Res Ipsa Loquitur

A modicum of historical perspective seems to be conspicuously absent from the political coverage of the American presidential election. Since George Washington was first sworn as President in 1789, not a single woman has ever held the most prominent political office in the world. According to the latest 2016 US Census data, women represent a majority of the American population. There are currently 125.9 million adult women to 119.4 million adult men in the US. Nevertheless, the perennial issue of gender-based discrimination in the inner sanctum of the American political process has been largely ignored. How can a country that professes to be a true representative democratic republic quiescently accept this male chauvinist reality? For those who understate the reverberating political significance of this misogynistic quandary, there is an old doctrine of Roman law that comes to mind: res ipsa loquitur, “the thing speaks for itself”.