Planning a trip and women at work

I hate organizing trips or organizing anything for that matter. This time however I was desperate to travel, so I volunteered. People at work were excited about the idea of going on a holiday, all we needed was a plan. And a location of course. The guys wanted a place that served cheap booze (read goa or pondy), some preferred mountains while some preferred the sea. After much discussion we had come up with probable list of places to visit. Zeroing in on one place was turning out to be a challenge. I started my research, whichever place was most viable would be chosen. After about 2 days of googling, calling up travel agents, hotels and taxi drivers I finally found out a perfect package tour to a place none of us had visited. Planning the whole trip myself was turning out very taxing and this looked perfect. Whats best, even though this wasn't on our list everyone readily agreed. I was ecstatic. Agreeing on a place followed by choosing a date is the hardest thing when you plan a trip with many people. We had successfully managed to do both. It was a good sign, maybe we were going to pull this one off after all (I have a high failure rate when it comes to going on trips, don't blame me for making a big deal out of this). After the initial inquiry mail I got a reply from the organizers that kids below 11 weren't allowed. My friend who has a 3 year old son (who btw is very cute calls me chechi) was distraught. She asked me to choose another place instead. I wasn't willing to let go and tried my best to suggest alternatives. Maybe her husband could take care of him for the weekend? Maybe she could bring him along but stay away from the adventure activities? When she wouldn't budge I hinted that she should drop out instead of all of us canceling. When she didn't get the hint I gave her an option, I asked her to do all the hard work, come up with an alternate place, make the arrangements and convince others, if she managed to that I'd have no problems else she'd have to back out. It was an impossible task she gave up almost as soon as she started.

Compare the planning of the trip to a project, my friend a team member, I was being the mean old insensitive manager! Just because she had a family (she was the only one married in the group) I was giving her a tough time, hadn't paid attention to her needs and was asking her to step down from the project. All these years I have been bitching about my male bosses and how selfish they can get, how women get a raw deal and how it is doubly tough for women to survive in this industry thanks to bosses like them. Am I then a hypocrite?

Maybe the comparison is not fair. My friend was being unrealistic and I knew it. At one time she even mentioned about bringing along her in-laws. She was going to ruin it for everyone and it would have been a complete failure of the project...I mean the trip. I'd have to be the one to take the blame. Her being a woman or her being married had nothing to do with it. It was a tough decision but I had to act in the interest of everyone. As for the mean old managers who think married women don't make good employees, they can go to hell. I am going to plan another trip sometime next month that everyone can make it to, not because a good manager would do so, because a good friend would do so.