Perhaps it is just me, but it seems as though small towns are always the last to recognize the turn of the century. A case in point: Newell, Iowa.

This town gained fame recently when its all-male firefighting squad voted 10-7 to reject Robin Westergaard as its newest recruit. She would have become the first female firefighter in Newell’s history.

A similar fate is expected for Glenda Grot who is also attempting to join the team.

These two women are no strangers to hard work. Both have gone through fire school and are members of rescue squads. In fact, the Newell fire chief told The Des Moines Register that the women have more training than most of the 21 firefighters on the team.

Not only do they have more training, but they also know how to use it. Several weeks ago, Westergaard and Grote rescued a woman from a flipped car while they were on duty with their ambulance rescue squad. Another car had crashed into the victim’s car and was burning only a few feet away from the trapped victim.

Westergaard and Grote managed to manipulate their way into the mangled car to rescue the victim. The fire chief said the two women may have been the only peopleon the scene able to fit into the wreckage to attempt the rescue.

The victim recognized the women’s acts by praising them in a letter to the editor. The firefighters and the town’s mayor recognized the women’s acts by questioning their ability.

Firefighter Rod Johnson was quoted as wondering if Westergaard could “haul my butt out of a fire if I ever go down.”

The mayor, Bonnie Witter, was quoted by The Register as saying, “It’s not a woman’s place to be. The men should have something for themselves. We shouldn’t have to butt in[to] all the men’s things. I know for some women, it has been a dream (to join), but my husband has been on since 1958 and I’ve never had an urge to do it.”

The concerns of the firefighters shouldn’t be taken lightly. They have to be able to count on each other when they need help. Someday, a female firefighter may need to be able to get an injured colleague out of a building. The concern is a legitimate one.

The underlying assumptions are based on stereotypes that are not necessarily true for every male or female. Some women are going to have no problem carrying an injured person. Some men might.

Phylliss Henry is the perfect example of a woman who defied the stereotypes.

Henry entered law enforcement as a way of providing for her family after her divorce. She needed a “man’s salary,” so she began her career in law enforcement in 1972 as the Des Moines Police Department’s first female patrol officer. Why was Henry Des Moines’ first?

“There was the theory, a wrong theory as it was, that we were not strong enough emotionally, strong enough physically. We weren’t big enough, we didn’t weigh enough and we weren’t tall enough,” Henry said in a 1994 interview.

When Henry joined the department, she was the only female who could meet the height and weight requirements. The civil rights laws changed in 1972, forcing police departments to hire women patrol officers.

Instead of destroying the integrity of the Des Moines Police Department, the female officers brought new strengths to the department. Henry said many of the women were better negotiators than the male officers and their talents often diffused potentially violent situations.

Henry couldn’t have been too bad at her job either, considering she was promoted to U.S. marshal for the southern district of Iowa.

What is especially distressing is the attitude professed by Newell’s mayor. While Witter may have no interest in firefighting, that does not give her the right to speak for all women and to deny them the chance to fulfill their dreams.

I hate to break it to her, but there was a time when women couldn’t be mayors. I hope her house is made of shatterproof glass.

This reminded me of Bradwell v. State, an 1873 case. I provide a passage for your entertainment, or disgust as the case may be:

“Man is, or should be, woman’s protector and defender. The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life. . . . The paramount destiny and mission of woman are to fulfill the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator.”

I’m not timid. I’m not delicate. I have no desire to be a mother. I guess I’m either not female, in which case my parents have some explaining to do, or I am a spawn of the Anti-Christ. According to the boyfriend, it’s the latter.

Attitudes toward women have changed somewhat since 1873, but Witter’s remarks show a train of thought akin to the attitude expressed in Bradwell. It is an attitude I experienced in law school.

Believe it or not, women can be good leaders as long as they are encouraged with high expectations and responsibility. If you treat a girl as though she is weak or incompetent, she will be. Which leads us to the ultimate point. Women are individuals. We don’t look alike, we don’t act alike and we don’t think alike. Some women want to stay home with the kids. Some women would rather focus on a career. To say we have a “place” is to negate our individual desires and capabilities.

We can only hope the decision to reject Westergaard as a firefighter was based upon a legitimate belief that she, as an individual, would be incapable of fulfilling the required duties.

Yes, men and women are different. But so are individual women. Learn to notice the differences between individual women — or individual men for that matter — and you might just notice that men and women aren’t that different after all.

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Theresa Wilson is a graduate student in political science at ISU and a law student at Drake University.