The dangers of blogging

This is very amusing.

Poneke blogged on the 25th of February about how the era of females occupying almost every top job in NZ seems to be coming to an end, and worried about the lack of role models for young women.

I have two daughters, and since their births I have told them them time and again to look at the country’s political, institutional and business leadership for the proof that “girls really can do anything” in New Zealand. During the last decade, and sometimes for much of the same time, we have had a woman prime minister, a woman leader of the opposition (they even swapped jobs in 1999), a woman governor-general, a woman chief justice, the chief executives of the country’s biggest listed company and one of the biggest banks were women, and latterly so has been the Speaker of Parliament. …

What does concern me is the growing shortage of highly visible top role models for my daughters and other girls and young women. Helen Clark will not be prime minister for much longer – at most till 2011 if she wins the election this year, and only till the coming election if she loses it. …

Then a couple of weeks later on the 9th, Aquilifer commented on the post:

Personally I find being told again and again “girls can do anything” to be demeaning, as is having every woman who has reached success of some degree or another shoved in my face as a role model. I’m not so stupid I can’t work out for myself my own abilities and potential.

It seems sexist to me that we have to gasp in delight and point out every successful woman, as if they have beaten insurmountable odds to get where they are. Now no societal barrier stops woman doing what they want, and we know that women can do every bit as well as men. Do we really need to point it out every time a woman gets into power?

We all reach our positions in life by our personal skills and attributes. The best woman or man will always win. If it’s a woman, that’s great, but if the best happens to be a man, there’s no need to be mournful- they’re still the best, and that’s all that should matter.

— Signed, your daughter

Classic. Poneke has a further thread on his (15 year old) daughter’s correcting of him.