Thread: So I’ve read in North Korea if Kim Jong Un dies, a possible successor is his sister, whose worked the politics of the regime. The Kim family has run NK as a dictatorship for 70 years. No freedom of press, speech, etc, imprisons/tortures folks who disagree w/regime (1/12)

And NK might have a woman “President”, dictator really. I find it sad, that countries that historically have royal families or family run regimes (like the Kims) get around to having women leaders more. But not democracies, though that’s changing. Why do I find it sad? (2/12)

Well America (even for all of its historical and current problems) is the opposite of North Korea. America’s foundations of government were built upon the Enlightenment. (3/12)

The Enlightenment ideas in the 18th century was against what Europe was at that time: monarchies, serfdom/slavery, divine rule etc. Its leading thinkers, John Locke and Thomas Paine believed in individual rights and liberty, and reason.Paine was influenced enough to write (4/12)

Common Sense, a pamphlet, which was persuasive enough to build popular support for American colony independence from Britain. The signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were greatly influenced by these Enlightenment ideals. However..(5/12)

we also know most of these signers were super hypocrites who owned black human beings and thought white women should not vote and be second class citizens. However there were ideas of the Enlightenment surfacing regarding women: Enter Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.. (6/12)

Mary, an 18th century woman was inspired by the Enlightenment too and thought women should have a piece of the pie. Women should be educated alongside men,they should have careers and economic independence, even vote. Be treated with respect, yknow revolutionary ideas (7/12

Those ideas became part of her treatise “Vindication on the Rights of Women” which is the earliest writings of feminist philosophy. By extension her philosophical descendants around the world, used those early ideas to fight for a more just and equal world for women (8/12)

And those fights for women’s rights were successful here in the US. A country that was a visible success of the Enlightenment’s ideals. BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and people w/ disabilities etc also took these same Enlightenment ideals to heart in making America a true democracy. (9/12)

And it should be in a nation birthed from the Enlightenment, that we would have been had a woman President by now. Women’s rights as we know have evolved from these early ideas. (10/12)

Women should have equal representation in government, on the courts, etc. But in a country built upon ideas of this Enlightenment, like 300 years ago, and the Enlightenment that birthed feminism, it’s sad that it took us until 2016 to vote for a woman President. (11/12)

BUT thanks to a fluke of the Electoral College, (created by those slave owning dudes who thought white women should be second class citizens) she didn’t get to actually to do the job she was hired to do. (12/12)