International Day of the Girl/Woman?

United Technologies placed this ad in the Wall Street Journal, 1979

United Technologies placed this ad in the Wall Street Journal, 1979

Playing “catch up” in Ireland.

Imagine the surprise at 53 years old discovering I was, yet again, a girl.

Imagine the surprise in finding my accomplished, professional peers were also girls.

Imagine my sadness on realising they didn’t have a problem with it.

Please let us consider the underlying misogyny and join in rejecting the appellation.

When I moved here in 2008, the feminist in me never expected to be back at square one.

This tattered copy has hung in one office or another since 1980. The Christmas gift tag added in 1985 was a reminder that my bemused staff didn’t think it was important either. They got it eventually.

One hopes the New Yorker cartoon illustrates the absurdity of accepting something we can change…

…or else we conspire in our own oppression.