International Women’s Day 2020: Each-for-Equal, A Personal Perspective

International Women’s Day is a celebration of equality today and what it can be in the future. For me, as a boy growing up in the 1960s, and the son of a fairly prominent women’s equality leader in that era, I look back at where the USA has come over the past six decades in terms of women’s opportunities to reach their potential and to experience true equality, and what is starting to happen worldwide (see my blog from several weeks ago). With International Women’s Day coming up this week, I feel moved to write about my very personal observations about what women pushing for equal opportunity faced in that era.  

My mother, Audrey Beck, was a pioneer in passing women’s equality laws in the State of Connecticut. I grew up thinking that it was normal in society and the workplace to treat women equally and to expect them to hold power. 

She fought to remove women’s barriers to opportunity and success. She said in a speech:

“ I have initiated and sponsored a number of bills of importance to women who work. But I really failed to understand their full significance until I began working myself. I hope professional women will make thoughtful efforts to make male and female legislators aware of the interests they regard as most important to address in the Government.” (1982) That still applies today. Women in particular, but all of us in total should advocate for, and communicate to our governments worldwide, the practical measures that are needed to ensure that companies and in fact all people, treat women with respect for their ideas and as individuals. It will benefit all companies, organizations and communities. Organizations, such as Access for Women in Energy in the UK are extremely important to continue that advocacy.

Audrey Phillips Beck was born in Brooklyn, New York and grew up in Norwalk, Connecticut. As her biographies say, she was “the daughter of a hatter.” I grew up knowing that she grew up in a poor family, her parents barely above the poverty line. And worked her way out of poverty and through college and beyond. But that isn’t the whole story, as I learned a few years ago when I began to look into my family genealogy. Going back 9 generations, her direct ancestor Benjamin Peirson was one of the original settlers and town leaders of Elizabeth Town New Jersey; his father, Henry Peirson was one of the original settlers and town leaders of Southampton, New York. So, there was natural leadership blood there.

I grew up thinking it natural for a woman to be holding her own with men, being highly regarded and listened to, and extremely accomplished and at ease speaking publicly. 

Later I learned about the difficult obstacles she cleared away and barriers she needed to break through on the road to accomplishing what she thought to be right. 

One of her most important causes was more access for women in the workplace and politics especially at the leadership level. Another important cause of hers was rights for the elderly; in our rural part of Connecticut many of those elderly were single women who lived alone, or in cramped trailers in what were called, euphemistically “trailer parks.” 

She realized soon enough that the way to further her causes was not just to write or talk about them, but to battle her way into positions of political power where she could create legislation that would make things better for future generations of women. I’m proud of many of the things that she helped to change in the State of Connecticut that greatly benefited future generations of women. The many sacrifices and difficult pathways that women of my mother’s generation followed to pave the way for what is taken for granted today now are almost invisible to many capable women entering the workforce today.  

It’s good and important to be impatient to reach more milestones, especially in business today, and to achieve things like equal pay for women and better access to higher levels of management and leadership. But it’s also good to reflect on the progress that’s been made and the challenges that existed before. 

Audrey Beck said on one occasion, “Women must be ready and willing to assume the burdens as well as the pleasures of power. This means working on the nitty-gritty; doing homework well; compromising, being persuasive and not talkative; being willing to get muddy and have egos bruised; being less concerned with sermons and more concerned with action.”

A MAVERICK WOMAN LEADER IN THE 1960S and 70s

Here are a few vignettes from my memories of my mother’s struggles that I think of as I join the Women’s Day celebrations this week, and that give a flavor of how far women have come in America:

There was no access to childcare for a woman of normal means in the 1950s and 60s (or even 70s). I’m told that my first appearance in a public political forum was when I was about one year old and my mother sat me on her lap as she testified in a public hearing in New London, Connecticut. She remembered that moment: “My son was involved in my first public speech which was in support of the Kennedy-Humphrey free trade legislation. Because my statement was the only support for the bill, my picture landed on the front page of the Norwich Bulletin with my year-old son eating a donut.”

-       My mother had to work around jobs, when I was small, that would let her get home in time for when I came home from school. This is one of first areas in which businesses have made progress.

-       As a Masters in Economics, she held a University position in the 1950s and 60s called a “teaching assistant,” which meant she graded all of the papers in huge economics classes and prepared most of the lecture materials for the Professor, who got all of the credit and most of the money. I was told by her professor when I was a kid, “Oh your mother is brilliant, I couldn’t run the class without her.” Of course I didn’t know it was an apology for the fact that they paid her almost nothing.

-       She first ran for political office as a Democratic Candidate for State Representative in Northeastern Connecticut. They figured it was okay to ask a woman to run, because it was well known that no Democrat had ever been elected to office in that extremely rural part of Connecticut (still known as “The Quiet Corner”).  It was also widely known that her opponent, a nice gentleman named Foster Richards who had been State Representative for years would qualify for a state pension if he completed another term. What they didn’t account for was my mother’s competitiveness and determination, and her instinct to use empathy and the ability to relate to people that came naturally to her. She took a map of the district and drove from house to house, meeting and speaking with almost every resident. She was elected that first time in a huge upset and never faced a close race again.

-       When she reached the State Legislature as a freshman Representative, she found herself one of only three women among 151 representatives, and the only one who was a self-made woman. 

-       I visited her from time to time at the State Legislature. I was constantly confronted by prejudiced, sexist and just plain inappropriate behavior by her colleagues. On several occasions, right in front of me, other legislatures would treat her in overtly insulting ways. She had the personal strength and aura, though, to always brush those kinds of things off. What I may have not known or understood was how much pressure and tension that created for her to maintain a congenial public face. The “me too” movement shows that progress has been slow in this area up until the very recent past.

-       Beginning immediately, she broke down barrier after barrier, creating legislation and precedents for access for women, rights for women and many things that are taken for granted today like paid maternity leave. Many of the basic rights for women were initially passed on a state by state basis, and my mother created an alliance with a few key women in Connecticut. They worked together to get many landmark basic women’s rights established in Connecticut as one of the more progressive states. This group of women included Barbara Kennelly, who was the daughter of famous political boss in Connecticut, John Bailey, Ella Grasso, the first woman governor of Connecticut and one of the first women governors in the US, and Betty Tiante, the first woman in America to head a state labor federation and become the first state labor commissioner in Connecticut.

Reflecting on my mother, what stood out for me was her clear focus and mission to pursue her principles as an elected official, and one of her principles was protection of rights and opportunities for women, the poor and the elderly. But at the same time an understanding of compromise and how, as a woman, to compromise and negotiate to get to the things done without sacrificing her ethics and principles. She used the power of her charisma, empathy and ability to communicate, and was always able to turn the fact that as a woman in politics she was in the minority to her advantage and create power for her ideas and herself. She operated in the predominantly male political world of the 70s and 80s, but at the same time brought a uniquely female point of view and way of solving problems to bear.

She said in that context, “… The handicap of women in lacking ties to powerful financial, business, and other interests, is also their asset for achieving reform, since they have no obligations to vested interests. … The dilemma faced by women is how to achieve success through compromise, which is the cement of diverse forces … this limits advocacy of goals which challenge the status quo.”

LESSONS FOR ALL OF US TODAY:

1.     Don’t take equality and access for women for granted! The reality is that it requires all our attention (men and women) and awareness today. 

2.     Women: Where we are today stands on the shoulders of much hard work, courage and sacrifice by generations of women who came before. Don’t take it for granted. It’s not always easy, be willing to do the hard work even today.

3.     Compromise is always needed. There are principled goals. These are best accomplished through recognition of the art of compromise and the value of compromise and “politics.” Politics in this context means awareness of where power is and how to influence it to accomplish things.

My mother, Audrey Beck, was able to make great strides on behalf of women everywhere, still maintaining the utmost respected of her colleagues in the largely male world she worked in, as expressed in a legislative session in 1983, remembering her:  https://www.nytimes.com/1983/03/20/nyregion/tribute-to-a-colleague.html

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