Please, do not mistake any of what I am about to say for any sort of endorsement of Hillary Clinton whatsoever. This is not about Hillary. The question of whether Hillary Clinton or Elizabeth Dole or Nancy Pelosi is prepared to be our “Iron Lady of Politics” is another issue altogether.
You’ll hear it at parties, you’ll see it alluded to in blog posts and political cartoons. Everybody suspects it is something the political strategists ask themselves behind closed doors. It’s only happened on television. The question is “Is America Ready for a Woman President?”
I don’t like that question. I don’t like it any more than I like the assumption that a woman candidate would automatically get some substantial percentage of women’s votes. It’s shallow, sexist, and insulting.
If America is not ready for a woman to be our head of state, that means we are less modern than Great Britain.
If America is not ready for a woman to be our head of state, we are less progressive than Israel.
If America is not ready for a woman to be our head of state, that means we are more sexist than India, an ancient culture where it is still perfectly acceptable to light your wife or daughter on fire.
If America is not ready for a woman to be our head of state, that puts us behind Pakistan and Sri Lanka and Argentina, Bolivia, Germany, Yugoslavia, Haiti, Ireland, Bangladesh, France, Poland, Canada, Bulgaria, Liberia, Ecuador, New Zealand, Norway, Latvia, Panama, Finland, San Marino, the Philippines, Indonesia, South Korea, Serbia, Peru, Austria, the Ukraine, and Mongolia. Among others.
For that matter, if America is not ready for a woman to be our head of state, we are behind ancient Egypt.
Is that the nation I live in? I sure as hell hope not.
Cross-posted at Central Sanity.
My sentiments exactly, oft-stated.
And I think all these people worrying about it are going to create a self-fulfilling prophecy.
It’s not that America isn’t ready for a woman President. It’s that we need to run a woman other than Hillary.
If there is one thing America needs,it is the mind of a woman at the helm. Forget politics. Think immediate intelligence, learned perception, ancient understanding– imagine those qualities at the head of your American government for a vast change. I know it’s a -let’s say COSMIC – advance from Dubya; even gross mistakes are the food of democracy.
Although I’m an American and have lived here all my life, I have always thought of America as rather backward. I think it will be a few more generations before a woman is elected president. I would love to be wrong, however.