Suffragette City

January 28 was the centennial anniversary of women winning the right to vote. It was also the thirtieth anniversary of the Challenger explosion—an event I remember because it happened during my lifetime. I’ve always had the right to vote; the fight for it happened long before I was born … yet not so long ago. One hundred years isn’t that many in the big picture.

Women’s issues continue to be issues, however. With the US presidential election looming, the argument for/against is once again in contention for candidate support on either side.

A female president would be pretty cool. I admire Hillary Clinton. She’s made her way in a man’s world, and she’d probably be a good president, though I think her focus might be more on foreign policy given her portfolio as Secretary of State during the Obama administration. Looking good to the rest of the world while your home is in a shambles seems to occupy most political leaders’ minds, male or female. Besides, I’ve watched enough women in power to know that many of them don’t care about their struggling sisters, and if they do stand up on the issues, they’re not taken seriously by their male counterparts.

Maybe a woman isn’t the best advocate for pay equity, health care and education. Maybe it should be a man who sees those points for what they really are: issues that affect not just women, but everyone on the planet.

If I was entitled to vote in the US election (thankfully, I’m not), I’d vote for Vermont governor Bernie Sanders (D). I’ve heard him speak on a few occasions, and he’s a guy who gets it. He speaks eloquently and passionately about the problems close to home, those issues almost universally dismissed as “women’s issues”: child poverty, poor education, inaccessible health care and, from there, planned parenthood. He recognizes that these resolving these issues is important to the nation as a whole. They are not unique to women. They are society’s issues, but if we insist on labelling everything, perhaps they should be termed “children’s issues” because—let’s face it—the future lies with the little ones.

Just a thought.