We don't want so much to see a female Einstein become an assistant professor. We want a woman schlemiel to get promoted as quickly as a male schlemiel.

Bella Abzug (1920–1998)—lawyer, feminist, and U.S. Representative from New York—was known for blunt, humorous formulations of feminist arguments about structural inequality. This quip belongs to the 1970s-era push for women’s equal access to professional advancement in academia, government, and the workplace, when “equal opportunity” debates often focused on exceptional “firsts” (the first woman in a role) rather than on systemic parity. Abzug’s phrasing uses comic contrast (“female Einstein” vs. “woman schlemiel”) to argue that equality should be measured not only by whether extraordinary women can break through, but by whether ordinary women receive the same tolerance, mentoring, and promotion pathways routinely afforded to ordinary men.

The line critiques a narrow, tokenistic notion of progress. Abzug suggests that a society can celebrate a rare, brilliant woman’s success while still maintaining everyday discrimination that blocks most women’s careers. By insisting that even a “schlemiel” (a bungler or hapless person) should advance at the same rate as an equivalently mediocre man, she reframes equality as parity in the baseline rules of evaluation—mistakes forgiven, potential assumed, networks opened—not merely access for the exceptional few. The joke sharpens the point: true equality is visible when mediocrity is treated the same across genders, not only when genius occasionally breaks through barriers.