Women....

Geez, I don't know what's up with me lately, I am just full of all kinds of deep thoughts. Lordy. Please excuse me. I hope my sense of humor returns post haste.

Stephanie touched on it here. And Jenn touched on it here. And I can't forget Mom 101, who needs more comments like a hole in the head, but she summed it up well here too. What is up with our fellow women, I ask you? I recently was awarded a $300 scholarship from a local business women's organization, which was awesome, and I was invited to attend their monthly meeting to receive my award. There were two of us women who rec'd the scholarship. My fellow awardee has just rec'd her BA and her degree was in women's studies or something to that effect. The local business women were all atwitter by this news obviously, since it's what their organization is all about, I think a few were wondering why they gave ME an award as well, but that's a whole other post. After my fellow awardee's announcement about her degree, a big discussion ensued about women supporting other women and how it's still generally a man's world, blah, blah, blah.

One of the members sitting to my right spoke up, quite bravely I may add, "You know, I have to say, that at my job, she works at the local university, the people who I have the most problems with and who try to keep in my "place" the most often are not the men, but rather my fellow WOMEN". The room grew silent. You could hear a pin drop. Some of the members starting nervously shifting in their seats while doing the classic-woman-thingy, picking imaginary lint of the banquet table cloth or their classicly stylish skirt and sensible shoes. Finally, another member quickly changed the subject. Since I am a rebel rouser I turned to the brave woman and told her that I totally understood what she was talking about. In my former life, i.e before my kids, I was in banking. And the most ruthless people I encountered, in the business context and out, were women. I told this woman, I have forgotten her name, about the recent brouhaha in the blogging world between working women vs. The stay-at-home-mom's. She laughed. "Oh, honey, that's old news!" She said that this war between the work- at- homes and the work- outside- of -the- homes mummy's has been going on for decades now, ever since women were allowed into the work place.

I sat there thinking, how sad. Why can't women just support one another? Why can't it be okay for one Mom to feel totally fulfilled with being at home doing the hardest job in the whole world, and for another Mom to go into the working world either out of necessity or out of desire without one or the other of the women being attacked for their choices? Why can't we just support one another and give each other props for making it through yet another day without losing our ever loving minds? Is it guilt? Is it our competitive nature? Are women, at the core, just trying to claw their way to the top of the heap? Is this only a problem we have in the United States? Do other nation's women have inner fighting as well? I just don't know. Do you? I just know that it saddens me. And when I refer to THOSE women, I'm of course NOT talking about you. You're one of the most supportive women I know, obviously.

And the whole subject makes me ascared to once again be entering the lion's den with a bunch of catty women! Although, it may provide good blogging fodder, and, well, that's always a good thing, right?