I am zero percent

Chatting coming home from waterpolo last evening, granddaughter Hilary (almost nine) informed me that I was zero percent.  "Zero percent what?" I asked.  "Stupid," she replied.  I burst out laughing!  "I'm also zero," she added.

"Well, what about the rest of the family?"  Running though the other members, all the females in her world came out zero, but the males fared a little worse.  They ranged from one to three percent stupid.  I almost drove off the road laughing, as she proffered her reasons which centred around what she considered dumb things a brother, father or grandfather had done -- or not.  Next she ran through her friends.  Same results by gender.  Her powers of observation are impressive! 

Apparently, all we women are perfect!  What welcome news on International Women's Day!  Speaking of which, it always hits me that Blacks get a month, as in Black History Month; Indigenous get a week, as in Aboriginal Awareness Week; but women only get a day.  Anyone, other than me, notice this?  Here's to us!

Frankly, I wish the whole thing would go away.  We don't need it.

Another day we don't need is National Secretaries Day -- a similar scam.  Notoriously underpaying them, bosses think they can make up for the cash gap with some sort of token gesture one day of the year.  In my experience, it usually involved taking the secretary to a boozy lunch -- also enjoyed by the boss, by the way -- and probably making a pass at the trapped and compromised damsel in the process.  You may think this cynical, but it was true in my world back in the day.  Never having been a secretary, I escaped the horror -- but not the pass-making, which was ubiquitous.  Let's hear it for the put-upon Jills of all Trades!