When a man gets ill, he’s ill. When a woman gets ill, it’s a threat to her career. Take it from someone who had breast cancer at an early age and had to knock herself out to keep it from questioning whether she could teach, be promoted to associate and full professor.
Look at Stephen Hawking. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States. He’s brilliant. He’s in a wheelchair. But we don’t doubt his competence. Pneumonia would’t change that. But for a woman, illness can be used against her. That’s what is going on right now. There are ample articles about Trump’s mental health. He is older than Clinton and not the picture of fitness himself.
Women in business and government know you can’t let people know when you’re ill. It shows up in your promotion package, as it did in my case even though breast cancer had occurred years prior to that promotion. It’s disgusting to see the media frenzy on this issue that would have been just pneumonia had she been a man.
I’m angry. Very angry. I hope people don’t fall for this media attack for which so many journalists are being paid handsomely. They are using the gender disparaging card that a woman’s brief ill health can provide. If you use Google and type in “Donald Trump, health,” you’ll get very little about his physical and mental health. Do the same for Hillary, even before pneumonia, and the situation is quite different. It’s despicable.
