Madame President? Not this time, please

I think I was about eight years old when someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up and I told them that I wanted to be the first woman president. I chuckle to myself as I write this, as this is a wholly absurd notion to me now. It is absurd because my life has taken a drastic turn from politics and the thought of having a part to play in that arena completely disgusts me, but also for a much broader reason. I fear that the current female candidate for president will make it that much harder for this country to support a female president in the future.

Women do a plethora of things better than men. They are more organized. They handle stressful situations with poise. They are better at prioritizing, budgeting, triaging and juggling. Fun fact: They even physiologically withstand the effects of increased gravity better than men!

I have worked so hard my entire life to be considered on the same plane as my male colleagues. I studied harder, worked long hours and even lifted things that I probably shouldn’t have, just to prove I was enough to hang with the men. I built my career in a male-dominated field with much sacrifice and never allowed myself to compromise. I navigated engrained machismo, suffocating sexual harassment and crushing assumptions on how I got that A in whichever hard class we had that semester.

And I am not alone. Women around the world, even in this 21^st century of space tourism, artificial intelligence and micro-robot surgery, suffer daily from the assumption that their lack of a Y chromosome somehow means that they are lacking. Most of the time, they are far superior than the social assumption. These are the women feminism was conceived for. These are the women that were supposed to be lifted up out of the struggle to compete. These are the women who deserve to be afforded the same opportunities as the men.

Somehow, though, our society has bastardized that notion. Today, our society will not allow parents to question why a person with male DNA and male genitalia can shower in our daughters’ locker rooms in high school. And now we watch on the national stage as a woman who is not a leader seeks the most important job in the world. Our country, at this dire time, requires unity, grace, intelligence and diplomacy. But I don’t see it. I haven’t seen it for the last four years. And I fear that if she wins, we will have four more years of crushing inflation, increased crime and World War III.

And the effects will be long-lasting. A significant percentage of our population will associate these failed policies not with the candidate alone, but with the candidate’s gender. And a whole generation of little girls around the world, when they honestly answer the “what do you want to be when you grow up” question, will be met with the prejudice we, as a society, continue to sow for ourselves.