The choice to lead? I think not.

Last week, in Azusa Pacific University’s student newspaper The Clause, Laura Kinney wrote, “Women have the choice of leadership” (10/15). Her opinion article was in response to the ever-clever Anna Quindlen’s 10/13 Newsweek column “The Leadership Lid.” In this article, Quindlen makes the valid point that women are still an anomaly in leadership—only 20 percent of leaders in business, journalism and politics are women. At a global level, our female representation in politics ranks 69th, putting us behind Iraq and North Korea.

How have we managed to stifle female leadership more so than countries that bear Bush’s “axis of evil” stamp?

In The Clause article, Kinney negates Quindlen’s well-reasoned argument and instead argues the low numbers don’t attest to discrimination, or any other –ism, but rather because of choice. Women have simply chosen not to lead.

While there’s no virtue in diminishing women who genuinely have made that choice, I don’t believe women have willingly ceded the opportunity to lead. Or at least, I certainly hope that more than 20 percent of workingwomen aspire beyond what the glass ceiling has to offer.

I offer a simple example to make my point; last year during APU’s student government elections, three very capable women and one very capable man ran against a student body president. Today, we are lead by that very capable male. I believe all three of those women had every intention of leading our student body.

Until we stop justifying the absence of female leadership while offering up the “token” women leaders—ahem, Sarah Palin, Meg Whitman, and Katie Couric—as cheap examples of equal opportunity, women’s mobility will remain at a stalemate.

This letter was printed in APU's student paper, The Clause.

the right woman?

At the fearless age of ten, I boldly announced my decision to run as president of the U.S. While most candidates wait until about two years before elections to announce their campaign, I decided I might need some extra time to convince my country it was time for a woman.

I was too young to witness the appointment of Geraldine Ferraro as the first female vice presidential nominee but I do remember watching Mrs. Clinton on TV—she seemed like a strong woman with political ambition, but I wasn’t convinced that the country would ever be ready for her. So what would the best female presidential candidate look like? I figured I had thirty years to figure out.

Fast forward a decade. Mrs. Clinton did run after all, but, alas, America wasn’t ready for her. It looked like we’d have to wait another four years before a Ms. President could be a realistic hope.

But wait. Then out of the middle of nowhere, literally, hails Beauty Queen/Hockey Mom/“Political Maverick” Sarah Palin. Much like Walter Mondale’s decision to run alongside Geraldine Ferraro, Senator McCain picks the little-known governor from Alaska in hopes of shaking up an otherwise doomed race for the White House. As the first Republican female vice presidential candidate, the second X chromosome will finally find its place on the November ballot. And if the 2009 vice president inherits the power our current vice president possesses, we could get our first taste of a female president.

So, is Sarah Palin the best woman to first represent American women in the White House? I’m not sure.

At age ten, did I imagine leading our country with a child on one arm and a hunting rifle on the other? Certainly not.

I’m convinced that if Sarah Palin does enter the White House on January 20th, it will be a half-ass win for female presidential hopefuls. But only time will tell if the pseudo victory becomes a setback.

My concerns are rooted not in political ideology, but rather in feminist theory. Classical feminism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries bred two schools of thought: conservatism and egalitarian. Conservative feminism was traditionalist and family-centered, embracing women’s roles in the home while also fighting for the education of women so that they may influence beyond the realm of the home. Egalitarian feminists sought to liberate women from their own womanhood, demanding that they be given the same rights as men. Both schools of thought worked together to bring women the rights we enjoy today.

Today, the contemporary feminism movement is dominated by the egalitarian ideology. This ideology of liberation has come to oppose female liberty—the choice to chose either the home or the workplace, or even both. Modern feminism has alienated the intelligent women who decide to rear children and care after their home. Conservative feminists, like Christina Hoff Sommers, are calling women around the country to reclaim feminism and to “Make the movement attractive once again to the silent majority of American women who really do not want to be liberated from their womanhood.”

All this to say, Sarah Palin, a could-be success story for the conservative camp, steps onto the ice with little-to-none experience and a feisty overconfidence. If she misses the goal, we could be sitting on the bench longer than we expected.