The United States of America is on the verge of electing its first woman president, the sitting Vice President Kamala Harris, who is here in Kalamazoo today. As we record this, we are less than two weeks from the election, so we do not yet know if this will happen. However, we do know that this monumental achievement for women, and for the country, whether it is symbolic or substantive, has caused a lot of fear and indignation among those who are not prepared to accept a woman as Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. For them, the election of a woman to this position is a sign of social decline, that the natural order of society has been upturned, and that we are moving closer to what they believe is the ultimate outcome: gynocracy - the rule of women.
In our modern world, the various power positions, in both the state and civil society, are being pried open by women who will not sit back and let men continue to rule, as we’ve done for millennia. However, a growing backlash against this de-privileging of men has been forming in the last decades; it has especially become fervent in the last ten years (at least in the U.S.), as women have come into striking distance of the most powerful position in the world: the U.S. Presidency. Additionally, women have risen into powerful positions outside of the state, in civil society, including academia, banking, corporations, the arts, etc. Here too this demographic change in the public sphere, which as uprooted more traditional forms of family, community, business, and religious groups, has caused consternation among those who wish to see women in more traditional roles. For example, the Catholic Church is divided on the possibility of women serving as Deacons, whereas in other denominations more friendly to modern gender equality, this issue has long been settled: women can serve as Deacons, Pastors, Priests, Bishops, etc.
Regardless of what one thinks of Kamala Harris’ record and proposed agenda, she represents a growing social shift in Western history - the equalization of men and women - morally, politically, economically, etc., and the demise of socially - and sometimes legally - enforced patriarchy. Many Western countries have, or have had, female Heads-of-States in the form of Presidents or Prime Ministers, including Germany, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Greece, Denmark, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, and even today the European Commission is currently headed by Ursula von der Leyen. Many non-Western countries have had women as their Heads of State, including Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Honduras, India, Namibia, Pakistan, etc. As of today, October 2024, the U.S. has yet to elect a woman president, but it may soon - we will find out in November. However, what is already obvious, is that there will be an intense backlash against Harris’ presidency (if she wins), and much of that will be because she is a woman, whether her critics admit as much or not. If Donald Trump, who has a long record of misogyny and was recently adjudicated guilty of “sexual assault,” wins the election, millions of women take the streets, reminding their adversaries that they will not go back, they will not reverse the progress women have achieved.
To talk about these issues and many more, we have Dr. Rudolf J. Siebert, Professor Emeritus of Religion and Society at Western Michigan University. Dr. Siebert taught at WMU for over 50 years; he is the author of over thirty books and hundreds of articles, and the director of two international courses, The Future of Religion in Dubrovnik, Croatia, and Religion and Civil Society in Yalta, Ukraine.
For more information on Dr. Siebert
www.dialectical-religion.org
www.rudolfjsiebert.com
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www.dustinjbyrd.org
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