Candidates

I am amused at the way our new vice presidential candidate has highlighted the gender gap that exists so blatantly in this country. The most obvious thing that brought it to light for me was when I sat in a room full of men and they looked at me, with big grins, and asked "Well, what do you think of Sarah Palin, huh?" The tone left no doubt of the uspoken insunuation that I should be ready to run out and vote for this person simply because she was a woman. I was a bit taken aback by it simply because, as much as I admire any woman who has managed to get as far as this one has in what is obviously such a "man's world" like politics, I do not agree with many of her political viewpoints and would no more vote for her simply because she is a woman than I would have voted for Hillary for the same reason. Here we are 80 years after winning the right to vote and yet men still seem to think we are more concerned with gender than substance. Wow.

I wonder if we will ever see true equality in our world. I'm not sure its possible, but I hope so. I look forward to a time when no one would assume you would vote for any candidate based on the color of their skin or the type of their genital organs. I know that's something that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King would have also hoped for - being judged on the content of one's character and all. But we are not there yet and as a middle-aged woman I wonder if I will ever see it.

What an interesting age we live in. We - many of us - are in the doorway. But not quite yet into the room.