As a woman - for isn’t what this site is all about? - it was the very first time that I truly took advantage of my freedom as a person, as a woman, that first fully opened my eyes, and - as years went on - opened door after door to the full world of opportunities that is now spreading at our feet.

In the beginning - as they say - women in high political office??? Wel, I think we could count them on our fingers.  Being "a housewife" was in high demand in my youth.  And how many of us remember "secretarial school" as opening the way to "occupations" that went just that far???

As a very young woman, one who thought herself barely a "girl" - well, didn’t we? - four rather "elderly women" (they had to be 50) approached me more than once, suggesting that they (and half the women in my large village) thought I had "the smarts" and the direction for political office and they were there to see I got it.

  They "pushed", to put it delicately.

And so this young woman (me) who even then took risks, ran the toughest race of my life for village trustee, standing at train stations handing out flyers, speaking to large groups for the first time of my life, being asked questions that forced me to think fast on my feet. . and sometimes succeed in a giving an answer that was liked a lot.  And I won!

Still unbelieving, I was asked by my political party soon after to speak at state level, telling them the nitty-gritty of being elected for a woman, encouraging others to follow my lead.  I was a "small potato" in a big ocean, but as a very young woman in the early days of women getting a name, in my small mind I was a woman of independence. 

I did my learning on the job, and perhaps it was confidence of a driven woman doing hard work that made all elections thereafter smoother.  I guess my moral is:  that it is getting out your door, taking that first step into unknown territory, will provide the stepping stones for your life ahead if you believe they can.  And again today, speaking for women on this site, I have watched our climb upward in our country increase expotentially over the years.  I find in it a warm glow.  And on this weekend of freedom and independence, I am probably the loudest cry of "YES" !!!!!      

Liz, re "We just knew we had to be home by five o’clock PM to bathe and dress for Daddy. It was a much more informal kind of growing up but it spelled FREEDOM. It taught a lot of self-reliance."

Yes, many of us grew up like that, but that was far from "freedom" when our lives had to stop for a patriarch. As my friends and I were reunited in the 80s, we talked about that part of our childhood, and about 1/2 of my pals from "those days" did not have to "bathe and dress for Daddy." We compared our differences as adult women; it was interesting.

Indeed, however, the freedom to run out the door each day, ride our bikes, or skate to parts unknown (we thought), and … walk to school, was something today’s parents need to learn to create for their children, too. Life’s become too entangled, too complicated, too stressful to be free without insisting on our own individual freedom.

In our civilized nations, Democracies and Socialist countries, human rights is supposed to be guaranteed. Such is not only a right in the USA. 

That (above) being written, in the early 60s I initiated and worked diligently to get a bill thought congress (to save children from corporations in the US harming them by sending toxic, dangerous products through the mail  - remember the free razor blades, Congespirin samples from Grove Labs, psychotic drugs, detergents, etc. landing in doorways, through mail slots in homes, and worse, piled in lobbies of apartment buldings?) - without one citizen "proponent" speaking with me (the U.S. Proprietary Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, Poison Control Centers, and other trade groups helped me, though and eventaully, U.S. Postal Service!).

Two wondrous people stepped forward to help me, though - LBJ, and U.S. Representative Thomas P. O’Neil.

I’ll never forget what they taught me - I was an idealistic mother-grad student from Cambridge, believing that in a democracy everyone had an equal voice - they taught me how to utilize the "equal voice," and "who" to look for, waiting to deceive, "triangle," slander, do anything to block my rights.

To this day (I did it just last week from the local to Federal level), I speak UP and Out with confidence.