I’ve never said that aloud.  I still have never said that aloud unless I one day read this post to someone.  But the thought occurred to me as I was washing dishes, much in the same way that there are relationships where we say to ourselves, “I wish I hadn’t fallen in love with him/her.”  And we don’t completely mean it; we just mean that we wish whatever we had fallen in love with was easier.

I wish I hadn’t fallen in love with writing, which is so difficult to find time to do.  There are so many activities you can do around other people; so many activities where the level of noise doesn’t matter, where you can move in and out of the activity with ease.  Writing is fussy.  I can’t write when there is noise, I can’t writing when there is music playing, I can’t write when people are sitting too close to me, or when I have too long a to-do list, or when the space around me is messy.  I can’t write when I’m too tired, which is usually when I can grab time to write: early in the morning or late in the night.  I can’t write when I am in certain moods.  I can’t write when I’ve been away from a project for a long time; I need to take days to get reacquainted with it, learn it again, even though the characters felt so real it was as if they were in the room with me the last time I wrote it.

I wish I didn’t love to write because if I didn’t love to write, words wouldn’t matter quite so much to me.  I could let words go instead of holding them tightly.  Writers record; not only our own words, but everything said to us, everything we overhear, everything we understand between the lines.  I wish words didn’t weigh quite so much, weren’t so slippy and difficult to hold.  I wish I could set them down somewhere instead of carrying them with me wherever I go.

I wish I didn’t care about writing so deeply, didn’t cling to the act of writing in the same way a surgeon holds a scalpel.  It defines her.  If I didn’t care so deeply, then I could approach writing with the detachment I bring to other tasks.  Either they happen or they don’t.  And I don’t take the completion of those tasks personally, don’t wrap up my self-esteem in those tasks.  It is a shame that I chose writing to do that with, an act that often feels outside my control, as if the project is leading me instead of the other way around.

I wish the consumption of the end product was fulfilled by myself instead of others, like a snake swallowing her tail.  I wish that it was just as satisfying to write something and never let anyone see it as it is to write words and release them into the world.  I wish I could spread wings and tuck them around all my words like a mother duck nestling her ducklings under her body, when instead it feels closer to shoving my words outside naked, to stand in an open square, with dozens of people walking around.

Even the blog posts are naked.  In an open square.  With dozens of people walking around.

There was a great essay by Ashley Judd that made its way around the Internet a few weeks ago, a rallying cry for women to not stand idly by while the media attempts to make them feel like crap about their appearance.  The essay as a whole is fantastic, but I kept returning to this one paragraph that niggled at my brain because it felt like it didn’t tell the whole story.  Or maybe it just made me feel guilty.  One or the other.

Judd explains that she doesn’t read her reviews or interviews anymore.  She went from reading everything to only reading the good ones, and then realized this was detrimental too.  She writes,

Over time, I matured into the understanding that good and bad are equally fanciful interpretations. I do not want to give my power, my self-esteem, or my autonomy, to any person, place, or thing outside myself. I thus abstain from all media about myself. The only thing that matters is how I feel about myself, my personal integrity, and my relationship with my Creator. Of course, it’s wonderful to be held in esteem and fond regard by family, friends, and community, but a central part of my spiritual practice is letting go of otheration. And casting one’s lot with the public is dangerous and self-destructive, and I value myself too much to do that.

Of course, she’s correct.  It would be best if our self-esteem was constructed internally, completely within our control.  Because external validation can (1) sometimes be difficult to obtain, (2) isn’t quite as satisfying in the long-term once you receive it; you always need more and you often begin to second guess the esteem helping already in your belly once you start to digest it and (3) you are in a constant state of seeking it without knowing when it will come next much in the same way hunters and gatherers consume vs. people who produce their own food.

In fact, the analogy of hunter/gatherers vs. farmers is probably the best way I can explain what I’m calling esteem privilege.  All people need food.  The majority of us don’t have the skills to produce our own food, therefore, we aren’t farmers, raising crops and nurturing animals until we need to eat them.  If all the food stores disappeared tomorrow, I — like you — would be roaming the streets, foraging for berries and hunting the great Morningstar Tofu Chicken (you may be hunting the real deal, but I would seek that mythical Tofu Chicken until my dying day).  We would need to eat, but we’d lack the knowledge and resources of farmers.  Over time, if we received support, if we found knowledge and were loaned a few seeds, we may get to enter the world of farming which brings with it a continuous, easily obtainable source of food.

But then it wouldn’t ring true if we turned around, once we were there and said, “everyone can farm.”  And it certainly wouldn’t ring true to the hunter/gatherers if the farmer’s daughter who has known no other way of life were to tell us that farming is open to everyone.  If that were the case, we would never use that time to forage and hunt knowing that there was a way to live that led more directly to food.  This is not to put down hunter/gatherer societies, and I know that most have a higher quality of life in many aspects compared to the stagnant western world, but the point is not to say one is better than the other; the point is that one practice pretty much promises food in the end barring natural disasters or a maniac running into your barn and slaughtering your animals, and the other practice hopes for food in the end.  And if you offered me one or the other, I’d take the semi-sure thing even if it was much more work overall and left me little free time.  You can’t eat time.

External validation — what Judd cautions is a dangerous practice (and it is), what makes us feel like crap about ourselves when we can’t find it — is akin to foraging.  You are asking the universe to bring you food… or good feelings.  And sometimes it comes.  And sometimes it doesn’t.  Internal validation is like farming.  You make your own garden grow.  It takes hard work, and there may be setbacks, but in the end, you have a steady supply of food, delivered right to your home multiple times a day.

I guess what didn’t ring true for me is that Judd, on one hand, is a farmer now, even if she hasn’t been a farmer all her life.  It is easier to find internal validation when you already have external validation, when you’re not in a state of hunger for attention, kindness, or accolades.  Because most of us are pretty damn hungry for that positivity.

I feel like I’m entering the lush world of internal validation ONLY because I have spent a lot of time with external validation.  It is easy to start building it from within when it’s already around you.  I’m not saying this to be immodest but to make a point; I have accomplished a lot in the last few years, reached personal goals that I wanted to reach and also received accolades and opportunities based on my hard work.  And so, because I have that abundance on the outside, it’s easier to crawl around inside and build that self-esteem.  In addition, teaching life lessons to the twins; I’m also learning some of these things myself.   Reinforcing what I should be doing.  When the farmer teaches his kids how to plant the seeds, he’s also getting some additional practice and reminders in planting them himself.

And to that point, even the twins will be more Farmer Judd than hunter/gatherer kids.  They may not be growing up in a home with monetary wealth, but they certainly have esteem-building opportunities that other kids don’t have because of their parents as well as their own intellect (I had nothing to do with the Steve Jobs note; that was a teacher marking the Wolvog due to his intelligence) and talents.  They too will probably experience low self-esteem, but they have so many advantages because they are constantly receiving this message from the outside telling them that they rock.  And because they get it, they can crawl inside and build that self-esteem.  Which is to say that I think the whole “don’t compliment your kids too much” ideology is a load of crap.  I give them a healthy dose of reality, but I make sure they hear several times a day how much they rock.  How else will they be full enough to give farming a try?  People can’t farm when their stomach is growling — that’s when they need to spend their time foraging to stop the hunger.  But when people aren’t tending to their immediate needs, they leave room to seek knowledge, understanding, resources.

And that is esteem privilege.  We talk about male privilege and socio-economic privilege and white privilege, but I googled the term and couldn’t find one place on the Internet that spoke about esteem privilege, a privilege that separates out members of society just as much as money or race.  We are not wealthy, but my kids are growing up with two parents who are over-educated writers who give our time and patience to our kids, something that we’ve noticed others can’t or don’t do.  We give them the tools to achieve so they’ll feel good about themselves knowing full well that it’s that advantage that is going to lead to great things more than throwing money at them.  That is esteem privilege; knowing without a doubt that you are loved and respected, being told that anything is possible and given the tools to not only achieve but to deal with disappointments when they come.  My kids have the advantage here over so many other kids in their school, and one day they will have the confidence to take that chance or to try again when they’ve been rejected because we gave them this external esteem from which to learn how to create self-esteem.  If all goes according to plan, they’ll take advantage of their esteem privilege and keep going during a time when other people would give up, not believing in themselves.

I work on this every single day because it is the advantage my parents gave me.  So if I am a farmer, it is because my parents gave me the knowledge that farmers have, handed me a plow, and helped me out so I could grow my own food in the future.  And I have to admit that my personality is such that I have a tendency to go hunter-and-gathering from time to time, forgetting those farming lessons, but that esteem privilege is such that the muscle memory is always there.  I have never spent a day of my life wondering whether or not I’m loved, feeling respected and encouraged, and that is esteem privilege and it has given me an advantage even when age, race, or sex might hold me back.

With Judd’s essay, context matters.  The fact that she has self-esteem because she received external esteem matters.  For instance, I could write a post about how comments don’t matter (oh, please, don’t believe that.  They really really matter) but you’d have to take into account the fact that my viewpoint is constructed after getting a bunch of comments.  Again, I’m not saying this to be immodest, but because it’s fact.  Conversations happen here, and I’m grateful for them.  You often make me see my words in an entirely new way.  And I’d be sad if the comments went away.

I come from a place of comment privilege, so of course I get to look at them through that lens.  I happen to see their enormous worth, so I point out their intrinsic value.  But I’ve equally heard people who receive a lot of comments write things like, “comments don’t matter that much” or “it doesn’t matter where the conversation takes place.”  And that just isn’t true except for a few like-minded comment privilege people because that is pure comment privilege pontification.  For the majority of bloggers, it is clear from the number of blog posts on the topic, that comments matter very much and many people would like to have the conversation unfold in their comment box in order to keep all the thoughts in one place vs. scattered across the Internet in various streams.

Context there is everything.  If you have a lot of external validation, it’s easy to build your internal validation.  If you have a lot of comments, it’s easy to let go of the hold comments have on you.  Without one, it is very difficult to get the other.  Not impossible; but those people are probably boring and eat really healthy too.  And go to sleep at a normal hour.

Every once in a while, someone adds a comment to Operation Heads Up where they say that a procedure “wasn’t that bad” and then follow it up by stating that they took a previous commenter’s advice and took two Alleve ahead of time.  I sometimes want to add an editor’s note and say that the Alleve is the most important part, even though it’s usually mentioned in passing towards the end.  Because those people have no clue what their HSG or sonohysterogram or pick-your-uncomfortable-procedure would be like if they hadn’t received that external knowledge first, enabling them to build a very different internal knowledge.  Do you see the theme here?  There are so many places in life where privilege comes out to play, and we can’t dismiss that privilege and honestly think that it doesn’t matter.

I’m writing this because I don’t want to get hung up on this paragraph in Judd’s essay because the rest of it kicked some serious ass.  I have this deep need to release it and stop playing with the word “otheration” in my head while I try to sink down into humble warrior pose in yoga.  I have nothing but respect for Ashley Judd as an actress and writer; but she is coming from a place of privilege, being named one of People’s most beautiful women and being a well-respected actress.  She should be proud of the work she has completed internally, and perhaps her desire to go internal stems from experiences with the external.  But I also think that we would all opt for internal validation if we could; if we all had esteem privilege to get there.

If you plan on reading the series or you’re still reading 50 Shades of Grey, skip this post.  I make a prediction, and I’m going to be talking specifics; namely, orgasms, orgasms, and more orgasms.

Can we start there?  The orgasms?  I am finding it very difficult to suspend my disbelief over the frequency, intensity, and physical acrobatics of the multitude of orgasms scattered across the pages of this book.  Ana is a virgin who has never masturbated when the book begins.  That I can find perfectly believable.  There are college students out there who have never masturbated — there are probably grown women who have never masturbated.  That I can accept.

But without ever stimulating her clitoris or having sex, she is able to achieve the first time being touched on her good-girl mind-blowing orgasms.  Multiple times.  In standing positions.  Wait — read that last fragment again.  She is having orgasms standing-up.  I am not saying this isn’t possible, nor am I saying that multiple orgasms isn’t possible, nor am I saying that having an orgasm your first time having sex at 21 isn’t possible.  But until someone steps forward and says, “I was a 21-year-old virgin who has never masturbated, and I just had sex for the first time yesterday and achieved multiple orgasms within the same round of sex, and then even achieved orgasm upright,” I can’t believe in Ana.  Actually, even if that person stepped forward, I can’t believe in Ana.

Here’s my analogy (come on, it’s me, you knew an analogy was coming in this post): skilled doctors are capable of performing surgery.  We even sometimes have people without training react in an emergency situation and do what amounts to haphazard surgery such as sawing off a body part.  BUT we do not have untrained first year medical students walk into the operating theater in September and perform open-heart surgery on a person.  What Ana achieves sexually is completely believable for someone who knows their body well, how to bring it to orgasm and is so skilled at reaching orgasm that they can even remain upright while experiencing one.  She is behaving like the surgeon of orgasms while she’s just a first year medical student.  Hence why I keep getting hung up on this fact.

I know this is supposed to clue us in as readers as to how mind-blowing the sex is between Edward-Without-Fangs (I like to call Christian EWF) and Ana, but it steps over a line of believability for me.  10 – 15% of women never have an orgasm under any circumstances.  And 75% of women cannot achieve an orgasm from sex alone (meaning, without something other than the penis inside of the body.  They need manual stimulation to achieve orgasm or a vibrator or… well… get yourself hot and bothered using your imagination).  So Ana fits into that quarter of women — again, totally believable — but of that 25% of women, how many of them achieved orgasm the first time they had sex and achieved that orgasm without any other stimulation except his penis going in and out and in and out…

I know someone will leave a comment on this post telling me that they have an orgasm 100% of the time, every single one the more difficult vaginal orgasm, and that they were a virgin who had never masturbated until age 21 — just like Ana.  And I say good for you.  But as a reader, in order to find a character believable, I need to have these types of silent questions answered, and so far, E L James hasn’t explained to me how Ana can experience this.  Mother Theresa was saintly, so completely giving, selfless people exist in this world.  But that doesn’t mean that I will believe a saintly, selfless character until I understand what brought that character to that point of self-actualization.  We’re given a reason for why Christian is “50 Shades of Fucked Up” from his abusive childhood.  But we’re not given a reason for why Ana is such a sexual high achiever.

Moving on.

I am currently on book two, though my assumption is that the birth control in book one is the Chekhovian gun that needs to go off by the third book.  I’m assuming that Ana is going to be pregnant at some point.  And I also believe that will be the turning point in her relationship with EWF/Christian, probably making her the dom and him the sub since the pregnancy gives her power.

You don’t need to tell me if I’m right; that’s just what I’m guessing.  The writing is such that James practically wraps neon around the obtaining of the birth control JUST SO YOU NOTICE IT.  And now, if that gun doesn’t go off, I need to wonder what the point of showing it in the first book was.

Moving on again.

Though I had heard of fan fiction prior to 50 Shades of Grey hitting the mainstream, I finally poked around and found it.  Television writing often calls for a spec script — a sample script using the characters on the television show — except in that case, you are auditioning for a job using the characters who are already in place.  With fan fiction, you are showing your deep love for the characters by continuing the work started by the author, moving them around in their world, or taking them out altogether and placing them somewhere new.  Harry Potter goes to Durmstrang!  Edward enters into a three-way with Bella and Jacob!  Or, here’s a whole new slew of students entering Hogwarts.

As a reader, I completely understand the impulse to do this.  As an author, it makes me — to be honest — a little uncomfortable.  I guess it comes down to the idea if someone owns a character just because they brought them to life or if characters are like real children — the parents raise them to a certain point, and then others can take over and have their own relationships with that person.

So let’s start with these questions (and I used Harry Potter because I saw over 500,000 stories written about him in the fanfic base):

1. Does JK Rowling own Harry Potter?
2. Does JK Rowling lay claim to all boy wizards?
3. Would it be kosher to write a story that has a boy vampire who was orphaned when his parents were staked by the evil vampire, Christodeath, and now he is in vampire boarding school and Christodeath is coming after him?  And he is the only vampire who can stake Christodeath?

I would argue that (1) JK Rowling owns Harry Potter.  (2) But she does not lay claim to all boy wizards.  There were boy wizards before Harry and there should be boy wizards after Harry, even if all boy wizards now draw a comparison to Harry Potter.  And (3) While I think it’s kosher to write that story, I don’t think it’s kosher to post it on a blog, upload it to a fan fiction site, or publish it.  I think it’s the dissemination of that story that makes me uncomfortable; not the writing it itself — though I know a lot of people would not agree with me.

I think this aspect of the book — that 50 Shades of Grey piggybacks on the work done by Stephenie Meyer since it started out as Twilight fan fiction — is what has been bothering me the most.  Oro (who is a book seller and knows her novels AND fanfic) even pointed out the fan fiction code in her comment: “you should not make a profit on fanfiction, that’s part of the freakin’ deal.”

But there is a fine tradition of borrowing from past plotlines to create a new one.  Twilight itself is supposed to be a modernization (and vampirezation) of Pride and Prejudice.  At what point is it okay to do this?  Any time?  When the author is dead or has made it clear that he/she is done with those characters?  Never?  Can you borrow plotline as long as you don’t borrow characters?  Or characters as long as the plotline is different?

Authors borrow; authors reformulate; authors reimagine: none of this is unique to E L James.  So why does 50 Shades of Grey feel like it oversteps a line?  Because Twilight was a massive success only a few years ago (as opposed to borrowing from long-dead Austen)?  Because it mirrors it too closely, scene for scene?  Because James wrote it as Twilight fan fiction to begin with?  I have no idea.  I would love to hear from people who write fan fiction and understand if there is a code that exists, and what the fanfic community thinks of this book moving into the main marketplace.

Those are my questions for now.  Apologies; if I’m slogging through these books, I feel the need to discuss them.  And because — really — who would pass up the opportunity to write the word orgasm that many times?

And I’m going to add that EWF/Christian and Bella/Ana are growing on me, starting to feel like old horny friends.

Washington is a panda-obsessed city.  We have two of them at the National Zoo — Mei Xiang and Tian Tian — and they have a large and frequently-trafficked habitat.  The twins and I always stop by to visit them while we’re at the zoo (though, admittedly, we spend the bulk of our time with the tree shrew in the small mammal house.  You have never seen a child love a tree shrew so intensely until you have spent time with the ChickieNob and her small mammal friend), and we have many photographs of panda bear bums since they are frequently sleeping with their faces turned away from the masses.

The Washington Post announced today that they may replace Mei Xiang because she and her mate, Tian Tian, have only produced one child, Tai Shan (who was born when the twins were one).  It’s a case of secondary infertility, meaning in this case, an inability to get pregnant after prior success with fertility treatments the first time around.  Tai Shan was an IUI-baby.  Since his birth, she had five prior failed inseminations, and they are currently waiting to see if this last one took.  It was performed Sunday when the two pandas were unable to have sex.

I read the news this morning and it made me feel strangely sad; disproportionally sad, maybe because I anthropomorphized them and identified so clearly with their plight.  I am an infertile woman who was successful with treatments the first time around.  And I am an infertile woman who has not been able to get pregnant again since.  I couldn’t help but believe that I knew what Mei Xiang was feeling; two girls unable to get to implantation.  And beyond that, I took on the message that was being inadvertently given by the researchers who want another cub: that Mei Xiang is worthless if she can’t reproduce.  She is replaceable in the largest sense of the word.  They are considering sending her back to China and getting a new panda for the zoo.

The comments are exactly what you’d imagine for a story like this: suggestions of Barry White and wine and soft lights and porn.  Maybe I can’t take a joke; or maybe their situation hits a little too close to home for me; makes me wonder how the rest of the world views me as a woman since I too am unable to reproduce.  I too am of little worth?  As one commenter states, “Critters that don’t want to get freaky and make babies don’t deserve to survive. No matter how cute they are.”  And it called forth all the times someone has cruelly pointed out that maybe there’s a reason I can’t reproduce; maybe it’s nature’s way of saying I shouldn’t produce offspring.

National Zoo, save Mei Xiang.  Please.  I know that “Scientists there have been deeply disappointed because they have focused intense research on panda reproduction.”  And if that is the case, I know that Mei Xiang is not fulfilling your need.  But on behalf of all the women in Washington experiencing secondary infertility, whether it comes after a successful round of prior treatments or after an easily conceived first child(ren), I implore you to consider the message you are sending to the public in the name of research.

We are not as obvious as primary infertility or living child-free.  We are, in fact, quite invisible, blending with the other mothers in the car pick-up lane at school.  Unless you know our personal story, you would never guess that we are unable to reproduce without assistance.  But we are just as infertile as women without children.  Infertility is a condition that isn’t cured with children; the disease remains whether you are family building or not.  All infertility is devastating, even if that woman has a prior child to hold.

And sometimes it makes us hear a completely innocent story about a panda at the zoo and identify deeply.

Photo Credit: Marit and Toomas Hinnosaar via Flickr

I used to teach a women’s studies class to middle schoolers at a progressive school. We had an ongoing project called Powerful, Positive Women where the girls researched and presented a woman each day to the rest of the class. Sometimes these were well-known women such as Hillary Clinton and sometimes they were neighbours or aunts or grandmothers who had impressed the girls for one reason or another. That was the beauty of the project – it taught the girls that all women are powerful and have the potential to make positive change in the world.

On Friday, I attended part of the 18th Annual National Issues Conference held by the Democratic National Committee’s Women’s Leadership Forum (hence why the Roundup was so late.  I was totally sidetracked in the morning before I left by the nonuplets). I was there to cover the President’s remarks at the end of the day but arrived early in order to hear some of the speakers. It was the best example of the personal becoming political, with each speaker drawing from their life in order to explain why this upcoming election matters.

The focus was women’s issues and the speakers primarily women prior to the President taking the stage. The topics ranged from health care to economics to education, with each topic building on the next. At our most basic level is the body and our need to keep it healthy. Adding to that is economics, our work, and our usage of said body to contribute to society. And lastly, the mind is necessary to nurture if we want to keep making great strides in STEM fields.

I found myself wishing that the ChickieNob was there, not that she would have understood the issues at seven years old (and more likely than not, she would have zombie walked), but to have felt the energy of the space. The room was filled with emotion because politics touch on emotional issues: our ability to take care of ourselves and our communities. The world we wish to leave for future generations. It was impossible to hear all of those powerful, positive women speak and not be moved to tears as Lilly Ledbetter discussed the role her personal work experience played in moving towards equal pay for all women. Or when Debbie Wasserman-Schultz vowed that when it comes to women, no one will outwork us.

With sponsorship from the Democratic National Committee as well as the group Women for Obama, there was an obvious partisan lens through which the view point was filtered, but that doesn’t negate the strides the Obama Administration has made on behalf of women.  The Affordable Care Act has brought health care services to 45 million women.  He signed into law the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act ensuring women receive equal pay for equal work.  He has forced employers to create space and time in the workplace for expressing breast milk for breastfeeding mothers.  And he didn’t just recognize women as part of a campaign slogan — he appointed eight women to cabinet-rank positions, appointed a woman to be third in command of the country, and nominated two women to the Supreme Court (a branch of government which has only had four women total in its 220 year history).

All of that was on my mind as Senator Barbara Mikulski took to the stage to introduce the President.

It is fitting that Senator Mikulski preceded the President before he spoke about women’s issues because she is not only the longest serving female member of Congress, but she is the first woman elected to the Senate (others served before her, but they succeeded a male family member such as a husband).  In her first of many rallying cries, she told the crowd,

I didn’t want to be the first… I wanted to be the first of many!

She explained that women who want to run for office need a “MOM”: money, organization, and message.  And she empowered the women in the audience to get involved, using the story of the Lilly Ledbetter vote to rile up the crowd.  Back then, when it looked as though the bill wouldn’t pass and women would once again be paid unequally for the same jobs performed by men, she drew from the strength of her fellow female Senate members and told her supporters,

This is an Abigail Adam’s moment.  We’re going to start our own revolution.  And I said, “Women of America, suit up!  Square your shoulders!  Put your lipstick on!  The fight has begun!”

What was true then is obviously still true now as she continued to speak about the idea of caring for women; of showing women and children that their country — not just their families — love them.  In a moving twist on the popular put-down, ObamaCare, for the President’s health care plan, Mikulski admits that she likes the term.

I love the word Obamacare because our President does care.

Soon after, the President took to the stage not to look back at his accomplishments so far, but instead to discuss what still needs to be done.  In fact, his only reference to his accomplishments was to point out that the fact that his first law passed directly applies to women, serving as proof of his commitment to women in America.

And as long as I’m President, we are going to keep moving forward.  You can count on that.  You don’t have to take my word on it – you’ve got my signature on it.  Because something like standing up for the principle of equal pay for equal work isn’t something I’m going to have to “get back to you on” – it’s the first law I signed.

He pointed out that though we are sometimes discussed as such, women are not an interest group.

Women are not an interest group.  Women shouldn’t be treated that way.  Women are half this country and half of its work force.  You’re 80% of my household if you count my mother-in-law… and I always count my mother-in-law.

And in saying this, pointed out how there are no such things as “women’s issues” because what affects women affects many other people.  If we don’t earn enough money, we’re not spending it in stores, and therefore, equal pay is an economic issue, especially for businesses.  If we have discrepancies in health care coverage, it affects the people who depend on us, becoming a family issue.

His understanding of the bandwidth of women comes directly from observing his wife, the First Lady, as they tried to balance raising their daughters with two careers.

Once Michelle and I had our girls, we gave it our all to balance raising a family and chasing a dream.  And it was tough on me, but let’s face it, it was tougher on her.  I was gone a lot.  I know that when she was with the girls, she would feel guilty that she was giving enough time to work.  When she was at work, she’d feel guilty about not having enough time for the girls.

After the speech, I rode down the Convention Center escalator with some of the several hundred women who attended the conference.  One mused that her take away from this day was that nothing has changed from who Obama was in 2008 to who he is today.  “He hasn’t changed one bit.  He still has that lovely energy,” she commented before we parted ways.

But my takeaway from the conference was that women’s issues are important because they affect the very fabric of our society.  That America will come apart if we ignore the needs of 50% of the population.  But more important than that, every single woman has the ability to make a difference.  Every single one of us has a vote, and we need to use it to support the candidate that best represents our vision for America.  And more than that, we are all powerful, positive women, and we all have a unique voice to add to the whole.

In the words of Senator Mikulski,

How will you get involved in this upcoming election?

Cross-posted with BlogHer