The Alliance For Women

SC women must help other SC women

The late American humorist Erma Bombeck once said of women: "We've got a generation now who were born with semi-equality. They don't know how it was before, so they think, this isn't too bad. We're working. We have our attaché cases and our three-piece suits. I get very disgusted with the younger generation of women. We had a torch to pass, and they are just sitting there. They don't realize it can be taken away. Things are going to have to get worse before they join in fighting the battle."

Bombeck died in 1996 at the age of 69. I wonder what she would have thought about this year's presidential race and the women in it. I wonder what she might have written about women in business today -- in both the corporate world and as small business owners and entrepreneurs. I wonder what she would think about South Carolina's Senate being without a woman for the first time in more than three decades.

I wonder.

I also wonder what pithy comments she might have written about women's progress in this nation and in this state. Would she have been proud? Or not?

Those of us in South Carolina should heed her challenge and her warning.

Women earn less, are less likely to own a business and are more likely to live in poverty than men. They experience tremendous obstacles to good health and well-being. We should each ask ourselves, "What am I doing about it?"

If I am a successful business owner who happens to be a woman, am I helping another with advice and counsel? If I have accumulated some wealth during that process and have money to invest in young, start-up businesses, am I doing just that?

If I am a person interested in living a long, healthy life, am I doing everything I possibly can to prevent those diseases over which I have some control with diet and exercise?

If I am --or have been -- an elected or appointed official, am I part of the process to help educate another generation of women political leaders in this state? Am I educating myself on the issues to vote for qualified women or men who support what I believe?

If I happen to be fortunate enough to have personal or corporate philanthropic dollars to invest, do I consider doing so in organizations that support women?

We have before us the power to make a difference for every woman and girl in this state if we just work together.

If we use what we have to do what we can, we can improve the status of women in this state for generations to come.

Change is all around us at an unprecedented level -- on the national political stage, as well as in these turbulent economic times. But tough times are not an excuse for turning a blind eye or deaf ear to the problems facing women in this state.

Economic recovery will come. And we must be ready for our next opportunity.

In my lifetime, Title IX was passed, women have moved into CEO roles in major corporations and women have entered the national political scene in unprecedented ways.

In my grandmother's lifetime, not everybody had the right to vote.

What will be our legacy?

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anna Quindlen wrote once: "Recently a young mother asked for advice. What, she wanted to know, was she to do with a 7-year-old who was obstreperous, outspoken and inconveniently willful? 'Keep her,' I replied. ... The suffragettes refused to be polite in demanding what they wanted or grateful for getting what they deserved. Works for me."

Works for me, too.


Originally published by:
The Beaufort Gazette
Myrtle Beach Sun News
Charleston Post and Courier