A Woman’s Place Is

Anywhere she wants to be.

Today is International Women’s Day. When I entered the workforce in 1970, pregnancy was mandatory, women needed higher grades to get into college, and help wanted was divided into: Help Wanted Female; Help Wanted Male.

Many years, many fights, many lawsuits later, we still have a wage gap, pregnancy is once again mandatory, and we have a generation of women who have no clue how long and how hard we had to fight so they could have more opportunities.

When I was in college majoring in biology, there were two women professors in the biology department. One allowed students to address her as Mrs. Wilson. She had the same doctoral degree the men had. They were Dr. She was Mrs. A chemistry teacher, male, after refusing to answer my question, told me I was incapable of learning. The next chemistry teacher, also male refused to answer questions women asked….until the day I had enough and we had a battle in the middle of class. No one won. In a physics class, I was confused about something or other. One of the male students told the professor: Come on, answer the girl’s question. The professor ignored him, too.

When I entered law school at a notoriously liberal law school in 1990, mine was the first class to be half female. It only took 101 years to achieve that.

When I started practicing in 1994, I was stuck in the Women’s Area Of Law. That would be family court dealing with abuse, neglect, custody, and all the crap that two people can hurl at each other. I knew I had to get out of family law the day I decided the best way to handle custody disputes was to throw each parent off the roof of the courthouse. Whichever one bounced the highest got the kids. The sick part wasn’t my idea. The sick part is the parents would have agreed. The other half of Women’s Area Of Law was sex crimes – especially sex crimes against children. I managed not to get stuck in sex crimes.

It’s been a long fight, and a long fight remains.

No matter your age or experience, pick up the torch and carry it. What lifts one of us lifts us all.