Jill Wilson Brennan

In my novel “Skyscrapers,” one of my two CEO’s is a Mexican immigrant female. Is it realistic to have her climb from immigrant status all the way to being the head of AgriBusiness? Certainly we see many more women in the news nowadays speaking from positions of authority. They are CEO’s, news anchors, doctors, scientists, astronauts and other outstanding people who just happen to be women. Except, as we all know, being female puts a person at a definite disadvantage in many professions.

How big a disadvantage? It’s hard to measure, and companies like to keep it that way. But The Chicago Tribune just published the figures of last year’s income for the CEO (male) and COO (female) of The Northern Trust, a venerable bank. His income was not slightly above hers, it was almost double. It is true he has held his position longer by some years, while she is relatively new in her position, but both their incomes and their extra compensation for the year showed the same stunning disparity.

At least the situation is better than when I was in college or working in my twenties. In those days, it was hard to get influential men to listen to anything a young woman said. Leering was common, and calling adult women “sweetie” or “hon” and expecting them to get the coffee was the norm. I was afraid in college that if I asked help of certain professors, they would regard it as an overture. Then the Sixties came roaring in, and along with it feminism, and since then professors behave in a more professional manner for fear of being reported for sexual harassment. But I have enjoyed the series “Mad Men” because they have really captured the sexism, drinking, smoking, and male privilege of that era.

However, the situation isn’t perfect. Right now, I’m part of a team negotiating office space for the International Women Associates of Chicago. The building manager is a serious misogynist. We all agree on what his problem is. Our President is a professional in Human Resources, and we are preparing extra ammunition before we start into negotiations. It’s often said women have to be better in order to get fair play or equal pay, and in our case we have to take extra steps to level the playing field.

Today’s movies are bending over backwards to portray powerful women, so the prototype is being built into today’s little girls’ minds. Their expectations of themselves will be different as a result, and I think we will continue to see women achieve the highest success. I hope pay scales even out as well. I wrote Eleanora Torquemada as a woman capable of achieving the highest success in spite of starting off at the very bottom. I based her partly on my daughter-in-law, who grew up in Chinatown in Chicago, and is now a successful attorney. I had Eleanora Torquemada Anglicize her name to Ellie Smith (Smith is her married name) because my daughter-in-law found it advantageous in business to change hers from Choi Wei-San to Susan Brennan. I also gave Eleanora three successful brothers, thereby suggesting that she would grow up competing with males in the family, and also that genetically, the whole family was very capable. The fact that her parents run a ma-and-pa grocery store in the Mexican part of Powhaten simply tells us that they are fulfilling a typical immigrant role. The fact that they raised a daughter who is a CEO, a son who is a high-level FBI/DEA agent, a son who is a Powhaten Alderman for one of the Latino wards, and a son who is a news anchor for the Spanish-language TV news should tell readers that these parents had big dreams and passed them along to all four of their children.

The glass ceiling still exists and women know it, even if men deny it. But as more and more women achieve high positions and mentor younger women, that glass is going to get thinner. One day it will simply not be there. I hope there’s a big feminist celebration on that day, whenever it comes!