Madam President

When one of my daughters was 12 years old in the early ‘80s, her teacher asked her what she would like to be when she grew up. She replied that she was already grown-up and that she was training to be a future President of the United States of America. Unfortunately, her teacher gave her the “hush girl” treatment for what she perceived was my daughter’s over confidence, if not arrogance. The teacher then proceeded to report to me that my daughter had an unbridled imagination, given to unhealthy flights of fancy. “Imagine, fancying to be President of the United States,” she decried.

One of the enduring images about growing up in the US of A in the long shadow of a lanky woodsman from Illinois (born in Kentucky) named Abe Lincoln was that anyone can aspire to be president of the nation. Unfortunately, a lot of pre-1920 thinking, before American women were constitutionally granted suffrage, still prevails. My daughter’s teacher obviously thought occupancy of the White House was solely a male prerogative.

Good old George Washington refused to be king after winning the American Revolution against England. He would become the first President of the Union. It was in his honor, and later that of Abe and other U.S. Presidents, that we now commemorate Presidents’ Day as a national holiday today.

Of course, Abe’s name is better known for its association with one of the country’s luxury sedans that ever came out of Detroit. George is familiar for his seemingly bewigged profile in the dollar and the quarter coin. With JFK, Jr.’s muddled assassination report, Johnson’s Gulf of Tonkin infamy, Nixon’s Watergate-induced resignation, Reagan’s regurgitation of dramatic movie lines, and Clinton’s dalliance with fat Cuban cigars, the Office of the U.S. President has come to gain a measure of notoriety, which may have diminished youthful aspiration for the office. So now, give us a thought on the Oval Office.

We all know that the “F” word in the White House is not four letters, more like six. Gender. Specifically, female. Geraldine Ferraro’s run to be #2 in the Executive Office behind Walter Mondale was handicapped by an anti-women vote. The resentment against Hillary Clinton as her husband’s partner is well documented. Vilified for her high profile in advocating policy matters and her active influence on the oval office during Bill Clinton’s first term, she became the object of vicious target practice by partisan politicos across her husband’s side of the political aisle. Women at the center of power are surprisingly not welcomed by many sectors of American society.

Question: What do bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers, and laser printers all have in common? Answer: All invented by women. This is a piece of trivia from the Internet. The Chinese have long ago claimed that, “half of the sky is held up by women!”

The rest of the world has not been reluctant to put the female of the specie as Head of State. Sri Lanka’s Sirimavo Bandaranaike was intermittently Prime Minister for 18 years since 1960. PM Indira Gandhi of India served for 15 years before she was gunned down.

We had the Minneapolis teacher Golda Meir take on Israel in the early 70s, followed by Evita’s successor Isabel Peron of Argentina, Prime Minister, 1969-1974. The Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher dominated UK politics for 11 years, and was a colleague to our Great Communicator Ronald Reagan. Ten years as PM of Norway, Gro Harlem Brundtland championed the cause of sustainable development, and as the chair of the World Commission of Environment and Development (the Brundtland Commission), she will be remembered for the paradigm shifting report, Our Common Future.

Even the People’s Republic of China had Soong Ching-Ling as Honorary President in 1981. TIME’s Person of the Year, Corazon Aquino of the Philippines averted a Civil War in the late ‘80s. Pakistan’s PM Benazir Bhutto almost incited one in the mid-90s.

Dear to American hearts was Violeta Barrios de Chamorro of Nicaragua, Prime Minister, 1990-1996, who neutralized the socialist Sandinistas, at the same time as Mary Robinson of Ireland competently presided over the affairs of the Emerald Isle State. We all remember Nobel Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar (Burma) whose party won 80 percent of the seats in a democratic election in 1990, but was thwarted by the military government that refused to recognize the results.

Currently, PM Helen Clark of New Zealand since1999, following the footsteps of Jenny Shipley, guides the helm of the two-island dominated British Commonwealth Down Under. Tarja Kaarina Halonen of Finland ascended to the presidential podium at the turn of the millenium.

Megawati Sukarnoputri, daughter of Indonesia’s founding head of state Sukarno, was the countries fifth president in 2001, though she failed to get reelected last year in the aftermath of 9/11, the Aceh rebellion and the Bali explosion. Petite but combative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo battles the Abu Sayyaf as president of the Philippines, sworn in 2001. Mame Madior Boye became Senegal’s Prime Minister the same year.

Our issue for the U.S. White House, however, is not gender, but leadership. While we recognize that female leaders outside and inside the American government have shown themselves equally susceptible to human fault and folly, they are equally prone to greatness. The Office of the President in the United States has evolved into the symbolic tip representing organized and aligned interests. Those interests have to be broad and comprehensive. Decisiveness is required at the point where the leader needs to articulate the emerging common consent of a nation. In such capacity, s/he is more of a facilitator than an autocrator. While always guided by conscience, s/he must have an ear for the consensus of the vox populi. Evidence of lucidity and the courage to eloquently express the same, are qualities of an exemplary leader in my book. Our current occupant had not shown such capacities, in my view. Perhaps, a gender change might really get us a kinder and gentler administration.

My daughter has since moved into a career in the software technology of the information Highway. Having experienced the merciless punch of racial discrimination in college and the workplace, she has settled down to championing the cause of those like her with nondescript bloodlines, in her case, Indo-Malay Chinese Scot-Irish German, organizing groups with a slogan that reads: “Mongrels of the World, Unite!” Having watched and lived closely the shenanigans around the mall during the Clinton years and the reign G. W. Bush, she has since abandoned the allure of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Ingrained in the imagination of those over-50 like me is Marilyn Monroe singing “Happy Birthday, Mr. President,” to JFK, Jr. While I would prefer Bill Clinton blowing his horn on Hillary’s natal day in the Rose Garden during the next presidential term, I would even settle for George W. country-Texas-twanging Condoleeza Rice, if that were an option should she exemplify herself at State in the next four years and be pushed to the front lines where ex-General Colin Powell had not been allowed to go.

A female Head of State. Not a question of whether or not, but when. In my lifetime, I hope to hear the phrase said: “Yes, Madam President!” Got 26 years more to go on my shelf life. Doable.

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Vergara is a Social Studies 6th grade teacher at San Vicente Elementary School