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"I considered myself a pretty active high school student--I aced my forehand at tennis practice, studied hard for chem quiz, and even put effort into contemplating whether I could rock a trucker hat (What can I say? The early &amp;amp;#8217;00s were crazy style times). But three New Jersey-based high school sophomores, Emma Axelrod, Sammi Siegel, and Elena Tsemberis, are defining their &amp;quot;active&amp;quot; high school careers sliiiightly differently. How? Oh, y&amp;#x27;know, they&amp;#x27;re just launching a national campaign to call upon the Commission for Presidential Debates to appoint a female moderator for the first time in 20 years. Told you. Normal teenage shenanigans. Let&amp;amp;#8217;s face it&amp;amp;#8212;we&amp;amp;#8217;re long overdue for a female-moderated debate. The last one was in 1992; that was an entire Bush administration ago! Although Gwen Ifill has moderated two vice presidential debates since, the presidential ring has been entirely male-dominated since ABC&amp;amp;#8217;s Carole Simpson moderated the &amp;amp;#8216;92 face-off. Hoping to see a woman moderator for the first time in their lives, these three teens created an online petition to voice their opinion and allow others to lend their support. As the girls say in their petition: &amp;amp;#8220;&amp;amp;#8230;Women hold only 17% of the seats in Senate and 16.8% of the seats in the House of Representatives. In the past twenty years, they have made up 0% of moderators of the Presidential debates. &amp;amp;#8220;Women and men will never be truly equal in our country until they&amp;amp;#8217;re one and the same in positions of power and both visible in politics. We need to take immediate action in order to move towards this change. It is time for a woman to have a chance to show what she&amp;amp;#8217;s capable of by moderating debates in the upcoming election.&amp;amp;#8221; I love the tenacity of these women, and how much they&amp;#x27;re pushing for change. They&amp;#x27;re major rock stars, and a serious inspiration! I&amp;#x27;m signing this petition--how about you? You can view (and sign&amp;amp;#8212;nudge, nudge) the Women&amp;amp;#8217;s Rights Petition here. What are your thoughts on a woman moderating at least one of the Obama-Romney debates? Will you sign the petition? P.S. Did you see this Michigan teen who started a petition on Change.org challenging Hollywood? It got her the attention of Ellen! Photo: Thinkstock"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/inspired/blogs/the-conversation/2012/06/think-a-woman-should-moderate>