July 29, 2016

When I was a kid growing up in the 1970s, I never thought of myself as a feminist. I would announce with bravado (if not with good grammar), “I’m a feminine, not a feminist.”

I didn’t think I had anything in common with those women I saw on the evening news who burned their bras and marched for equal pay. I was just so excited to finally get a bra—why would I want to burn it?

Also, our family didn’t discuss feminism at all. Perhaps my mom didn’t think she had to fight for her rights because, in our house, she was the one in charge. She’d tell my dad what to do and he did it. So that’s what I thought “feminism” was all about: being a woman in charge.

As a young girl, I always thought I was equal to any of the boys in my school, except maybe the athletes. (I wasn’t even equal to the girls in that department.) I was able to be a leader in my school because of my ability, not because of my gender. I didn’t see the need to fight for my womanhood.

But somehow, seeds of gender inequity were being planted all around me. I devoured the stories of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other women who fought for the right to vote. I knew the dedication and time it took for them to win the right that I will never take for granted. I even won the 7th-grade debate contest using one of Anthony’s famous speeches.

And while Mom didn’t necessarily consider herself a feminist, I realize she did a lot of things that feminists fought for. Her father told her she couldn’t be a dentist—that was reserved for men (her two brothers became a dentist and an engineer). So by default, she became a school teacher. But when the youngest of her four children (me) became self-sufficient, she went back to school to earn her degree and license to practice as a psychoanalyst.

But she was trained in a Freudian institute, which I suppose explains why she wasn’t much of a feminist. I’m sure Freud would have considered feminism to be just a mass version of penis envy.

And while my dad never would have described himself as a feminist, when I think of the number of women he employed—including the manager of his OB/GYN practice and his partner—perhaps he was one. He certainly didn’t have any problems with women being more than his equal in all parts of his life.

In my naiveté, I thought gender equity just came from being as smart as any man. So imagine my surprise to learn that after I started practicing law, there was gender inequity happening all around me—and to me. It showed up when I was told I couldn’t wear pants to court, or when a client made me feel uncomfortable for being the only woman in the room, or when I saw the difference in how working mothers were treated at the firms where I worked. It was only then that I finally understood what all those women were marching about.

And here we are, 30 years later, still arguing about many of the same things: pay equity, dress codes at work, paid family leave.

And that’s just in the United States. Elsewhere in the world, women and girls are fighting for the right to their own safety, to go to school, or even to drive. Friends of mine who grew up with mothers who took them to those marches can’t believe it took me so long to “get it.”

But after some reflection and two recent experiences, I realize that feminism needs to be a large tent that allows women to choose their own battles.

I was recently part of a women’s conference called “Leaning In” that was all about inspiring and empowering women to find their voice and lean into their work and personal life mission. Women were in attendance from all over the world and were hungry to discuss what it means to be a woman in the world today.

Another presenter, Sabrina Kay, came to the United States as a Korean immigrant at the age of 19 with her parents, who told her that her only job was to become educated. She knew no English at the time, but she went on to become a successful entrepreneur who sold her company and went back to school to earn her MBA and Ph.D. Today she is CEO of Freemont College, a private for-profit college in California that uses work-based learning to serve students who wouldn’t otherwise be able to get a degree.

If that wasn’t inspiring enough, I got to lead a panel of three of my writing heroes: Gail Sheehy, author of Passages; Nell Scovell, co-author with Sheryl Sandberg of Lean In; and Pulitzer finalist Elsa Walsh about being women writers in the world today. We discussed how, three years after Lean In published, Sandberg started a new conversation about what it means to be a woman in the working world. The same issues exist, but they were now at the forefront of the conversation about working women all over the world.

A few weeks after the conference, I returned home to learn I was to be honored among five women in Rochester who make a difference for other women through the work they do in our community. My fellow honorees at the Rochester Women’s Network “W” Awards have had an amazing impact on women and girls in our community. They were Sister Barbara Moore of Colgate Divinity School, who has fought for gender equity in the church; Gidget Hopf of ABVI Goodwill, a woman who employs and empowers the blind; Naomi Jochnowitz, a professor of math at the University of Rochester, who works to help women thrive in a traditionally male discipline; and the ultimate winner, Joy Bergfalk of the Coffee Connection, who employs and empowers women recovering from addiction. And, oh yeah, a completely honored and humbled and moved-to-tears Outlaw who loves to help other women doing good in whatever way I can.

Listening to the women share their stories that night, I was struck by their hard-fought journeys. Professor Jochnowitz talked about being one of the first women to graduate with a Ph.D. in math from Harvard University. Something she said really struck me. The scale of a person’s work for change didn’t matter: You fight the injustice in front of you.

As I got up to accept my honor and share my story, I couldn’t help but wonder how I came to be among such heroic people. That’s when I thought about the women I had met recently who taught me what feminism really is all about: being a champion for other women.

There’s a famous quote by former Secretary of State Madeline Albright: “There’s a special place in hell for women who do not help other women.” I like to think that perhaps this means there’s also a special place in heaven for those who do help other women.

And I like to think that sharing their stories is a way to “lean in” and join in the ongoing march to make the world fairer, smarter, better.

First Published in the Democrat and Chronicle and USA Today Network.