Almost a century ago, the 19th Amendment of the United States Constitution was passed, allowing women across the U.S. their first legal chance to vote in political elections.
Now in 2016, a female presidency is seen as possible in the minds of many Americans, including Kate Cruikshank, the president of the League of Women Voters of Bloomington and Monroe County.
The League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan group focused on voter rights and Cruikshank said her opinions regarding the candidates are not endorsements in any way.
While American women have attempted to run for president since the early days of the women’s suffrage movement, Cruikshank said she believes it has been difficult for them to achieve this in what she considers to be a country built on white, male superiority.
“It’s not a case of we’re all in this together and may the best man-slash-woman win,” Cruikshank said. “It’s may the best man win because women almost have to go beyond that in order to get on the same plateau.”
]Cruikshank said she believes the Democratic candidate is the most qualified candidate ever to run for president, based on the life she has led and her decades-worth of experience.
“She’s awfully intelligent and apparently has an incredible capacity for seeing the big picture,” Cruikshank said. “If she wins, it can be really exciting just to see that play out.”
While Phyllis Finley, the president of the Monroe Country Republican Women, agrees that Clinton is a strong and intelligent woman, she said she strongly disagrees with Clinton’s pro-choice stance on abortion.
As a mother and grandmother, Finley said she believes allowing a fetus to be aborted is a negative view of life for a woman. Her only exception to her pro-choice stance is if the mother’s life is in danger or if the child is significantly deformed.
Along with that, Finley said she also believes Clinton did not have a strong personality as secretary of state. She said she believes the events of Benghazi, in which four American soldiers were killed in Libya, could have been prevented by the government.
“It grieves me that we had four men in Benghazi that lost their lives because of negligence and the lack of leadership in that office to rescue those men,” Finley said.
Finley said she is also not personally convinced of the prospect of a female president in the U.S. She said she believes women are often motivated by their emotions, and she doesn’t think a woman would be able to fill the position of a strong figurehead who is respected by all cultures.
However, Republican candidate Donald Trump has had a significant number of controversies in the past regarding his alleged treatment of women. This includes a recently leaked video from 2005 where Trump brags to reporter Billy Bush about his sexual assaults toward women.
While bothered by Trump’s remarks, Cruikshank said she is more disturbed by how his supporters can overlook what he has said about women.
“I think the most frightening thing about Donald Trump saying all those things is that people don’t see it as a problem,” Cruikshank said. “He kind of has a sort of predatory personality, and that plays out particularly toward women.”
If Clinton is elected, Cruikshank said she believes the biggest concern should be understanding why Trump’s supporters either overlooked or supported these remarks and how they can change their mindsets for the better.
However, while Finley said she agrees some of these remarks have been harsh, she doesn’t think he truly has disrespect for women.
“I don’t think he’s cruel to women,” Finley said. “I just think he too often speaks before thinking it through.”
Instead, she said she is more concerned about the domestic abuse against women.
Along with building a wall across the Mexican border, Finley said she also agrees with Trump’s policy of not allowing Syrian refugees to enter the country. She said she believes this will prevent not only terrorist acts, but also violence against women.
“Women in this country should be standing up and screaming ‘We do not want refugees here that treat women the way the women in Europe have been treated by the refugees,’” Finley said.
Under a Trump presidency, Finley said she believes he will respect women and women’s rights, not only on a work level, but also as human beings.
On the other side, Cruikshank said she believes Clinton’s worldwide influence as a strong female will help her benefit women in the U.S.
“She has been such a pioneer for women’s rights around the world that I imagine that will carry through in everything she does,” Cruikshank said.
