When I saw this picture on Reddit, my first thought was “Why can’t we have one like that?”
My second thought turned to how shameful it is that the United States has yet to have a female President.
Unfortunately, the fact that we haven’t doesn’t surprise me. Our Presidents are following the same path as the right to vote was gotten: Men of every race gained suffrage before women did, so why would one think the US would have a female POTUS before an Hispanic, Asian, or black man had held the office?
The aspect that makes this such a travesty is the face which the US has put on of being the top Western country in freedom, civil liberties, and women’s rights. At least that is the America I was sold growing up.
Don’t get me wrong; American women have far more freedom and autonomy than millions of other women in the world and for that I am very grateful. My secondary education, desire for a career, ability to drive a car were never in question. That does not change the fact that the “Can’t have a woman President because PMS once a month har har might set off some nukes” joke is even tossed around as a partly-viable reason to not have a woman President in that it represents a mentality wherein women are too temperamental, too emotional to run a country – and many many countries have proven that to be false.
The above graphic is a list of the female leaders of countries as of 2015. This article details the current female leaders of countries. Get this: Serbia…Serbia has an openly-gay female Prime Minister. Wanna place bets on how many decades before the US can say the same? This is a list of female leaders of countries since the 1960s – countries that all did it before the US.
Africa, considered by many to be a “third world” and thus must have third-world ideas, has had quite its share of female leaders of its countries. Pakistan, which many Americans might consider a “backwards Middle Eastern country full of Muslims and they hate women” elected Benazir Bhutto in 1988 – thirty years ago.
So where is the United States? Why have we not mustered up the ability to have enough confidence in a woman to be President? Are we too obsessed with the status quo? Can’t deviate from the two-party, male-dominated system we know and hate? Or are American men really that sexist?
I don’t think, on an individual basis, that American men – or women for that matter – are misogynists to the point of not wanting to support a female candidate on the basis of her sex, just as they wouldn’t vote for one because of it. I heard many women say in 2016 “I’m not going to vote for Hillary just because she’s a woman.”
Instead, in a subtle way, the idea that “the leader of the free world must be a man because countries like Russia and China wouldn’t respect a woman” has permeated our collective consciousness, and that keeps Americans both from believing a woman could do the job, as well as keeping qualified women from trying because they have been indoctrinated with the idea that it is impossible.
Still, Vladimir Putin doesn’t seem to have any trouble respecting and dealing with Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel.
If this is how we view our women, it really any surprise, then, that a toxic undercurrent of racism is rampant in our country? And not just white vs. black; in moving around this country, I have observed racism and prejudice towards other groups by almost every ethnic or racial or religious group represented in the United States. From Eastern Europeans to Indians, Arabs to Italians, Irish to Korean, Jewish to Catholic, Mormon to Muslim, those of German, Scandinavian, African, British heritage – everyone is capable of racism. Paradoxically, racism doesn’t care what race you are. It is not more prevalent in one race over another, in spite of what the Mainstream Media would have us believe. It is people who hate each other for being different; for being “other.” I have also witnessed sexism from both men and women towards other men and women from people of all races and ethnicities. Again, people hate the “other” for their differences, instead of making the effort to find the common ground. Hate is the path of least resistance.
When you meet someone for the first time in a social setting, the first thing you do is try to find some commonality between you – and it is on this commonality that a friendship can be built. It is the same with us all, in every situation that requires cooperation – we must find our similarities, rather than focusing on our differences.
The sooner we do that, the sooner we will heal….and the sooner we will have a President who will “do a little dance” when her country comes through a crisis united, instead of divided.
Link to the campaign website for Dr. Jo Jorgensen – Libertarian Party candidate for President.
Politics to Potting Mix 