Our little girl was all of 3 years old when mixing English and Ukrainian she triumphantly announced, “Tato. Ya ye а woman! Mama i ya: my ye womans!” [Tato. I am a woman. Mama and I are womans.] I was astonished – she had just started pre-school and already she was a feminist. Where did she get this? Not from me.
With the exception of my own mother, ours was a household of males. Mama loved her three sons dearly, but always regretted she never had a daughter. With four sisters and one brother, she married into the Fedynsky line, which for two generations, until most recently, had been almost exclusively tilted toward boys. Our father had four brothers. My older brother has two sons. My younger brother has a son. And then, with our first child, my wife and I, no surprise, also have a son.
Michael was born in 1990. George H.W. Bush was president and America was way different when it came to gender participation and national politics. There was a single female on the Supreme Court (out of nine justices); two women senators (out of 100); and three women governors (out of 50). As for the House of Representatives, in 1991 when I was a chief of staff for one of them, there were 34 female members of Congress (out of 435).
Early in 1991, my wife and I were driving past the White House, when that was still allowed, with our infant son in the car seat in back. I said, “Mykhasiu, take a look: you could be living there some day.” At which my wife replied: “Really? Do you think he’ll be married to the president?”
Oh my. Looking back from 2016 to 1991, my wife’s retort to a husband’s joke exposes the gap between men’s and women’s perceptions just a generation ago. And I was working for a woman! In my mind, driving past the White House, I saw our son as president someday. My wife saw a deeper trend where a man might be a president’s spouse.
So did his little sister. Seven years after that White House chuckle when Olesia had just informed me that she and her mother were “both womans,” I responded as a father encouraging an amazing daughter: “Olesiu, is there anything a boy can be that a girl can’t?”
“Yes,” she said. “A girl can’t be a father and she can’t be a priest.”
“Wow!” I thought. What a smart girl. Following up, I asked “Can a girl be president?”
“Oh sure,” she replied.
Our son is now 26 and our daughter soon to be 22. I reflect on how the changes we recognize over time, with rare exceptions, we don’t see from one day to the next.
Back in 1991, the idea of a woman becoming senator was remote, yet feasible. But president? Well, here we are: Hillary Clinton is on the cusp. She’s already made history as the first woman to be nominated by a major American political party. It’s no accident. When her husband, Bill Clinton, became president in 1993, Hillary had already asserted herself: an accomplished lawyer with a stint on Capitol Hill, an international advocate for children, including victims of Chornobyl, and then first lady, taking on serious policy issues.
She, of course, wasn’t alone: women overall had a growing role nationally. A half year into his term, Mr. Clinton nominated Ruth Bader Ginsberg to serve on the Supreme Court. The Senate, by then its ranks of women having increased to five, easily confirmed her. In the House of Representatives, there were 48 women (which sadly no longer included my boss who had lost her re-election bid in 1992).
In 1997, at the start of his second term, President Clinton made history when he nominated Madeleine Albright to be the first woman secretary of state. She was easily confirmed. Four years later, President George W. Bush named Condoleezza Rice as national security advisor, the first woman to rise to that position. In 2005, in his second term, he nominated her to be secretary of state. The Senate with 13 women members by then, including Ms. Clinton, confirmed her 85-13. By then there were 71 women serving in the House, including the speaker.
In 2008, our son was a freshman in college and our daughter was in high school. That’s how our family measures the passage of time. It was also the year that Barack Obama made history by becoming the first African American President, having defeated none other than Ms. Clinton in the primary campaign. To their credit, neither race nor gender was an issue. And, indeed, the Republican candidate, John McCain, also to his credit, rebuked people who questioned Mr. Obama’s birthright as an American.
Mr. Obama won and named Ms. Clinton as his secretary of state, the third woman to have had that post. Now she’s a candidate for president.
It’s 2016 and the little girl who announced herself as a “woman” so long ago is a senior in college and active in College Democrats. And no, she did not reflexively support Ms. Clinton just because she’s a woman. Like many other millennials, Olesia was for Bernie Sanders in the primary based on his social/economic issues. Sen. Sanders is now with Hillary, and so is our daughter and so is our son.
Me? I’ve long made it known that Donald Trump’s pro-Russian stance is anathema and so I’m with Hillary, but not only because I oppose Vladimir Putin, but also because of her strong record on Ukraine going back a quarter century, not to mention her domestic record and policies. And yes, gender is in the mix. I look back to where women were a generation ago and applaud our country’s progress, even as I reject a candidate who’s failed to keep pace and addresses women with boorishness and contempt. Such a man must not, cannot be president and I will not be voting for him. I owe it to my daughter, I owe it to my wife, I owe it to America.
By the way, today, there are 104 women in the House of Representatives, 20 women senators, three Supreme Court Justices and one major party candidate for president. You go!