I think the problem is America’s rejection of modernity.

Who in the world are you talking about? A Gallup poll in February showed that 88% of Americans are ready to vote for a woman for president, and that number will keep increasing as old people die off.

Whether one wants to vote for Comrade Clinton and complete government’s takeover of medicine in the United States, well, is another story.

The fact that, after over two hundred years, the US still has not had a female head of government, while many countries much younger than ours have had them, including Muslim-majority countries where many people hold highly conservative views about the role and value of women in society, indicates to me that Americans are not entirely ready for this. It would be wonderful to be proven wrong, and I am heartened by the fact that polls indicate large majorities of Americans believe they are ready for a female president, but we have been an independent country for centuries. Why has it taken so long, when other countries have done so, for us if our attitudes towards women are supposedly so much more liberal than those of other countries? Why would pollsters even need to ask the question?

It’s like saying “I’m not afraid of going down in the basement, I just never have any reason to go down there ever, conveniently.”

Anyway, try googling the phrase “is America ready for a female president?” to find out who in the world I’m talking about, if my prose has not convinced you.

But she has said no thanks (at least concerning 08) and who can blame her? Despite what a lot of people think It’s not a particularily attractive job.

Even so I predict the first female president will be a Republican - just not in 08.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janice_Rogers_Brown

They just have to nominate a republican woman that I like; they’ll get there eventually, they haven’t had the vote all that long afterall.

Seriously though, I think it might end up being a woman veep who then runs and wins the top spot subsequently.

I wonder how she is going to be able to handle the Islamic Jihad with that picture hanging off the poster walls of her counter-parts.

Actually, it really isn’t anything like that. This analogy assumes I have a basement. I do not. When a female is on the ticket for president, and America can actually vote for her, then we’ll have that basement in place… and then maybe we could measure our fear, discomfort, or suppositions on her qualifications.

Americans could be entirely ready to have a female as head of state, and still not elect a female for myriad reasons; however, looming large among those reasons to date, is the lack of a female candidate.

More important, as Neo mentioned, most female heads of state came by those positions as a tragic legacy or appointment.

A fair comparison would be a female (popularly elected), and not a female head of government (such as a prime minister). Regardless, there are not many of either in the last 100 years. Don’t mistake my intentions here, not only would I contribute and help a female candidate’s campaign for the top office – there are several popularly elected female heads of state and heads of government whom I admire. Maggie Thatcher and Corazon Aquino of the Philippines are my favorites from both the right and left.

My intentions are straightforward; the manner in which you use your analogy to reach a conclusion of fear on America’s part is faulty and unconvincing. Additionally, when I Googled “Is America ready for a woman president,” it seems many of the links suggest that indeed, America is ready. Gallup suggests about 82% in 1987, CBS suggests about 92%. Several polls suggest that, in fact, men are more likely than women to vote for a female president imagine that!

** It’s like saying “I’m not afraid of going down in the basement, I just never have any reason to go down there ever, conveniently.”**

Actually, it really isn’t anything like that. This analogy assumes I have a basement. I do not. When a female is on the ticket for president, and America can actually vote for her, then we’ll have that basement in place… and then maybe we could measure our fear, discomfort, or suppositions on her qualifications.

Americans could be entirely ready to have a female as head of state, and still not elect a female for myriad reasons; however, looming large among those reasons to date, is the lack of a female candidate.

More important, as Neo mentioned, most female heads of state came by those positions as a tragic legacy or appointment.

“True, most female leaders in Asia assume power by way of tragedy and bloodshed, after fathers or husbands are assassinated. That’s been the case with President Kumaratunga, Bandaranaike, Bhutto, Corazon Aquino in the Philippines, and many others.”
from http://www.gluckman.com/SistersPower.html

A fair comparison would be a female (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_Presidents) (popularly elected), and not a female head of government (such as a prime minister). Regardless, there are not many of either in the last 100 years. Don’t mistake my intentions here, not only would I contribute and help a female candidate’s campaign for the top office – there are several popularly elected female heads of state and heads of government whom I admire. Maggie Thatcher and Corazon Aquino of the Philippines are my favorites from both the right and left.

My intentions are straightforward; the manner in which you use your analogy to reach a conclusion of fear on America’s part is faulty and unconvincing. Additionally, when I Googled “Is America ready for a woman president,” it seems many of the links suggest that indeed, America is ready. Gallup suggests about 82% in 1987, CBS suggests about 92%. Several polls suggest that, in fact, men are more likely than women to vote for a female president imagine that!

Many states of the Union have had and do have female governors, which is conclusive proof that Americans have no problem with women in executive positions. Do names like Napolitano, Granholm, Sibelius, or Blanco sound familiar to you?

Some people simply *want* to believe the worst about America. I remain dubious that the proof just provided, however conclusive, will be believed by the Gloom and Doom “everything sucks” left that sees racism, sexism, homophobia, and imperialism around every corner.

I am so relieved to hear that in France there’s nothing more important to worry about.

This looks as a sure victory for Sarko, since only 10% of voters are still undecided.

Again: if Americans have absolutely no problem with women in executive positions, why have we had no female presidents? Why have other countries much younger and (ostensibly) much more socially conservative than us had female executives?

To argue that it is because no qualified women have chosen to run for president is classic post hoc reasoning. I suppose this is also why there have been no black, gay, atheist, Asian, or Jewish presidents. For some strange reason, none of these demographic groups, in the centuries since our country’s founding, have produced qualified candidates! How bizarre! Thank goodness Americans have no biases left and have constructed no institutional barriers for members of these groups to become president, because none of you can wait to vote for a qualified female candidate for president, just as soon as she comes along.

Again: if Americans were ready for a female president, we wouldn’t have to ask the question, we’d simply have had a female president. Adult white Christian men represent a minority in this country, yet every single American president has been an adult white Christian man. But we’re totally cool with a woman president. Also, we have no problem with black people, we just moved out of the neighborhood immediately after a black family moved in for totally unrelated reasons. Also, we’re totally not afraid of the dark, we just don’t feel like going in the basement. Blah blah blah. You as individuals might think you’re bias free, and theoretically at least, some of you might be right. That still doesn’t explain aggregate voting patterns in the US.

Absolutely.None.

I believe women have far too much [uncontrolable] emotional baggage to ever be given such a position of power. Madame Royal just showed the entire world exactly what I’m referring to. Uncontrollable emotional rage. Why would any nation want this kind of liability in their highest office, especially in these virulently turbulent times?

Fortunately, America hasn’t [yet] been “Mamby-Pamby Nanny-Stated” down to the level that france has. Or all of EU for that matter.

There has never been a woman at the head of the United Nations. That does not imply that the United Nations is biased against women.

Montana, which is larger than France, has had a female governor. Texas, larger than Germany, which the condescending left also considers backward, also has had a female governor. Combine this with the polling data indicating 88% of Americans would vote for a woman (retro must be in the remaining 12%), and you have *conclusive evidence* that Americans in general are not biased against women when it comes to leadership roles.

Why hasn’t there been a woman president in the United States? Because few apply for the job. Just because, to take an example, few women choose to be computer scientists or engineers doesn’t imply that computer scientists and engineers are sexist. That is an illogical conclusion, since women in general have different career preferences. One never asks if psychologists or nurses are prejudiced against men on the basis that they outnumber men in these fields. Under your theory, women in these fields must be sexist against men, since we don’t have equality of outcome.

But men, if they are not black, gay, or Muslim, are never defined as victims, and women a priori are given the a priori victim status, which is why leftists by fiat disallow someone like me from turning the tables like this.

Oh poor, disadvantaged white straight Christian American men! Can we never catch a break?

Also, I had no idea that THE EVIL LEFT had so much power as to, by fiat, disallow you from turning the tables like…you just tried to turn the tables?

But, I’m sorry, the idea that women are underrepresented in fields like, say, the presidency because they’re just not interested in manly pursuits like that is as absurd as declaring that blacks are over-represented on death row because they are born with a criminal nature. It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with institutional biases that discourage women from a very young age to not even consider pursuing such careers? In all of the many elections we have had in the centuries since our country was founded, women simply weren’t interested in pursuing the presidency?

Or, to look at it another way: if women have career preferences determined by brain structure, which leads them not to pursue the presidency, are you suggesting that Turkish, Bengali, Indonesian, and Pakistani women have different brain structures from American women, leading them to pursue high political office in different numbers than American women?

Unlike, say, President Bush who embodies the male ideal?

G. Gordon Liddy with a hard-on for the President’s Manly Manliness on May 7, 2003:

“And here comes George Bush. You know, he’s in his flight suit, he’s striding across the deck, and he’s wearing his parachute harness, you know — and I’ve worn those because I parachute — and it makes the best of his manly characteristic. You go run those — run that stuff again of him walking across there with the parachute. He has just won every woman’s vote in the United States of America. You know, all those women who say size doesn’t count — they’re all liars. Check that out. I hope the Democrats keep ratting on him and all of this stuff so that they keep showing that tape.”

Well…

“As a fiercely Right Wing American Conservative, there is no circumstance what-so-ever that would ever cause me to vote for a woman for President of the US. Absolutely.None.”

This has been another installment in our series, “Easy answers to easy questions.”

Anyway, Romney is not a christian. I’ve heard that all American presidents, and even major party candidates were christians. If he is not elected - would it prove that America has no tolerance for non-christians? Anon, do you plan to vote for Romney? If not, does it prove that you dislike non-christians?

Romney might disagree with you on that one. But, I suspect that America is far, far too fearful of the new and unknown to let a Mormon near the presidency, so I highly doubt this is going to be an issue.

But, let’s consider: if you’re right, and no woman has been elected president because very, very few women have any interest in doing something like being president, what does this mean about, say, black people? Have no blacks been president because they just don’t want to be president, because (like women are different from men) the brains of black people are different from the brains of white people, leading them to prefer different careers?

We’d probably agree that this is absurd, no? If you disagree, there’s probably not much point in continuing, because how do you argue with someone who’s so blind to their own biases as to be an unreconstructed racist? But if it’s obviously wrong to say this about blacks, or Jews, or Asians, or whomever, why is it ok to say this about women?

It’s also important to remember that women did not win the right to vote for 144 years after the US declared its independence; for a country that institutionalized the exclusion of women from national politics for one hundred forty-four years, should it come as such a surprise that there would be institutional barriers even after legal barriers have fallen? And if America has so thoroughly outgrown its biases, why is it - I ask yet again - that four Muslim-majority countries managed to find qualified, popular female candidates to run for and win the presidency or prime ministership? Are the brains of Muslim women - to follow your line of thought - different from the brains of non-Muslim women?

That blacks are roughly 10% of the population in the United States — a minority — explains why we see less black candidates for president. The black candidates we have seen– Sharpton and Jackson — are hardcore militants that have no appeal beyond their own demographic. Barack Hussein Obama has a realistic shot, as current polls show him defeating most of the Republican field.

No appeals to brain structure are necessary here.

With women, though, I think we do need an appeal to biology. I would surmise women are less likely to find the confrontational, stressful, and combative nature of a high-stakes political contest appealing. If you look in other countries, even in Enlightened Europe, women are not elected to the highest offices routinely.

This has generally been the case in history throughout every major culture in every time period. We do see Catherine the Greats, Cleopatras, Queen Elizabeths, Indira Gandhis, and Joan of Arcs. But the probability of seeing a woman in a leadership position is lower than men. Leftists believe this shows a history of oppression, and if we cleanse ourselves of sin (which is what you mean by bias), then we would see equality of outcome.

A historical and scientific view would show that women have always had opportunities to lead, and have led. Millions of years of evolution has tilted the genetic lottery in toward men when it comes to taking charge of things.

This is a heresy among the left. They don’t believe anything is natural. Everything is either the result of environmental conditioning, or is a freely chosen social construction. But don’t you *dare* say this about homosexuality, which the left, in contradiction to natural selection, preaches is genetic.

It would be very entertaining to watch you try to defend that one with actual evidence.

“But don’t you *dare* say this about homosexuality, which the left, in contradiction to natural selection, preaches is genetic.”

So wait, women love big tough manly men to dominate them because of genetics, but gay men love big tough manly men to dominate them because of not genetics? You want to accuse THE DREADED LEFT of hypocrisy by…being a hypocrite? Good show, sir.

But still - if roughly ten percent of the population is black, wouldn’t you expect, just by change, ten percent of presidents to be black?

It’s highly entertaining to watch you contort yourself to find ever more elaborate explanations for why every single US president has been a white Christian man. No blacks? Too few in the country. Women? Um, too few doesn’t work…it’s their brains! Etc, etc, etc.

By contrast, take the case of India. Since independence, India seems to have had two Muslim presidents (Ahmed and Kalam) and a Sikh president (Zail Singh). It has also had secularist-atheist Prime Ministers (Nehru), a prime minister who was married to a Parsi and hence once prevented from entering Hindu temples (Indira Gandhi) and a Sikh prime minister (the current prime minister, Manmohan Singh). All this in a Hindu-majority country.

By contrast, can you imagine a Hindu, a Muslim or a Sikh or an atheist being elected US president? Declaring one’s atheism is considered the kiss of death for politicians here in the US — the country were we, ironically enough, claim the legacy of the Enlightenment!

-Deshawn Q,
Atheist

But Californians also are a minority of the population in the US; yet we see Californian presidents (like Reagan). But we don’t see black presidents (so far).

So the “minority” argument is a red herring. The real reason is racism (overt or covert).

If Martin Luther King Jr had lived and run for president, do you think he would have been elected?

Reasons are simple: as black family moves in, prices of real estate in the neihborhood immediately plummet. And for good reason, too: 90% of violent crimes in US are commited by blacks. Nobody want to loose his money.

Career preferences have nothing to do with brains, they are cultural tradition, and often family tradition. And yes, black culture has another set of values and ordering of priorities than white culture, and one needs not to be racist to acknowledge so obvious fact.

“But if it’s obviously wrong to say this about blacks, or Jews, or Asians, or whomever, why is it ok to say this about women?”

Do not mix apples and oranges. Genetically and phenetically any racial differences are orders of magnitude lesser than sexual differences. And yes, female brains are very different from the male ones, as any decent neurophysiologist can assert you. This does not automatically disqualify women from important government posts, presidency included, but it is a major factor in career choice: gender is not a cultural construct only, it has a huge biological background. And do not forget, POTUS is a Commander-in-Chief, having the sole responsibility to order nuclear strike, if needed; not very comfortable position for any woman, whom I can imagine. There were rumors that Golda Meir ordered Israeli Air Forces to be ready for nuclear strike at the most gloomy days of the last major war with Arab aggressors, when the very survival of the nation was at stake; if true, this was extremely hard decision, and no decent human being should place such a burden on a woman. They are created to protect and comfort, not to destroy; let men be warriors, and let us keep women and children out of it. So, in times of war American public had chosen to elect the most belligerent candidates for presidency: Ike, Nixon, Kennedy. And rightly so. No heads of state in Sri-Lanka, Bangla-Desh or like bear such responsibility, their posts are largely ceremonial. The abbreviation of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) of Benazir Bhutto was jokingly deciphered as “Permanently Pregnant Premier-minister”: she gave birth to 3 children while incumbent. Young and glamorous, she successfully portrayed herself as a refreshing contrast to the overwhelmingly male-dominated political establishment in the Muslim world. But after her second fall from power, her name came to be seen by some as synonymous with corruption and bad governance.

See:
http://morquendi.blogspot.com/2005/04/madness-of-bandaranaike-iii.html

Everyone knows PTSD. Post-Trauma Stress Disorder. And if what happened to Chandrika wasn’t trauma I don’t know what is. She had a suicide bomber blow themselves us mere meters from her. About a dozen of her most loyal supporters, the typs who hang on the front rails and her every word, were killed that night. She lost an eye. She is in every sense a victim of the war. And as a victim she required intense counselling. She was the President after all. But she did not, because she had to come back into the limelight with the bandage on her eye because she needed to win office again.

That she did, but sacrificed her sanity in the process.

Thus set in the Madness of Bandaranike III.

See also:
“Indonesia’s President Megawati Sukarnoputri has become the target of a fatwa forbidding votes for a female presidential candidate. (A fatwa is a religious decision, not necessarily a death sentence, as it is often understood by Western non-Muslims who know only the fatwa against Salman Rushdie.) From News24.com, with thanks to Ali Dashti:
“It was noted that the prohibition on women to assume positions of leadership was no longer a question still in dispute but already something that has been generally accepted among Muslim clerics,” one of them, Anwar Iskandar, told Antara news agency.

I’m pretty sure that sergey is either insane or an idiot. Regardless, this makes me fairly comfortable in ignoring pretty much everything else he says.

That is, Hispanic 2,5 times more often became jailed than non-Hispanic whites, and blacks 2,7 times more often than Hispanic. That is quite enough for real estate traders to derive price conclusions.

There was only one article with a strong match, but this 1999 essay was surprisingly blunt: “Janet Reno’s Justice Department flatly states that ‘blacks are 8 times more likely than whites to commit homicide.’”

“Wait a minute. This article seems strangely familiar,” I thought. “Oh, of course, it’s by … me.”

And that may explain why I haven’t been invited back to write for Slate since!

A Russian immigrant called me up once to ask why almost no other American journalist ever mentioned the racial patterns he had seen with his own eyes everyday since he’d come to America. When I explained that the average writer was just lying, he replied:

Vladimir (audibly relieved): “You mean, he’s hypocrite?”

Me: “Yeah, exactly. It would hurt his career to write for the public what he thinks in his private life.”

Vladimir: “Thank God!”

Me: “Huh?”

Vladimir: “Hypocrite I understand. I grow up in Soviet Union. Lying to save your job, that’s life. No, I was very worried smart people in America weren’t hypocrites. You know, this country is supposed to be land of free, home of brave. I was scared that smart Americans weren’t hypocrites, but instead were hallucinating. I am very happy to hear they’re just hypocrites. Hypocrisy much less scary than mass hallucination.”

Read the whole thing - this is eye opener, with a very good humor.

Sergey wrote: “Reasons are simple: as black family moves in, prices of real estate in the neihborhood immediately plummet. And for good reason, too: 90% of violent crimes in US are commited by blacks. Nobody want to loose his money.”

I’m pretty sure that sergey is either insane or an idiot. Regardless, this makes me fairly comfortable in ignoring pretty much everything else he says.

Capn Billy Says:
May 5th, 2007 at 11:36 am

Anon Y. Mous at May 5th, 2007 at 10:30 am,
ignore all you wish, but facts is facts. I couldn’t find verification of sergey’s 90% statistic, but the USDOJ says that:
“In 2004, (homicide) offending rates for blacks were 7 times higher than the rates for whites”

I guess they’re “insane or an idiot” too.

These homicides happen in the inner-city ghettos — they are not committed by black middle class people. So Sergey’s comment above is still insane. Suppose you’re living in the suburbs and a black middle class family moves in into your street. Maybe the black family that moved in are schoolteachers or dentists or nurses. In such a situation it is insane to move out on the grounds that “90% of violent crimes in US are commited by blacks”. How likely is it that your black neighbor who is a dentist will murder you? These sentiments have no other cause than good old-fashioned racism.

That you can point out a handful of examples of women rulers is not a set of data points proving that women face no barriers to leadership. That the best you can do is list a handful of examples of women rulers is, by itself, the point. The number of leaders and rulers throughout history who have been women is miniscule. Your rough handful of famous women leaders is about all there is - and they are all primarily famous because they were women rulers. That is, they are the exceptions that prove the rule.

For most of American history, women were denied the vote and the right to participate in national electoral politics (and most local electoral politics). So we can agree that from 1776 to 1920, 144 years, or 62% of American history, women were not president because they were denied the ability to pursue the presidency by the power of the state. But what about the other 38%? Did all sexism and all barriers instantly and immediately disappear?

It is remarkable to me that, in this day and age, there are still people who believe that the underrepresentation of demographic groups in various social roles is not due at least in part to barriers to their participation, but rather some innate quality of that particular demographic group. For centuries Jews were forced into particular careers because the societies around them had interests in erecting and maintaining barriers to their participation in other careers in order to dominate the socially and exploit them economically. Stereotypes about greedy Jews, I hope fervently we can all agree, are nasty and utterly baseless, yet many once believed they stemmed not from social constructs designed to control and exploit Jews, but from the fundamental “character” of Jews.

I understand that there are some people commenting in this thread who are comfortable in their bigotry. I suspect that most people aren’t, but simply haven’t bothered to examine how they could simultaneously believe (as I hope you all do) that stereotypes about the innate nature of Jews are absurd, and believe (as some of you have demonstrated you do) that stereotypes about the innate nature of women are true and hold explanatory power.

The comfort I take is this: you are, quite decidedly, on the wrong side of history on this one. It will undoubtedly take a while, but just as people once believed that blacks were innately bestial, or that Jews were innately greedy, I predict that society as a whole will eventually also stop believing that women are innately shrinking violets who would rather do comforting things, like cook dinner and mind the children, rather than complicated and tough things like wield the reigns of power in their society.

If anything all that feminism has done for me is to make me disgusted I was born female.

I think not. We are entering times of blood and iron. You peddlers of whinings and grievances are dispensible luxury items.

Well, that settles it, doesn’t it? It’s hard to argue with God if He Himself personally made women inferior to men. I also had no idea that I was attacking Christianity. It’s an interesting rhetorical trick - I think from here on out, I’ll use that too. Think we shouldn’t reform the AMT? Attacking Christianity! Disagree over the Iraq war? Attacking Christianity! Don’t like my haircut? Attacking Christianity! Genius. Who wants to be that guy who attacks Christianity? It’s a real show-stopper, thanks.

“I think not. We are entering times of blood and iron. You peddlers of whinings and grievances are dispensible luxury items.”

I assume this is similar to the language you use to pump yourself up before a Dungeons and Dragons tournament, or before you don your plastic armor for the Renaissance Faire, or before you log in for a few hours of World of Warcraft, so I will try very hard not to rain on your parade.

My mistake. I return to my original stance of ignoring you, because you’re a nutjob.

meh.

Always comical to see lefties turn to History for comfort, isn’t it? Like fundamentalists who fervently believe God is on their side.

What makes this pomposity even sillier is that, in his earnest lefty rectitude, he misunderstands the point — it’s not “innate” differences (in the genetic sense) that are at issue here, but cultural differences. And cultures can be changed, even on an individual level — though of course much of the current political left provides an interesting if sad counterexample.

I’m confused - this was the point I was trying to make from the beginning, yet you write as if you disagree with me. You agree with everything I have written? Good, I congratulate you.

Well, you *are* ignorant, so ignoring arguments you don’t like is right up your alley.