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"Click"-less

"Click," we used to call it, that moment when you realized that something was very wrong and, even more important, that it didn't have to be that way. It was the feminist moment when you understood that genitals have nothing to do, or shouldn't, with being a doctor or a lawyer or an Indian chief — or a professor or president — that these are things that women can do just as well, that the reason there is only one slot for a woman and it's already taken is not because the clients prefer men (even if they do), but because the firm is indulging a preference that it should be ignoring, because the clients themselves are discriminating, because this is the way it was, not the way it needs to be, or will be.

My years in law school, my years in politics, my early years in academia were full of click moments. Sorry, but the Justice doesn't hire women. Click. Sorry, but there aren't any women partners. Click. This club is for men only. Click.

I started keeping lists and keeping track of the lists other people kept — lists of the number of women columnists and commentators and talk show hosts, lists of the number of women partners and presidents, lists of the number of women on boards and panels. I'd write columns screaming bloody murder. I lost friends and influenced people. I thought we could make change happen.

The other day I saw a list of panelists at an important conference. All men. All white men. Did anyone protest? Did anyone even notice?

It happens all the time. Four men here and three men there. Three new board members and they're all men. A new chair and he's a man. A new CEO and he's a man. The members of the panel were x and y and z and q, and no one even points out what they had in common: four white guys. Was there no woman qualified to be on that panel, I think to myself. And then I wonder: Am I the only one still thinking that? Does anyone even notice anymore? What happened to the clicks? Have we gotten so used to living without them that we have come to take for granted the exclusion we once would have protested?

I was asked to give a speech recently for a women's group that I spoke to about eight years ago.

"What would you like?" I asked their leaders, in the conference call we often have before such events. What you did eight years ago would be good, they said to me.

What I did eight years ago was chapter and verse on how underrepresented women were in the ranks of power in every business, profession and institution; on how few women were running Fortune 500 companies; on how we had stalled in our march to take over boardrooms and how we had the power to restart the revolution, break out of the holding pattern, if we used our voices and our money and our power to act. Eight years later I pulled the same numbers, and they were almost exactly the same. Or worse.

According to the latest figures from Catalyst, which does various counts every year in the hopes that exposing the numbers of women in leadership positions will expand them, the number of Fortune 500 corporate officer positions held by women has actually decreased from 2002 to 2007. The percentage of board seats seems to have topped out at 14.8 percent; three years ago it was 14.7 percent. This is not progress. This year, 97.5 percent of the CEOs are men; for my speech eight years ago, as I recall, it was just over 98 percent. Too bad I threw away the old draft. Among top earners, 93.3 percent are men; when I first started following the numbers, it was just over 95 percent. Excuse me while I yawn.

I understand that not every woman aspires to run a company or make partner or run the world. But power matters, too, not only for the women seeking it, but for the rest of us who work for them or are affected, directly and indirectly, by the decisions they make. I understand that there are more important things in life than having a show or a column or a fancy title. But it matters whose voice gets heard and whose doesn't. It matters who has a megaphone and who has the power to hire and fire and make the rules we all live by.

What stuns me is not how little has changed, but how few people even seem to notice anymore. What about those clicks? It's time for a revolution — a noisy one.

To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Comments

3 Comments | Post Comment

Hi Susan:

Read you faithfully at Creators.com. You are absolutely right and among my friends I will bring up the subject. At lunch a dad will be sitting with his kids with a backpack on the chair. I say --That's probably a stay at home dad, thanks to the women's movement. They say yes, but they feel no urge to take it any further.

I told a 21 year old to see "North Country" and see what women have gone through to get you where you are and that you take it all for granted.

I don't have time to form any groups, but I can and do speak up. That's why I wanted Hillary to win. I probably won't see a woman president in my lifetime (I'm 71) and that is so sad to me.

Keep up the good work and give Irving a hug for me!

Comment: #1
Posted by: Nancy Jo Whittington
Wed Jul 16, 2008 1:06 PM

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It is this way for the same reason that so many women, particularly younger women didn't feel any need to support HRC for president simply because she was a woman.
Ironically that "simply because" notion also blinded them to the zillion reasons why they SHOULD HAVE supported her, and just ironically those "reasons" are often the same reason why so few notice this outrageous status quo you see, and others as well who feel that there is a long way to go before we can call the sexes equal.
One of the "key" reasons was the acceptance by the collective consciousness (made up of the autonomous decisions individual women make) to accept the "achievement of an Individual woman" as proof that equality has been achieved.
For example, Once Carla Fiona became the public CEO of HP, it seems women "generally speaking" saw that as proof women were now equal with men at the top of the corporate ladder, and everything was now just a case of individual success and failure.
This feeling false as it may be that women are now equal is so deep and pervasive, it explains the lack of support for HRC in run for the Dem. nomination.
That along with the utter lack of expectation that women who reach high levels of success should speak out and help other women to climb up to their level and beyond are big reasons why nothing changed in the last 8yrs.
There is simply NO real powerful "big sister" network to rival that of men, and women in general seem fine with it.
The other big reason is Republican control.
Democrats have always "pushed" business towards equality. With Commandante Bush in charge the critical role Govt. played in making business move forward in the effort to bring societal sexual equality stalled out.
In accepting the achievements of the solo, individual woman as proof of sexual equality, even in the face of their own personal inequality, women basically have betrayed themselves.
The fact this has happened should not be too shocking considering how our Right Wing media insidiously encourages groups to think that way.
An analogy would be the working and middle class voting Republican and supporting laws that help and preserve the rich, but harm them, because they are convinced the success of the very rich is a success the middle and working classes can be proud of.
Women and any group that demands equality and still lacks it should make it a priority to "ignore and dismiss" the exceptional individual success of one member, and make it absolutely clear that "general equality" is the ONLY acceptable goal and measure of success.
The lone exception to that would have been HRC in the role of President. In that role she would have had the power to bring about the revolutionary change you seek. Now she's off the stage, who knows how long it will be before women are truly equal.

Comment: #2
Posted by: jonathan seer
Wed Jul 16, 2008 7:36 PM

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Where are all those women who should be in power positions by now? After several decades of trying to work within that white-men-only-at-the-top world you describe, many have simply walked away in disgust.

Many female CEO's and board members in the making spent the ‘70's trying to enlighten their male counterparts to the issues of fairness and equality, the ‘80s breaking ground by being the “first” in a myriad of roles, and the ‘90s struggling to make it work for themselves and other women. Yet by the 21st century those of us who broke the glass-ceiling were well aware they were still treated as outsiders.

Ask any women in management, political leadership or other position of authority about the subtle undermining she encounters from male colleagues who “circle the wagons” against her. It's insidious, hard to get your arms around, and very real, rendering the minority female less than fully effective and sometimes even irrelevant by the male majority (ever hear the stories about Cheney and Rumsfeld vs. Condi Rice?). Why would any self-respecting, talented individual want to continue working within that kind of frustrating environment?

I myself left a highly successful, senior management position because I was simply worn out from the decades-long uphill battle of working twice as hard for half as much. Today I am surrounded by intelligent and capable female entrepreneurs who tried to change the system from within only to recognize it was solidly stacked against them.

Today smart women put their talents to work for themselves to create their own successes. They graciously support others of their gender who have decided to do the same, creating true partnerships that lead to significant achievement.

In the end, this may be the only way women can truly attain power after all.

Comment: #3
Posted by: K. Kelly
Thu Jul 17, 2008 10:21 AM

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