Please excuse my ramblings, I just wanted to get these concerns off my chest.
I've had some disagreements lately with people I usually never disagree with, mainly my Mother, my Grams, and my Aunties. It's really been bothering me, so I've decided I'd write this diary to try to make some sense out of it all.
I come from a family full of pretty amazing no nonsense women. I remember canvassing for Geraldine Ferraro with my Mother, Grandmothers, and Aunties when I was 6 years old... and even if I didn't remember it, there's pictures to remind me. It was a big deal, a woman running for Vice-President... They still talk about how having had a woman run for Vice-President had meant the world had changed.
I remember it clearly, after all these years. Both the women I knew and the women out there with us that I didn't know; all of them telling me that I should remember this. That this was history and it meant I could do anything I wanted to do and I could be anything I wanted to be when I grew up; even become President of the United States if that's what I wanted.
And yet it's been 24 years, the majority of my entire life... and we still haven't had a female President or Vice-President. So how much of their high hopes have really come to fruition?
All those women are so excited now that Senator Clinton is running for President and I have to admit that I'm a little excited too, because it does mean we've come a long way when a woman candidate is in a neck and neck race and might in fact become the next President of the United States... but I also find myself disagreeing with them about the Senator's candidacy.
For one, I'm just not that much of a fan of the Clinton school of politics and two, I don't think now is the time for a woman President... I understand why my Aunt Margie wants to see Senator Clinton win so badly, because she's in her 80's and if Clinton doesn't win, she might not live to see a woman President in her lifetime... and she has a valid point. We all want to witness history. I know I hope to see a woman President in my lifetime too, but I'm only 30 and time isn't as pressing for me.
I don't want to see just any woman President though. When a woman becomes President, she's going to have to have one of the best Presidencies ever, because I don't think we're going to get another chance if she screws up or has a lack-luster Presidency... At the very least, not for several generations.
My issues are not so much that Senator Clinton would make a bad President, because I don't think she'd make a poor President, I'm sure she'd do fine and maybe even great. I think my real issue is that bush has screwed things up so much that no matter who's President next... They're going to have a hell of a time coming out of it with any gigantic successes.
Just fixing the destruction bush has caused WOULD be a monumental success... but not for President Hillary Clinton.
I think probably the best even the best President ever could do right now is to just roll things back to where they were before bush fucked things up so badly... and no matter who that President is, or what they manage to do during their Presidency... The best they're going to get at the end is going to be:
"Well, the country's not much better off than it was 16 years ago."
It's not fair and it's not right, but I believe that's how it's going to be and so no matter what; if the next President is a woman (any woman), she's at a disadvantage because she's going to be cleaning up shitboy's considerable mess.
How can anyone really make transformational, never before seen change in 8 short years, when the country is in such a mess that just rolling back the current damage would be a herculean task, probably more than anyone ever could achieve, and most likely the best we could ever hope for under the circumstances?
But a woman President... The FIRST woman President... Simply getting the country back to where it was 16 years ago isn't going to be enough for her, no matter who she is...
No, she'll have to usher in an era of multi-generational prosperity, bring peace to the Middle East, solve global warming, stop the nation's addiction to fossil fuel, walk to school uphill both ways barefoot in a blizzard, cats and dogs will have to call a ceasefire and she'll have to deliver the second coming of Christ with her bare hands in a taxi on the side of the road in the middle of a hurricane; cutting the umbilical cord with her teeth.
That's just the way it is... Whenever girls do something that has been historically done by boys, they have to do it better, they have to be the best to really get any credit... Or else all you'll ever hear is:
Eh. A guy could do the same thing just as well and has in the past.
I played football my freshman year in High School. I was the first girl to ever play at my school and I think I was either only the 3rd or 4th girl to ever play in the entire state. I had to try out for the team, just like all the boys did and they didn't make it at all easy on me.
It didn't matter to them that at over 5'9" at 13 years old, I was bigger than most of the rest of the team, or that my gymnastics background made me extremely flexible and therefor very good hitting guys at their ankles and throwing them over my back... Which made me a pretty good nose tackle. I was starting line nose tackle by the end of my only season. I only played that one year because most of the boys had hit growth spurts over the summer and I wasn't stupid... Playing a contact sport with the physically stronger sex when you're bigger than them is one thing, but when they're the same size or bigger, stronger, and remember all the times you knocked them on their asses the year before... That's just asking for injury.
None of that mattered though during the tryouts. When the boys had to run through once, I had to run through at least 2 or 3 times and sometimes up to 4 and 5 times... and even when I made the cut, the coaches still didn't want me on the team. My parents, Aunties, and Uncles had to go to the school board and raise holy hell that if their girl wanted to play, had proven she was as good or better than the boys, then they had better let her play. It took threats of lawyers for me to get on the team... and then the real fun began.
My teammates and coaches hated me... Until they realized that I was good and not only bigger than the guys on our own team, but the guys on all the other teams too. But even then, at first I was only just "as good" as a guy could have been. Forget the fact that none of the guys were as good, if there was a theoretical chance that a boy could have been as good... That's all that mattered. I was only just as a good as a boy could have been and because I was a girl that wasn't good enough... I had to be better than any boy could ever be... and that just wasn't possible. At least not for me and probably not for any 13 year old girl.
Of course football and politics aren't at all the same things, because obviously physical size and strength aren't really necessary in politics... but girls are still expected to be better than boys anytime they play in a game that's perceived to be "boys only."
So I'm afraid that now isn't the right time for a female President, because the country is so terribly fucked up (courtesy of a man, by the way) that just getting us back to where we were might be impossible... and that's not going to be good enough, because what's that really? It's just reviving history. Just getting us back to a former position, not moving us ahead to somewhere we've never been before.
I'm not making history when I change a flat tire on my car, I'm just getting it back to where it was so the car is mobile and fixing the tire doesn't change the fact that I needed new brakes before the tire blew out... So even with the replacement tire my car could still crash into the abyss, because it wasn't in great shape to begin with... and fixing a tire doesn't mean much when your brakes are shit and the engine was ready to blow up, does it?
I guess what I'm saying is things are just such shit, that I think it's probably going to take the coming President and probably the next one after that just to get the country back to where it was before bush took office. A women President is going to have to make history during her terms in office and history to me means making things better, bringing out change never seen before, not just rolling things back to their previously broken position.
It's because of that that I don't think the county is ready for a female President, not because she couldn't get elected so much... but I'm worried that even if she does get elected, the best reaction she's going to get is:
Big deal, it was this good when her husband was President... And that wasn't all that great.
And then the very serious pundits are going to say a man could of done that and has done that and why should we elect another woman President just because she's a woman, when a man could do the same thing? Then who knows how long it will be before America elects another woman to be President, no matter how great she could have been?
I'm scared that the first woman President is going to have to do something spectacular that will once again make our nation great... and I'm not sure our country is ready or even capable of greatness at this point in its history.
I may just be overly concerned about this for no reason and maybe those concerns aren't valid? I don't know, I just know these are the worries I have when I think about our first woman President.
I still believe what those women told me all those years ago, that a girl can do anything, even become President... but I'm frightened if we achieve that goal at the wrong time when greatness is impossible, it might ruin the chances of all the little girls that come after us and I don't want that.
Like my Mother, my Grams and Aunties did for me, I told my niece that she could do anything she wanted to when she grows up, be anything she wants to be... Even the President of the United States of America. Leader of the greatest nation on Earth...
I really want to believe that I told her the truth and I don't want to mess things up for her future, just because I'm afraid I might not see something in mine.