Did you ever read something and as you are reading it think “Wait,
am I really reading this?” That was me
this morning as I read this article from the Austin American Statesman entitled
“As women take majority on City Council, staff warned to expect more questions,
longer talks”. Read full article here. I’m sorry, warned? Is this like a storm warning or a tornado
warning? Run! Take cover!
Women on City Council! AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
Apparently, Austin City Council is now comprised of 7 women
and 4 men. The City Manager’s office
felt this was such a change from business as normal that they called in some
experts to speak on “how to talk to a female-dominated City Council”. Experts on how to speak to women. Again, I’m sorry, but are we running a city
or trying to date each other? It’s
business people. Just business. Man, woman, black, white, mixed. It. Is. Business.
Feeling my anger?
Wait, because it only gets better.
They fly in a guy from Florida to talk about working with women and his
first bullet point is that “Women ask a lot of questions”. How did he glean this factual
information? He got this first hand from
listening to his 11 year old daughter and then applying it to women he worked
with. He says that his daughter asked
him a lot of questions on the way to a game and he had to patiently reply to
them. Dad of the year material right
here!! He goes on to say women are less
likely to read agenda information and ask questions instead and how he applies
the patience he learned from being a Dad to the women he works with as
well. Wait! Forget Dad of the year, this man is a TRUE
humanitarian.
Mad yet? Hold on,
you'll love this. His next point is that
women don’t like to deal with numbers. I
myself hate math but to say women don’t like to deal with numbers? I am now boiling over and I hope you are as
well. A man today, in the year 2015, is
saying something akin to “don’t worry your pretty little head with this man
stuff” and we are PAYING him to say this!! Don’t anyone tell AISD. Their CFO is a woman!! A woman! And she is in charge of numbers and
money and stuff.
Finally, this Mensa member concludes with if Hillary Clinton
is elected that women will take over everywhere. There will women be in charge from the bottom
to the top he claims, so boys, better behave.
Watch what you say, use your nice words and however much you might want
to Don Draper your secretary, you better not.
Once Hillary is in, she will make women in charge of everything and your
days as top dog are over. Actually, I am
sure once she is in all men will be fitted with a tracking device, pumped full
of Soma and exist only to fulfill our every desire. That is what her campaign is being built
around, right? Forget a chicken in every
pot; we are going to have a woman in every leadership role throughout the
country!
The author of this article interviews a woman who studies
gender issues and is a professor at McCombs Business School at UT. Two women talking? Can you imagine all the questions that they
asked each other? I hope that no numbers
were involved without a man being there to help them out. This professor very kindly refutes the
nonsense our so-called woman expert prattled on about. I really was too angry to read anymore and
just skimmed the rest of it. I couldn’t
let it go and printed it out at work and have shocked, appalled and angered the
other women I work with too. The fact
that the City of Austin flew this yahoo here to talk about working with women and
then labeled it as training and made city staff attend absolutely boggles my
mind. I cannot imagine being a city
employee and having to listen to that drivel. I really don’t think I would have
made it past his opening remark. I would
have yelled “sic semper tyrannis” and rushed the stage.
I recently worked with a small group of students reviewing
US History. All of those kids can tell
you what the 19th Amendment changed because I was pretty passionate
about explaining it and basically told them they had to remember it. (Those of you who don’t know, first of all
shame on you, second it was votes for women)
March on sisters! |
Every week I would ask them my favorite amendment and every week they
would laugh and say “19th.” When
I read articles like the one that has me all fired up today, I realize we need
to be teaching them more than the 19th amendment. We need to be teaching our kids, and especially
our girls, how we are still fighting; we may have gotten our vote, but that
almost a hundred years later, we are still struggling to be heard. I wish that everyone would join me in the 21st
century and realize that we are all equal. We are all just people who have our strengths
and our weaknesses, but that those strength and weaknesses come from our
personality, not our gender.
Works Cited
Rockwell, Lilly. "As Women Take Majority on Austin City
Council, Staff Warned to Expect More Questions, Longer Talks."
Cityhall.blog.statesman.com. Austin American Statesman, 12 May 2015. Web. 13
May 2015.
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