Wednesday, May 21, 2008

When a woman runs for office...

... I wish she'd just run for office and not pretend it's a big deal she's female, or that anybody owes her a vote because she's a woman. I see I have company in this view of things.

This reminds me of a story that made the rounds when the Star Trek series with the woman captain was just getting off the ground. The story was that the production team wanted to make a big deal of the fact that the captain was a woman, but the actress playing the captain said she assumed that by that far into the future it would be commonplace for a woman to be a captain and therefore nobody would think twice about it. And therefore it wouldn't make sense to make a big deal about it in the storylines.

I don't know if that story is true, but it's one of those 'if it's not true, it oughtta be' stories. And it's a good point. Unless we're talking about a job where it would be freakish or insane or otherwise a really bad idea to have a woman doing it, could we please stop acting like it's freakish for a woman to be under consideration for the job?

Since most people have long since outgrown getting excited by women running for office (face it, women have been getting elected for generations in America), aren't the folks making a big deal over a woman running for office embarrassing themselves?

They embarrass me. And, for the record, they don't represent me. I believe all candidates, male or female, should be judged on character, experience, track record, and proposals. Silly me.

No comments: