having context, faces and gestures to help.
The questioning included: was I married, do I have children, what does my husband do, are we planning a family, and then they got more on topic. I was able to outline my tax experience (1 season at H&R Block) and bookkeeping experience (at a multi-state uniform retailer). I think I probably did well enough, together with my resume, which had only education and 3 jobs listed. The next item was not so much a question as a policy announcement: I would be expected to wear a bra. I can assure you I have TO THIS DAY never gone to a workplace as an employee with the girls UN-corraled. Then (and this is what the above article sparked a memory of) one of them asked the other: Do you think she will hunt?
In the course of this employment I occasionally had to take the phone during lunch (it was rotated among all the employees (i.e.women). After my first sweaty and fraught turn, I was informed that an irate client wanted to know what a "damn Yankee was doing answering their phone?" I admit that I was finding it every bit as difficult and undesirable to attempt telephonic connection with a traitorous southerner.
Here is a photo of me, taken in Portland in the late 70's before the Texas debacle. With bra and in a beloved shirt.
P.S. At the time I had no way to challenge the non-job related questions. Had I done so, I am sure I would not have been hired. In the end, it was sort of my husband who necessitated (Allowed!) the move. We were there because he was told it would be a job in Houston. And about 5 months in they admitted that all they had was offshore pre-drilling boat riding off the Arabian Peninsula coast (I forget which NO WAY country it was.) Neither of us wanted that, and he was willing to try Oregon having decided that nothing good was going to come of his BS in Geology anyway. As it didn't until I divorced him, he want back to Colorado, and managed to get a teaching job at a small college in Sedona AZ.