The New Eve - Lewis Robert [4]
As Anita set the coffeemaker in motion, the business of the day rushed back upon her. She smiled at the tension in her stomach, then turned on the TV at the breakfast bar to catch news about her sister. Select polls had been open for more than an hour now; newscasters were poring over anemic streams of data, somehow converting them into “scientific” predictions on how the day would unfold. “Joanna Taylor is sure to win the Senate seat,” said one pollster. “No, no, this thing is still up for grabs,” countered another. Anita tried not to listen, but she couldn't think of not listening. “Go, Sis, go!” she breathed.
“How's she doing?” Ron asked as he came into the kitchen.
“Far too early to say,” Anita replied. “It's silly of me to be watching.”
“Not at all,” Ron said as he drew up next to her and gave a reassuring hug.
“I've got to get going,” Anita said, quickly refocusing on the day's big events. “I'll swing by the poll and vote, several times if I can,” she laughed. “Then I'm meeting Sandy at 10:00 for a final walk-through of the merger contract before I report for jury duty.”
Ron shook his head in admiration. “You're something, you know that? Today your sister's set to become a U.S. senator, you're closing one of the biggest deals your company has ever made, and still you don't bother to ask for exemption from jury duty. What else can you fit into this day? Hey, the driveway needs resealing,” he suggested with a wry smile.
Anita laughed as she finished off a muffin. “Mostly I just want Sis to get that Senate seat! The other stuff is secondary.”
“Just be home in time for us to enjoy this night together, OK?” Ron said.
“You got it,” Anita answered firmly. Then, with a sigh of reflection, she paused and said, “Ron, think about what this day means.” A photograph, framed in red, sat atop the counter in front of her. She turned it so Ron could see. It was Anita's great-grandmother. “Grandma Parry never saw a day like this. She was smart and ambitious, but she never set foot in a college. She never held a job that paid real money either, let alone run for an elected office. Yet in many ways all the opportunities that are given to Sis and me are owed to her and others like her. That two big moments for Sis and me happen to fall on the same day is perhaps God's special way of reminding us of how privileged we are.”
Ron nodded. “Well, by tonight I'll have a senator in the family and a savvy businesswoman who knows her way around a jury box. Great day to be a Parry woman!”
“A great day to be a woman,” Anita corrected him. She righted the picture frame, blew Ron a kiss, and stepped out into a world of opportunity that her great-grandmother could never have imagined.
Unlimited Opportunity
It is a great day to be a woman. The opportunities now available to you and women everywhere in the twenty-first century are astounding. You have more power—personally, professionally, and politically—than at any other time in human history. And that power trajectory is predicted to rise even further in the decades to come. “Women will rock,” predicts Ron Fournier, author of Applebee's America. Today they “are getting better grades, running a majority of student governments, and graduating from college in larger numbers than their male counterparts.” In the future “the best and the brightest will be women.”1
Celinda Lake and Kellyanne Conway foresee an even bolder outlook for women through their research. They write, “Without fanfare, almost stealthily, America has become women-centric… . Women—from seniors to boomers to Generations X and Y— are recasting the nation in their image” and “shaking the culture to its core.”2
These statements are especially breathtaking when one remembers how far women have come in such a very short time. Fewer than one hundred years ago, you couldn't even vote as a woman! Opportunities, as compared