The newspapers I’ve been reading lately are full of a big surprise: Women are not well represented on the executive level of business.

Well, duh.

The power structure is still held fast by a ”boys’ club” (all over the U.S. and Canada) that claims to be unable to find qualified women to sit on their boards. I was invited onto the Board of Investors’ Group Trust in 1988. At that time female representation on the power boards averaged, optimistic estimate, at eight percent. I replaced the other woman on the board who was due to retire shortly after I joined.

Full disclosure: the wife of the Chair was my best friend. Aha, you say. that’s how, that’ s why. Not quite. He was searching for a woman because the incumbent was retiring. So he did vet a number of women. He came across my name in several places but turned away because I was his wife’s best friend (reverse nepotism). But he checked my credentials

My best-selling book was Beginnings: A Book for Widows and it included financial advice for women. It led me to Everywoman’s Money Book, which went to about five printings, with updated revisions. That was followed by The Best Is Yet to Come, a book of retirement planning, and I had begun to give talks on financial planning for women with a similar approach for Insurance agencies’ audiences. When my appointment was announced, Investors’ received fan mail congratulating them on putting a woman on the board, one they had heard of, and when the clientele was invited to vote at an AGM submitting a proxy if unable to attend, a number of them directed their proxy to me, to vote for them. Even so, after I was on the board and went across the country giving money talks to women, a number of local organizers accused me of being “palsy” with the chairman, and when I gave my report to my board, several of them accused me of being too “bleeding-heart” about women. Their ideal female board member served on an associate board: a nun, smart as can be, they said (and no threat at all—to them.

I quote from an Opinion piece by Rita Trichur that appeared int the Saturday (Jan. 23) Globe and Mail: “…systemic discrimination remains a persistent problem in Corporate Canada, creating a power gap for women, Black people, Indigenous people and people of colour (BIPOC) and other minorities.”

Now, how about OLD WOMEN, like me?

Oddly enough,I remember what I was going to say next—three or four days ago. I was discussing Kondo’s miscellany category, and I was going to give an example of miscellaneous items that have had their day— or night.

Corsages.

In my day, dances, or balls (at Christmas time), were very popular. By the end of my university career I owned five or six formal gowns, and I wore them, always with a complimentary corsage. I had a big book, a Girls’ Own Annual, that I no longer read, and I used it to save my corsages. I stuck them between the pages and didn’t care that the pages got stuck or mildewed or rotten; the corsages were mementos and they gave me sparks of joy. Until they didn’t. There were so many unidentified, atrophied bits of colourless foliage that I couldn’t tell the difference between a a gardenia or an orchid. They had to go.They are a good example of Kondo’s discards of miscellany.

I know someone, in fact a few people, who save champagne corks, commemorating an anniversary or an achievement—some momentous occasion. Well, they don’t rot like corsages but they cease to have any significance by the time there are 15, 20, 30 in a drawer. I knew someone who used to save all his wine bottle corks; I don’t know what he does with screw tops. I knew two people who saved every yogurt container. I am more practical: I save bookmarks and letter openers.

As I get older, though, and acknowledge the fact, I am finding it easier to toss, especially as i progress through this endless task of gathering my files for the last great severance.

Thanks for the memories.