Day 5 - Quotes, I collect them

Here's a random fact about me that I'd forgotten til now. In the golden old days of MSN Messenger, I used to collect quotes, save then in notepad, then use them as display names. They ranged from the slightly crude: Why buy the pig just for a little sausage? (After the cow quotes, I liked the idea of an anti-marriage quip that serves women); to the inspiring and the true.

My favourite:

Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.

Now here come the cries of "feminist!" Here's also where I get annoyed. Now this may be a generalisation, but if this doesn't apply to you then speak up and remove this impression from the world. Modern feminists seem to fall into 2 categories. 1) the men haters who wish to dominate anything without ovaries, who've let the years of suppression and anger drive them to forget that, like men, they have no right to claim superiority or greater basic rights than men. 2) the ones who seek the movement as an excuse to act as disgustingly chauvinistic as some men, engage in sexual acts without pause, objectifying themselves, and who use the reasoning that if men are able to do it women should be too.

This quote, said by a man named Timothy O'Leary, falls into neither category. In fact to me, it has very little to do with gender. It says to me, "Sure we want an equal footing, as a starting point, but as a woman, you are capable of so many things. Be the best, why don't you? Fight for equality sure, but if you as an individual woman are content to be always on a par with your male peers, then there is no hope for you, no fire in you, no strength in you." It tells me to always do my best. (Though the quoted man might disagree, I shrug).

Though the quote is aimed at women, I don't believe as a feminist statement, but because we have to strive so hard even for equality that is hard to remember that we could be striving for more. So you, in that male-dominated field or office, don't be content with earning a comparable wage for your work, earn a higher wage by being even better. Show them.

Maybe for women in general this is difficult, it's known that men are more likely to ask for a raise than women. However there are other dimensions to add for me. I am black. Yup, I brought out the race card. Nevertheless, it's been made clear to me that, because of my colour, I will almost always be at a disadvantage; some people will look at me and believe I am less capable, less intelligent, than my white contemporary.

Mum always told me that it wasn't always enough to be good, but to get it through their ignorant skulls, you had to be the best. This works for gender too. How to bring down the cocky chauvinist pig of a boy that picks on little girls? Beat him at arm-wrestling. How to shut up the boys that won't let you play rugby with them on the playground at Primary? Tackle the one with the ball and run so fast they'll never catch you unless you stop. How to get the politely racist teachers at your private school to respect you? Score so highly on your entrance exams that you place first and embarrass them for not offering you that Scholarship straight away. Let them be surprised, then question themselves as to why it should be surprising for a black girl to be smart, ambitious and driven. Beat them, and say: How can you look down on me when I have beaten you? You are not better than me because of your sex, your race, your social class, your education. Here is my proof. If you don't want to be the one to say this, then yes, you do lack ambition. Unfortunately, in this world, equality is not yet a right, but a political ploy. The strugle for equality is a hard fought for battle that won't be won until it doesn't need to be fought for. Can anyone really see that happening anytime soon?

So 'til then, I'll aim just that little higher than you, and hope I reach it.

student_gourmand

xxx

PS Another favourite quote of a poem my granddad told me, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

Heights of great men,

Reached and kept,

Were not attained by sudden flight.

But they, while their companions slept,

Were toiling upwards in the night.