When I read this article I am reminded of the day that Mike and I found out we were going to have a baby girl. The day a doctor tells you the gender of your unborn baby is usually a happy one. But well over a year ago when Mike and I were informed that there was no sign of masculinity in our little fetus, I came home and cried, hysterical from fear.

I know now that the reason I always assumed I would have a boy is because I wanted a boy. I wanted a boy for the following horrible, but very true reasons in my world:

1) Boys are easier for a woman to raise. 2) I am not into very many typically feminine things; therefore if my daughter were typical, she would eventually hate me. 3) I hate the color pink. 4) I absolutely hate Barbie. 5) When people hope for that one great leader to rise up and change our world, no one ever imagines it would be a woman. 6) Even in 2006, being a powerful, smart woman is harder than being a powerful, smart man.

As I type these reasons, I can almost hear you forming your rebuttals in your heads. I love your optimistic ways; I do. But even now, with a clear head and my daughter sleeping in her crib on one side of me and my husband on the other side, I know that my list is still mostly true. Numbers one, three, and four are a matters of opinion, I suppose. Regarding number two, Mike and a few friends have convinced me that my daughter will be anything but typical, so I’m hoping for the best. But five and six… most of you women and a few well-socialized men know I’d have a good argument on those.

I didn’t know I felt this until that ultrasound showed a lack of the necessary genitalia. Frankly, I surprised myself with the severity of my fear and the depth of the personal wounds I discovered when trying to piece together how I came to those sad conclusions about women. Many women have such stories to tell about the ways in which they were oh so lightly ignored because of their sex. Some might assume this discrimination lessens as you go up the corporate ladder or that women actually have an advantage in certain fields these days because of quotas or government grants specific to women. The people who believe such nonsense are usually men.

I demanded equality in every job I ever worked and every relationship I was ever involved in. But when equality was not an option, I used my gender to get the attention I needed or sometimes just to get through a particularly hard day. But more often than that I laughed off remarks that chipped away at my respect for men in general or I “sassily shot back” when treated like an inferior because I wore skirts and lipstick.

I understand those women who wear manly suits to work. I get it. I see that they were choosing the other way of dealing with a serious problem of gender discrimination that has not faded as much as my history books would have me believe. You cannot imagine the shit that goes on in the workplace, whether it is within corporations or backstage in LA, until you are the one feeling like shit for wearing 6-inch heels to work while your boss is fitting right in with his 1-inch loafers. And all the while you don’t know if you should be happy that three men have commented about how “nice you look today” or if you should check to see if your blouse is see-through.

All of these things I lived with and did my best to believe that it did not matter. And mostly, it didn’t – until the day I knew I would have a daughter.

That day, my hopes for my child were combined with all the heartache and frustration I have experienced myself as a woman who still struggles to balance my choice to be a wife and mother and my desire to be understood as intelligent and ambitious. While I cried about this and tried to explain to Mike, I said something to the effect of, “A world leader would not be a woman. Most people don’t really take women seriously.”

But I’ll tell you something I learned the day that August was born. The moment I laid eyes on her my first thought was “There you are, just as I knew you would be.” August IS that child I knew I would have. And since the day she was born Mike and I have been hearing the same compliment over and over from family and friends as well as strangers:
She is incredibly perceptive. She is an old soul.

My child is everything I thought my child would be. I just didn’t know she would be female. And considering this, it makes perfect sense that I am her mother, that Mike is her father. We are equipped to guide this old soul out into the world where she will be given every opportunity to succeed not “in spite of” the incorrect assumption that a woman cannot be a world leader, but without that assumption.

I will not have her believe, as I did that this quiet discrimination should be tolerated in any way. She will not need to dress manly. She will not feel pressured to wear clothes that are uncomfortable because they are sexy. She will not care one way or another about Barbie; pink will be just another color.

Still, none of this changes the rest of the people out there who might try to make her feel less than capable. Though they are dwindling, those cowards remain in positions of power and influence. I am, however, hopeful that the future will be better than the past for women in general. And what I believe will help speed the process is when we women see equality and value among our many different life choices and ourselves first. For example, when people like me stop wishing for the “easier” task of raising an ambitious son instead of an ambitious daughter. Or when stay at home moms stop berating career moms and vice versa.

What I hope for my daughter is what I wish for every woman out there: Balance. I believe it’s possible. I know it’s possible because I know men and women who value women as feminine AND equal. I am married to a man like this.

August wears pink now because it looks good on her, because my mother-in-law likes it and because I am not as stubborn as I once was. (I am learning to find my balance too.) But I also plan to buy her building blocks and cars and a sand pit. It’s unlikely that I will warm up to the unhealthy world of Barbie but there will be girl dolls and boy dolls and cleats and dance shoes. She will decide – not society – who she is – who she can be.

In closing, I want to tell my mother, my grandmothers and all the women I have known up to this point who put up with even more shit than I did in their struggle to find that balance –Thank you. I see what you did for me. Thank you.