Among the most shocking opinions I’ve heard from people on and off campus throughout the election season is that the United States is not ready for a female president, which is why they won’t vote for Vice President Kamala Harris. This has never made any sense to me. It is vital for the country to elect substantial female representation to government to stand for women’s issues that hang in the balance, like reproductive rights and affordable child care. I am worried that if our country doesn’t step up and elect Harris now, we will continue to wait — too long — for a female president. If she loses, I fear that neither leading political party will nominate a woman in the following few presidential elections because they believe they will stand a high chance of losing. 

Since the reversal of Roe v. Wade, women have struggled to gain access to the health care they need. Women in some places are at risk of losing access to contraceptives, and the amount of women traveling across state lines to obtain abortions since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision has increased by about 100 percent. I worry about my rights and how this issue will progress in the future if Harris doesn’t become president.

The vice president has so far shown immense concern for issues, like reproductive rights promising to support a bill renewing Roe’s protections if voted into office. And currently, we have a male majority in Congress and a male majority in the U.S. Supreme Court, men who are deciding rights about female bodily autonomy that will never physically affect them. This is why we need a woman in as high a position as president, to ensure the health and safety of pregnant people in this country. 

But I also worry that if people continue to deny the United States a female president, it will push this milestone further out of reach. The Republican and Democratic parties will eventually become less inclined to nominate a woman if they keep losing. I am perplexed as to how the United States has avoided having a woman as our head of government. 

After the 2016 election and Hillary Clinton’s loss, our country took a political hit by electing former President Donald Trump. I believe that the setbacks we experience today with abortion and soaring living costs would not be insurmountable issues if we had had elected a woman to office. For starters, Clinton stated back in 2016 that abortion impacts more than just women as a family issue, not just a women’s issue. She also dedicated a lot of her campaign to help low-income families and create affordable housing. 

During Harris’s campaign, she has made the conscious decision to not mention her gender, urging voters to make their decision based on her policy stances as a candidate, not as a woman. Clinton’s presidential campaign relied heavily on the fact that she was the first woman to receive a major party nomination, making it a substantial bargaining point in her messaging to potential voters. This could have been seen as her downfall because people did not want to elect her for the sole purpose of crowning her the first female president. But with Harris, she makes sure people see her for her policies and priorities, like abortion and affordable childcare, not gender. 

How can our country call itself diverse if, of the nation’s 45 presidents, only one has been a nonwhite male? Racial minority groups make up almost 37 percent of the U.S. population. But even when we have taken a step into more diverse representation, we haven’t actually had a female perspective as the leader of the executive office to represent the 49.8 percent of women in the United States. Our country can’t properly serve its people if the government only represents one gender.

I believe the people who say our country is not ready for a female leader are ignorant of what our country really needs. I am worried as this election creeps closer people won’t see how important it is that we ensure the rights of the people. Yes, I do think it’s time for a female president but not solely for women’s issues and for increased representation but also because of her other policies and beliefs. She promises to help the working class by giving them a tax cut, fight climate change and ensure clean air and drinking water and capping childcare costs. The change Harris would start to bring is a step in the direction this country needs to go in. Whether people feel ready for it or not, we need it. 

As a country, we need to take action to ensure the rights of our fellow citizens by voting Harris into office. If Trump is re-elected, our country will continue to regress into a shell of what it once was as abortion protections continue to be knocked down. Although our country has never been perfect, there was a time when women could choose what happened to their bodies. And it isn’t now.