*Leonardo Boff

The real possibility that a woman, Kamala Harris, will become president of the imperial power, the United States of America, would represent a novum in the history of that country and perhaps a step forward in the new relationship between genders.

The USA, independent since 1776, has had 44 presidents, all men and none women. As has already been pointed out by others, many see the president exclusively in military terms, rather as the head of the Armed Forces, as the one who holds the red telephone and the button to launch a nuclear war, rather than as the promoter of the common good, left by society with a privatist and individualist bias but with a great social sense of solidarity.

That’s why they keep fighting wars everywhere. Virtually all presidents, including Obama, are imbued with “manifest destiny,” the belief that the United States is anointed as “that new people of God with a mission to bring (bourgeois) democracy, (individual) human rights and peace (of the market) for the world”.

Under the patriarchy that has lasted for ten thousand years, since the Neolithic era, with the formation of villages and agriculture, women have always been relegated to the private world. Even knowing that a historical era existed, twenty thousand years ago, that of matriarchy, forming egalitarian societies, integrated with nature and deeply spiritual.

Patriarchy, the predominance of the male (machismo) was one of the greatest mistakes in human history. The type of State we have is attributed to patriarchy, the creation of bureaucracy and taxes, the introduction of war, violence as a way of solving problems, the private appropriation of land and the generation of inequalities and all types of discrimination. In capitalism, in its various forms, it gained its most expressive configuration, with the rate of social inequity it brings with it.

Throughout this process, the main victims were women along with those deprived of strength and power. Since then, the destiny of women, in historical-social terms, has been defined based on the man who occupied every public space.

But slowly, starting in the United States, in the 19th century, women became aware of their autonomous identity. The feminist movement grew, became active in practically all countries and occupied public spaces. Entering universities and, having qualified, into the job market, women brought their unique (non-exclusive) values ​​as women: more given to collaboration as opposed to competition from men, more care, more flexibility, more ability to deal with complexity, more human sensitivity and heart, finally, more open to dialogue against sexist and patriarchal authoritarianism.

In a word, they brought more humanity to a rational, rigid, competitive, efficient world, marked by the will to power as domination: the world of men. They, by their nature, represent rather the will to live and to relate. In Jungian language, they enriched the mute of the animus with their anima.

Even so, the fight for gender equality is far from being fully won. It was only in 1920 that women gained the right to vote in the United States. In Brazil only in 1932, today 52% of the electorate is female. Of the 500 largest North American companies, only three women hold the role of president. In other companies, 11.8% are presidents. In Brazil it is a little more: 17%, presidents of companies.

Even within the limitations imposed by the dominant patriarchy in the world, seven women became heads of state: in Germany, England, Brazil, Argentina, India, Liberia, Bangladesh, Tunisia, Ethiopia, Tanzania, in Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama, South Korea, Philippines, Indonesia, Israel, Nepal, Slovakia, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Ireland , in Portugal, in New Zealand and in other countries. Now we have the chance for a mixed-race woman, Kamala Harris, to reach the center of imperial power as president.

Empowering women’s identity and relational autonomy is generating a new paradigm: that of reciprocity, of cooperation between men and women. The androgynous man emerges: the new human being, the man rescuing his anima dimension, with the help of women, the capacity for tenderness, unreserved delivery, cordial sensitivity, together with his animus dimension. The woman developing her animus, that is, her capacity for initiative, creativity, operational intelligence, direction together with her anima.

In this way, what the ancient myth wanted to express is rescued: the human being is a complete being, each one is a carrier, in their own degrees, of the anima and animus. It turns out that this one androgynous being was cut in half.  This way they were separated. But, in their deep unconscious, they are always looking for each other. A force of attraction seeks to unite them and restore their primordial unity.

The ancient war of the sexes and oppressive and repressive gender policies would be progressively overcome. Politically, the best way to express this civilizational advance would be participatory, socio-ecological democracy, in which man and woman cooperatively and in solidarity would build a dream world that responds to the deepest desires of the human psyche. The re-engendering of man will only take place through the new feminine that is emerging more and more in all areas.

The likely fact of a woman becoming president of the most powerful country in the world would represent a decisive step towards peace between the sexes, including also the nature of which both are part.

*Leonardo Boff is a brazilian Theologian and Philosopher.