Here's what the world will likely look in 2017. The United States will, all going well, have its first female president, and she will shortly meet with the U.K.'s female prime minister, Northern Ireland's female first minister, Scotland's female first minister and Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, Europe's most powerful leader.
It means that richest and most powerful nation on earth and two of the world's top military powers may be led by women. That we aren't even talking about this is a heartening sign that real progress is being made toward gender equality on the world stage.
It's probably also not an issue for many voters because in recent months we have seen the difference in leadership offered by Scotland's Nicola Sturgeon when compared to bumbling upper class oafs like Boris Johnson.
Read more: Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton - the battle begins in earnest
Scotland's first minister immediately took control of the Brexit vote to push for a second Scottish referendum while Johnson simply watched his career and reputation ignite.
As Johnson threw shapes and made increasingly unbelievable claims in the press, he was out maneuvered and out performed by the now British Prime Minister Theresa May. A daughter of a Protestant clergyman and the granddaughter of a sergeant major, she clearly had the discipline and self-control the party and the country needed.
Not that we should put the flags out or the champagne on ice just yet. We are very far away from a world that offers true equality to women, sadly.
Still, the number of female leaders around the world has more than doubled in the past decade, although women in the most powerful posts is far from the norm worldwide.
When a women succeeds at this level the victory is usually twice itself. It's a man's world after all, where most of the rules were written by men and most of the laws and holy scriptures were too, and they certainly didn't do this to foster equality.
If a woman can rise and beat these formidable odds to wield power on the world's stage her struggle has been harder and her commitment stronger than most of the men who, thanks to the rules of patriarchy, had an easier ride.
And they may be women but their political viewpoints vary dramatically. After Brexit First Minister Arlene Foster wants Northern Ireland to remain within the U.K., but Sturgeon wants precisely the opposite.
Read more: Michelle Obama utterly steals the show at the Democratic Convention
One viewpoint is insular and defensive; the other outward looking with an eye to Europe, and it already looks like the dynamism that will be needed in the 21st century is likely to out perform the frightened fortress option offered by Foster and May.
There are some men out there who are genuinely worried about what Hillary becoming president will make of Bill Clinton. Will he be known as the First Man? Wasn't that role already filled by Adam in the bible?
I find this kind of hand wringing hilarious because it puts some men in the traditional position of women – asking how can you be what you can't see?
We have never had a female president which means the question of what to call her husband has never been addressed. The message behind all that is that you can't get there from here ladies, so it's better that you don't try.
Women ignored the advice, and for Hillary things have already worked out better than she could ever have hoped. Her orange faced opponent looks, sounds, thinks and speaks like a throw back to the 1950s, which he clearly wants to take us all back to.
That was the time before women were asked for their political views, before African Americans were permitted to use the same rest rooms, before gay people were allowed to marry or even identify themselves without fear of reprisals, before minorities were afforded the same respect given to everyone else.
If you vote to elect Hillary simply to stop Donald Trump from driving us all back into an even more authoritarian past, you'll certainly being doing the nation some good. Since the dawn of time women have found themselves cast as helpmates, not heroes, or second fiddle where their rights were not being totally overlooked. They know well how to spot a man who will stand between them and their own advancement.
So for many women, stopping Trump won't just be a political decision but a deeply personal one. His openly expressed racism, his anti-Muslim hysteria, his divisive us-versus-them rhetoric strikes at the root of the American society and turns an immigrant nation into a frightened fortress.
Because it's not just Donald Trump women are worried about: it's that he's opened the door and rolled out the welcome mat for a man even smarter and more dangerous to their personal progress four years from now.
As the Middle East has shown us, once you embolden anti-women fanatics they can quickly over run the map.
Comments