Having bothered many already, why not go for the mothers of them all? Women. Well, not all women. Current national female politicians to be exact. I am not insane so I am going to throw out several qualifiers and caveats in an attempt to cover my butt from those very fearsome women in my own life whom I love very much.

Let me state I like all men understand very little about women. Nor do I understand why they think whatever it is they are thinking. Remember learning imaginary numbers in calculus and wondering for a moment if your teacher had lost their marbles? They call them imaginary but to me, the square root of negative one is inconceivable. I have a strong imagination and I could never come close to imagining the solution to i. In my opinion, the only other proper use of the word inconceivable may be when trying to decipher a woman’s mind. I will figure out the square root of negative one long before I decipher a woman’s mind.

Also, I do not intend to generalize or stereotype all women in any manner as not equal to men. Again, I am not insane. This is done only in private with other males. This was a joke – take it easy. Please know I sincerely and strongly believe in total equality under the law and personal rights for all humans against government intrusion. I am not a “get-in-the-kitchen” kind of guy nor would such a command be received well or complied with by any females in my family.

Hopefully, I have said enough to prevent being dog housed.

Admittedly, I am no expert on all politicians. While I acknowledge there may be a scant few honest females or males in Washington, history has taught me to view all federal politicians with a strong presumption of scumbag-ishness.

But nevertheless, I have been recently wondering what is a female politician? Not anatomically obviously but behaviorally. I dare not try to define what is behavior which would be considered female, feminine, womanly, ladylike or maternal. I will let a dictionary do this and then add my humble and often confused anecdotal experience. So take your complaints to Websters.

Here are the definitions:

Feminine: having qualities traditionally ascribed to women; such as sensitivity or gentleness.

Womanly: possessing qualities; such as warmth, attractiveness, etc, generally regarded as typical of a woman, especially a mature woman

Ladylike: like or befitting a lady in manners and bearing; refined and fastidious

Motherly/Maternal: of or resembling a mother; especially in warmth or protectiveness

When growing up, I often heard women say “if the world were run by women, it’d be different”. That we would not have all the wars and unnecessary suffering. Total hogwash. From what I can tell, were the world run by the female politicians I see here in America, it would be exactly the same as what we have currently. No change.

Almost none of the national female politicians with which we’ve become familiar exhibit any of those traits on a regular or non photo op basis. I would not use any of the above words to describe Ms. Clinton, Ms. Palin, Ms. Pelosi, Ms. Bachmann, Ms. Feinstein, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, etc.

To this casual citizen observer, they seemingly run from these characteristics because they actually fear being portrayed as feminine, womanly, ladylike or motherly. They are in a contest to be as man-ish as all the male politicians have been. If you put a man’s face on Ms. Clinton or Ms. Bachmann, would it really make any difference?

Personally, I see nothing wrong with any of the terms defined above. They are qualities exhibited by all the women in my life and these are not diminutive or incapable people. They are intelligent professionals who’ve succeeded in their careers within industries largely dominated by men. While they use the appropriate traits and skills for their professions, they certainly do not fear being portrayed or hide from having positive female behavioral characteristics.

But I do get why the politicians do it.

The politicians themselves view the traits above as campaign liabilities so they never exhibit them publicly. They fear opponents will call them weak or soft so they over-compensate to what they perceive is tough and strong. From their actual behavior and statements, we know they are willing to drop a bomb for any fabricated reason, kill whomever with any amount of collateral damage, flat out ignore human rights violations and abide the destruction of American constitutional rights. And they do it all with the same speed and vigor as the men. Often with fewer questions asked because in the end, you know, “what difference does it make?”…as one of them famously said.

I do not think a person possessing the positive traits above would not be worthy of office because they possess them. Quite the opposite actually. My personal experiences have provided me with plenty of examples of women who openly exhibit these traits destroying me in all kinds of competitions/debates. In my humble opinion, this country could use leaders who exhibit maturity, compassion or any other positive female characteristic instead of overly assertive aggression and stubbornness with regard to our foreign, civil liberty and economic policies.

So in answering my own question, I have realized there is no such thing as a female politician. There are only politicians. The females in Congress have achieved some mis-guided form of gender neutrality. Doing so by only behaving like all the male politicians throughout history and disregarding most of the positive traits historically attached to woman.

There is no point in pundits opining about what it would be like if America had a female President. It will be exactly the same as if a man had won. Maybe even with more war.

Personally, I long for a “female” politician. It would be refreshing. She’d have my vote.

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