Not a whole lot of people can say this: Sarah Palin was my mayor. I spent a few years living in Wasilla, Alaska, when Palin was mayor there, before she became governor of the state. My husband worked in a local church, our oldest daughter was born in the community hospital, and our dog regularly barked at the moose that hung out in our front yard.

By Alaskan standards, Wasilla is actually a community of significant size. But by most standards, it's a small town in a remote state, and it's full of independent, high-spirited people who go a little crazy in the winter and don't sleep much in the summer because the sun is shining and they want to make the most of it. They eat moose meat and salmon and ride snowmachines (and in case you watched the speech last night and were wondering, a "snowmachine" is what most of us call a "snowmobile"). They think something is ancient if it was there before 1990, they build their houses by hand, and they wish they had a Target somewhere in the state.

To some Americans, moose-hunting-salmon-fishing-mother-of-five Sarah Palin might seem like an unusual women. But I can tell you that in Wasilla, Alaska, she's a pretty typical woman. And she has a lot in common with many women outside Alaska as well.

But even though Sarah Palin knows plenty of other women like her, seems like she just might be smart enough to know that she doesn't speak for all women. And that's something I appreciated about her speech to the Republican National Convention last night: she never claimed to speak for women at all.

I'm tired of hearing people speak "for women," making claims about who we are and what we want. I hear constant references to "women voters" as if we were a voting bloc or a powerless group who needs special representation. We're not powerless; we're not exceptions to the norm; we're not even a minority group. We're slightly more than half the population, and the only thing we all have in common is a small piece of our genetic code. We don't all think alike and care about the same things. Would anyone ever be so ridiculous as to think of men in the same way? If a handful of powerful woman can speak on behalf of all women, why do we need so many powerful men? Who are they speaking for?

Believe me: I'm not bashing men. In fact, the real offenders here are women who claim to speak for all of us, and women who let them. Why do so many of us want every other women to think, act, behave, live, speak, and believe as we do? Why do we feel the need to exercise this kind of control? Do we believe it legitimizes us? Is it a symptom of loneliness or insecurity? Do we still believe women are second-class citizens?

Regardless of the outcome of this election, clearly times have changed. The next administration will be like no other. This is the end of the era of the stiff, dull, crabby old guys in suits. Let's hope the "I speak for all women" claim ends here too.