Hey! Look at Us!

I'm not the kind of person who likes to be in wacky photos. If you see me in a picture where all around me attention-grabbing poses are being struck, you can immediately pick me out as the one who is standing stock-still, mortified and motionless.

But look! That's me up there on the escalator, third up on the left side, waving so extravagantly that my right hand is a Bionic Woman-ish blur. Also, I'm wearing an enormous fabric sunflower and a shirt with a design that includes embroidered ruby slippers. Now I'm not a shrinking violet, but this kind of exuberant extroversion is not usually in my roundhouse.

Apparently it takes being with 6,000 of my closest friends to put me in that kind of mood.

For the past five days I've been at the international convention of P.E.O., a philanthropic organization that supports educational opportunities for women of all ages. We raise and give away (or loan) money to women who are new high school graduates, women who need more education to reach their career goals, women who are earning advanced graduate degrees, and women from other countries who are studying for doctoral degrees in the United States. And if that isn't enough, we also own a women's college that attracts great undergraduates from all over the world.

P.E.O. has distributed more than $344 million worth of educational assistance to over 109,000 women, and last week I attended its 150th birthday party.

Now it may have been just the sugar rush from all the desserts they were feeding us (Birthday cake for thousands! Yes, please!) but I'm convinced my uncharacteristic joie de vivre was generated by the knowledge that this group does such great things. You can't help but be impressed by one of our assisted students who has used a P.E.O. scholarship as a springboard to attend medical school and plans to go back to her poverty-stricken hometown to practice. Or a doctoral student from a England who points to a personal tragedy as the impetus for her study of women's issues.

This group is a sisterhood, and I'm not going to deny that there are occasional sibling squabbles (although, oddly, the fact that the entire Kansas delegation dressed alike one day didn't provoke any "you're always wearing my clothes" outbursts). But I feel completely confident in saying that we left the convention feeling upbeat about the work we're doing, and determined to do more.

Beyonce may claim that girls run the world, but they are going to need education to do it right. And  having just watched that video for the first time I would also say that they're going to need more a more thoughtfully selected wardrobe. Obviously she should be wearing a black knit jumpsuit as she rides that rearing steed; white is completely impractical in this situation. Of course, that is  coming from someone who just showed the internet a picture of herself wearing a ruby-slipper-encrusted shirt.

Okay, ignore the fashion advice. Just watch me waving wildly and appreciate the organization that prompted that enthusiasm.

Women deserve no less.