AGA Roll Call: Ms.President

I've had to think about this a lot back in the fall of '05, when we had our elections in Germany and had a female candidate for the first time. I wasn't going to vote for her solely on the basis of her gender and I didn't agree with a lot of her agenda, either. Angela Merkel is from a traditionally more conservative party and I take issue with a lot of her opinions on social matters, such as homosexual marriage. However, compared with the other option, she seemed like the lesser evil. So what did I do? Voted for a third party whose agenda I actually fully agreed with and which I knew would enter coalition with Merkel's party.

Watching her now, I'm actually pretty proud that we have our first female chancellor, and are the first European country to have a female leader.

As for Clinton - yeah, I'd be so happy to see the US with a female president. But there are a lot of issues where I do not agree with her, and I'd rather support a male because I like his agenda than a woman by virtue of her gender. We want to be held to the same standards, right? Anything else would be preferential treatment, and we don't need that. We can compete and win without it.

When I was in the third grade and Bill Clinton was President, I really looked up to Hilary. (I did not know that First Lady is the thankless position it is--I was confusing it with Vice President.)

But now, looking at her issues---how she's working on that stupid flag burning legislation instead of about eighty-five million other slightly more pressing problems we have... her pro-war stance... grr. I just don't like her. Period.

If there were two candidates in the primaries who were both very well liked and had similar stances on issues, I would probably choose the woman and/or sexual/ethnic/religious minority. Kind of like affirmative action for government, to break up the hold of the Good Ol' Boys club up in Washington.

But if it were say, Hilary vs. Russ Feingold, I'd go with Feingold because I agree with his positions more.

(Heather--how'd you get stuff in italics ...and I think there was bold in another entry? I tried using the HTML tags for it, but it wouldn't let me do it. Do we use UBB instead, or was it in italics because it was a citation?)

I don't like Hillary Clinton, I don't agree with her policies and I don't consider her a feminist. Same goes for Condi Rice. I also think putting Hillary Clinton on the ballot for democratic party is a bad idea. Not because she is a woman, but because she is already a controversial figure, people have already made a clear-cut opinion on her. She is also a bad public speaker and right now the Democrats need a someone who is strong to lead the party. I think Barrack Obama would be a good canidate, although he doesn't have much experience. The Democrats also need a candidate who is anti-war and Hillary Clinton is not. Democrats and Republicans would both be willing to vote for just about anyone who would end the war in Iraq.

(Here's whatcha do.

Still use the tag endings, just like when coding HTML. "strong" between the tags is for bolding, and "em" for italics. And you'll still end them with the /> tag.

For more: http://www.allgirlarmy.org/filter/tips)

Honestly, I think I would vote for a woman solely because of her sex ... to an extent. I'm a liberal/independant mind and if a woman were explicitly and fanatically right-wing, I'd not vote for her . If there were comparable candidates - one of them male, one female ... even if I did lean a bit toward the man's side politically I'd, completely honestly, vote for the woman. Were women in office a common occurrence, however, my opinion would be different. I want women to have the chance to prove their capability ....