OPINION
By Lana Sweeten-Shults
Times Record News, Wichita Falls, Texas.
WICHITA FALLS, Texas
Dallas Go Ape Marketing firm CEO Cheryl Rios declared a female should not be president — because of hormones.
Yes, hormones.
Talk about a bunch of malarkey.
Rios, soon after Hillary Rodham Clinton announced her bid for the presidency, posted on Facebook: “If this happens, I am moving to Canada. There is no need for her, as she is not the right person to run our country.
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”
OK … So far so good.
She doesn’t think Clinton is the right person for the job. Sensible reasons will follow, right?
What we get is this sheer humbug: “But more importantly, a female shouldn’t be president … with the hormones we have, there is no way we should be able to start a war. Yes, I run my own business and I love it, and I am great at it, but that is not the same thing as being the president — that should be left to a man, a good, strong, honorable man.”
Certainly, hormones have nothing to do with anything. They get blamed for everything, poor hormones. They must be feeling bad about themselves right about now, and it’s time we cut them some slack.
Rios might have forgotten the lessons of high school biology class.
Everyone has hormones — women deal with estrogen, mainly, and men with testosterone, mainly, though they are not exclusive to one sex, and some people deal with hormones more than others.
But they have NOTHING to do with being able to start a war. Nothing at all.
Secondly, Rios might look back at history.
Women have been in charge of entire countries before.
Queen Elizabeth I of England is still considered one of the country’s strongest monarchs — maybe the most powerful monarch. She led her country against the most feared naval force of the time, the Spanish Armada, and her reign brought on the Golden Age in England.
Margaret Thatcher, though not the symbolic leader of her country, made the big decisions as prime minister, including going to war against the Falkland Islands.
She wasn’t called the Iron Lady for nothin’.
I doubt hormones had much to do with either of them helming their countries, even in the face of war.
Women have led many nations, though the United States, known for being more advanced than other countries when it comes to women’s rights, never has celebrated a woman president.
Queen Elizabeth and Margaret Thatcher are not alone, of course: Corazon Aquino and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of the Philippines, Pratibha Patil of India, Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan and Joyce Banda of Malawi, just to name a few, have been in the seat of power.
And we can’t forget about Joan of Arc, who was just a teenager when she led military forces to recover France from English domination in the Hundred Years War. She had no problem, hormones withstanding, with being in the fray of battle.
It is sad that anyone thinks that only men can be “good, strong and honorable” enough to be president.
Many male leaders have not lived up to that high standard. Some have carried on with mistresses, others have declared they were “not a crook.”
And it is shocking that a woman who runs her own company cannot see beyond such antiquated ideas and small-mindedness.
Many women are leading companies, such as General Motors CEO Mary Barra, who NBC’s Matt Lauer once asked if she could be both a good CEO and good mom.
He received considerable, and much deserved, heat for it.
Not that women are infallible. Not that a woman would make a better president than a man would. And not that anyone should vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton just because she is a woman.
A president should be chosen to be president based solely on his or her qualifications — not because of their race, gender, sexual orientation or anything else.
And definitely NOT because of hormones.
