| White
House Studies |
ISSN
1535-4738 |
| Volume
2, Number 3, pp. 331-337 |
©2002
Nova Science Publishers, Inc. |
|
Someday
A Woman Will Be President!
by Ann Moliver Ruben
Abstract
Ann Moliver Ruben's efforts to promote women's leadership and
electing a woman to the White House were given a national voice
after Wal-Mart, in response to a customer's complaint, pulled
her T-shirt with the words "Someday a woman will be PRESIDENT!"
from store shelves. The publicity generated because of this
helped the mission of the author and her Women Are Wonderful
Foundation. This is the story of an individual working to elect
a woman president.
A
Commitment from Childhood
Ever
since I was eight years old, I have wanted to hear someone say
to me, "Of course a girl can grow up to be president."
But it never happened. In fact, it was my Cousin Irwin, all
of six months older than me, who told me as we played a game
he created called "business" that a girl could never
be president. We played his "business" game some 68
years ago, but I remember that moment as if it were yesterday.
My interest in women's leadership and seeing a woman elected
president began as a young girl while I was staying at my Aunt
Lena's house because my mother had to go out of town for a few
days. I loved my Aunt Lena and was happy to be there. But it
was a different story for me and my cousin Irwin, who was my
Aunt Lena's son. He was only a few months older than me but
he made it clear that he was the box "You're only eight,
Annie," he said, "and I'm eight-and-a-half,"
he said as he puffed out his chest, "so you have to do
what I tell you to do."
On
Monday, Irwin asked me if I wanted to play a game called Business
that he had invented. I said, "Okay." So Irwin gave
me three pencils and three new tablets that looked very official
because they had the names of different companies printed on
the top. I was thrilled to see the tablets because they were
all different colors. One was pale blue, another light green,
and the third a bright yellow. I also noticed two sheets of
carbon paper on each tablet and I had no idea what they were
for. Irwin told me his Uncle Meyer, owner of a printing business,
had given him all these marvelous leftovers. As I looked back
on this experience as a grownup, it hit me that in 1933 many
of Uncle Meyer's customers had apparently gone bankrupt because
of the depression and that created an opportunity for Irwin
to have all the supplies necessary to fantasize about starting
his own business.
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