Women’s right to vote and a woman who finds them deplorable.

Column: Living for yourself
Women should choose own paths despite comments
Published on Thursday, October 4, 2001  

Adam Hayes/Collegain

Dana Strongin
Kansas State Collegian

I grew up knowing I could try to be anything I wanted to be.
Kansas Senator Kay O’Connor says that is not only a horrible thing, but also the downfall of society.

Last week, O’Connor said women being allowed to vote was “not necessarily” in the best interest of the nation. In fact, she thinks the 19th Amendment began the slide down a slippery slope for America in terms of traditional family values.

O’Conner thinks voting forces women out of the home, where she says they belong.

I agree that women suffrage changed society forever.

And it’s great.

Today’s little girl can play with her Barbies and dress them up for Malibu outings with Ken (although Barbie could do better — Ken is so plastic). She can dream of and someday create her very own family with her man. She can have the best-looking living room in the tri-state area.

But that living room can be decorated by a designer the girl hires with her big, fat executive-style paycheck.

Women are so much closer to having everything they want. They can become domestics, professionals or any balance of the two.

O’Connor, however, seems to think women should have only one particular role: helplessness. According to the Sept. 28 edition of The Kansas City Star, she said, “I’m sorry women have not been taken more care of. We have gotten the short end of the stick.”

If women have the short end of any stick, it’s because people with views like hers still exist.

Maybe our friend Kay just hasn’t been taken care of enough. She claims that her ill daughter’s medical bills forced her to re-enter the workplace.

Perhaps she should have chosen a husband who could “take care” of her more. She could have abandoned the man she wanted to marry for the Duke of Earl or an oil tycoon.

I am learning more and more every day to take care of myself. If I ever choose a husband, it will not be for his ability to support me financially. A marriage should be a joining of two friends, two lovers, who want to walk through life together. As equals.

Part of me wonders if O’Connor bows to her husband when he gets home. Maybe she brings him his slippers in her mouth.

When O’Connor said women need men as their caretakers, she missed the point. Some women don’t even have this option.

Who is to say I ever will get married? What about women that are widowed, divorced or separated?

I have news for O’Connor. Life today is not straight out of a Jane Austen novel. I never will live with my family or “marry for convenience” just because I am a woman.

That’s the way it should be.

The senator deserves credit for her brazen honesty. Yet, there is something sickening about her having a governmental office.

She claims she was forced into her position — her prominent, public position.

Why, Kay? You could have been a cook, a nanny or a nurse. There once was a time when women either were teachers or nurses, but now they have more options. Why did you have to choose government? Do you make professional decisions all by yourself, or do you go home to check with your husband first?

O’Connor said it herself: “I offer my suggestions, but I give (my husband) the right to make the final decision.”

She votes, too. Who the heck made her vote? Did a member of the so-called male establishment put a gun to her head and walk her to the booth?

O’Connor only serves to add to my embarrassment as a Kansan. Remember the State Board of Education’s decision to not allow the teaching of evolution in schools? At the time, I thought I could not be more ashamed of my state. I could see others in the nation thinking of us as backward hee-haws.

Thanks, Kay. My fellow citizens already think we are uneducated religious zealots.

Now Kansas looks like “Leave It To Beaver,” 2001.

May our midwestern state be blessed because we quickly will lose credibility among our peers if we keep electing these people.

Please vote, all women and men. Elect an individual who looks ahead, or at least lives in the now. These backward mutants have got to go.

To all the ladies: be a homemaker, be a CEO. I don’t care what you do, as long as you respect the choices of those around you. That goes for men, too. Enjoy your right to either work or stay at home.

In the meantime, I will be working toward the degree that just might take me wherever I want to go. Someday, you’ll see me using Kay’s self-implemented glass ceiling as my corner office floor.