Woman wonders

Mixed feelings about Women’s Equality Day, which is today. As a commemoration of the certification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution on this date in 1920, well, hurrah.

(Hello? The Nineteenth granted women the right to vote across the nation. Only 131 years after the implementation of the Constitution itself, and 50 years after certification of the Sixteenth Amendment declaring “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”)

Basically, the Nineteenth Amendment certified that, yes, surprise, surprise: women are full citizens and therefore cannot have their right to vote denied or abridged by the United States or any state. The campaign for female suffrage had its beginnings at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848, and the push for a Constitutional amendment to sort it out once and for all began in 1878, so as you can imagine, there was considerable discussion of the matter. And you might have thought that with its implementation, we’d be ready to accept that equality in citizenship should imply equality of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and move on.

But you’d be wrong.

Ergo the creation of Women’s Equality Day in 1971 by Bella Abzug. And my dismay about it. Because even 45 years after that attempt to keep the issues of equality before our eyes, we still seem to be unclear about the fact that this includes equal opportunity in the workplace, in housing, in access to healthcare and education, and…like all that.

Some very depressing global statistics on these issues here. And I’ll just close my eyes and throw a dart at the myriad posts I’ve written about some of the ludicrous events in the worlds of business and politics. Because this sort of resistance to making room at the table is more ubiquitous than Starbucks, and even more pernicious. It’s as though we were demanding at gunpoint some revolutionary upturning of all that’s held sacred.

Oh, wait…

I get it: if you have a scarcity mindset, you think that the pie that comprises all worldly (and possibly unworldly) things is finite. Money, status, power, space on the bus, love—whatever portion someone else has of any of those things means there’s less for you. And every alteration to the status quo becomes a threat to your existence, to your happiness. That scarcity mindset is what’s been driving marketing and political campaigns for…well, a long time.

But what if you consider a different proposition: by allowing women, non-white folks, people with disabilities or indeterminate gender to join the enterprise on an equal basis, and contribute to their full capabilities—what if that expands the pie, and creates more for everyone? What would that world look like?

Also consider how it would reduce the stress that all that anger, fear and bile puts onto your system.

In a conversation I had with a colleague about the variety of attacks made on female political candidates (Clinton, Fiorini, Palin, Pelosi—all the way back to Geraldine Ferraro, and probably to Margaret Chase Smith), I pointed out that it didn’t matter which side of the political spectrum either the candidates or the attackers were on. Right, left, progressive, conservative—the slime thrown is almost universally tied to one's chromosome configuration. She’s had cosmetic “work” done! Her glasses! Her pantsuits! Her hormones! The same holds true for women having the nerve to take leadership roles in business or the military or other fields.

And said no one ever about a male candidate, commander or CEO. Ever.

I told my colleague I really hope that by the time his daughters (one in high school, one in elementary school) hit the workplace some of this will have diminished. I could see him processing the idea and rejecting it based on what we experience today. That saddened me.

So here’s my fond wish: that we can hold out the ideal of true women’s equality, and that we won’t just think of it one day a year, but that it’ll be so commonplace that we can look back and say, “Hey—so glad we don’t have to deal with this anymore, and can focus all our considerable capabilities on solving sustainable energy and delivering safe drinking water to all homes globally.”

Ah—a girl can dream.

Plated up

As you know, I love sussing out stories from my surroundings. And as a fourth-generation Californian, I look to motor vehicles as extensions of people’s personal narratives. Whether it’s stating practical capabilities, asking the big questions or going Mitty, your vanity plate is more than just an tag. It’s like a DMV equivalent of a hashtag, actually.

In the Old Dominion, of course, people are somewhat less inclined to be, um, freewheeling than on the west coast. Long after Californians had been pushing the envelope for raging against the Man (or whatever), Virginians were spending extra to have their initials on their plates. If they were making long-term bets on their marriages, they’d have his-n-hers initials.

These days they’re opening up some, as I’ve noted before. And you're more likely to find sweetness and light, as in this nature lover:

But here’s someone living on the edge:

And I’m thinking that the guy who let this one get out of the state pen didn’t know anything about Aleister Crowley. Probably thought it was the applicant’s mama's name.

Even so, the award for taking the piss goes to this person back in my home state:

That’s what I call making a statement.

Paper tiger

Well, alrighty then: my long personal nightmare is…

Following an extended project involving the unwilling being led by the blind (or possibly mushrooms being cultivated in a guano-rich environment), my fellow “tiger cub team” (and no, I’m not making that up. Tiger teams were bad enough; calling the breakout groups “cubs” was just a business bullshit bingo square too far. I suppose I should be grateful they didn't call us "tiger moms") leads and I gave our after-action report to the executive sponsors.

And since, as you know, over the months the project in question had descended from the surreal to the celluloid-real, I think it’s appropriate to mark the occasion with a clip.

I really hope this signifies the light at the end of the tunnel. And not of a train.

Legal notice

Periodically the Chief Legal/Financial Officer of my employer runs training on, well, legal and financial stuff. They send emails to all staff, you reply that you’ll go, mark your calendar, and Bob’s your uncle.

Because we have a publishing division, and a lot of people run public-facing social media accounts, there’s a big push to make sure we don’t violate copyright and other intellectual property protections. They also give an overview of what constitutes slander and libel, which I really wish the staffs of political candidates and serving congressmorons would bring to their attention.

And, you know, financial reporting and other governance things; they’re important, too.

But evidently they haven’t had a lot of people respond to the email that went out a couple of weeks ago, because flyers started appearing in the kitchen:

And on the mirror in the ladies’ room:

Also, I’m reliably informed that one’s posted in the men’s room, but I didn’t go in there to get photographic evidence.

I’m not entirely sure about the flyers-in-the-loos as a marketing strategy. But I still don’t have a handle on this crowd, so maybe it works.

Gratitude Monday: Davey's gift

Last month the son of a colleague of mine was killed in an auto accident; he was 24. I didn’t know Davey, and only learned of his death through Facebook. To honor his life, his family asked people to perform an act of kindness as Davey’s Gift.

Well, as I say, I didn’t know the young man, but I have been consciously trying over the past few years to step out of my tight, defensive stance in life, to not take everything personally, and (in the words of a friend) to “come down easy when you could come down hard.” To let the little (and even some of the large) irritations slide off me and consider that the perpetrator might be having a worse day, week or month than I am.

But I’ve learned that I’m often caught off-balance when opportunities to display that kind of grace present themselves. It takes me a while to recognize and process what I’m seeing or hearing. That person who’s weaving through the crowd on the Metro platform trying to get to the place where the last car will stop and paying no attention to anything else? Me. The driver disinclined to reward you for gunning along the exit lane and then trying to cut in front? Me. That anxious, impatient person in the checkout line glaring as you wait until all your items have been rung up to fumble for coupons? Me.

So I’ve armed myself with the wherewithal to step out of that mindset. One of my weapons of personal kindness: a bunch of McDonald’s gift cards.

They’re easy to carry around in your pockets so you can disperse as the spirit takes you. Yeah, I worry about the nutrition, etc., but in the kind of weather we’re having, you can at least get something cold to drink and have a legitimate reason for sitting in the air conditioning for a while if you really need it.

I gave the first one to a guy I see regularly at the Metro Center exit at 12^th and G Streets. You never hear him saying anything, or even see him approaching anyone. He just stands or sits on a ledge (the tables and chairs outside are reserved for Cosi customers). In the winter he’s covered with what looks like an old Army-issue grey wool blanket. These days he’s got a towel draped over his head.

One recent morning I noticed him as I got off the escalator around 0630. It was one of those days that was going to have a heat index of 110. I turned as usual toward work, then stopped, dug into my bag and pulled out one of the gift cards. I didn’t say anything, just stood in front of where he was sitting. He pulled back his towel, saw the card I was holding out, took it and thanked me. I told him the value of the card and wished him well.

And I went on to start my day feeling better.

The next one went to whoever it is who cleans our offices, empties the rubbish bins and attends to the rest rooms. For most white-collar workers, clean environments and empty trash cans are just…there. It’s easy to never think about the people who do the actual work of scrubbing toilets, vacuuming carpets and all the rest of it. But because I like to work early, I’ve often run into the cleaning crews, especially the out-sourced contractors who keep companies like Cisco and Microsoft humming no matter how many layers of vendor management skim off their percentages.

And I well recall how, earlier this year, my employer’s cleaners were on the job during the snow storms that kept the office workers home.

So I wanted to show my appreciation to the person who does that for me every working day. I taped one of the cards to the inside of my recycling bin, along with a note saying thank you. Next morning it was gone.

In addition, these days I’m more likely to be the person holding the door for someone whose arms are loaded, or to make way for families on the Metro or to listen with attention to a story I’ve heard a few times before.  

I didn’t know Davey, and I don’t know the people I’m to whom I'm giving in my small way. But it doesn’t matter. I’m just passing on the kindness, and finding that in doing so, I feel better, even on the very bad days. 

You might consider doing so, too. You can do it for Davey, or for someone else in your life, or just for your own self. See if it doesn't make you feel the same gratitude I do.