“When’d you actually put in your papers and make it official?” Brad asked.

“‘Bout a month ago. Friday’s my last day?”

“Well, Lordy Lordy.”

They were sitting back in a corner of the restaurant in the Hilton down on 16th Street. They’d been getting together there for lunch every several months for fifteen years. Old buddies. Both from the South. Brad was a superannuated liberal from the sixties. Knock, knock, knocking on 70’s door. Diana was a decade younger. She’d been nine in the summer of 1964 when he was in Mississippi stirring up a fuss about the rights of black folks. She was too young to know about all that. But when she got to 18? A kick ass, take names, Nixon hating, in your face feminist.

“You got something lined up? ‘Sides babysitting grand kids?”

“Snookums, thirty-five years ago I’da punched you in the nose for saying that.”

“You didn’t have grand kids thirty-five years ago.”

“I didn’t. Got ’em now. And I do babysit for them. Have to promise not to take ’em to rallies and protests with me. Or teach ’em to hate the Tea Party.”

“Must be hard.”

“Nope. Lying to my daughter’s never been hard.”

**************

Brad brought it up. “Remember all that work we did back on the plight of women in fundraising?”

“Absolutely.”

“Don’t see much evidence of change in that arena. An industry that’s two thirds females but it’s guys at the top, mostly. And …”

“The women make less than the men for equal work?”

“That’d be it.”

“Preaching to the choir, old buddy.”

“Well, now that you’re hanging up the spurs …”

“Don’t you worry. This girl’s got herself some plans.”

“You’ve piqued my interest.”

***************

It was a week later and she was cranking away on an iPad in her home office when the phone rang. Diana checked the caller ID.

“You coulda texted me.”

“I do not text. Ever.”

“‘Cause you’re old?”

“Partly. Mostly because I’m chatty. Don’t even like email ‘cept for simple shit.”

“Just an over educated redneck.”

“Yep. Give me an update.”

************

A few years prior to her last job, Diana had worked for ADE — The Association for Development in Education. One of the hundreds and hundreds of non-profits in the DC area. This one focused on professionals in higher education who were trying to raise money for their schools.

ADE had a bunch of list servs for different kinds of fundraising specialties. Annual fund. Prospect research. Major giving. Maybe ten of these things in total. They were a way for people to ask and answer questions, mention jobs they were trying to fill, send people to interesting links, and other stuff.

A lot of the younger folks considered the list servs outdated and not as cool or useful as Twitter and Facebook. Still, the servs went out to thousands of people, and got a good amount of traffic on them.

“I saw a posting the other day. Reminded me of a boxing match where one of the fighters leaves himself wide open for a punch that could put his ass on the canvas. It was talking about this great job opening at some hoity-toity school out on the left coast. Raving about great climate, stimulating work, good pay. Whole nine yards.”

“What’d you do?”

“I wrote back to the lady who posted the job and copied about four thousand other people who subscribe to the list. Said I had a few questions. Can send you what I wrote.”

“Ah, man.”

******************

This is what she wrote:

“Dear Ms. So and So:

Let’s say your number one candidate is a woman.

When you make her an offer and she accepts right away, will you tell her a guy probably wouldn’t do that? He’d negotiate and that she should do the same?

Will you tell her your president has no plans whatsoever to correct the gross salary inequities between men and women at your institution?

Will you tell her that her chances of promotion to the vice president level are far less than those of a man with lesser qualifications?

Will you tell her how useless your human resources department will be if she goes to them complaining about unfair treatment or sexual harassment?

Will you tell her how you don’t have a telecommuting policy that allows women with young children to work from home a couple of days a week?”

*******************

Back on the phone the next day, Brad asked, “So, Miss Diana, what kind of reaction you been getting to your posting?”

“Got kicked off the list serv.”

“Whoa. What ever happened to free speech, the open exchange of ideas, and all that good shit?”

“Say what?”

“Yeah. You gonna stay after it?”

“Oh honey, I’m just gettin’ warmed up.”

*******************