© 2016 Original by YAC. All rights reserved.
Photo Quote of the Week: The Millennial Conundrum
Category: Quotes
Quote of the Week: Gender Pay Gap
From CNN Breaking News:
"All US military combat positions are being opened up to women, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced Thursday.
The decision allows women to fill about 220,000 jobs that are now limited to men – including infantry, armor, reconnaissance and some special operations units.
'This means that as long as they qualify and meet the standards, women will now be able to contribute to our mission in ways they could not before. They'll be able to drive tanks, give orders, lead infantry soldiers into combat,' Carter said at a news conference Thursday.
'There will be no exceptions,' he added."
The Frustrated CFO Commentary:
Well, congratulations, ladies! Just as the World Economic Form has concluded that women would not catch up to men in their pay until 2133 (not a typo – 117 years from now, in some hypothetical "future"), the Pentagon has proudly declared that they are making more equal-pay jobs available for us – the ones that they themselves officially list among 8 most dangerous military jobs.
And this is why I can never align myself with feminist politics. Don't get me wrong, I greatly admire our contemporary Jeannes d'Arc (or d'Newark) and their desire to challenge themselves in combat. But I cannot possibly agree that it's good for the country when we put in harm's way the better, worthier half of our citizenry.
Quote of the Week: A Tall Order for Minorities Everywhere
Rowan (Eli) Pope: How many times did I tell you?! You have to be what?!
Olivia Pope: Twice as good as them to get a half of what they have.
Scandal, Season 3, Episode 1
The Frustrated CFO's Comment:
I'm not placing this excerpt into quotation marks. First of all, it's not an exact citation – on screen it gets all broken up, because the characters interrupt each other with anger, frustration, exasperation, and all other similar feelings; Eli is yelling, and Liv is sort of shudders and attempts to shy away - all those over-the-top dramatics and stuff. More importantly, though, it's not an original phrase. Shonda Rhimes, who actually penned this episode herself, is brilliantly entertaining, but she didn't come up with this maxim. Many African-American journalists, bloggers, and celebrities commented on its wide-spread popularity in their families and communities. Some even tried to date it – 70s, 50s…
The truth is, however, this concept doesn't belong exclusively to black people of the United States. In fact, everywhere around the world similar formulas are spoken in different languages to bright and promising children who will have to spend their lives jumping over the barriers raised in front of them for no other reason than their minority status: Kurds in Turkey, Chinese in Indonesia, Hui in China, Indians in Uganda, Rohingyas in Burma, Jews and Gypsies wherever they are, etc., etc., etc.
Furthermore, the applicability of this mandate goes way beyond race and ethnicity. The same mantra is adapted as a way of life by every marginalized overachiever even in our blessed land we call "Free Country:" women going into "men's" professions; immigrants with strong accents attempting to climb corporate ladders; members of LGBT community trying to get a job outside of the fashion and the entertainment industries; overweight and deformed individuals applying for any position; young talented people without connections trying to break into especially nepotistic fields – the list is long.
Growing up a Jewish girl in one of the most anti-Semitic of European countries, I was barred from many professional careers and life opportunities. And in those that were permissible, someone like me had one chance in a thousand. My personal slogan was even more maximal: I had to be the best just to get in. Was I able to completely shake off the disenfranchised complex after nearly three decades in America? Fat chance! For starters, I'm a woman…
Quote of the Week: The Doomed Choices We Make
"She had always known that in making certain choices one committed oneself to a sequence of actions – which inevitably meant a switch from being master of one's fate to being its slave – but she had hoped that she could decide when to make that switch, instead of having it forced upon her."
Paul Griner
Collectors: A Novel
The Frustrated CFO 