Our society has failed that girl on so many levels, how to apply basic logical thinking being only one of them.

It's terribly sad that she thinks that way at 13. Hopefully, as she gets older she'll educate herself and realise how wrong that line of thinking is.

What? Britney doesn't have a blog yet? That was WAY more thoughtful than some of the crap we've heard from Chris Matthews...

You can add to your curl up these comments:

"I can't vote for Hillary, because she's hated and popular kids don't like her."

"I can't vote for Hillary, because she had a cheating husband."

"I can't vote for Hillary, because, oh, I don't know, she doesn't seem, oh, I don't know, nice."

Awful as that is, I think it speaks more about her upbringing than it does about her (actually, that's pretty awful too, to think that her parents probably put that idea into her head). Who you are at 13 isn't necessarily who you will be in 10, 5, or even three years. At that age you're still trying to find your identity and where you stand on a lot of things. I never would have identified as a feminist at 13; I thought that they all hated men (even though I was a feminist and didn't realize it). And now look at me! I read feminist blogs, magazines, books, and basically wave my feminist flag loud and proud.

It really doesn't sound like something a 13 year old would say and in that fashion. Those are not her own words.

If it is, at least we also don't have to weep for her literacy.

*sigh* I just died a little inside. I'm sure that girl's opinions have been fed to her by closed-minded parents, so I have hope that as she grows up her opinions will change, but it's still really discouraging that a parent would tell their daughter, "sorry, sweetie, only men can grow up to be whatever they want"

I was thinking about the dinner conversation and her mom is the one who is demonstrating women's roles. Sure wish her mom would vote for a female - her daughter!

I wasn't aware that George W. was in possession of a set of ovaries. Surely 9/11 wouldn't have happened if there had been a man in the while house?!

I guess Brittany heard that Ayn Coulter is backing Clinton, and is angling for her job.

When I first saw this I was hoping that the Kennewick was not the Kennewick I grew up near. But it was. There is a part of me that agrees that this letter may not have been written by a 13 yr old but the language used suggests that it could have been.

What a sad Monday.

How sad. Chances are that she's been spoonfed this crap her entire life, but still. I don't know...at 13, I didn't have any feminist role models, and I lived in a pretty rural, small town, but I was already bucking the fundamentalist beliefs that my parents held.

I hope at some point this girl is able to learn to think for herself.

My wife and I agreed that we did not want to be informed of the gender of our baby before s/he was born. Before the birth, we had several excellent discussions about what would make us happiest/most worried about having a girl or having a boy. One of the things I felt most excited about having a girl was the prospect of helping her to develop into a person that would feel proud of herself, of all females, of resisting and overcoming the patriarchal subjugation that would attempt to oppress her from the day she was born. Six years later, I still feel that responsibility, and try tremendously to shape my upbringing of her to those ends. The prospect of my daughter thinking or expressing anything remotely what the letter writer said is one of my greatest fears. If my daughter does, I would feel like such an abject failure as a parent.

I concur with GottaBeMe. At 13, I was definitely bucking at least some of my fundamentalist parents beliefs. Then again, I was also writing and believing pro-life screeds, so hopefully this 13 year old's belief will go the way of my old pro-life beliefs. Far more discouraging are the sheer number of adults who believe it. If you're on Facebook, btw, check out the US Politics application and the can a woman be as an effective president as a man debate question. You'll find many older college or high school aged young women who say no as well. *Sigh*

As I read the letter, I was sure I'd find a guy's name at the end.

I pity this girl who has been raised to think like this. Sadly, I know such things are more common than we like to admit.

Someone needs to give this child a history lesson. Some of the most kick-ass and awesome leaders in world history have been women! Women can be (and HAVE BEEN) intelligent, strong, courageous, and charismatic rulers. I see no reason why we can't look forward to many more examples of excellent female leadership.

One of my personal favorite history stories is that of Boudicca. She and her daughters were raped during the Roman occupation of England - so she led her army in a revolt, kicked their asses, and sent the Romans packing out of her kingdom. Years after her death she was still used as a "boogie man" for Romans living in England. Good story, great history...my point being, women are absolutely capable of holding high office and doing an excellent job of it, too.

I pity that girl, too. I'd like to give her parents a piece of my mind.

We'll be raising my boys to think for themselves, and for f*ck's sake (!!) to respect women enough to never even dare limit, even with opinion, what their contributions can be to society. No son (or daughter, should one come) of ours, we hope, will ever write a piece like this.

Ever.

I bet that girl's mom and/or dad listens to Rush Limbaugh in the car; she's already internalized a number of misogynist memes.

George Bush's existance SHOULD put to rest the myths about how men are fit for leadership while women are not.
Plenty of countries with female heads of state do not worry about terrorist attacks; it has nothing to do with the genitalia possessed by the country's leadership!

I never call my nearly two year old daughter "Princess." My husband and I call her "Senator" or "Governor". I'm adding "President".

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the author of that letter was prompted to write it for a religious school/homeschool project. My fundamentalist elementary school encouraged the 5th and 6th grade students to write letters to the editor because they were supposedly more impressive, more likely to get read, and more likely to be printed than the same ignorant tripe would be if it had been submitted by an adult.

I never call my nearly two year old daughter "Princess." My husband and I call her "Senator" or "Governor". I'm adding "President".

LOVE IT!

*tear* :(

I never call my nearly two year old daughter "Princess." My husband and I call her "Senator" or "Governor". I'm adding "President".

MAC1973 -- Awesome! I alternate between "Baby" and "Strong Girl"

Someone needs to show Britney this list:

http://www.filibustercartoons.com/charts_rest_female-leaders.php

And I take note that two Muslim countries (Pakistan and Bangladesh), have had female prime ministers. Now, how can terrorists from predominantly Muslim countries attack us for having female leaders if Muslim countries have female leaders?

(of course, the recent assassination of former prime minister Bhutto is worrisome...)

You are in denial if you think this girl's comment is made up.

The girls says what she sees and puts a logic to it - because there must be a reason. She'd do the same if there were no women doctors, teachers, bosses, that she ever saw. She's never seen a woman president. It's natural she'd put a logic to it.

Hell, grownups put a logic to not seeing women in all sorts of leadership -- they don't ask, they have babies, they aren't assertive, it ain't the natural order, womens just don't like to be leaders... whatever - crap. Do you think a child is so different?

On another blog, under the topic of women in technology, a liberal father who works in a Google technical group brought his daughter to work. She said to him, "Daddy are there any girls that work for Google?"

He's a liberal and she asked that question. If she put two and two together in her mind, she might naturally come to the conclusion that tech is not for girlz and girlz can't be authoritative in technology.

One of the subjects that's rarely mentioned, I think, is how to raise children in a feminist household. Clearly, this young woman's raised in her whole that does not value equality in both language and actions ...

But it brings up an issue: how can we better cater to the future men and women of next generation? How can we as aunts, uncles, brothers and sister, and even parents, bring up the dialogue of feminism to those of Brit's age?

Secondly, this is why I think Clinton and Obama being in this race is a good thing - it breaks stereotypes and myths of how "qualifies" to be president ...sometimes, the glass ceiling has to do with society's perceptions ...and I can only hope that having a woman or black person being president will be viewed as "normal" 20 years from now.

That's heartbreaking. Really.

Wow...

Does anyone else find it telling that all of these articles/books directed at analysing women or groups of women are all titled "Ways of Looking at (women/Hillary Clinton)?"

Can you say GAZE much? Holy hell. Have there ever been so many books/articles/op-ed peices written about male candidates with such an obviously biased framework?

Perhaps we all need to go back and read John Berger's "Ways of Seeing" again...

Sheesh.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/01/why-one-south-c.html

This is a little bit of a pickup.

That's a saddening letter.

GottaBeMe, Maria Ann, I think' it's awesome that you started to question your parents' thinking at 13, but for me it was not until college that I really started to question my parents' worldview. I hope that she will, in high school and college, meet people who challenge the way she thinks about the world, as I did (and continue to, even approaching 30).

Could somebody press charges against her parents for intellectually abusing her child? Please?

What's really sad is that this letter is from Washington state, which has a female Governor and two female senators (go us!), so she has plenty of examples of women in powerful roles in government. And relative to the rest of the nation, Washington is doing really well (although I am SURE that is not the story she gets in her household).

Funny--my 24-year-old cousin has the same views, and also thinks that if Hilary became president, people would have "less respect" for Americans. Riiiight, because people around the world respect Americans now with Bush as president. Whatever. This is sad, but it really is a vicious cycle. Unless little Brittany is taught that women in positions of leadership (and obviously women in general) are capable of thought and, y'know, won't bomb other countries on a whim and blame it on PMS, then she's a lost cause.

"if Hilary became president, people would have "less respect" for Americans."

Funny, I don't know about others but I would respect America MORE. I mean several countries have had women leaders and they've done just fine.

Was shocking to see who wrote the letter.

Being from Germany I could explain to her first hand, that having a female leader does more good than harm to a country...

Did I get her letter right, that women may decide on their own, but then need another (male...) person to, like, verify them?
Just like back in the good ol' days when women were not able to speak up in a court? Or like in those countries, where a womans declaration is only worth half a man's declaration?
Can't she see, that she's barking up exactly the same tree than those guys that she fears her country might been attacked by?

Okay, she's only 13... in a few years she may be hitting puberty and get rebellious against her parents. Keeping my fingers crossed....

Having spent several years in Eastern Washington (and I can't believe there are that many Kennewicks around), I can easily believe this letter.

One year I helped the Campus women's organization on my campus do a presentation on women in history to an elementary school class, and more than one student talked about how it was impossible for women to be astronauts, policemen or the president.

The poor women I was there with just did not know how to handle that.

It's sad that a 13-year-old girl thinks "if Hilary became president, people would have "less respect" for Americans."

As an European (I'm from Finland) I can say both the media and regular people are very supportive of both Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama. Bush, on the other hand, has never gotten much respect over here... But maybe Brittany doesn't want respect from Europeans. :)

I wish this girl had more positive role models. I remember that when I was a kid, I was really proud that Iceland had a female president. (Vigdís Finnbogadóttir was president 1980-1996.) I'm really happy that now Finland too has a female president. In 2000, when Tarja Halonen was elected, we too had to endure stupid questions like "can a woman be president". But things were easier here, because Elisabeth Rehn had already paved the way by coming in second in the 1994 presidential elections. Also in the 2000 elections, when Finland's first female president was elected, of the 7 presidential candidates, 4 were women and only 3 were men.

Well Brittany is only 13 and is not fully educated, but perhaps she could do herself a favor by paying attention in history class. If she had payed attention she would learn that long ago in a culture far far away a woman ruled a country and her subjects believed her to a be a God -- Cleopatra of Egypt.

Also let us not forget that Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth I, Queen Anne, Queen Victoria rule England. A Catherine ruled Russsia, a Queen Catherine shared power in Spain, as did Queen Mary (with William) shared power in England.

In modern times Israel had a woman leader, so did the United Kingdom, as well as India, and if I am not mistaken Germany currently has a woman as a leader.

So my question to Brittany would be: It woman were not meant to be the leaders of countries, why has it happend so often?

Our president deals with some countries that don't respect or allow women in leadership positions.

So if these countries said that they wouldn't deal with the American president unless they were Muslim? Or Indo-American? Or trans-gendered? Would American's be writing letters about how they can't vote for a while rich Christian male? Sadly, I doubt it.

I hope this girl manages to find her real self-worth because with this mindset I doubt she realized her full potential as a human being.

Were the paper's editors just giggling with delight when they got this letter?

Why would a paper publish this, anyway? Just to give a virtual high-five to the patriarchy?

Someone should write a letter in response.

I particularly like this line: "It woman were not meant to be the leaders of countries, why has it happend so often?"

I'd also like to tell this girl that her viewpoint is not unlike the viewpoint held by the "terrorists" she says she fears.

This brings to mind the time I overheard an otherwise intelligent colleague saying women are "too emotional" to be president. I wanted to scream at her but...yeah...too ironic. :b

I guess Brittany heard that Ayn Coulter is backing Clinton, and is angling for her job.

I have no idea if that was an intentional reference to Ayn Rand, but I giggled.

That is a sad letter, but she is 13, and may change her mind. That said, I identified as a feminist from a very young age, in spite of the fact that my mother didn't (still doesn't, appalling) and that my brother said feminists were all ugly man-hating lesbians. I stopped believing anything he said by age three, so his believing that was just a bonus.
I actually realized I was a feminist at about nine, when I wondered why a woman always had to be killed in the James Bond movies. This led to a general dismay with how movies and tv so cavalierly killed and abused women. Why were women and girls always victims? That's when I became a feminist.

If she is in Washington I too am depressed. Not only does WA have a female governor - we are also leading the way in some kick ass legislation. We were the first state to pass anti trafficking legislation and we consistently have the highest minimum wage in the country.

Just one more reason why the work we do is so important. The happiest day of my life will be the day we run out of work and I am unemployed.

It's sad that this girl has never been taught about Margaret Thatcher, Golda Mair, or Indira Ghandi (just to name a few) in school

that's just ridiculous