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These thoughts are a response to my daughter who warned me this morning not to write about the tired old ideas of tired old women. The framing was that old white women have often written about their experiences in the past, thinking it is relevant to the events unfolding today. I replied, that’s exactly what I’m doing. How can I write about anything else?

In fact, the more I think about it, the more I say, That’s the whole point.

The trope about standing on the shoulders of those who precede us is used so often in so many contexts that it’s impossible to quote it with attribution. That’s proof that it’s true.

More to my point is that those women who are leading us right now stand on their own shoulders. They have built up a resume of experience that informs them, and this is the leadership we need. Women like Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Congresswoman Lucille Royball-Allard are older than I am; you think they don’t and didn’t bring their life experiences to bear on their leadership actions?

It’s not that the very young Congresswoman Alexandra Octavio-Cortez doesn’t also bring her experience to bear on the job, and a young perspective is valuable (I give her organization money, too-- a bonus -- being an older white woman with money to give away). But if young women think that they can start from right now, at this point in history, and get it all straightened out, I’ll tell you, that’s what I thought back in 1970 and I missed the mark. I was confident that Hillary (my generation) was going to win in 2016; her defeat needs to go down as one of the greatest battles ever lost, right up there with the 1529 Ottoman Siege of Vienna and Napoleon’s 1812 Russian Campaign.

It’s worthwhile to reread the fluff-up over Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s famous quote. "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life," Sotomayor said in a speech at 2001 at the University of California, Berkeley, law school. She risked losing the nomination to the Supreme Court over that statement. At the risk of losing my nomination to the Supreme Court, I will say, That’s exactly what I mean.