Monday, February 23, 2009

Happy birthday George #2

The rest of my conversation with George Washington …


“Listen, George, I agree with Ralph Waldo Emerson when he addressed the women’s rights convention in 1855 and told them, quote ‘women … more vulnerable, more infirm, more mortal than men … by this and their social influence, the civilizers of mankind’ unquote.”

“I see. So what are you women doing in these so-called modern times?”

“Oh, just about everything. Two have sat on the Supreme Court … Oh, George, pick up your wooden teeth. They just fell out. And a woman was even on the vice presidential position on a major ticket in the 1980s, and you should have seen Hillary and Sarah ready to duke it out last year to get into the White House. We’ve had women in the Senate and the House, and not cleaning them either. There are female governors, mayors. We’ve come a long way, baby!”

“Long way, baby?”

“Yes, one of those advertising slogans that defined a generation of women who said they were mad as hell and weren’t going to take anymore. And that was from a movie. Yep, we had women marching for equal rights, burning their bras —”

“Burning their what?”

“Unmentionables, George. We even had a theme song in the 70’s, ‘I am woman, hear me roar, in numbers too big to ignore.’ We’ve made lots of strides, but you founding fathers sure didn’t make it easy for us.”

“Is there nothing women do now that they did 200 years ago?”

“Some of it even better, George. Join me for some cherry pie and I’ll tell you all about it …”

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