Well, I finally did it. I bit the bullet and got certified as a WOB: a woman-owned business. It took a roots-up, religious-type conversion -- I'd walked in darkness, then I saw the light. And now that I am a proud -- or do I mean "humble"? -- official victim, my company is entitled to all kinds of preferential treats. Whether ordained by law, as in government contracting, or as an example of aggressive good-guy-ism in the P.R.-conscious private sector, or even as a hopeful prophylaxis against employee or shareholder lawsuits, a passel of lucrative work is reserved for those with the best-crafted claims to prior oppression.

Well-wishers had been after me to go WOB for years, but I refused. Until my revelation, I regarded set-asides as strictly a pat on the head for second-raters. My company, Artkraft Strauss, has been provi-ding signs and outdoor advertising -- and paying taxes -- since 1897. We'd never imagined ourselves qualified for charity. Our firm gets and keeps customers by fulfilling their contracts, not by invoking their pity. Besides, using sex to get work smacks of a profession even older than sign building. The whole endeavor struck me as disreputable.

But then I realized I was a victim of something even more pernicious than discrimination: pride.

My chief of operations, Jimmy, put the matter into perspective. "What are you, nuts?" he asked, reminding me of how many hoops we've jumped through and rings we've kissed over the years to get jobs. "How's this different?" he wanted to know. "If a job is set aside for guys named Jimmy, my name is Jimmy, I'll take it!" Jimmy was right: Business is business.

The Wonder of Womanship

So far the principal benefit of my new WOB status is a clutch of complimentary subscriptions to minority- and woman-owned business magazines. Soft-core S&M for the affirmative action set, they feature photos of silver-haired old-boy executives grinning weakly while presenting excellence awards to entrepreneurs who wear their minority-hood and womanship like earned badges of honor.

But WOB isn't just about tangible benefits. It's so much more. I now feel a part of something larger than myself: the great chain of being that tumbles from the well-meaning, through the impractical, to the absurd -- replacing the dismal script of capitalism with a delightfully random set of entitlements and rewards.

Source: http://www.reason.com/news/show/29203.html

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