“I think women are not presidents”
by digby
I know this is all in good fun but it depresses me anyway:
Women can’t be president because “they’re too girly” and will make “girl rules,” according to some youngsters appearing in a segment on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” that featured Hillary Clinton.
ABC’s late-night host gathered a pair of girls and boys for an experiment-of-sorts on gender equality on his Thursday show.
After Kimmel asks the kids to name some women who have been commander in chief, one replies, “I think women are not presidents.”
“They’re too girly,” responds little Jayden. “They’ll make, like, girl rules.”
One example of a “girl rule”?
“Free makeup in the world,” according to Jayden.
Another of the school-age kids, Andrew, predicts a woman president would give the White House a feminine makeover.
“They’ll decorate and make it all girly,” he says. “They might even paint it pink.”
“I agree with him,” one of the girls in the seemingly unscripted sketch, Belle, chimes in.
The young girls do support a woman in the Oval Office, with Belle saying the country should elect a female because “there hasn’t been a girl president.”
“I think if there was a war she would probably make it stop so people could be more healthy and they won’t die,” says Sydney.
But Jayden isn’t convinced.
“Girls are actually too girly for boys and boys are too buff to have girl stuff,” the smiling boy says.
“I’d like you guys to meet somebody,” Kimmel tells the children, as Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner, walks into the room and pulls up a chair alongside the outspoken group.
“Wait, are you president?” Jayden asks Clinton.
“I’m running to be the president,” Clinton responds.
The former secretary of State later makes her pitch to the kids.
“You know we haven’t had a woman to be president yet, so we need to have a woman to be president, and then you’d have more evidence to base your decision on,” Clinton says.
I have often heard a story of the little African American kid visiting the White House with his parents in the early months of the Obama administration running up to one of the guards, also African American, excitedly asking “are you the president?” Everyone was embarrassed, but the guard told the parents to relax saying with a smile, “that’s the first time anyone’s asked me that.” (Or something like that…)
Anyway, the point is that until Barack Obama became president no young African American kid would ever have thought any African American man was president. Similarly, no young girl will assume that some random woman in the White House is president until there is actually a woman president. I’d like to see that.
In fact, I still can’t believe we haven’t seen it already. It’s 2015 and we have had 43 white male presidents and one African American male president. As a woman that just seems … weird. We’re 50% of all humankind.
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