143,368,343. That’s roughly the number of women living in the United States, according to the 2000 Census. In a nutshell, the majority. It’s time to face facts gentlemen – you’re outnumbered by more than 5 million.

Of those women, 108,133,727 are at least 18 years old. You know what that means, don’t you? It means that there are almost 8 million more potential female voters out there than potential male voters. (Sorry boys, but there are only 100,994,367 of you are eligible to vote.)

Those are some pretty impressive numbers, aren’t they? Well, let me toss you a few more.

67 — The number of women currently in the House of Representatives.

14 — The number of women currently in the Senate.

8 — The number of states that currently have a female governor.

0 — The number of female presidents or vice-presidents the United States has had.

Are you starting to get the picture?

We live in a country where women represent 50.9 percent of the population and only 20.7 percent of Congress. It simply doesn’t make sense. By all rights, we should be running this country.

Instead, 86 years after we finally won our hard-fought battle for the right to vote, we’re still being governed by the same patriarchy that has historically oppressed us.

A patriarchy that took over a century to grant universal suffrage. A patriarchy that took until 1966 to legalize birth control, 1972 to pass Title IX, and to date, has not ratified the Equal Rights Amendment. A patriarchy that has been working to erode abortion rights since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. A patriarchy that undermines the Geneva Convention in the name of ‘homeland security,’ yet allows sexual offenders to walk free.

It’s astounding, really. With a track record like that, it’s no wonder we continue to elect predominantly old, white men to represent us in government. They’ve been doing such a great job of it so far.

We should have known from the very beginning, when those 56 delegates signed the Declaration of Independence and declared “that all Men are created equal,” that equality in this country would be one hell of an uphill battle. So really, when you think about it, we’re not really doing too badly, given the historical circumstances. But we’re not doing too well, either.

Contrary to what you might believe, leadership has never been traditionally male. Sure, one could argue that our world history texts are littered with the masculine, but there have been numerous strong female leaders as well (many of whom are noticeably absent from your typical crash course in world history).

There was Queen Ku-baba Azag-bau of Kis, who founded the Third Dynasty, led the war for Independence from Uruk, and was later deified and worshiped as the goddess Kubaba.

There was Queen Elizabeth I, who never married, and who, in her 45-year reign, saw to the expansion of the British Empire and a flourishing of the arts.

There was Leader Princess Mukaya of the Luba People, who led her warriors into battle against enemy tribes and assumed sole control of an empire that stretched from Zaire to northern Zambia. The examples could go on for ages, but as most of you probably only recognize one of the above three names, I think I’ve made my point.

Female leadership isn’t something that happened in the past and disappeared over time. It’s currently alive and well and living in many countries beyond the borders of the good old U.S. of A. In Sweden and Spain, women constitute 47 percent of government representation. In Austria and Chile it’s 50 percent. And in Belgium, it’s an impressive 60 percent.

There are currently female prime ministers in Bangladesh, Germany, Jamaica, South Korea and the Netherlands, Antilles. There are female presidents in Chile, Ireland, Finland, Liberia, Latvia and the Philippines. There are those of you who will argue that some of those are figurehead roles with limited constitutional power, but frankly, even those are still a hell of a lot better than what we’ve got going on in this country.

Let’s face it — when it comes to female leadership, America is anything but progressive. More than two centuries after the Declaration of Independence was signed, we’re still governing this country with the antiquated notion of gender inequality. We are letting a gender minority — a minority that will never become pregnant, give birth or have an abortion and is statistically less likely to fall victim to domestic violence and sexual assault and abuse — dictate legislation that will have permanent consequences for the majority. You shouldn’t have too much of a problem with that, ladies; after all, you have a whole 20 percent say in the government that decides all of this.

There’s simply no excuse for allowing this patriarchy to dominate American government; women are the American majority, and it’s about time our government started to reflect that.

But what’s a girl to do? I don’t know about you, but this girl is going to vote. Agree with my politics or not, unless you get out there and vote as well, you won’t really have a say, now will you.

Olena Ripnick, a senior in the College of Communication, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. She can be reached at [email protected].