Growing up in post-World War II America presented few options for young women past high school. College graduates could aspire to be elementary school teachers or nurses but, once married, women were expected to care for husbands, children, and the household. The man was the breadwinner; women shouldn’t worry their pretty little heads about money and finances. That was the way many of my peers and, later, constituents, were raised decades ago. It was not unusual for recent widows to call my Fairfax County office after their husbands died, pleading for help to understand what they should do now that their mates (and their safety net) were gone. “My husband always took care of the bills” was a recurring refrain. Much of my counsel focused on their strengths rather than their loss, assuring them that they could manage their new situation, one step at a time. 

During my college years, the joke was that co-eds were seeking their Mrs. degree, not a bachelor’s degree. Indeed, my mother once showed me a certificate that bestowed a PHT degree (“Putting Hubby Through”) commemorating the women who held down a menial job so their husbands could go to college full-time. To me, that wasn’t amusing. Women often were dismissed as “the little woman” or “a woman’s place is in the home” or “you’re just a girl.”

For those of us who aspired to more, the barriers were there. In my senior year in college, a professor declared, in front of the entire class, that I had no business being in his public administration class because “I would be taking a job from a man.” Today, I probably could have filed a discrimination complaint against him, but that avenue was not available then. In my subsequent six decades in elective politics, I’ve often wished that professor could see me now! Young women should be encouraged to take reasonable risks, establish their career goals, and follow through. Women can do it all, but it takes time, energy, organization, and determination. 

When Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth fires women in top military leadership, and seeks to restrict women from serving their country in military service, talks only about the “boys” who piloted the military aircraft that bombed Iran despite the presence of women in those cockpits, and refuses to answer questions posed by female United States Senators in open hearings, the shadow of gender discrimination continues to cast a pall across opportunities for women. I was working on Capitol Hill for Senator Frank Church (D-ID), handling applications for the service academies, when women were admitted for the first time in 1976. Just two years earlier, a federal law allowed women to open credit card accounts in their own names, without a husband or co-signer. Even then, however, female staffers were not allowed on the Senate Floor. A female aide, even a chief of staff, would have to go to the Senate Cloakroom and ask a page to let the senator know she was there. Male staffers had no such restrictions. Fortunately, the Senate Rules loosened in more recent decades.

I was proud of the young high-schooler at a conservative Young Women’s Leadership Summit last week who asked for clarification about why a leadership event seemed to convey that she should just “get married and have babies.” The response from conservative host Charlie Kirk was that “a career-driven life is very empty.” Kirk also opined that “college is a scam but a good place to pursue the proverbial Mrs. degree.” Perhaps if Kirk had pursued a college degree (his bio notes that he attended Harper College in Illinois), he would have greater respect for higher education and the broader perspectives and opportunities it provides for all students, regardless of gender. 

For too long, women were told they can’t or shouldn’t. Many women, including me, fought successfully to change that to “yes, we can, and yes, we should.” Those wins are endangered today, at the federal, state and local level, as well as in the courts. It’s about choice, the choice to have a career or not, the choice to marry or not, to have children or not, to create a new path or not. Life has its risks and rewards. Women shouldn’t hide from either.