A woman sat in my office today.
She said she gave up on fairness in the work place and was going to concentrate on herself and her family.
I can’t decide if I am awed or angered.
I think of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg movie now playing, On the Basis of Sex, and wonder if the struggle has been for naught.
I think of women in the late 50’s and early 60’s receiving degrees at colleges that would not even hire them as professors because they were women.
Look around today at leadership, look at Boards, have things changed?
I don’t even know who to blame. Women need to be invited, included and wanted. At the same time, women have to want to fight the fight.
If they give up, can we just blame the ogre?
I get it. Sometimes we are so tired after the fight. Maybe the next generation will pick up the mantle. Even if they do, they get the benefit not the women who came before them.
Hasn’t that always been true?
My dad used to say that the first pioneers who listened to the advice GO WEST YOUNG MAN GO WEST, died broke. It was the people who followed them that struck gold.
Talk to any professional athlete who played 20, 30, 40 years ago. They will tell you how the players who came after them benefitted from their labor wars more than they benefitted from the wars they fought.
Everyone can’t be a warrior and everyone can’t be a warrior all the time.
It’s hard to know when to give up the fight.
