When President Barack Obama gives his State of the Union Address next Tuesday, will the nation be watching him, or Hillary Clinton?
What will she be wearing? How is she sitting? Does she look presidential?
As sure as the sun will rise the next morning, campaigning for Election 2016 will begin as soon as commentators have fully debated and digested the content of President Obama's message to the nation.
Have women grown tired of waiting for a woman to place her hand on the Bible and take the Oath of Office as President of the United States? More importantly, will women be willing to vote a woman into the nation's highest office?
At the founding of America, as the Constitution was being written, Abigail Adams wrote to her husband. Abigail, the wife of John Adams, a future president of the newly-formed United States wrote: "I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors."
His half-joking reply: "Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. Depend on it. We know better than to repeal our Masculine systems."
At a recent talk, I invited a former member of Congress from Rhode Island, Representative Claudine Schneider, to join me at the podium. She spoke of an informal survey she took among her male and female colleagues. She asked the same question of each: "Why did you run for public office?"
The response of the men was that it was a career choice. The steps of their ladder to Congress included holding the offices of Mayor and State Legislator.
By contrast, the women who were voted into Congress arrived because of a problem they wanted to solve. Their concern about the state of education, of healthcare or a desire for a better transportation system motivated them to run for public office, not the job itself.
With this in mind, what would it take for women to consider leadership as a career path? What would the curriculum be: women's studies, effective communications, civic engagement?
To me, when women learn the language of leadership, when they learn to talk so men listen, when they learn to become no nonsense women like Hillary Rodham Clinton and to vote more women into public office, we will experience the birth of a new nation that truly reflects the liberty, equality, and happiness that we we all have been waiting for, for so long.
At a time when "gridlock" no longer refers to traffic, when "do nothing" no longer is used as a call to reduce stress, will members of the U.S. Congress willingly learn to speak aloud two unfamiliar words to a future Commander-in-Chief:
"Yes Ma'am!"
Alexia Parks is a science journalist, an impact entrepreneur, motivational speaker, and an expert on the new science of a woman's brain.