[quote=“fred smith”]. How many women are willing to do this? Not to be sexist but I think as Cosmo and House and Garden have so adequately pointed out, women do value these things more than men in general and are not willing to sacrifice them completely. Now you may be a different case (and thank all that is holy for that!! 
) but many other women may not. So there.
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See here now, Fred Smith:
You are making a similar argument as old dead dude who one hundred years ago (in the Atlantic article I posted) said women should not need to vote because it’s not in their nature to do so. What lovely Ms. Swift points out is that girls need to start as early as men do on the political trail. She says in the forum I linked above that when she walked into congress at the tender age of 25 it was chock full of older white men, and she found that a bit daunting, but it didn’t deter her. Hell, I’ll let her speak, she’s good at it:
[quote]I was working in the investment banking industry, okay, so that’s totally white male run. It’s no different. People ask me how different it is to work in the Congress, its not that much different. You know I walked into the Congress the first day-- now remember, I’m from California , I’m from a pretty diverse kind of a state. And I go walking into the Capitol on my first day and I walk in there and-- I remember just my mouth dropped open. Because, you know, its older Anglo males. I mean thats the majority of what sits there. So how do we stimulate young women to be in that chamber also? We have to begin at a young age with them.
At the same time that I got elected there was this guy, he took his dads seat, who was a Democrat. He had run for the Congress, he was not yet 25. You have to be 25 in order to be put into the House of Representatives. He was 24, he would be 25 by the time it was time to swear him in. But when he won his election he was 24. I mean heres a guy that started running from the very get-go. So that when he gets into the House hes 25, so that when hes got 20 years seniority he owns the place.
You know, women dont do that. I mean heres Nancy Pelosi, shes six-- Well, I dont want to tell her age [Laughter]. But I mean, shes you know, shes over 60, lets put it that way. Almost all the women in the House are over 60. Some 70. We just lost Patsy Mink last year in her 80s. I mean, when I got to the House the women were so giddy because-- And I didnt realize why, and they said, you dont understand, youre coming to the House at 36. And youre going to have enough time to get seniority, were going to be able to place you well on committee, youre going to be able to make it to the White House. [Applause]
You know, whereas most of them had other things. Had their kids, worked at the local level, got into politics at 50 or so, you know when they got into the House it was too late to get seniority. They just didnt see it there. And I was kind of laughing because I’m thinking if theyve got to be 25 when we get them in-- Like this guy who came in, this guy who came in at 24 but, you know, really was 25. And it was just so interesting because these guys just have a different frame of mind. He came in and I said, you know we were being asked what committees do you want to sit on, he goes, Oh I’m going to be on Ways & Means. Well thats the taxing committee. This guy had gone to college, he was in law school, he ran for Congress, he’d never had a job, and yet he thought he could tax people [Laughter].
I said to him, I don’t think so. [Laughter] [Applause] To this day he’s not on taxing committee and there’s a good reason why. But they just think they can. So we have got to raise our young ladies to think they can. I look at my sister she’s-- You know people say Youre so young?when they meet me. My sister, shes in the Congress, shes ten years younger. [Applause] Ten years younger. She has a degree from Berkeley , she speaks four languages, shes a UCLA Law graduate, shes a civil rights attorney, she was head of the labor movement in my county, and now shes in the Congress. That’s prepared. That’s what we need to do.
We need to start them young, we need to tell them they can, we need to push them to have the pedigree that theyre going to need to get to these positions, we need to put them on campaigns, and weve got to make them understand that even though theyre learning to raise money or theyre learning to walk precinct, theyre not going to do that all their lives for this guy whos going to be the candidate. Theyve got to learn it so they can decide that they like it, so that we can run them. I really feel that thats the way we break those barriers. [Applause]
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If one has gravitas and experience, their background is secondary. Many women have the experience to be board members, so I think that the CEO you mentioned should go back to Orange County or Silicon Valley or wherever and stick his head where the sun don’t shine.
