I’m frustrated this week. Frustrated at low cut jeans,
because well, I’m a 40-year old mother of 5. I’m frustrated that a new computer
charger costs $100 here. I’m frustrated that I can’t eat bagels because my
stomach has turned into a tantrum throwing 2-year old. But maybe something of a
little more consequence has tagged me this week. I’ve been frustrated with my
gender.
Women.
I’ve found myself more and more unsettled as this election
has rounded out. This is not a political post, but a call for women to stop.
This is my proverbial shofar call to stop talking about voting for Hillary
because she was a woman. If you agreed with her platform and voted for her in
response, then great. If you went to the voting polls and cast your vote for
her BECAUSE she was female, that’s less than great. If we as women want to
continue to make progress in salary equality and gender imbalances, we’ve got
to stop doing things like this. While I haven’t asked Hillary Clinton
personally, I have a hard time believing that she wants your vote simply
because she was born with two X chromosomes. She would rather you make a smart,
thoughtful decision about a person and a platform, not a gender. The former is
simply patronizing. Like when the P.E. teacher picks the uncoordinated, awkward
kid as captain of the dodge ball team. It’s a pitied choice.
Voting for her simply because of her gender isn’t actually
breaking a glass ceiling, it’s reinforcing one. It’s walking up to that ceiling
and smashing your face on it, looking childish and uninformed. I saw a similar
phenomenon when Sarah Palin was first toying in public politics. People blindly
followed her lead without having any clue as to what she thought on issues. If
we as a gender want true progress, we’ve got to prove ourselves through
education, information, question asking, intelligent dialogue, and working
insanely hard.
We aren’t going to earn more respect in places by whining,
remaining ignorant, complaining, and knocking one another down based on
superficial criteria.
We are better than this. We can scream loudly for change
when we actually have something worth hearing, otherwise it becomes screechy
white noise.
While I disagree with some of her politics, I truly admire
her culmination of 30 years of public service. My mom has worked in a male
dominated industry for over 30 years also. It takes wisdom, intellect,
perseverance, and gutsiness. These are the characteristics we teach our
daughters. We don’t want them to expect doors to fly open simply because they
are female. We want them to walk through doors because they’ve earned it. And
when you walk through a door knowing you deserved it, you’re head is held high
knowing you didn’t get there based on an invitation of pity.
