Women

Yesterday, I "met" a young woman on a work conference call.

About 20 minutes before the conference call, I had gotten a cup of coffee, opened this week's issue of Newsweek -- and came across Jonathan Alter's opinion piece about his mother (who was the first elected woman EVER in Cook County.) At the time the conference call started, I was composing a nasty-gram in my head to Newsweek. Not so much about Jonathan or his mother -- but about the underlying idea that Hillary Clinton should be elected BECAUSE she is a woman.

I have thought about this "entitlement" thing for a while, and despite the fact that I consider myself an articulate person, I could never compose the essential thought.

Until the conference call.

Here's a young woman (I'm guessing 21 - 23) who is bright, driven, excited, engaged, direct, knowledgeable about her area, and truly committed to doing a good job. The kind of woman I hope I was when I was her age and working my first "real" job.

There are, however, some major differences. NO ONE will ever pat her on the head and say "Good girl, you did a good job". NO ONE will ever tell her to jump up on the desk and have sex now or be fired. NO ONE will ever pay her 10% less and tell her it is BECAUSE of her gender. NO ONE will ever say "Sure, that's a nice idea, but let's wait for a man to say it." She does not know, no one in her generation knows, THANKFULLY, what it was to be a ground troop in the fight for equality and meritocracy.

This young woman is the embodiment of what we stood up for. The kind of person I'm thrilled to work with.

I, and all of my women friends, put up with all sorts of indignities and dangers so that someday other young women would be hired NOT because they were female, but because they were bright and could do the job. Our hope was that the generation that came after us would have an equal chance with men to excel, to progress, to succeed. While I have no idea how this woman got her job, I have a gut sense that she had great grades in college, a terrific resume, and that she aced the interview. I do not believe that the company hired her to fill a 'female quota'. She EARNED the right to have this job. And the project will be better for that hire.

And this young woman embodies what we always hoped women would be -- EQUALS. Not better -- just EQUAL in terms of opportunity.

There are a lot of women today who support Hillary Clinton because of her gender. They feel she should break the political glass ceiling because she is first woman to ever get this close. These women are generally my age and older -- who remember what the old days were like. At my age, we remember that affirmative action would get our foot in the door, but then we had to prove ourselves IN ADDITION to what any position required. Women 10 years older than I remember fighting to get their foot in that door. Women older than that remember limited choices, and a sense that no matter what they did, it wouldn't be enough.

To vote for Hillary because of her gender is to denigrate what my generation worked for, it is to disparage this young woman's hire. That is -- if she was hired BECAUSE of her gender, then there was no point in having fought for equal pay for equal work, no reason to have stood toe to toe with misogynists and fought for the right to be seen and thought of as "human" and not "bra size". The fight was for equality and meritocracy -- not for automatic ingress.

The women who support Hillary Clinton because of her gender are no different then the men 30 years ago who worked to make sure women could not "get ahead". In both cases, all they saw was "girl". Interchangeable. All the same. In the vast majority of cases, to hire a woman STRICTLY because of her gender is to say the worth of the person doesn't matter. (The major exception I can think of is 'surrogate motherhood' when anatomy and physiology dictate a specific gender choice). If we select people to fill positions based exclusively on gender, it's wrong. It was wrong 40 years ago, it's wrong now. And whether that position is "wait person" "assembly line worker" "doctor" "lawyer" "accountant" "engineer" or "President of the United States" -- the choice should be based on character, ability, knowledge and above all being the best person for the job. Independent of gender, race, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, age, etc.