When I was a little girl, my parents told me I could grow up to be whatever I wanted to be. They did not mention, however, that as I got older the stipulations of that statement would grow. When I told my relatives of my dreams of becoming the best in my field, they looked at me with eyes that seemed to say, “You can be whatever you want to be as long as it fits within the guidelines of what society expects of you.” I started to wonder why women only came up in my history classes as an illusion to either weakness or fragility. There were few women in power and those few had to fight to be there. It was not the standard. I didn’t understand why that was. The United States often prides itself on being on the cutting edge of all worldly issues, but If we had the technology to send a man to the moon in 1969, how can we claim that we have not begun to conceptualize the idea of having a female president in 2020? 

In the political climate today, politicians are always asked how they are going to combat women’s issues. The men amongst them stick their noses in the air and spout jargon about how they know what women need. More accurately, they spout what they think women need based upon what is most convenient for them. Having a female president would mean all of those men would have to answer to the one with the uterus, thus the one who has the right to hold an opinion. All of the current female presidential candidates are pro-choice. Keeping abortion legal will save millions of women’s lives around the nation because, let’s face it, making abortion illegal will not stop abortions; they will stop safe abortions.  

Women have experienced societal prejudice, so they know societal prejudice. Since the beginning of time, women have been seen as less than for the simple fact that they are women. They’ve had basic human rights taken away from them and had to fight for those they do have. A woman would focus on finding a way to lift the population of America rather than the reputation.  

Maybe, with a female president, we can begin to debunk misogyny starting with our children. We realize it is important for girls to have female role models in a position of power, but it is even more important for boys to see the same thing. Boys are taught to assume superiority based on gender. When I was a freshman, there was a boy in my class who looked me dead in the eyes and said, “You’re a woman, you’re not supposed to have an opinion.” After I didn’t smile, he told me I had to learn to take a joke. Bottom line is, having a female in the highest office will promote mutual respect as human beings between genders.  

People always say that having a woman in the White House is a bad idea because she would be too emotional. Good! We want a president who will empathize with the struggles that face America. We want someone who will be emotional and pragmatic at the same time. Someone prepared to stop and think about decisions regarding foreign policy. Men have an evolutionary behavior of proving who’s “alpha” that can lead our country into disarray.  

One thing that will be interesting to see play out is that if we have a female president, there is the potential for people to look at her as a female in a male position of power, rather than a female in a female position of power. My hope is one day for a woman to be able to be everything that women are and want to be, such as sexy and feminine, while still holding power and not being seen as an object. It is time for us as a nation to wake up and step into a new age of politics with fewer glass ceilings and many more pantsuits.