Stop the War Between Women
As I travel to Boston for a June 20 speaking engagement I am thinking of all the young women to whom I will speak and about whom I write. This is graduation season and lives are about to change and be jump started. So I ask myself what should we give these young women as they graduate and head out into life?
I'd like to propose that the best gift we can give the young women in our lives is a good example.
First, instead of picking battles with other women, pick battles that are worth fighting for. Second, remind them that there's no better time in history to be a woman.
Right now, the example we have- if we are to believe the popular media and a growing number of books about women- is that we are at war with each other and within ourselves.
If we stay at home, we backbite at the women who work. If we work, we snipe at women who spend their days being "just moms". Women who can't have children have a tough time listening to women who can- but don't want them. Women who aren't married gaze longingly over the picket fence at married women- who are wishing fervently that they had their own quiet husband- and child-free houses.
I wonder what all this arguing and angst is doing to the girls in our lives? What impression are we leaving them with when we moan about motherhood? What do they hear when we gossip about the mother who didn't bring brownies to PTA because she was working? It certainly isn't a message of optimism and hope.
And yet, shouldn't it be? If we can't celebrate where we are as American women in the 21st century and build on the social and economic power we've gained in the past 100 years, then we really are the sad and negative lot our conversations seem to indicate.
But there is much to celebrate. More women will graduate from college then men this year and for years to come. Millions of young women will enter the workforce and receive their first paycheck. Tens of thousands will buy their own homes and sign on the dotted line for an auto loan. A significant number also will become engaged, get married and start families.
Flashback 100 years ago- even 50 for that matter- and the choices were far more limited. Women got married. If you didn't, they had words for that kind of woman; the nicest of which was spinster. Remember that 100 years ago, women didn't have the right to vote so it wouldn't have mattered if we hated the candidates as much as women supposedly "hate Hillary" today.
Courageous women and men fought battles to give us choices, including the right to dislike a political candidate and then do something about it on Election Day. Where would we be economically if half of our population still didn't have the right to an education, the right to vote, the right to own a business, the right to have a bank account? Look around the world and you'll see countries that still throw up these barriers to women's progress- and their economies suffer. Research I came across while writing my book "The Power of the Purse," revealed that the fastest way to grow an economy was to educate a woman. America is a great example of that wisdom.
So shouldn't we be celebrating- and preparing our daughters and sons for the next round of positive change? There are two issues I can think of that could do with a dose of the energy we are putting into battling each other.
The class of 2007 could take up the issue of pay parity and safe, affordable day care for all children. Both issues would make families- and I define family as everyone from single people to traditional families- stronger and more capable of meeting the demands of today's globally competitive world. Add up all the 20 cents that American women aren't making today as a result of pay disparity (women now make about 80 cents to every dollar a man makes) and millions of women and families would be stronger economically.
Equitable and safe daycare helps all of us, not only parents. It gives women- and the growing number of stay-at-home dads- yet another choice in juggling the demands of work and children. It keeps smart, creative people in the workforce instead of forcing them to make tough decisions between career and family.
Neither issue is any more challenging that the battle for the right to vote or the right to work. What may be more difficult is giving up the battle women are fighting within ourselves and against each other. We can start by celebrating that millions of our daughters are graduating this summer.
