Vote for Clinton; it's time for women to take the keys

In the interest of full disclosure, Hillary Clinton was not my first choice; Bernie was. Regardless of all the recrimination and hand-wringing by the Bernie camp, I accept Hillary Clinton as the nominee of my party. I hope that Hillary Clinton will actually be what her most conservative detractors fear: a strong leader with a woman's agenda.

I am hoping that Hillary will finally be free, as president, to pursue an agenda based on the interests of children and the family.

[Debate, and Clinton's voice, ring out for many U.S. women]

Consider how radical that policy shift will be. By making the health, education and housing of families and children the focus of our national investment, we will have a reverse "trickle-down"; it will become "trickle up." Billions would flow up from the most basic unit of our microeconomy and shift the markets to competitively meet the demands of individual consumers rather than being driven by the corporate aggregations which manipulate the flow of the wealth of this nation.

Yes, I want this planet to be run by women — at least for a while. I've had enough of the 10,000-year-old patriarchal campfire, the belly-up-to-the-bar boys, the shoot-the-highway-sign crowd, and that "my-way-or-the-highway" male psyche running things.

My call for a global female takeover of public institutions is the most radical and revolutionary step we could take as a species. (In fact, if Bernie wanted to be truly revolutionary, he would turn his movement over to his wife, Jane). Here are some examples that illustrate why women will be better at making this planet work than men:

Haiti relief

The United Nations relief agencies learned a good lesson after the 2010 earthquake. Initial goods and supplies were being stolen by the men who lined up to collect them. They were sold on the black market. Soon, the business of distributing relief supplies became the provenance of gangs. Then the relief agencies made a radical policy. They would not distribute relief to men (except on a case-by-case basis). The preferred recipients were mothers and women. Immediately they saw that the food was getting to the families and children were being nourished.

Grameen Bank

Grameen Bank was created by Nobel-Prize winner Muhammed Yunus to provide microloans to small enterprises whose syndication of self-organized businesses supported one another. Initially the capital was being drained and assets stolen by the men who crowded the queue for loans. Yunus noticed that the few bright spots among the syndicates were run by women. His audit reports noted that the women were better than men at working together cooperatively, sharing assets and providing both material and emotional support to each other. In an experiment, Grameen Bank targeted a portion of its assets to supporting women-run syndicates and compared the performance of this control group to the general performance of borrowers. Not only was the performance of the women superior, but a greater portion of the net earnings had gone to support the families of the entrepreneurs (whereas men, as a rule, spent their earnings on more frivolous purchases).

Alaska village corporation

In the late '70s, researcher Holly Reckord conducted a case study of an Alaska village corporation in Copper Center impacted by construction of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline. Prior to the pipeline, the corporation was run by an all-male board. They enjoyed generous meeting stipends and those meetings were frequently held away from the village and assets were poorly managed. When the pipeline project began, all the men took lucrative pipeline jobs and left the corporation to the women of the village. The new board immediately eliminated meeting stipends and held all their meetings locally. They hired a consultant who worked with them to develop an investment and business plan. The women-led board followed the plan and negotiated a contract to provide services to Alyeska. Within a year and a half, the corporation was operating in the black and it was employing shareholders. When the pipeline project ended, the men returned to the village and voted the women out of office. Within a year, the corporation was in financial trouble again.

[Vote for Clinton because she's a woman? Now that's retro]

My vote for Hillary is aspirational. I hope she will be strong, compassionate and visionary. And I hope her detractors today will become her supporters tomorrow.

Elstun Lauesen is communications chairman of the Alaska Democratic Party Progressive Caucus. He is married to Rep. Harriet Drummond, a Democratic member of the state House of Representatives. He lives in Anchorage.

The views expressed here are the writer's and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary@alaskadispatch.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@alaskadispatch.com.