Presidential Campaign Review

According to the experts, it was the economy and the environment that led to Obama's victory. At least to the 5 panelists from both Republican and Democratic camps who were talking at the Smithsonian event this evening. It was a pretty exciting sold-out event.

I was probably the only person under 30; maybe one of 10 under 50.

It was funny sitting there and hearing about how my parent's generation described mine. According to them, I am multicultural, tired of political fighting, and more focused on issues that can be accomplished than arguing about the same old things time and again. Not a bad depiction, I'd say.

One thing I was surprised about was the vehemence about women's representation. I have to admit that I'm not much of a feminist when I look around me. Howard Dean felt more passion and exuberance for representing women than I felt. I am all for the issues: equal pay, birth control, owning my own property (did you know that women in the South couldn't open their own bank accounts even into the 1960s?).

But as far as being represented in intelligent spaces in government and business, I'm just less worried. Having been a graduate student and hearing PhD candidates planning out how to space having babies between dissertation and initial placement so that it doesn't impact achieving tenure was pretty harsh. I guess working in the more nonprofit side of things, though, I don't feel underrepresented. And I'm not all that torn up about fewer women ravagers on wall street and in board rooms. Perhaps I have my own built-in sexism, but I think there are brilliant women in some of the much more important jobs than what men consider: secretary of state, director of the Red Cross, hell even Carly Fiorina got into a tech company (a strongly male-dominated area, and maybe it didn't work out so well, but it was a significant move).

I think rather than asking why there aren't more women in high positions, we should look more to women excelling in math and technical fields, provide more support for working mothers, and teach college graduates to negotiate their starting salary (which is the number one reason for women making less than men in the long term of their career).

No matter how you look at it, I just don't see a woman in the White House as a particularly significant accomplishment. We have accepted women presidents across the world, women are often favored in gubernatorial races than men, and women executives are no longer characterized as man-eating bitches like they once were. Yes it's important to break the barriers and commit to promoting smart people who happen to be women, but then let's look at the causes for why the divergence exists instead of just asking why the results don't change.