Sunday afternoon, Hillary Rodham Clinton finally announced her official bid for the presidency.

As with any presidential hopeful, both sides of the isle have something staunch to say.

Talking about presidential candidates, National Rifle Association Vice President Wayne LaPierre said without a doubt the new president “will not be Hillary Rodham Clinton.”

The Republican National Committee even included the slogan #stophillary into their online attack ad, airing in conjunction with Clinton’s announcement.

On the Democratic side, President Obama has neither confirmed nor denied any endorsement outside of his claim that Clinton would make an “excellent president.”

Regardless of political association or attitudes, Hillary is not your typical candidate. By that, I mean she is a woman – which is rare – and a woman with experience.

Hillary was a former first lady, a former New York state senator, a 2008 presidential hopeful and Secretary of the State from 2009-2013.

The U.S. needs more women in politics, more diversity in politics and an increased free exchange of ideas both radical and traditional. The U.S. is in a gender lurch that will lead to its inevitable downfall.

Counties across the globe have women leaders, including Executive President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of Argentina; Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed of Bangladesh; Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany; and who can forget Queen Elizabeth II of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?

Unfortunately, the U.S. ignores the voice of half the population, and with it, crucial concepts and irrefutable genius of the opposite sex.

What will happen if we give women the opportunities they rightly deserve?

Ingenuity and progress, and we have seen it in Argentina after implementing quota laws in November 1989.

Quota laws addressed the lack of diversity in the political sphere by requiring that no more than 70 percent of the electorate be of the same sex. Quota laws also required that for every two candidates of the same sex there must be at least one of another.

According to “Pioneering Quotas: The Argentine Experience and Beyond,” by human rights professor María José Lubertino, “the (proposed) bill was debated and approved overwhelmingly by the Senate,” with only a few naysayers.

As a result, Argentinian women in politics increased about 27 percent in 20 years, which is substantial considering the Senate did not fully implement the law until 2001.

Now, numbers are confusing, and math is not a caveat we all hold near and dear, so let me break it down for you.

In the U.S., less than 20 percent of women hold elected office, according to a Rutgers study updated in February. Only seven women hold a position at the cabinet level, three on the Supreme Court, and 104 of 535 congressional seats are held by women.

If we look at minority woman, the results are even more appalling.

Of the 104 women in the 114th U.S. Congress, only 33 are women of color.

This is an alarming notion that is not only unacceptable, but also easily fixable. The implementation of women in politics is necessary, it is essential. The consequences of neglecting such an important solution are detrimental to the nation and the government that holds it together.