Girls, Women, Are People Too. ..And we own a large debt of gratitude to RBG for setting the (legal) record straight. When I was in grade school, girls were not allowed to wear pants—they had to wear dresses. Nor were girls allowed to be Team Captains for any games and we were not allowed to play certain sports. In college, I had heated discussions with my dad, an educated doctor, that it was infantilizing to call Women, girls. I would say to him that once a girl started to menstruate, she became a young woman. (This was the era of The Woman with educational books like ‘Our Bodies, Ourselves.’) And when I started my professional life, I was aware of how the men got better assignments, and how my male peers were never asked to ‘prep a room’ for an upcoming meeting, or to take notes (because ‘girls have neater handwriting’). For so long, the Working World has been slyly, perhaps unconsciously biased against women. It is much improved from where it was even 20 years ago. And it’s not because ‘opinions naturally evolve...’ Its because of hard work. Regardless of one’s political opinion, it is true nonetheless that all Americans—and businesses—have benefited from pushing equality and justice for those of all genders, races, beliefs. After all, what more American that that?
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