Just about the best thing to result from the recent November elections was Anne Gust, Jerry Brown's campaign manager and wife. I look forward to her leadership of the Governor's Women's Conference sometime next fall.

I look forward to the possibility of a truly different Conference where finally we stop looking at women as the source of simplistic commiseration and instead begin to see in women the leaders we need for the 21st century.

For the past several year, the GWC has been full of tears, bling, and tragedy. If I see one more tear-jerking rendition from a Governor's First Lady, I'm going to lose lunch. Women today are not simply foils of charities -- they are equal partners, educated, mindful, intelligent beings. Few are "desperate" as portrayed in too many television episodes, way way too many journalist articles, and in every advertisement on the face of this earth.

Anne Gust is a talented lawyer well-regarded for her contributions in corporate life. I look forward to seeing that talent take on the GWC and re-charter the event toward

 

women investing (not simply shopping to please "him")

women building businesses (not simply calling for legislative "ACTION NOW" to tie corporations into knots)

women taking on financial literacy (instead of being duped by every con artist in the country)

women pushing back on bullies (male or female)

women writing with evidence and facts (instead of flailing away at emotionally charged windmills)

women in leadership (instead of simply Corporate Stepford Wives)

women entrepreneurs (building truly innovative businesses instead of simply nail and hair salons)

women solving women's problems (instead of passing the buck to federal, state, and local governments or to corporate welfare programs)

women paying women equitable wages (instead of underearning, underbidding, under paying women themselves)

 

In other words, I look forward to a Governor's Women's Conference full of Anne Gusts and her kindred sisters.