Are We Ready Yet?

I was thinking about Lillian D. Rock today. In fact, over the past few weeks, I've thought about her a lot. You probably don't know her, so let me introduce her to you, and you'll understand why I've been thinking about her, even though I never met her.

This is one of the few surviving images of her; online, it gives a date of 1935, but that's unlikely. It's probably a photo from when she graduated from law school in 1924. Few law firms would hire a "woman lawyer" back then, so she worked with her brother, who was also a lawyer. And she joined the National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL), where she eventually became a member of its executive board.

Then, in 1934, Lillian got into the news for her advocacy on behalf of women in politics. American women had only gotten the right to vote in 1920, but Lillian believed there were already numerous qualified women who could take on important political roles-- such as becoming federal judges, as Genevieve Cline and Florence Allen had done. Speaking at conference, Lillian asserted that within her lifetime, she fully expected a woman to ascend all the way to the presidency.

Hoping to make it happen sooner rather than later, she founded the League for a Woman President and Vice President in 1935. Of course, not everyone was as enthusiastic about the idea as Lillian and her colleagues were. Some men were dismissive of it, while others opposed it-- they said only men should lead a country. But the most surprising opponent of Lillian's idea was the First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt.

Eleanor had a radio show, and on it, she usually talked about non-controversial and non-political topics. But she addressed Lillian's committee directly, saying that while women had made important gains, they hadn’t been in politics long enough to have earned the public’s trust; she believed it would take a while until that happened, but she could not support what Lillian was proposing. Despite her disagreement with the First Lady, Lillian continued to advocate for women in politics; but she died in 1974, without ever seeing a woman attain the nomination for vice president or president of either of the two major parties.   

The other day, I was reading an interview with a male voter who stated that women weren't tough enough to be president. I also note that whenever there has been a female candidate in the past few years, her male opponent has mocked how she laughed, made fun of how she looked, hinted that she wasn't moral, or claimed that she wasn't intelligent; and of course, she was accused of not being able to handle the difficult work of running a country. 

Listening to the rhetoric in the current presidential race, I often feel like I've just taken a trip back to 1935, when all of those things were being said about women politicians (of both parties) on a regular basis. And I wonder what Lillian would make of the fact that in 2024, women are still enduring the same slurs and insults and accusations as they did nearly 90 years ago. Agreed, the language has gotten more coarse and vulgar, but the basic belief of a lot of people that women who run for president are inferior really irritates me. I hope when people vote, they will look at each candidate's qualifications and consider the vision they have for the country. And I hope that millions of women will finally get to see a woman become president. I'd like to believe that if Lillian were still here, she would be delighted by that. I know I certainly will be.