Street Level

Many years ago, when the "feminist" movement was in full swing and women were being yanked through the glass ceiling just so companies could prove they didn't discriminate, a female co-worker informed me that I was, if anything, the worst kind of feminist.

In fact, she actually doubted that I belonged in that category. Her reasons? Well, I was married. I had children. I didn't want my name on a door and all the bureaucracy that entailed. I would rather have spent time at my children's co-op preschool helping out than going to a meeting of other women bitching about how the world was treating them badly. It was a game I wasn't willing to play.

Honestly, that's what she told me. It was a surreal experience. Had I had an ounce of respect for this woman to begin with, it would definitely have been gone by the end of the rant. Instead, I just felt sorry for someone so driven to be a "feminist" that she forgot we have to be true to ourselves first.

I thought of this recently when one of the dearest women on the planet, someone I adore to bits, started to doubt herself. And not the little doubts we all go through from time to time, but a VERY BIG DOUBT. About everything that makes her who she is.

In many ways, her situation is much like the one I found myself in those many years ago. She works with women who are desperate to prove they belong in the positions they now hold. They have their own view of their world, their own agenda and their own criteria for admission to their group. And my friend, much like me years ago, doesn't fit the mould.

She too knows what games she will and won't play —- and theirs isn't one of them.

And, instead of seeing those judging her for what they are, she's judging herself.

Makes me wonder: Why do women do this to each other? Why do they claim they want to be themselves, but then, when someone doesn't fit the mould, they go on the attack?

And why, all these years later, is it still happening?

Posted by Dale at 9:50 a.m. Comments