One step closer to making history…Again
After eight years of political chaos and witnessing a psychologically damaged man with unresolved childhood issues defile the office of the US presidency, a new day is finally coming, and I dare say it’s about time. By all visible indications, and from my hopeful mind to God’s ears, we will finally be able to collectively exhale next week when Vice President Kamala Devi Harris is elected and assumes the title, “Madame President”, or colloquially, “Madam POTUS”. Making history once again in her remarkable legal and political career. But this potential first for this country casts a shadow over the historic event. For generations in numerous other democratic nations, e.g., the United Kingdom, Australia, and Germany, women have been elected to the most preeminent position in their governments. Consider the following: Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel (1969 –1974); Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India (1980 –1984); Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany (2005–2021); Theresa May, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (2016–2019); Benazir Bhutto, Prime Minister of Pakistan (1993 –1996); Corazon Aquino, President of the Philippines (1986 –1992); Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1979–1990); Giorgia Meloni, Prime Minister of Italy (Assumed office in October 2022); and most recently, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, President of Mexico (Assumed office on October 1, 2024).
There has never been a woman president in the United States. The question is: Why hasn’t it happened? Why have women candidates not been able to break that final electoral glass ceiling? Margaret Chase Smith (1964); Shirley Chisholm (1972); Geraldine Ferraro (1984); Patricia Schroeder (1988); Elizabeth Dole (2000); Carol Moseley Braun (2004); Hillary Rodham Clinton (2008, 2016); Carly Fiorina (2016); Tulsi Gabbard (2020); Kirsten Gillibrand (2020); Kamala Harris (2020, 2024); Nikki Haley (2024); Elizabeth Warren (2020); and Amy Klobuchar (2020). All of these women candidates were equally, if not more qualified and capable of holding the office of the presidency as their male counterparts. Yet, after all these years, they have been prevented from doing so, and the question lingers.
In 2022, Capitol Hill Correspondent, news analyst, Ali Vitali skillfully examines the question in her book, Electable: Why America Hasn’t Put a Woman in the White House … Yet. Vitali describes the systemic and pressing issues associated with gender equity in the American political system. Most of which is indisputably undergirded by the remaining and omnipresent shadow of a male-dominated patriarchal society.
Vice President Kamala Harris is exceptionally qualified for the presidency. After a lifetime of public service and a career résumé that includes being elected as San Francisco District Attorney, California Attorney General and U.S. Senator, her credentials are indisputable. In addition, she is a brilliant and fearless leader who is in possession of the capability to set this country back on track. She is poised and ready to do so, as the first woman president of the United States of America. Election Day, November 5, 2024 will reveal just how far we’ve really come, and how many more painful lessons we as a nation have yet to learn.
