I don't have a problem with women taking their rightful places in whatever field of endeavor they choose. However, I do think that women, in general, and the National Organization of Women (NOW) in particular have already had at least one major, and not necessarily salutary, nor widely recognized impact on our daily lives. I refer, of course, to the bastardization of the English language as discussed in a previous blog entry. To wit: in order to insure that women/girls are not "discriminated against" by the language, our society has adopted patterns of speech and writing such as the awkward "Every one must open his or her locker." or the grammatically incorrect "Everyone (singular) must open their (plural) locker." For more on this topic, see my blog of 03/07/2013 titled "Assaults on the Language". But, I digress---back to Martha and the girls.
What bothered me most about the discussion were the comments by Ms. Saujani in response to a question about how we now proceed to consolidate the gains made by women and to foster even increased participation in the societal power structure. Ms. Saujani, with what, in my view was, clearly, a "we" versus "they" approach, ACTUALLY SAID that "we" (meaning women) have to "uplift" each other, "hire" each other and "vote for" each other. That is, vote for or hire someone BECAUSE she's a woman! I couldn't believe my ears! If either a white or a black politician had made that statement in reference to his own ethnic group, he would have been vilified from every rostrum and in front of every TV camera in the country, and rightfully so. So how come a woman can make such a reprehensible suggestion on national TV with not so much as a raised eyebrow? There's equality for you.
And another point raised by this broadcast that kind of ticked me off. During her introduction of Colonel Leavitt, Martha Raddatz mentioned that she had recently ridden cross country as the "Backseater" in the good Colonel's F-15 fighter. I'd like to know how DoD and the Air Force made that happen. I say this because when I was working on the 2010 Dallas Military Ball and the only government support I wanted was four trumpet players from the 77th Army Band from Fort Sill, Oklahoma to play the songs of each of the armed services at a charity event attended by active and retired military members and the purpose of which is raising money for wounded warriors. Based on the reaction I recieved, you'd have thought I asked to borrow Air force One. The DA and DoD lawyers went bonkers and my request was flatly refused. Maybe women don't have it as bad as they would have us believe after all.