Feminism's Defeat

I rarely write with little purpose or specific intent. I write books, write letters to friends when time permits, and write story ideas for the media - my take on current events they can use in their daily segments. I write to my students thousands of emails and posts in discussion forums daily. My blogs are mostly informative.. Lacking specific passion or personal divulgence; focused on creating something educational or with the intent to inform a group of people based on questions I'm being asked en-masse... From my students, military men and women asking questions or a way to bulk answer emails that come from hits in the media.. So I find myself writing with a different purpose and perhaps passion tonight..and just maybe this is one of those things you don't put on your blog and write your name to - signed and delivered. But if it's honest and a reflection of yourself, why not? After all isn't that the intent of social networking; of mostly Gen X'ers and Gen Y'ers developing an understanding of one another beyond what we see on MySpace or email? A media host and very savvy business woman shares quite a bit of herself in a blog, so perhaps Ill give it a try tonight.

So here it goes. I spend a lot of time in the air. Not nearly as much time as some of my good friends or those clocking millions of miles per year. I just hit the couple-of-million club on American - just enough to ensure I wont have to pay for the Admirals Club anymore or be put on an upgrade "list". Until recently, the in-air time has been spent writing books; no internet connection. With AA's new GoGo on 767s that has changed, so I can work non stop… in fact I'm typing this and posting it while flying now - I am still shocked they beat Virgin America too it (disappointed actually). Ill have to find new time to write books because flights are out now unless I intentionally take one without internet access.

One of the other things I do on flights when I travel alone (which is over 98% of the time by my most recent calculations) is seat jump… moving around often several times so couples can be together.. Tonight at least after the third seat jump (I usually initiate them when I see "stranded" couples unable to cuddle at 38000 feet), the gentleman was kind enough to move my bag. Ah, I digress.

So.. What to do now besides stay on top of email.. I cannot say "catch up" because I don't go to bed with anything in the inbox, so I'm never really 'behind'. I read. A lot Everything from Medical Science journals (a passion beyond belief) to Pharmaceutical Journals to Economics articles/books/magazines and … perhaps most intriguing these days, political 'stuff'. I believe I'm more interested in the aftermath than I was the election - and I was one of those freakos holding parties for McCain.

Yes I realize the election is over, and no this isn't a blog whining about how "my" candidate didn't win (although he didn't). I find solace in the fact that we're about to enter Hooverville (NOT - on the solace, yes on the Hooverville).. Okay, whatever. We will get past it and get over it (did I just say that?) and have another shot at reality in 4 years. However - both parties are highly highly screwed up and spending is out of control.. I don’t see that changing despite who the president is. Now the balance of power is a concern.. But that is another story for another day. People are too worried about the wrong things so our country will continue down its screwed up path for the foreseeable future. I promise to post if I see that changing. Somehow I think hell will freeze over first. Or at least in 3 years. Or insomnia will take my life and I wont know or care anyway! :)
What I find most ludicrous.. Enraging actually.. Is the anti-feminist feminist. So, to explain a bit, here is my demographic and background. (Funny, I was just telling one of those "highly traveled" friends how one should never admit their demographic on air.. But this is hardly on air now is it - it may be worse!)…

I grew up in a time where the women before me had already fought for my right to vote. The women before me shattered a "few" (billion?) glass ceilings. I was fairly blind to the entire concept of "restriction by gender" when I became a Director of Technology for a world-renowned university and medical center while still a teenager. Sheer motivation, study and perseverance - and asking for what I wanted - landed me where I belonged. I hardly felt undo pressure by anyone to not be anything I wanted, though they did tell me to make the suits a bit more conservative (some things never change).

My parents encouraged me (through no fault of their own - it was their "way" passed down from generations) to settle down and have a family; my grandfather to stay unmarried, stay safe, and go get an education (thanks Gramps!) I had my own way and followed it, probably much to my family's dismay to this day. As I climbed the corporate ladder while running a business on the side (a fairly successful one actually) and going to school full time while learning how to fly and do a bunch of other things I had no business doing, I had no feelings whatsoever of "I wonder what will happen because I'm a woman."

In fact the very first time I experienced it was at a famous private real estate company in Newport Beach, when a new "boss" yelled in my face, a few inches from nose, "no woman working for me will have a PhD". I stood on my tip-toes to get in his face right back and asked if he was "finished". He stormed off obviously frustrated. He subsequently found a bogus reason to "lay me off", and I subsequently found reason to have an amazing severance package. But, again, I digress.

So I started thinking… maybe there is something to this woman thing - being held back by it. But.. It's always felt invigorating.. Powerful.. In its own sense, its own right.. An "anything is possible" feeling.. And I've felt that since childhood despite various people telling me otherwise. Nothing shook it. I was in every sense of the word a nerd.. I did every nerdy thing possible in high school.. Debate team, political clubs.. Science clubs, math clubs, spending my lunchtime playing TradeWars on BBSs on 300 baud modems against all of my male friends (think about the show Big Bang Theory.. That was me.. And not the attractive hot chick working at Friday's)...all the things nerdy girls do.

I grew up a nerd.. Not proud of it at the time, but darn proud of it now. Let's just say I wasn't the one that people were asking to hang out at their parties. In fact I don’t think I went to one party until I was 24. And that was the last one for about 3 years. (yeah yeah…) I had no time in college; I worked my butt off, and worked a full time day job, learning about office politics, leadership, how to manage people 30 years my senior, and eventually running a team and a growing company simultaneously while working on the masters degree. I've had relatively little room for procrastinators in my life.. Very little if any respect for excuses because we have the greatest abilities in this country to do anything we want and we usually hold ourselves back - and many have died for that freedom we have. We all have the ability to change anything if we want it badly enough. As I said, no excuses. My family grew up on the lower income scale - okay exceedingly low - this is something that I'm also very proud of. They stuck to their guns and still managed. Most people think I grew up with a silver spoon in my mouth; nothing could be further from the truth. I'm always amazed at the immediate perceptions of others. I have great respect for individual histories and where someone came from to get to where they are… it's almost never, ever what it seems.

In my family, my father was a democrat and my mother a republican. I don’t think either of them followed politics really; and we didn't have cable so they only heard what hey saw on All My Children and the news on occasion after the Simpsons. I heard them talking about cancelling out one another's' votes.. It was a joke in our family, certainly nothing serious. My father instilled the obligation to vote because others died for that right.

Yes, I am a social conservative on abortion, on not randomly modifying our constitution… and more to the point, I am no less a woman for believing these things. But I also care most about fiscal policy because it can impact how we can progress in life -- the government takes our money - I want them to be accountable with it. If they wont be, I want it back. I can use it in better places than they can. Ill pay to have the 7 feet of road paved outside my home and call it a day.
A bit of oversimplification, but you get the point. Some how growing up even in my teens I got this strong sense of "Republicanism" - not the type that cares what two consenting adults do alone at home - in fact I am a conservative Republican with a bit of an edge (yes, that is the "new Republican".. My demographic..) but the type that cared about being diligent and making life what you want it to be.

I don’t mean the social conservatism that some pundits are saying is the death of the Republican party. I don't know how it occurred but I equated Democrat with "you don’t have to work hard and can piggyback off of others". Perhaps the freebies and handouts the democrats seemed to favor didn't resonate with me - I wanted no handout - I wanted and want to work my own behind off to get anything or anywhere - I have a hard time even letting anyone else buy dinner. I had an opportunity at an easier life full of exciting things with a very handsome suitor and - after several dates - I cut the relationship off because he was too wealthy, and I'd never feel that I made it on my own. I have since learned a bit more balance..we are all interconnected humans and we need each other .. But for support and friendship and an exchange of passions - not for all the reasons he thought he could provide.

So throughout this election cycle, I've watched with great interest the path of Sarah Palin. I remember sitting in bed in California after a long night of insomnia.. Actually all of my insomnia nights are long. I was listening to McCain's VP pick on Fox News. "holy…. What a BRILLIANT move." I had read about her before in the Weekly Standard. Yes I thought.. she appeals to the regular folks, and she's a Christian conservative with values that fought the beauracracy and the male dominance and even her own party.. I don’t like hunting or killing animals or cooking or the things she seems to enjoy doing, but I respect her for shattering so many barriers. I thought it sealed the deal (boy was I wrong).. A kick-butt woman in my view. And so it began, conversations with my friends (most of whom, believe it or not, are liberals to a very hard core degree.. But liberals that usually respect that others can have convincingly intelligent opinions that don’t necessary agree with their own).

But something was different this time. There was this "spewness" of raw anger and hate towards Palin, which made me want to defend her more.. I always, always defend the underdog. I hate watching people get beat up. But it wasn't from men.. They made reasonable comments like "she's unqualified" or she's "not ready to be commander in chief should something happen to McCain". Agreed here. But.. What about the HATE coming from women? I remember a specific quote from Wendy Doniger, a self-proclaimed feminist at the University of Chicago. Her words? "Her greatest hypocrisy is her pretense that she is a woman." So all this time I thought sexism wasn't going to hold us all back anymore.. Until.. A woman, a "feminist", indicated that she was in fact not a woman.. I assumed this is based on her choice to have a Down Syndrome baby (how dare we not kill a baby) and her decision to go to church (and believe in God too - has anyone crunched the numbers of the statistical possibilities that we are created by randomness?? I have! It was a high school project!) and raise a family of 5 (6 if you include the hubby) and lead a life chalk full of hard decisions, fighting tooth and nail against establishment, while still maintaining her role as a mother and a wife. Wow.

I must admit, she was a bit inspirational in this regard. One of the many reasons I don’t have children is a decision to put my career first despite harsh criticism from mostly liberal people (ironically enough). Replicating my DNA has been low on the totem pole of priorities. That may change in the future, but given my "demo" this is where I’m at in life. But here was a woman that actually seems to be managing it all just fine.. And doing great. Perhaps it is possible after all.
What gets me though is why, after all the years of fighting like crazy to shatter glass ceilings, so-called "liberal" women who are all about women being able to make a free choice only respect the choices if they are the same choices they would make. Doniger wasn't the only one - I heard this from many, many people. "Sarah isn't a woman". "Palin has no values." (aka not MY values) That isn't feminism and it isn't liberalism.. It is narcissism. If you are a liberal woman you can value a woman's right to choose - but you must also respect her choice if it's pro LIFE.

Perhaps that is why I've not ever considered myself a feminist - I am all for women's rights - but all women's rights not just some. Women and men aren't equal. Men in general are better at some things; women are better in general at other things - with exceptions to the rules of course. Maybe this makes me not a woman too. In that case Ill take it. This is all about chemistry and biology and not discrimination. I must say that this cycle has made me reflect back on my career.. And it was almost always, always the women who hurt one another.. Who didn't help, who did the damage to each other and one another's' reputation.. Maybe that is why I always enjoyed managing and working for men. The men hung in there, helped one another.. NS and helped me, the woman, too. But not because I am a woman - because I am a competent individual that happens to be a woman.

Everything was competition with women. Perhaps it's Sarah-envy; perhaps it's the mere thought of someone with a different view in a position of power - but women - if we hit another glass ceiling, you can thank the liberal feminists for it. This is the first time I've seen such wide spread efforts against women. Now I know what all those chicks before me fought so hard for. Thanks "guys". :)