US Presidents— 46 Males, 0 Females; Yet the Jill Biden Controversy Surprises Us?
America has a serious sexism issue — the op-ed is just a symptom
I’ve been following much of the media attention that the sexist opinion piece by Joseph Epstein has managed to garner. And isn’t it so empowering to speak in defense of a woman who deserves her title, and her position as much as any other First Lady of the United States of America has.
Surely, there is no merit whatsoever in the whole piece by Epstein, and it deserves every bit of criticism it gets, and more.
Yet, why such uproar for a man whose opinion probably doesn’t even matter, and why now?
Have we been so blinded by what’s put in front of us that we’ve come to believe that America, or most of the world for that matter, is an otherwise just and gender-neutral society?
Let us take a look at some facts before I get to the core of the problem.
Since George Washington in 1789, till today, in the glorious 230+ year history of arguably the greatest nation in the world — the USA — we’ve had 45 presidents, 46 if you include President-Elect Biden.
And so in a world made of roughly equal men and women, you’d think a fair share of that would be women?
Well, alas, there has been a sum total of ZERO female American Presidents so far.
Wait, maybe the deputy i.e. the Vice President evens out the balance a bit. Oh, but aren’t we celebrating Kamala Harris to be the first woman Vice President the US has ever had?
Oh, well! She’s the 49th Vice President of the country, so clearly she has an unfair advantage of three more shots than the President.
Well, this sounds like a rant, doesn’t it? What’s my point really?
Well, that is the point. We’re mad at one man’s sexist comments on the incoming First Lady, but in a two hundred and thirty-year history — yes that is over two centuries of existence, of what is known to be the greatest country in the world — we have had such apparent bias, and done nothing about it?
I come from yet another glorious democracy of the world — India — the largest democracy by population. However, it would be fair to say, that in its short period of 73 years of freedom, India is a relatively young democracy. And given its stark lack of development compared to the United States, probably a lot more orthodox one.
Yet, for 15 of these 73 years, we’ve had a female Prime Minister head the country, and her first term came as early as 1966 — or the 20th year of India’s freedom.
The American sexism problem is much more deep-rooted
According to a survey conducted in 2017, 4 in 10 working women had faced gender discrimination in some form — and I’ll bet you this number would be higher, but we’re so ingrained to be biased against women, that some women don’t even see injustice when it is done to them.
There is an inherent bias already in that “working population.” According to 2019 data, only about 57% of women participate in the labor force, compared to 69% of men.
The numbers get worse when you get to leadership positions — in 2020, the number of women CEOs in Fortune 500 companies hit a new HIGH! Shouldn’t we celebrate?
Not really — the high happened to be a sum total of 37 women CEOs compared to 463 men who held the position.
America, like much of the world, is sexist at its root. It may be changing, but it is changing slowly.
Are the younger generations any better than their parents?
There’s often a belief that the Millennials and the generations after them are more promising torchbearers of equality, and don’t have the same levels of discrimination as their forefathers — whether on race, color, gender, or other parameters.
As much as I’d like to believe that notion — some research suggests it may not be true. This Harvard Business Review article clearly suggests that millennials are just as, if not more sexist as previous generations. According to the article,
In a 2014 survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults, Harris Poll found that young men were less open to accepting women leaders than older men were. Only 41% of Millennial men were comfortable with women engineers, compared to 65% of men 65 or older.
Is there a solution then? There is — but the road is long and hard
Change often begins at home — and that is true for sexism as well. To treat these symptoms that are everywhere we probably need to fix the root cause.
We need to raise our children to truly believe in equality — to see each other as humans beyond a gender identity. We need more education and sensitization at a young age. We need to get rid of gender roles — whether at home or at the workplace. We need to address the patriarchal structures of many societies, and need to sensitize the boys, and empower the girls!
We can criticize a Joseph Epstein all we like, but how many such voices are we going to suppress? While raising your voice against injustice is the right thing, and I fully stand behind the people speaking up, there’s a lot more that needs to be done to fix the deeper-rooted issue.
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