Meanwhile, every man who’s running will somehow have to come up with a credible answer to this simple question: After everything we’ve just learned about how gender bias has systematically decimated female leadership in America, can you give us one good reason for the next president to be yet another man?

I’ve spent a lot of time chatting with people in and out of politics about this question, and I really haven’t heard a good answer to it. And so I’ve come to harbor the opposite bias. It would be a terrible mistake for the Democrats to nominate a man as their standard-bearer against Trump, and it would be tragic for the United States to elect a man to the presidency in 2020 — not just Trump but any man, whether Biden or Beto or Buttigieg or Bernie.

This isn’t because all the men who are running are terrible. It’s because, in key ways, a man, even your favorite man, would be a lesser advocate than many of the women for some of the most important social and political issues of the day. A male candidate’s very maleness would damage a central pillar of the best political arguments against Trump. And if he wins, his gender’s enduring blindness to issues involving women in society might stunt urgent and necessary political action.

Let’s start with the political calculus. Though the 2016 race was besotted with gender bias, it’s a mistake to conclude that Americans will not vote for a woman over Donald Trump, because what happened in 2016 was that a majority of Americans voted for a woman over Donald Trump.

And in the past few years, the political climate for female candidates has only grown more favorable. In the spiraling revelations of #MeToo, much of the nation (especially men) suddenly saw the damaging pervasiveness of misogyny in every part of society.

Today, gender politics are at the core of all politics. There is a huge gender gap — most voters in 2018 were women, and about 60 percent of them voted for Democrats — and much of the money, organization and energy on the left has been driven by a broad, reawakened feminism. And not just on the left: According to Gallup, the “way women are treated in U.S. society” was among the most important issues to voters in 2018, above gun policy, taxes, wealth inequality and Russian involvement in American politics.

This reawakened feminism should turn reflexive bias on its head. The women who are running this year are broadly qualified to occupy the White House. They’ve won statewide races, they’ve survived brutal primaries, they’ve advanced novel and pathbreaking public policy ideas. I can’t see many of the male candidates making a strong case that he would be a more effective advocate for the feminist energy now fueling the left than any of these talented women.