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I saw a headline recently where former White House strategist Steve Bannon expressed his fear that the #Metoo movement was problematic. Evidently, he feels that women are positioned to take over society. I’m still trying to form thoughts on how to respond to that, as I stroke the keys for this piece. One thing I must accept as my truth: anyone who has or has had any connection to this present White House has some cracks in their thinking anyway. Beyond that, I can’t for the life of me figure why he would make such a comment. When I look at the history of humankind, it seems to me that it’s been one colossal mess after the other. Who’s been in charge? The very gender Bannon is fearful of being dethroned.

On a personal note, women have played a big part in my life. My father died in a tragic accident when I was eight years old. I’ve written about that before. My mother, only twenty-six years old at the time, with only an eight-grade education, was left with three children. From the few details I can remember, she never panicked or fainted even though the challenge before her was daunting. This was nineteen fifty-eight, in the South, when sexism, Jim Crow and a slew of other unjust cultural and societal norms were solidly in place. Not only was my mother an engine that kept things going for us, but I remember many women who were strong forces in my small community. They were the numerical majority in local churches, they were the purveyors of charitable drives that rushed to the fore when tragedies struck neighbor after neighbor. In retrospect, we now realize that many communities had “hidden figures” in the person of women. Even the American Civil Rights Movement would probably not have experienced the success it did without the important contributions of women.

I know, there are some who think men are just better equipped to handle the slings and arrows society launches into the various arenas established to manages things. Things like prime ministerial/presidential offices, city council administrators, military admiralties and generalships; those roles that we often think are God-ordained for men only and work better without the emotional baggage women bring to bear. To anyone who harbors these concepts, limited by scared thinking, I say poppycock.

Some reading this piece may say it’s not well thought out and doesn’t address all the cultural, religious, psychological, biological and who knows what other factors that must be weighed before we allow those #Metooers to wrench control of everything. My response to that is: when the house is on fire, I don’t care who brings the water to put it out. The world today is in a mess on so many fronts. Just maybe a woman president of the United States is what we need now. Not a woman president made in the image of a stereotypical male chauvinist, but a true-to-self woman who has a “Godly-informed” conscious that will cause a pause in thinking whenever an urge to go down the same dark roads traditional thinking has forced us down far too many times.

Mr. Bannon, cool your heels. I have too much respect for women to even think they would want to take over the mess we’re all mired in, but I do think some would welcome an opportunity to get on the field. Something tells me that a more cerebral, less testosterone-fueled approach to things, all things by some of our hidden figures might bring us closer to the light.

I’m old and blessed…hope you will be too.