Mythical Beast
To: Madam President
White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Madam President:
A female president! Nikki Haley has predicted that the next president of the United States will be a female. Imagining a female president walking out to the Rose Garden brings to mind the famous short story by James Thurber, “The Unicorn in the Garden.” In that tall tale, a husband continues to tell his wife they have a unicorn in their garden. The wife responds that unicorns are “a mythical beast.” When the doctors in the white coats show up, the wife exclaims that there is a unicorn in the garden, to which the husband replies that’s not possible because unicorns are “a mythical beast.” The story ends with the white coats hauling the wife off to the sanitarium. James Thurber was a well-known misogynist. But apparently, he is joined by our electorate.
This electoral resistance to electing a female president is not shared by a great number of other countries. Iceland elected its first female president in 1980, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir (harder to spell or pronounce than Hillary Clinton). Since that time, more than 50 other countries have had female leaders, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burundi, Rwanda, Haiti, and Kyrgyzstan—all paragons of woke culture. The World Economic Forum rates us 43rd among the world’s nations in gender equity, but at least women vote.
Currently, 70% of women in the U.S. are registered to vote, a higher percentage than men. The actual number of female voters has exceeded the number of male voters in every presidential election since 1964. According to the Women and Politics Institute at American University, only 28% of congressional members are women and only 11% of Fortune 500 company leaders are women. Comedian Bill Burr, after citing many of these statistics, rhetorically asks how it is possible that women do so poorly in holding and attaining elective office or attaining high economic positions. The comedian’s answer for this conundrum is that feminists are hypocrites, and as evidence of such, Burr challenges any of them to name a WNBA team in their city or any player on that team. This is a challenge Minnesotans can meet.
We all know the Minnesota Lynx have been a storied franchise of the WNBA, winning four national championships (something the men who play for the Vikings, Timberwolves, or Wild cannot claim). Harmon Killebrew may be a name known by most Minnesotans, but a number of Lynx players like Maya Moore and Lindsay Whalen are well remembered. Sports are frequently the face of our public culture, and because we are the State of Hockey, soon the Minnesota franchise in the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) will become well known, with players already known to many Minnesotans from national and Olympic teams.
In March, we were in the grip of basketball mania generated by an Iowa Hawkeye, Caitlin Clark—selling out a standing-room-only crowd at Williams Arena as she chased the all-time (male or female) NCAA scoring title set by “Pistol” Pete Maravich. She has now broken that record. It would not be surprising to see the PWHL develop a similar following. But here’s a fact we will continually wrestle with: Both organizations—Lynx and PWHL—are owned by men. When these male owners, like Glen Taylor, sell, they are succeeded by other male owners, like Alex Rodriguez.
Even wrestling (one of the last redoubts of maleness) is slowly giving way in Minnesota. Northfield High School sophomore Caley Graber only last month became the first girl to win a match in the boys state wrestling tournament by pinning (!) her opponent. She came in fifth in the state. As sports reflect our popular culture, so too do our electoral choices. In Minnesota, women currently make up half of our congressional delegation (soon to be 5-3), and both U.S. senators, the chief justice of our Supreme Court, the new president of the University of Minnesota, and our lieutenant governor are women. However, note that as we have no female sports team owners, we also have never had a female governor in Minnesota.
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How can it be that women, who enjoy an increasing voting majority, an increasing dominance in higher education, and electoral successes at almost every level, cannot become the commander in chief? There are plenty of women being commanded—the armed forces are approximately 17% female, including about 16% of the officer corps. Spoiler alert: Neither the Minnesota commander in chief (Tim Walz) nor the U.S. commander in chief (Joe Biden) is female.
Perhaps Nikki Haley is right, and the next president will be female, although this is likely to be achieved by a female vice president ascending to the office of president upon disability or vacancy. Women get things done, as shown by their continued progress after achieving the right to vote (50 years after Black men). Maybe, someday, they will get this done too. Until then, having a woman in the Oval Office is like James Thurber’s unicorn in a garden—a mythical beast.
Sincerely yours,
Vance K. Opperman
Would vote for a female
