Sherry Chandler » We don’t play on half the court no more
We don’t play on half the court no more
Founder and President of Emily’s List, Ellen R. Malcolm says Quitters Never Win:
When I was growing up in the 1960s, I wanted to play basketball. In those days, the rules said girls could dribble only three steps and then had to pass the ball. To make sure we didn’t overexert ourselves, we weren’t allowed to cross the half-court line. It’s a wonder our fans (our mothers) could stay awake when a typical game’s final score was 14-10.
It’s remarkable that my generation of women entered the workforce and began to compete in business, politics and the hurly-burly of life outside the home. How did we ever learn to locate, much less channel, our competitive instincts in a world that made us play half-court and assumed that we would be content staying home to iron the shirts? It’s a tremendous tribute to women of my generation that we sucked it up and learned to compete in the toughest environments.
Which brings us to Hillary Clinton running for president. This brilliant woman believes that she can compete for the most powerful office in the world. She believes that she can do a better job than any of the men running to lead our country through these challenging times. And millions of Americans, women and men, believe that she is correct.
Yet over and over again the media and her opponents have claimed that she is defeated — it’s over, she can’t win, she’s a loser. And over and over again — in New Hampshire, on Super Tuesday, in Texas and Ohio, in Pennsylvania last month, and in Indiana this week — female voters poured out of their homes to cast their ballots for her. They know that women can compete, and they want to make sure that women, especially this woman, can win.
Link from Jeralyn.
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2 Comments
1. Jessica Thompson replies at 12th May 2008, 9:09 pm :
Sherry, I’ve been a “closet reader” of your blog for a long time and this is my first post. I remember playing half-court basketball in highschool. My best move was “tying up the ball.” After taking three steps, most of the girls in my gym class just stood there holding the ball - trying to figure out what to do with it. They were so indecisive. Sad but true, “women of action” are STILL being labeled as too aggressive instead of decisive, competent competitors.
2. sherry replies at 13th May 2008, 2:54 pm :
Jessica, thanks for speaking up and letting me know you’re out there. You’ve made my day!
When I was a girl, my brothers and their buddies would get together at our house to play H.O.R.S.E. basketball. I was a lot younger than the boys but I wanted to be one of them. They’d get hot playing and take their shirts off and I’d take my shirt off too. Then my mother would come and make me put my shirt back on. I didn’t understand why, but I got the message.
Though I would still leave my toy stove and dolls whenever I got the chance to play with the boys’ building blocks.
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