Women should not put up with disrespect at board meetings

By Myra Bean, News Editor

“The pen is mightier than the sword.”
Remember that for a little later on in this piece.
Going to some of these city and county board meetings I have seen and heard about some things happening on a regular basis.
Women who appear before these board are disrespected, some more than others.
Do you know how hard it is for some people to put together a presentation so that they will not stumble all over their words in order to get elected officials to hear them?
They come with their impassioned pleas to help make their communities better and last week I saw one lady waved off. Everything within me rose up at that disrespect. I lost respect for that alderman.
How would you like for your mother, wife or daughter’s plea for equality be wiped aside with the brush of a hand like she was not even speaking?
This particular lady and her committee had worked many hours to bring a Farmers Market to Sardis to better the health of the community. Why was their plea for a reconsideration of your action a cause to be waved away like it was nothing? So what if you had voted it down. Vote again.
Why when the lady wanted the street named after her father, you rolled your eyes at her? Do you like people rolling their eyes at you?
Why was the lady given a bored look when requesting the other playground in Sardis be upgraded but when the man said the same thing everybody gave a listening ear?
Most of these boards are male dominated, elected by many of those women you shun. I would sit up a little bit straighter at those tables and pretend to show interest in what they are saying, if I were some of you.
Women have power in this nation. They have the power to vote you out of those seats that you come to view as your right of passage.
The late great Leonard Morris spoke to me about term limits which came up when he was serving in the Mississippi legislature. I asked him how he felt about them.
He said we have term limits. I looked at him in a confused way, I’m sure.
Election time – is what he said. If voters do not want you in that spot, they can vote you out and limit your term of service.
Remember the power of the pen earlier. The same can be said about the power at the voting booth.
If you feel disrespected at these board meetings, exercise your right at election time, which comes every four years, and limit their terms in those seats.
Elected officials, if you want to keep those seats, for once do what the people want.