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Mansfield: I nominate a woman . . . for my optometrist By juice staff writer November 9, 2005 Lately, I've noticed my vision's been kind of blurry when I'm reading. I checked my records and found out I last went to an optometrist in - gheesh - 1995. So last week I sent out an email to some of my friends with this in the subject line: Female optometrist wanted. Why did I ask specifically for a woman, one wanted to know? Why indeed. It was something Anna Quindlen said when she was here in September on behalf of the Chrysalis Foundation, a nonprofit that helps local women and girls. The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author came to Des Moines to talk about "Women in the 21st Century" over a ballroom lunch at the Plex. Quindlen talked about her daughter, who she said had a woman pediatrician and a woman dentist. When one of her brothers said he was thinking of being a doctor, Quindlen's daughter quipped that only girls could be doctors. Through her famous mother, she's met women astronauts and women senators and gone to "Take Our Daughters to Work Day" with women judges. Consequently, she takes it for granted that women run the world, Quindlen said. I made a mental note that I should make an effort to expose my future kids to women in such careers so they would be as enlightened. But kids are not in the works right now, so I filed that thought away. Then George Bush nominated Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. So I nominated Dr. Jennifer Den Hartog to be my optometrist. Why wait until I have kids to surround myself with smart, professional women? Sadly, I still consider women doctors unusual. I grew up with older white male doctors, dentists, surgeons. Some were great, like the optometrist who's taken care of several generations of my family. Some were annoying, like the pediatrician who made me chant "ouch birdie-birdie rub-a-dub-dub" to try to distract me from the needle when he wanted to give me a shot. Didn't work. The problem is not that they were white male doctors. To me they were all just doctors. The problem is the sense of surprise I still feel when I meet a woman doctor. Or when I see a woman outselling the men at my car dealership and all I can think is "Huh. I've never seen a woman selling cars." Or when a committee gets together, discovers they are 51 percent female, and worries that they have "too many women." Take a look at the circle of people you surround yourself with. Look at the people who service, advise and influence you and your family. See if you need to be nominating more women in your life. The fact that you have a woman optometrist, woman car saleswoman, woman anything won't make up for not having another woman Supreme. But when another woman finally does get on the court, it would be nice not to be surprised that she's there.
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