Hope for all Americans

Sometimes, when I read about women who’ve sold their souls for men, making themselves into human Barbie dolls by starving themselves, having their breasts enlarged and their faces whittled; when I hear that women today still don’t make the same wage a man makes for the same jobs; when I see the women I know struggling to raise small children without the benefit of child support from their fathers; when I hear about self-righteous Christers condemning a woman’s right to her own body, to keep or abort a child, to speak her mind ... I wonder whether all that hard-won progress the feminists of my generation and the generations before mine achieved had any effect at all on the world.

Sometimes, it doesn’t seem like it.

And then something happens to make me understand that while there are those who would chip away at the rights of women and girls, they haven’t won yet. And as long as there are women who will stand up, work hard for their rights and fight, those ignorant troglodytes never will.

Today’s a red-letter day in the long history of equal rights in the United States of America. Today, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California became Speaker of the House of Representatives, the first woman in the history of this country to achieve such a high office.

“This is an historic moment - for the Congress, and for the women of this country. It is a moment for which we have waited more than 200 years. Never losing faith, we waited through the many years of struggle to achieve our rights. But women weren't just waiting; women were working. Never losing faith, we worked to redeem the promise of America, that all men and women are created equal. For our daughters and granddaughters, today we have broken the marble ceiling.”

-- Nancy Pelosi

America faces a dire future after so many years of Republican dominance in government and after six years of a rubber-stamp Congress that gave George W. Bush carte blanche to run roughshod over the Constitution and the rights of all Americans. I find Pelosi’s rise to a position of power and influence in America’s government a great hope and comfort at the beginning of this somber new year.