Girl Power - have to honor it in order to keep it.
There was a recent kerfuffel between the pope in Rome and some mild-mannered nuns in America who up till now had mostly been known for taking care of the poor. Pope Benedict said they were spending far too much time with the downtrodden and were off-message. At this point, does it even matter what the ‘message’ was supposed to be?
Fortunately, the nuns appear to know who is really their boss and have decided to keep hanging out with the homeless.
At 52 years old, I can remember a time not so long ago when women who wanted a divorce as recently as the 1970′s would carefully plot out having a credit card and a bank account in their name before they’d announce to their soon-to-be-ex that they were leaving. That was because banks didn’t give single women credit, regardless of their financial standing.
When I went on interviews to become a stockbroker for Merrill Lynch I was routinely asked about when I’d be leaving to have children and would angry clients make me cry. Frankly, my favorite client who’d made millions in real estate, started out our first conversation by saying, “Brokers are nothing more than well-paid whores.”
I replied, “I’ve heard the same thing about real estate.” He gave a big belly-laugh and started listening.
My older sisters had even coached me on what to say when I was hit with the weird, whacky and sometimes even illegal questions so that I’d get the job and in the end, prove I could do the job with one hand tied behind my back.
There’s a recent trend, though, spreading across America to repeal certain laws, state by state that gave women well-earned and hard-fought rights to equal pay or the chance to ever get that job.
As boring as politics can sometimes seem when the airwaves are filled with ads slamming someone, who gets elected can make a real difference in what you might be able to do tomorrow.
Pay attention, choose your candidate and vote. A lot of women fought a long, hard fight to make sure you’d get to dream even bigger. I’d like to thank a group of humble nuns who give of their time and their talents for reminding me of that lesson. More adventures to follow.
