Clinton Speaks on 88th Anniversary of Women's Suffrage
(Right, women protesting, 1912. My own grandmother was 12 years old at the time this photo was taken. By the time she was old enough to vote in 1921, she could vote)
Why women's voting rights and Hillary Clinton's DNC speech on a negotiation blog? Several reasons.
First, of course, is that fact that your blog author is a mid-20th Century woman who participated in the feminist movement in the early 1970's.
I'm proud of the work we did at San Diego's Center for Women's Studies and Services (now the Center for Community Solutions).
We trained women in the skills necessary to pass apprenticeship tests so they could gain entry into the skilled trades. We opened the way for women to work at one of San Diego's largest employers -- National Steel and Shipbuilding. We helped all women, including those who'd spent time in prison and battered women's shelters, find employment to help them break a cycle of poverty or move from the lower to middle classes by their own efforts and to provide better lives for their children.
We were the so-called Second Wave women's movement, seeking and achieving the same education, training, work and respect that were only a white American man's entitlement when I was born in 1952.
If you want to know what it was like for women when I was ten years old (1962) and my own divorced and single mother was working for $1.29 an hour selling bags and hoisery at a Leeds shoe store in San Diego, watch a single episode of Mad Men. Follow "Peggy" who is opening professional doors long before there were any ceilings in men's rooms to crack. Watch how women were treated and how little they thought of themselves. Think of the way in which we were squandering our human resources by relegating my mother, your grandmother, to just a few honorable but limiting professions -- nurse, secretary, teacher.
(yes, this is the same typewriter I used in the typing pool at Arthur, Dry & Kalish in mid-town Manhattan in 1975; we had one woman attorney in the firm when I joined; she was in her 50's and was still an associate in trusts and estates)
The second reason I'm celebrating women's suffrage and Hillary's candidacy today is because you'll be negotiating with women. We haven't shattered that glass ceiling but we've nearly done so. You'll want to understand what motivates us, how we talk with you and how we talk among ourselves. You'll want to know what feels offensive to us and what is respectful. Most negotiation texts tell women how to negotiate like men or with men. So late in the day, it's surprising that I'm unable to find any articles on what men should understand when negotiating with a woman.
To negotiate our way into a better world in the 21st century, we'll need to understand one another better and learn to drop all of our stereotypes about men or women, black or white, Muslim or Christian.
So let's all celebrate universal suffrage today. Self-determination -- which is what mediation is all about -- democracy liberty justice.
Below, for your viewing pleasure, 1960.
