As some of you know, I used to work in a field that was dominated by men. Maybe 1% of the people I worked for/with were women. Maybe….

The things I endured…the grief I received…the names I was called…

So when I watched Kamala Harris take the oath of office- become Madame Vice President…

I thought about all the women I’ve known, including myself, who have been told what they can and can’t, should and shouldn’t, wouldn’t be able to do…

I am grateful for the woman who blazed the trail, who took the reigns and began to prove that women belonged anywhere they want to be…who showed the world that women can do anything…

I am grateful to the women who just kept fighting…

I am grateful to the women, like my daughter, who are keeping up the fight…

I am grateful to be strong

I am grateful to be resilliant

I am grateful to not care what others said or thought

I am grateful to be a woman

56 thoughts on “Gratitude Saturday January 23”

  1. I had a younger lady in my prior (men dominated) profession that said to me one day “I bet you have a ton of stories from your years.” I just smiled and said “I sure do.” Then she just said “Thank you.” A simple but heartwarming experience from a fellow woman who could relate to how hard it must have been to trail-blaze in a world of male workers.

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  2. I’m grateful that my father always led me to believe I could be and do anything. So many other countries have had women leaders and do today. It’s a sad commentary on our country that we still haven’t had a female president, but I’m glad we’re a step closer.

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  15. I love to celebrate “womanhood” and high achievements by women..which is why this whole push towards gender neutrality gives me pause..I don’t want to be classified as an “it” or a “their.” Timing seems weird, we have the first woman VP and Ms. Pelosi just instituted all these neutrality language rules..strange dissonance.

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  16. History is full of strong, capable women who triumphed over insurmountable challenges. I read a book titled Founding Mothers and was awestruck at the tenacity and perseverance of these women during a time when women were not seen as significant. Their influence during the time our country was being birthed was remarkable. I think the highest honors go to the women who get to the top by their own achievements and are of especially high character and integrity (i.e. Justices Ginsburg and Barrett). Unfortunately, not all women a the top hold those qualities.

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  17. I’ve had 2 women work for me full time in my construction business..one was my youngest daughter. When it came time to hire, the number one quality I was looking for was attitude. Sure there are occasional jobs that require something physical neither one of them could do (ie. carry an 80 pound bundle of shingles up a ladder) but that is not very often, and there are usually ways to work around it.

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  19. You’ll see Kamala on the Television over here in the UK, not only the News, programs about the woman and upbringing. I’m must admit I’ve been impressed and can’t help thinking she’ll be President BEFORE the end of Biden’s Presidency………… a great guy but aged 77! Gonna be an interesting ride either way 🙂 .

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  20. Always grateful for those who went before and paved the way for me and others. The men and women who went before us and broke barriers of all kinds and made great achievements for the common good. Makes me think what I could do to help future generations of women.

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  21. Kamala is the main reason I voted for Joe, although I honestly would’ve preferred the switch. She made history in a mainly white male dominant government. I look forward to the day when Madame President happens.

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  22. I found her election and swearing in very moving and thank my lucky stars every day for the strong, determined and ‘difficult’ women who have paved the way for me, and my daughters, and all of the women who came after them.

    I admire Kamala and agree with many of her policies. But she and Biden, no doubt with good intentions, have on day one effectively erased women by their acceptance of gender ID without as I understand it defining that as anything other than a person’s say so. Thus eg places on women’s sports teams (and scholarships) are now open to any man willing to claim to be a woman or ‘non binary’. This may sound far fetched but sadly it is not. Women have been losing places on teams (and medals) in sports, trans identified men are even being elected as ‘women’s reps’ on boards and in politics and universities. And teenagers are being rendered infertile and mutilated in the name of gender ID. There has to be a better way – acknowledging biological sex but fighting gender stereotypes which are only reinforced by gender ideology. It is fighting gender stereotypes rather than biology that has brought the advances for women that we are so grateful for.

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  23. A beautiful post! So important to be said and to never be forgotten!

    I realized in 2016 that there were so many young women out there who were unaware of, or did not care about, the women who came before them. The women who paved the way for them in a male dominated society, so they could have the freedom p(s) they possess today.
    Four years ago so many young women were complacent about the role of women in our society, and they took their rights for granted. Those women did not have a parent like you to remind them, or a grandmother like me to tell them the story of the suffragettes.

    I feel the devastating loss in 2016 opened the eyes of a new generation of women who suddenly understood how in an instant, their rights could be taken away as the male dominated Trump administration took power.

    Your beautiful post reminds us of how far we have come, how far we need to go, and what a monumental feat It is that Kamala Harris is now the Vice President of this country.
    I thank you for writing this post. Bravo!

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  24. I’m not. I think there’s still a double standard. That said, I kind of like to think of myself as a role model, though certainly a lower profile than some of the heroines on whose shoulders Kamala stands, of the battles I fought for the benefit of my daughters. I want them to know and appreciate how difficult it was for many of their predecessors to gain acceptance in some of the roles they now fill e.g. my daughter in medical school. I want them to also know and appreciate how easy it might be for society to regress re women’s roles. In my case, as for many others, those roles were both professional and personal. I don’t think, even now, that most men consider it necessary to balance the two with the goal of achieving nearly equal success in both.

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      1. IDK maybe you and I are exceptions at least re our mothers. Mine only comes out of the old-fashioned box if and when forced to.

        She was a working woman but talked like she would rather not have been. At the time she was following in the footsteps of her own mother who had basically been compelled by circumstances to be a working woman, or at least that’s the way I heard it and also kind of observed it. I don’t recall that Mom always deferred to Dad when it came to major decisions but in the 15+ years since he’s been gone and she’s had a boyfriend she certainly has, treating the BF, at least until recently, as the source of all knowledge and goodness. She’s accused me of not liking him.

        My response is that yes, he’s not my favorite person, but it’s really more that I don’t like the way she acts when she’s around him. I guess the jury is still out on my girls. I tried to set a good, independent woman. example for them though, in the long run, I’ve admitted to them and myself that I stayed too long with their father and put up with what they at least partially agree were his poor parenting skills. In this instance, it might be a case of do as I say, not as I do/did.

        I don’t really like that approach but re how I was raised and how my kids sometimes saw how I tried/begged/deferred to their father to recruit his involvement in their lives, it’s applicable. I know they both cringed when he told them he wanted them to make him a grandparent and I cringed when he contradicted my advice to them to not be in any hurry to marry. In those areas in my own life I certainly did not follow my mother’s example or expressed wishes and preferences. I mean I was a failure since I was single at the age of 35 at the time I got knocked up.

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      2. I see my Father in laws views toward women, and it’s sort of obnoxious. My husband is afraid to contradict him, because it’s not “respectful”. It’s hard to break some of the habit

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