Are We Ready for a Female President?

"We have it in our power not only to free ourselves, but to subdue our masters, and without violence throw both your natural and legal authority at our feet."

Abigail Adams

In 1776 Abigail Adams threatened her husband and our second president, John, with a women's revolt (Wilson). This was an early start to women having power in current issues. There was almost 150 years between Adams threat and the right to vote was given to women as well as men (Wilson). Change happens throughout history whether we want it to or not. New technologies are introduced and people are evolving in the same sense. It seems more clear these days that we are approaching the stage of possibly having a female president in the Oval office. Yet, the changes brought about are very slow and who knows when this possibility will occur. Although we need to look deeper and wonder if it may be sooner than we think, even as soon as the upcoming election in 2008. The mass media is getting into our minds and whether we notice it or not, we are slowly being molded into accepting a female in presidency.

The television show "Commander in Chief" is a drama that is about a woman as president. Geena Davis plays Mackenzie Allen, who is the vice president that gets thrown into the role of president after the president Teddy Bridges dies of a bleeding brain aneurysm. Bridges asks Allen to resign while lying on his deathbed and rather than hand over the presidency to the sinister Republican House Speaker, Nathan Templeton, she considers taking over the role of president herself (Rothstein). Mackenzie soon learns that butting heads with the other men politicians is going to be a hassle. She takes her newfound power to rescue a Nigerian woman about to be stoned for having premarital sex. Templeton then tells Mackenzie that Islamic countries will not respect a female leader (Terzieff). This statement that is said in the show also reflects what our country is really like. Templeton states that the Islamic countries won't support her as the president, but in reality, Indonesia and Pakistan have had their fair share of tough female leaders (Terzieff).

The United States is far behind in the rankings for percentages of female leaders. Falling behind places like Rwanda, Cuba, Uganda, China, and Iraq, the U.S. ranks 63rd in the polls for female leadership (Terzieff). Afghanistan and Iraq are required to have 25% of the political leadership roles held by women, that is almost double what the U.S. mandate is (Wilson.) While women make up 51% of the U.S. population, they amazingly only hold 15% of the Congressional seats and eight governorships (Terzieff). Why do we think this is? Questions are posed such as are women too weak to hold the position of president?, and isn't their place in the home, not the office?

The good wife and mother expectation ties in very closely with the always hot topic of abortion (Wilson). Women are expected to have a child and not abort it, but when the child is born, they are also expected to raise the baby and make sure it is cared for at all times. Very rarely do we see the roles reversed and the male is expected to do all of these things, it is his baby too right? A television show that touches on this subject, but not for very long is "Desperate Housewives". The father decides that he wants to stay at home and raise the children, do the housework, and tells his wife to go back to work. Soon enough he gets tired of this role and he wants to join the work force again. Now typically this means that the wife is expected to quit her job and assume her natural role of housekeeper and mother once again. If our country cared so much about babies, it would have supports for families such as parental leave and childcare in the workplace, so that both parents could care for the children. But this is not the case, and the reasoning is to keep women in their place (Wilson). "Commander in Chief" plays a role reversal for Mackenzie and her husband as well. Her husband Rod, who was Mackenzie's chief of staff when she was vice president, now is thrown into the role of first gentleman. He has to figure out a way to accept his new role, that is traditionally a woman's role, and learn what it means to be her support and helper. His newfound task is keeping a stable home while she does the salaried work (Broaddus).

Women are looked upon as not being able to control the power that they are given. Its assumed that they don't want power and leave it to the man to have it and control everything. This is why we think that a woman could not handle being a president. She would have the power to control everything and not know what to do with it. "Commander in Chief's" Templeton says to Mackenzie " Why do you want to be President...the answer you should be giving me is that you want to be President because you want the power to control the universe... People who don't want power have no idea what to do with it, they have no idea how to use it when they have it." (Broaddus) Juliette Terzieff from AlterNet would probably disagree with Templeton with her statement "Yes, my fellow Americans, we do finally have a female president, and so far she's proved that a woman can be just as ruthless a chief executive as a man.

In reality we

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