The headlines are - and have been - all over the place:

Women Bask in New Speaker's Shining Moment
Pelosi Becomes Most Powerful Elected Woman in D.C.
Pelosi leads wave of women making political history
Pelosi, Champion of Women's Issues, To Lead Dems
Making history: Pelosi poised to shatter Capitol's 'marble ceiling,' draw more women into politics

If I follow the MSM, I am supposed to be reveling in the fact that a woman is now Speaker of the House - regardless of my political views, regardless of her qualifications. I am supposed to be thrilled at my vicarious ascension to power.

Baloney. All this orgy of attention does, in my opinion, is point out how very far we still have to go in the area of gender equality.

I've mentioned before that my father and I couldn't be farther apart in our philosophical or political views. Well, one of the most heated arguments I ever had with him occurred when I was 17 or 18, after I had taken my SAT's. A friend of his had asked me what I scored. I replied that I had gotten a 1310. His response? "Wow, that's a pretty good score for a girl."

"That's a pretty good score for anyone," I replied.

And then the argument began. I was taken to task for daring to say what I did. My ultra-liberal father didn't expect me to stand up for myself, apparently. I was expected to appreciate the 'compliment' of someone impressed that a girl could be smart.

And he completely failed to see the blatant insult in that.

Granted, as the first woman to achieve the position of Speaker of the House, Ms. Pelosi is unique. However, to turn that simple distinguishing characteristic into days of headlines based on her gender only reveals that we're still very far from equality.

The same camp that constantly squawks about how far we have to go in the area of women's' rights also crows at every achievement, as if it's some big surprise that a woman could get there. So who is it that perpetuates inequality? And where was all of this reveling when Condoleeza Rice became Secretary of State? After all, she's a woman - and she's African-American! Doubly remarkable that she could actually get a good job, right?

This is where the Liberal mindset is truly insidious. Look at things like Ebonics and Affirmative Action. While lauded as grand steps to equality, all programs like this do is perpetuate the thinking that those groups need help to achieve. Ebonics, for example, basically says that since African-American students are incapable of speaking proper English, we'll have to dumb down our speaking for them. That's reprehensible. And Affirmative Action says that since there's no other way a minority will get a good job, we have to make sure we get them one - whether or not they're actually qualified. Also reprehensible. It fosters the dependence so necessary to maintain power for the Libs. Their success, their power, relies on people needing them. After all, how are these groups to achieve without the Libs? Certainly, they can't do it on their own. Disgusting.

Martin Luther King, Jr., once spoke of his vision of true equality - that someday his children would be judged by who they were, not by the color of their skin. The true wisdom of his statement has been consistently overlooked. He was not speaking of things like Affirmative Action, Ebonics, and hand-outs. What he was saying was that someday, it wouldn't matter at all - in effect, that no one would notice what color someone's skin was. He was saying that someday, people would just be people. I highly doubt that the current Lib mindset would cut it.

Reveling in every single achievement - "Wow, she can walk in a straight line - and she's a woman!" - is not equality. It's just as wrong as negative action. Making the simplest action remarkable because of a person's gender, race, religion, etc. is not equality. It is the same thing as barring them from something because of that characteristic; they are two sides of the same coin.

Recently, I was watching the shuttle landing, and was stung by the big deal made of the first female to land a shuttle - and the mention that this showed how far women have come. If we'd really achieved equality, she would just have been the person landing the shuttle, and no mention of her gender would need to have been made.

Those who supposedly champion equality are doing more than anyone else is to prevent it. The "feminists" malign any woman who chooses to raise a family instead of work. They constantly gripe about supposed inequity in the workplace, without bothering to find out how many women are actually interested in pursuing certain fields, or seeing if something OTHER than malice is preventing women from achieving. In advertising, making jokes about men is OK; making jokes about women draws fire. Racist terminology is OK if it's used by one group, but not by another.

Billions of dollars were poured into women's health programs after a study determined that women were more likely to die of a heart attack than men were. The result? Deaths of women by heart attack dropped dramatically, and now men are far more likely to die of one. Where's the money pouring into men's health programs? Completely absent.

When it was found that girls were not achieving in certain educational areas, billions of dollars were poured into programs to help them. The result? Girls gained ground, and boys lost it.

This is not equality.

Two areas where women are achieving significant equality are crime and infidelity. Violent crime perpetrated by women has increased dramatically. Bravo. Thank goodness the Libs are there for us, eh? Oh, and now the percentage of married women who report infidelity is almost equal to that of men. I am woman - hear me roar.

I am an executive in a company. I answer directly to the company president, who does not happen to be White. It is one of the most diverse companies I have ever seen - and we hire based on qualifications. In my work life, I have only seen one instance of what I would consider to be discrimination against me - at an interview, I was once asked if I planned to have kids (because if I was, that would negatively impact on my ability to work). The person who asked that question was a woman. Oh, and there was another woman who wanted to make sure that I advertised only in certain sources when I was hiring - to make sure we got the "right" kind of applicants. I told her exactly what I thought of that idea, and what the law required. When I was younger, unemployed, engaged, and facing possible cancer, I called social services to find out about assistance that might be available to me. I was told - and I kid you not - that if I wasn't "Black or pregnant," I had no hope of getting assistance. If I knew then what I know now, I'd have sued.

Nondiscrimination means NONdiscrimination. Treat people fairly. And in my opinion, acting as if people of a certain ethnicity, gender, race, religion, etc. can't achieve without you boosting them is just as disgusting as actively trying to prevent them from achieving - maybe even more so.

Look at the cases of pretty female teachers sleeping with teenage boys. Don't think for a moment that if this were a male teacher, he'd have avoided jail time. People would be ready to string him up - even if the teenage girl had been the one to initiate things. Yet jail time is avoided, and excuses are made when the teacher is female. Either it's excusable, or it's not.

The laws are in place to address those who discriminate. Refuse to hire, house, or serve someone solely based on a protected class, and you're breaking the law. All of this other stuff only perpetuates the myth that certain groups can't achieve on their own merit.

True equality will be achieved when we no longer need to point out the gender, race, etc. of a successful person - when these things are not remarkable.

I have a dream...

We are a long way from true equality. And I ain't basking.

Labels: My Two Cents, opinion, politics