Sometimes impatience is a virtue.
Lisa Scottoline, Have a Nice Guilt Trip

My TBR (to be read) pile this Labor Day weekend is a trio of books by the mother-daughter duo Lisa Scottoline and Francesca Serritella.  They always make me laugh, and sometimes they make me think.  Perfect books when the weather here in Seattle is announcing that summer is done.

My favorite essay in Have a Nice Guilt Trip is “Ovarian Contrarian” by Lisa Scottoline.  She wrote it after the 2012 Olympics, but it is equally true today:

They say this is the Year of the Woman. . .

Every since we got the vote, we’ve been hell-bent for leather.

By the way, we got the vote ninety-two years ago. . .

I’m not that patient.

To me, if you protested something in 2003 and they didn’t do anything about it until 2012 [membership for women at Augusta National Golf Club], you did not win.

Or to be precise, you did, but we could all be dead by then.

And, if you had to wait eighty years to play golf, you might find a new sport.

By the way, Dr. Condoleezza Rice was one of the women admitted to Augusta.  She became Secretary of State in 2005.  So it was easier to join the Cabinet than a golf club.

This must be some club.

I’d like to club them. . .

They say the best proof that this is the Year of the Woman is the recent Olympics, where women won more gold medals than men [the same was true in 2016]. . .Title IX, which barred gender discrimination in education and sports, was enacted in 1972.  The newspaper said, “it does not take Einstein to prove that Title IX has had a positive effect on women’s athletics.”

True.

But Einstein might also point out that Title IX was enacted forty years ago.  And the Olympics were last week.

In fact, Einstein said time is relative, and he is right.  Because, relatively speaking, forty years between the passing of a law and the result is way too long.

Bottom line, I’m coming to the conclusion that women are too patient, especially when it comes to themselves and their own needs and wishes.

We think justice delayed is justice denied, but only for others. . .

When it comes to us, we’re enduring.

We’re saints.

And I can’t be the only woman who isn’t ready to be beatified.

Who wants what I want when I want it.

Now.

It took me forever to learn the lesson that you can’t wait forever. . .

So excuse me if I don’t jump up and down because somebody is finally giving me what I deserved decades ago.

Time to change the model.

Because if nothing changes, nothing changes.

Let’s make this The Year of the Impatient Woman.

Pronto.

Amen!  Kids are going back to school.  Summer is over.  Today is Labor Day.  Let’s stop being patient.  It is time for results.  Let’s all pick one thing ~ just one thing ~ in our world that we can change and change it.