A woman's place.

• Position: Column

My wife says I don't understand women, and since she's a woman who's been married to me for 30 years, she should know. But it's not my fault. I came of age in a time of great confusion.

Growing up, I was taught a man should show deference to a woman. But about the time I became a man, there were women out there who'd tear your heart out -- if not wrench off an organ easier to reach -- if you dared open a door for them. Give them the respect they're due for what they do, they demanded, not for their gender.

Merit, not a double dose of X chromosomes, is what matters. That was one part of the pre-PC, post-'60s social agenda I could buy into because I believed it whole heartedly. And still do. It's the main reason why this magazine has not done the stories on the top female this or outstanding woman that found in so many other publications. To do so -- relegating half the species to a special subcategory -- would be demeaning, I always felt.

After all, we pick the individual -- not the man, not the woman -- we think has had the biggest impact on business as our Mover and Shaker of the Year (see next month's issue). Then again, in the more than a dozen years we've made this selection, no woman has ever won. Just glance down the list of CEOs in our annual ranking of the state's largest public companies: James Brown could have been talking about the top tier of corporate North Carolina in his classic It's a Man's, Man's, Man's World.

But lately, my thinking has taken another tack...