"Mommy, Why Can't Girls Be President?"

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This question came from my seven year-old daughter's mouth, just the other day.

And then came my response, "Oh they can, Sweetie.  But, ummmmm....  Hmmm.  Let me think about that."

There are a million things I could have told her, but where does one even begin?

Since she was born, I had naively hoped that she would never question whether girls were as smart or capable as boys, or whether women could be just as effective leaders as men.  We're so much farther along than when I was her age, after all.  But, silly me, I had forgotten that numbers speak for themselves:

Male Presidents of the United States: 44
Female Presidents of the United States: zippo

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So why wouldn't she start asking questions like that?

Now, to make matters worse, here are the numbers for female corporate leadership representation  (note, she's not been privy to these stats yet):

Percentage of women in the U.S. labor force: 46.3%
Percentage of female Fortune 500 corporate officers: 15.4%
Percentage of female Fortune 500 CEO's: 2.4%

Sheesh.

(Click here to read the rest: http://www.womenonbusiness.com/new-us-women-in-business-statistics-released-by-catalyst/)

But back to the conversation at hand.  I managed to continue my response with:  "Women can most certainly be President.  There are female presidents in other countries for example.  However, here in the United States we've not had very many women run for President.  And to be President you have to be elected."

I decided not to throw out heavy hitters such as "sexism, patriarchal society, domesticity, women's suffrage, and historical ramifications of misogyny."  I thought that might be a bit much for a second grader.

But I dread the next question I'm going to get once she hears that the 19th Amendment wasn't added to the Constitution until 1920, which is:  "Why weren't women even allowed to vote, mommy?"

My answer will probably be something short and sweet like, "because the men running the show were ignorant- or afraid of-women's capabilities, honey." This barely scratches the surface, of course.

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As a career coach, I help individuals pursue a personally challenging and healthy path to professional fulfillment.  And although I absolutely encourage clients to pursue whatever career they design,  I wouldn't quite call running for President of United States the healthiest of all pursuits, especially for women.  Though male presidential candidates are under an unprecedented amount of personal scrutiny, women face sexism above and beyond the frenzied media probing.  For this reason alone, I am hardly surprised women are not coming out in droves wanting to run for Congress, much less for the Presidency.  I personally would rather have a root canal on each of my teeth than put up with the ummm... let's call them "shenanigans"... that go along with political campaigns.

Yet we all know the irony:  if more women who, generally speaking, have an innate ability to bring people together and decrease friction, don't enter the political arena, we'll stay put in our divisive American politics with a paucity of female presence.  Furthermore, once we gain gender diversity, problem solving will evolve to a much more sophisticated level than it remains today.

But in the meantime, I'm doing my little part with my daughter.  I show her how I share my talents by helping people thrive in their careers and lives.  I help her appreciate her joys in life and what makes for good brain candy.  I'm careful not to put down any career as "unworthy" or, at the other end, completely unattainable; she's only seven, for Pete's sake!  Even pro basketball is fair game in my opinion (and I can honestly say this only because she's is in the 5th percentile in height and has shown NO interest.)

As for the mother/daughter discussion of no female presidents, I borrowed a clever little book, Grace for President, from the local library.  It's a small step, but at least it's a step, in my own home.  And I'm not embarrassed to say that I cried a little bit when we read the book together.

Here's to the next generation of women:  may you have the choice to do whatever it is you are meant to do.

http://www.amazon.com/Grace-President-Kelly-DiPucchio/dp/B001Q3M5RQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318971658&sr=8-1