Where I stand

Dear Editor,

In spite of the lofty rhetoric espoused for "International Women's Day", women often remain their own worst enemies.  It begins with the "mean girls" in elementary school and just carries on from there.
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This was another of my letters, published yesterday in The Calgary Herald and it pretty much sums up where're we're at.  While everyone was falling all over themselves, taking stands and spouting off in print, in the House, on tv and by mouth, I was pointing out how little progress had actually been made.  I don't count myself in that still-struggling hoard, because I have done very well on all fronts.  I received a good education, had a great career and raised a family and step-family -- all while staying in the workforce.

In the late sixties, my generation was the first cohort of "women's lib".  The pill had come along to rescue us from the ever-constant fear of unwanted pregnancy so many girls went a bit crazy until a lot of us figured out this anything-goes-free-love-BS was not working for women.  Oh sure, the guys were having a ball, but instead of our having as liberated a time as they, we felt taken advantage of.  Because we were.

While I knuckled down and began my career, others hit Woodstock and went off the rails with sex an' drugs an' rock an' roll.  People "turned on, tuned in and dropped out", as Timothy Leary ill-advised, to the sad detriment of many.  It was undoubtedly my conservative upbringing, but I smelt a rat.  Turns out there was a rat to be smelt. 

But the one thing I held onto was never to be beholden to a man for money.  "Dear, may I have $2?  What do you want it for?"  No, that would not work for me, still wouldn't.  But joining groups, protesting and damning men was never my thing because I saw no return in such an approach.  I just kept working and when my kids came along I just kept working.  Aligning myself with hostile women's groups -- or any group -- did not seem a good plan at any point along the way.  Instead I worked my tail off for some of the most successful men in any workplace.  Ministers of the Crown, private sector executives, public service managers -- you name them, I worked for them.  And by the way, they were not interested in your personal life, your marriage or your kids.  Have a problem?  Hire someone. 

It paid off because I kept getting ahead and making more money while the protestors became mired in ghettos such as "women's and gender studies".  Instead of working in the real world, many highly-educated women did a 'Timothy Leary' and dropped out to study why they weren't getting ahead.  Duh?  It all remains a boring, never-ending cycle of nowhereness. 

If I have one piece of advice for women it's never quit the workforce to raise children -- even if every cent of your salary goes to child care.  Hang in there because if you don't, when you're forty you'll regret it.  Women who tell me it's a privilege to be able to stay home and rear their children are frauds because such women "want it all" without working.  Not only did they take up a seat in an institute of higher learning at great expense, they also betrayed the very rights my generation worked so hard to achieve. 

When I retired I made a list of everyone who had mentored me over 40 years.  Guess what?  There wasn't a woman on it.  But a "mean girl" list would have been long indeed.  In my opinion, stick with the winners.  Usually male.  Protest all you like, but I have yet to meet a woman whose placard-waving has turned her into a successful man.