“Tell them,” she said eagerly.

I was 6 years old while sitting at my grandparents’ round wooden table for dessert and tea with my aunts and uncles. While the other children played together before bed, it was the most precious time of the night.

“I’m going to be one of the first female presidents!” » I proclaimed.

I was in my mother’s game. She was a housewife born in the 1950s and she spent my childhood convincing me that I could do everything she was never told. I believed every word.

“And what are you?” asked my mother. “A Republican!” » I smiled. Six-year-old me, who had just encountered a calf at the local agricultural show and now refused to eat meat, did not yet realize how well its bleeding heart would fit into the world.

My mother smiled. Everyone smiles.

Bleeding heart aside, these dreams were not unlike those of other ambitious young women my age. Strive to achieve what was unthinkable but shouldn’t be.

And why shouldn’t a woman become president? Being born in the 80s and 90s, we were supposed to be sheltered from the painful journey of those who came before us. Just 15 years ago we couldn’t apply for a mortgage. But that was history and we were the lucky ones. If our parents treated us equally, we would be equal, case closed.

What remained to be revealed was the unspoken truth.

Time passed, but the subtext remained. People would begin to downplay direct statements that a woman might not be the best person for this or that, but this dominant position would persist for the next 30 years.

What 6-year-old me didn’t know was that even though everyone at that table wanted my goal to be easily achieved, it wasn’t. Today, this is still not the case.

When people tell little girls they can do anything, I don’t think they’re intentionally lying to them. I think most people sincerely believe this. But what’s missing from the “youth warning label” is that you can indeed be anything you want, as long as…as long as…

Wait, what? No one told me about the “while” part. As long as you’re not too nice, too direct, too pretty, too ugly, too liberal, too conservative, as long as… people want it on a given day.

Many women have paved the way in their respective fields. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Oprah Winfrey, Sara Blakely, Michelle Obama, Serena Williams, Taylor Swift, the list goes on. We are all looking to crawl toward equal pay.

But we still celebrate the woman of everything, instead of the person of everything.

The fact is that women should be celebrated. We have overcome so much. But have we really overcome our gender biases? Or have we gone too far? They tell us to “just stick to the policies, and definitely not vote based on gender.”

Polarizing thoughts invade my mind. Are we not good enough? Should we stop trying to convince them? Are they afraid she’ll cry in the Oval Office? My mind can’t help but restart the debates.

Then my conditioning comes back to me. My mother told me I could do anything, be anything. It wasn’t just a party trick; she believed it, I believed it. She is the reason these intrusive thoughts will soon be silenced for me, the subtext muffled. She and everyone who convinces children to believe the unimaginable.

But no one wants to hear the sad truth that much of our country still doesn’t know if a woman is fit for this job. It’s mostly unspoken, but it’s there. It’s easy to say that it’s not that complicated, but that would be a lie.

Making women believe they can be anything they want while devaluing their rights is… confusing. Maybe it’s because they believe in our future, but that doesn’t mean they believe in theirs? You can tell me over and over again that this is not a woman’s issue. Me, I’m six years old, I want to believe you. At thirty-six, I know better.

Twice my mother chose the male presidential candidate over the female. The irony is not lost on me. And here we are, still waiting. Closer. But 30 years later, 248 years later…we’re still waiting.

But we will tell our daughters that it is coming soon. We will absorb the disappointment until they no longer have to. And our daughters’ daughters can tell their aunts and uncles, over tea and dessert, that they would like to be president, one day, like those who came before them.

And then maybe, just maybe, they won’t even think about the woman in all this.

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