Forget rocking the cradle. It’s way beyond time that women rocked the system — and the Oval.
Play like a girl. Can it be that we’re finally serious about putting a woman in the Oval? Two hundred twenty seven years since good ol’ George Washington was president, it’s seems only right that we finally seat a woman in Maison Blanc. We pride ourselves on being an enlightened country with an advanced culture, yet other mainstream countries have boasted women leaders for decades. Where have ours been?
Sure, after years of struggling, we finally have had women candidates, a woman Speaker of the House and women in SCOTUS, but the welcome mat has been askew. The ERA amendment, a critical step towards equality, still has not been ratified. Even when it finally is, will it erase the mindset of ingrained patriarchy? I doubt it. Decades of bias and attacks on gender have never been never felt by male counterparts who assumed leadership roles as their anointed right. Yet, however educated and supremely capable, women have never seemed to make it to the Resolute desk.
We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly. Margaret Atwood
Helen of Troy. Indira Gandhi. Golda Meir. Margaret Thatcher. These iron maidens didn’t exactly epitomize warm and fuzzy. They brought their A-game, exactly what their countries needed in their time. They led their countries to war within a male hierarchy, conforming to values that allowed them to lead in the first place. Angela Merkel of Germany, New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern, Finland’s Sanna Marin and the European Union’s Christine Lagarde knew how it’s done because they, too, had to overcome gender bias. And, like Nancy Pelosi, even at 80, they had to outmen men – in heels.
I’d like our country to see for itself, in this critical moment in time, what we would look like with a woman in charge. Could this country possibly do worse than the previous Potus’ appalling tidal wave of incompetence? Yet, blatant, outrageous accusations are unleashed with abandon when a woman has the audacity to claim the same positions men have taken for granted through the centuries. Minutes after our first female VP was named, the Facebook and Twitter universe was on fire with vile gender and racial attacks. Now that the same woman has been handed the baton to actually run for President, I can’t imagine the vitriol that will erupt. Wait, yes I can.
More than 50 years ago, tiny Sri Lanka was the first to break the political gender barrier; India followed a few years later. The UN reported that, as of September 2022, 30 women were serving as Heads of State and/or Government in 29 countries. While those countries thrived under their leadership — none of them are in the Americas. The fact that we, as an educated superpower have still not achieved that designation, is in itself cause for collective head scratching!
In business, there are still many more leadership seats where glass ceilings are neatly intact. Apparently, the idea of women as true equals seems as surreal as aliens landing in NYC. While it’s true we are hardly the only place in the world where patriarchy rules, we should be committed to putting equality, in all dimensions, on the menu. Even in my own little world, I saw lines drawn within the advertising agency my husband and I jointly owned and partnered. I created and ran the business, was its creative director, social media and promotion maven; my husband was the PR counsel. Yet, I had to constantly remind clients, who insisted on talking to ‘the owner, the boss’, that I was that person, too. Even in small business, it seems hard for people to accept that the person in charge isn’t a ‘he’.
Some leaders are born women. Geraldine Ferraro
If women did man the Oval (no pun intended), perhaps infant and mother mortality wouldn’t number among the highest in the civilized world. Maybe we’d think twice about 1% of the population having wallets equaling the worth of 3.6 billion people. Women, who represent 80% of consumers, might better address sustainability, safe food technologies and affordable pharmaceuticals. A mom Potus might be more concerned about climate change that may very well end the world as we know it for our children. And women have a particular dislike of guns killing those kids in classrooms.
Every man on this planet was born of and nurtured by a woman. “Men can boast about occupying top slots in history’s long list of conquering ‘heroes’, bloodthirsty tyrants, and genocidal thugs.” said Steven Pinker of Harvard University. “Women have been and will be a pacifying force. Traditional war is a man’s game.” Amen.
In this beautiful land we call home, while we’ve certainly seen much change, and gender stereotypes, repression and omission still exist in spades. Women represent half of law school graduates; but only a third are lawyers, 15% are federal judges or law firm partners. Half of med school graduates are women but only 25% become doctors. Women make up a quarter of the US Congress, ranking us 97th among 193 nations worldwide in the percentage of women in the lower house of Congress. Currently, women comprise 13 of the 50 state governors, 25 of the 100 US Senators, though the now Emeritus Speaker of the House was also its first woman. Women vote more than men, which is understandable since we had to fight ferociously for that simple right, one men took for granted just by reason of their gender. More women than ever are participating in the political process, but the operative word is still ‘participating’ – not leading the land.
Empowering women can change everything. But first, we need to change minds. We are not run by our hormones nor do we run away from confrontation or difficult decisions. We communicate differently — not less effectively. We have more estrogen than testosterone, but that enables us to search for solutions first, instead of knee jerk physical reactions. But, hey, if you want to talk physical, I dare any man, if indeed it was biologically possible, to go through childbirth. Then we’ll chat about who’s the weaker sex.
Victoria Woodhull was the first to throw her be-ribboned bonnet in the ring for president, followed through the years by Belva Lockwood, Margaret Chase Smith and the first black candidate, Shirley Chisholm. Winning the popular vote, Hillary Clinton got closer to the presidency than any other woman in history. Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, Marianne Williamson, Tulsi Gabbard and Amy Klobuchar were included in 2020’s robust, diverse group of presidential candidates. But it was Kamala Harris, of that group, who was selected as Joe Biden’s Democratic running mate. Her appointment fulfilled the hoped of little girls everywhere. While this year’s journey may finally lead to the Oval, it also comes with predictable smoke signals of racist, misogynistic attacks which have already begun. Women, especially those of color, need a lot of bubble wrap to protect against being painted as ‘too ambititous’ or ‘nasty’, let alone downright racial slurs like being a DEI hire.
I believe women who hold an equal share of leadership strive to find more creative, persuasive and collaborative ways to solve conflict. Are woman always steady as they go? Nah. We’re human. Sometimes we won’t be on our game (and no, not because of hormones or ‘that time of the month’). Domestic pressures, geopolitics, economics, and a million other global issues have existed throughout history and it’s unrealistic to expect male or female to bring overnight change. But, it’s reasonable to think that women bring, at the very least, the same skill-sets, knowledge and desire to create peaceful, secure and best outcomes as any male counterpart. We need look no further than Michigan USA to see how women leaders, from Governor to Attorney General, show how it’s done.
In the future there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders. Cheryl Sandberg
Trust me, this is not a diatribe about men. I had a dad, a wonderful husband, gave birth to a male I adore and I have 5 little grandmen I love to the moon and back. Boys are urged to behave one way and girls another yet, stay at home dads can be just as nurturing as women. Ditto for gay dads, who’ve often had to go through extraordinary hoops just to be allowed to have children.
Men have invented incredible things and I’d never suggest a world without them. I never claimed the globe would spin perfectly on its axis if only women ruled, but you have to admit it ain’t workin’ all that well at the moment, right? John Lennon sang ‘Give peace a chance’ and women are way overdue for their chance at what men have had, as an inborn right, from birth. In fact, it should never have been a right to be fought for in the first place.
Would a woman in the White House cause the world to suddenly link arms and sing Kumbaya? I doubt it, though it’s a nice thought. I don’t have a seat in government and wouldn’t feel qualified for it. Nor do I have expectations that just installing a sister girl in office would transport us to Utopia. I’d like to believe, though, that there might be better, more innate, creative ways of changing war, terrorism and poverty narratives. Certainly all the dudes who’ve ruled the world until now haven’t exactly done a bang up job. In the last administration, the bar was so low, my great grandboy could limbo through it!
This year, we have a history-making, groundbreaking chance to vote an experienced, dynamic woman into the Oval. As the 47th President of this US, this woman will be tasked with the mammoth job of continuing what her exceptional predecessor began. She will need to pick up the gauntlet of restoring the very ‘soul’ of our land, bringing back truth, sanity, and civility. After 300 years, women have more than earned the right to take their rightful place in the best seat in the house.
The White House.
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We all have stories and mine are neither unusual nor technicolor blockbusters. All I can hope is whatever I share sparks a continuing conversation, one that invites ideas, opinions and discussion.
The Other Shoe 