Behind every good man stands a great woman. Why can’t we elect her as president? | Opinion

I’ve been thinking a lot since the election, about the role of women in America.

Throughout our history, women have fought for our rightful place in society. Many of us have done this while working alongside our men, encouraging them to be all they can be, while pulling quadruple duty as wife, mother, maid/washerwoman and cook.

In the words of poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar’s poem “Mother to Son,” life for many of us women, “… ain’t been no crystal stair.”

But we kept on going. We kept on going while working behind the scenes, often laying aside our own dreams, or giving up on them completely, just to help our men’s dreams come true. We said we were making these sacrifices for the family.

We worked to bring home the bacon and then fried it up to feed our men and children. Many of us did this without complaining. After all, a victory for our men was a victory for us. To put it bluntly, many men succeeded, reached their professional and political goals all because they had a good woman by their side.

Agree with me or not, but I believe that women have served as the backbone of America, from our country’s inception.

So naturally, when, for the second time in American history, it seemed that America would surely be ready to elect a woman president, yet the answer was no.

We can’t truthfully say that Vice President Kamala Harris was not elected because she is a woman of color. Hillary Clinton is white. America rejected her, too.

So, I ask, what’s it going to take, America, to elect a woman to be president of the United States? We are the leader of the free world. Yet, other countries have elected women to lead them. The late Golda Meir, and the recently elected Claudia Sheinbaum, the new president of Mexico, come to mind.

Meir, who helped found the State of Israel in 1948, served as its fourth prime minister, leading the country from 1969-74. She was the first woman to hold that post. She died on Dec. 8, 1978.

And Sheinbaum, 62, who was sworn in as Mexico’s 66th president on Oct. 1, is Mexico’s first female president.

So why is America falling behind in electing women to our nation’s highest office? To me, it isn’t a Democrat vs. Republican, or even a white vs. Black issue.

Rather, it’s a voice straight out of the Stone Age, whispering in the ears of some Americans, telling them that it still is “not the time” for a woman to openly lead America. I say openly, because women have always been the “leaders” of America.

Before you start calling me a man-basher, please know that I am not trying to put down men or belittle them. I am a mother of sons. I have a loving brother. As a young wife, I worked as a maid to help support our family while my late husband attended college. I laid aside my own dreams to help support him in fulfilling his.

America has produced some great men, who have worked hard to make this the great country that it has become. I am only trying to remind you that these great men didn’t get there on their own. Trust me, somewhere beside them or in their background, there was a hard-working, loving woman (or women), who helped them climb the ladder to greatness.

It’s just that I don‘t think that women should take the back seat on the bus when it comes to equality. It should not be a one-way street, where a man, regardless of his qualifications, should be the leader of the greatest country in the free world.

However, the issue of not wanting a woman to lead America is not just a man-thing. Many women have jumped on that bandwagon. Some women even frown on the idea of women preachers, or women doctors. It’s an embedded, in-the-head thing.

A Washington Post exit poll showed showed that 45 percent of white women voted for Harris, while 91 percent of Black women voted for her. Just think what the outcome could have been if the other 55 percent of white women, and the remaining 9 percent of Black women had voted for her. The poll also showed that while 77 percent of Black men voted for Harris, only 37 percent of white men voted for her.

Among Hispanic/Latino women, 60 percent voted for Harris; 43 percent of Hispanic/Latino men voted for her, the Post found.

So, no. I am not trying to put men down. I am only trying to get you thinking about progress and equality in America. I am trying to get you to understand that we can lay aside the beliefs that dictate that only men are qualified to lead America.

I want you to understand and accept that we have grown up as a nation, that we are not the young country we used to be. And while we yet struggle with all kinds of racial and gender issues, we have grown and should be able to move on.

Yes, there is still work to be done. Many Americans have shown they are not ready to elect a woman to lead America, But I say that we are. We just got cold feet. Again.

There will be another time. I believe that America is just about ready for a change. So, keep on your socks and keep your feet warm. The change, it’s a coming.