History took place this past week, as many of you probably have heard. A woman has become the presidential nominee of a major political party. Yet, I remain thoroughly underwhelmed by this historic event. At first I enjoyed the celebration on social media, my feminist side happy as could be, but that feeling faded when I remembered she is only the nominee. She isn’t president yet. Sure, Hillary has gone farther than any other women, and she put a few more cracks into the glass ceiling, but she hasn’t broken in it. Not that she alone could break it. The presidency isn’t the only occupation that distinctly lacks strong female leadership. The House of Representative still is less than 20 percent female, and there aren’t exactly equal amount of men and women working as CEOs or directors. And Hillary sure can’t do all of these jobs by herself. But the glass ceiling remaining unbroken wasn’t exactly why I was so underwhelmed this past Thursday.
The main reason I was underwhelmed is that becoming the party’s nominee doesn’t seem too impressive. There have been plenty of major party nominees since the beginning of the country. We don’t remember most of them. We don’t even bother to remember all of the U.S. Presidents, let alone a nominee. And the year is 2016. We finally nominated a woman for the position of president from a major political party in the year 2016. I feel like this should have happened a while ago. The country’s 200-years-old. It’s about time.
You may have also noticed how I keeping using the phrase “major political party.” There’s a reason. She isn’t even the first woman to run and get a nomination. Victoria Woodhull gets that honor. She was just nominated by an incredibly small party, the Equal Rights Party, in a time where women couldn’t even vote and she had zero chances of winning. She was nominated in 1872, if you were curious. So, excuse me for being slightly disappointed that it took us another 140 years to nominate a woman who actually stands a chance of winning the presidency.
Lastly, I wasn’t all too thrilled that during and after the convention political pundits and politicians kept stating stuff like, "Our daughters take for granted the fact that a woman can become president." It seems to be the reason why the older generation believes people my age preferred Bernie for president. It’s because we have taken for granted that a woman can be president. We don’t understand the importance of this event. That there is no way I have taken for granted the significance of the first female president. I was strangely reminded of the fact that we have never had a female president every time I looked at those posters with all the past presidents on them. I’m still reminded of this every time I hear the misogynistic "reasons" why Hillary can’t be president.
But, if Hillary does become president, I will stop feeling so underwhelmed. In fact, I may just feel the exact opposite: overwhelmed and entirely too happy – though admittedly my happiness will partially stem from relief that Donald Trump lost. I’ll get to witness history through the TV screen, just like I did eight years ago when Obama was elected President of the United States of America. So, to sum up this entirely too long article about the 2016 election, good job Hillary for getting this far, but keep going.
