As a male who happens to be a sociologist well aware of the awful state of gender inequality in this country (and world), I felt a bit uncomfortable not supporting Hillary Clinton at the beginning of my exploration of the Democratic candidates. Putting a woman in the White House would be a giant leap towards shifting the social paradigm when it comes to gender. Yet, when I talked to my female friends (all 22-35 and college educated) about this issue, they almost all gave me the same reply: "I want a woman president, just not this woman." I thought about this and the kind of women my female friends are. They are going out all across the world trying to change the world working for non-profits, or studying law to go into public interest, or organizing communities, or abroad bring relief to AIDS ravaged countries. They do not allow the patriarchy to define them or grant them opportunities through connections to men. They are doing this all on their own. They love who they want, and live their lives accordingly. They are STRONG women, women I, as a man would want to be like. They are the role models I want not just for my future daughters, but also for my future sons.
They are my mother. They are Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro. They are the women who should be President.
In today's New York Times you'll find a beautiful testament of what a strong woman looks like.
A Free-Spirited Wanderer Who Set Obama’s Path
The Strength to Speak Truth to Power
“She was a very, very big thinker,” said Nancy Barry, a former president of Women’s World Banking, an international network of microfinance providers, where Ms. Soetoro worked in New York City in the early 1990s. “I think she was not at all personally ambitious, I think she cared about the core issues, and I think she was not afraid to speak truth to power.”
The Strength and Intelligence of an Open Mind
Those choices were not entirely surprising, said several high school friends of Ms. Soetoro, whom they remembered as unusually intelligent, curious and open. She never dated “the crew-cut white boys,” said one friend, Susan Blake: “She had a world view, even as a young girl. It was embracing the different, rather than that ethnocentric thing of shunning the different. That was where her mind took her.”
The Strength of Independence
Her second marriage faded, too, in the 1970s. Ms. Soetoro wanted to work, one friend said, and Mr. Soetoro wanted more children. He became more American, she once said, as she became more Javanese. “There’s a Javanese belief that if you’re married to someone and it doesn’t work, it will make you sick,” said Alice G. Dewey, an anthropologist and friend. “It’s just stupid to stay married.”
The Strength of a Social Conscience
She became a consultant for the United States Agency for International Development on setting up a village credit program, then a Ford Foundation program officer in Jakarta specializing in women’s work. Later, she was a consultant in Pakistan, then joined Indonesia’s oldest bank to work on what is described as the world’s largest sustainable microfinance program, creating services like credit and savings for the poor.
The Strength of Self-Assurance
“I feel she taught me how to live,” said Ms. Nayar, who was in her 20s when she met Ms. Soetoro at Women’s World Banking. “She was not particularly concerned about what society would say about working women, single women, women marrying outside their culture, women who were fearless and who dreamed big.”
These are the qualities I want to see in my children, son or daughter.
These are the qualities I want in my President, male or female.
And if the women in my life are any indication, these are the kind of women who will be President.