They forgot #9--Whatever you do, don't be yourself.

I am by no means a rabid feminist. But, when I read spew like this article by CNN's Stephanie Chen, I want to throw away my makeup, buy myself some androgynous footwear and commit to a monochromatic, shapeless wardrobe, JUST out of spite!

Maybe my perspective on this is off, but what I read was that you must be bitchy; pretend to be "one-of-the-guys" by taking up hobbies you don't enjoy; make sure not to be even mildly emotional; accept that the intellect of the guy in the cubical next to you is enough to warrant a promotion for him but that yours does not; take your lumps while being sure to feel confident enough to assert yourself; remember to look nice and keep your sentences simple for the sake of others' comprehension and THIS will get you ahead. What a crock of unbelievable shit.

Nice girls do get corner offices, actually. And they do it by being reliable, competent, intelligent and the last person their boss believes would hit him/her with their car to steal a parking spot. I know this to be true--loyalty and reliability mean everything in this marketplace, male or female. There's a reason the offers that have come my way since attempting to work my way up through the campaign world have been incredibly honoring. They have come from people who saw my work, sure. But they actually saw me in my work and believe that I am a person who cares more about the job than the title. And, they're right.

Chen did get one thing right--don't expect it to be fair. Don't expect employers to ever look at you as anything other than a liability for one reason and one reason only--maternity. Women make and take care of families. Wouldn't it be nice if your kid didn't need to be picked up at daycare and you could go out and have beers with the guys? Wouldn't it be nice if groceries didn't need to be purchased and no one needed to get to soccer practice and there wasn't a band concert featuring the worst and most loved clarinet player ever? Wouldn't it be nice if that golf game wasn't interrupted by a call from a babysitter over a sick kid or if those tears weren't actually because you couldn't handle your bosses criticism, but because you are exhausted from constantly being mentally and emotionally in a dozen places at once?

This article is great for the self-serving and luxuriously self-centered women out there who have just chosen to have careers. The women who hope for a 401k and a health plan, not because they expect to need maternity coverage or to actually retire, but because it will be nice to cash some of that in for a car that befits their reserved space in the ramp and the benefits will be great in case they elect for whiter teeth or a discount on their gym membership to keep themselves looking the part.

Excuse my rant. Really. It's just that it's a joke to pretend that 8 simple steps are all it will take for a woman to get ahead when it's been more than 8 decades since we got the right to vote and Supreme Court Justices are debating whether women have ever been discriminated against, much less whether they are currently.