Jeaniam

By the way, do you all just want a woman president just to have one, or can you think of a woman who would really be better at the job than anyavailable and interested man would be, since we all seem to agree that Hilary stinks.

I thought the forums were a place were all the members were allowed to express their points of view, even my husband without receiving "flak", nor do I agree that he deserves it. Some of the posters seem determined to read negatives into his posts that he didn't intend.

In the case of Elizabeth I, she was the queen at a time when her role was more than merely constitutional. She had a great deal more actual power than her namesake, but I have read that she believed that her role as leader meant serving her subjects (he that would be chief among you shall be servant of all). In both the cases of Elizabeth I and Joan of Arc, you have women who sacrificed the feminine side of their personalities to fulfill the destiny they believed God had called them to (i.e. neither one of them ever married or had children). In the cases of Victoria and Elizabeth 2, you have women whose roles in the world put them in positions of authority over their husbands (for example they are required to swear oaths of loyalty to them, walk several steps behind them on state occasions, etc.), but each of them were married to men who expected to be in charge of their own households, to wear the pants in the family, so to speak. And, yes doojable, the royal family continues by bloodline not election. I'm not sure that a female president needs any other qualities to be successful than a man does; i.e. intelligence, a good education, natural leadership abilities, good political savvy, and, possibly most important of all, a good set of advisors. And BTW, rascal, stop picking on my husband.

I still subscribe to the idea that no matter how screwed up twi became (and I concede that in its later days it was at least as religious as the church I was escaping from) that many of the things I learned in twi were the truth and still benefit my life today. It seems to me that to arbitrarily reject everything we learned from twi because of the misdeeds of some is to throw out the baby with the bath water. Admittedly the bath water is dirty, and needs to be discarded, but much that I learned is of value, and there are many people that I met in twi that are still some of my closest friends. I also hope that Rainbow girl was not hurt by any of my posts, that was not my intention.

I'm not as familiar with some of the more contemporary women leaders (Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, etc.) as I am with women in past centuries. Elizabeth I of England ruled England at a time when her role was more than a constitutional one. She was at least as well educated as any man in her century, was gifted with a fine political brain, and trained how to use it. As far as what I have read about her, she never lost sight of the fact that it was her function to act in the best interests of her subjects, that she ruled by the will of the people, and it was her job to serve their best interests. This was all in the context of the sixteenth century when democracy was pretty unheard of.

Well, I never advocated shutting up as the 'meek little woman', nor was I addressing times when one or the other spouse was being unreasonable to any degree. There have been many times over the years when I stood up to my husband (usually over the way he was treating the kids). There have also been many times when we sat down and discussed various courses of action, logically not emotionally, and when all was said and done, were still at odds with each other, and a decision still had to be made. At those times, my husband exercised his role as tie-breaker, and I have never found him to be other than fair and just in those situations, but I was blessed with a husband who takes more seriously his duty to love me as his own flesh, than worrying about my duty to be subject to him. In fact it is usually easy to obey him because I have learned over the years to trust that he is always considering my point of view and our family's needs before making a decision, not just being an arbitrary jerk. To quote Song of Solomon 2:4 for many years now "his banner over me has been love", and I have been very fortunate to have been married to such a wonderful man.

I guess my waybrain was showing. I am not really a feminist, and I subscribe to the idea that true equality between men and women can be found in the Bible. I don't believe that the admonition for women to be subject to their own husbands necessarily carries with it the idea that women are second-class citizens, nor does the reference to women as the "weaker vessel" necessarily carry with the inference of "I must be dumb, or lesser than my husband because I'm 'only a woman'". I guess I believe that God created men and women to complement each other not necessarily to compete with each other, and you can achieve that without sacrificing equality.

I would hardly name Joan of Arc as a prime example of a woman who made a difference without sacrificing her femininity, considering that she was executed before the age of twenty for cutting her hair like a man's, and dressing like a man. I will certainly concede that she changed history.

God is a spirit, hence asexual. And, by the way, I think many of the early First Ladies fell into the category of well-behaved women, and I think we would all concede that they made history. I think their contributions to this country were at least as great as their husbands', and they managed to do it without sacrificing their femininity