Martha Raddatz. Photo: Greta Bradlee.

Three teenage Jewish girls have created petitions calling on the Presidential Debate Commission to select a woman to moderate upcoming live debates between President Barack Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney. A female journalist hasn’t anchored such a debate since 1992.

More than 18,000 people have signed the petitions from Emma Axelrod, Sammi Siegel and Elena Tsemberis.

“Women and men will never be truly equal in our country until they’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. There is no reason why a woman shouldn’t have a chance to show what she’s capable of by moderating debates in the upcoming election,” one of their petitions stated.

Although the debate commission did not respond to the petitions directly, CNN has since announced that its chief political correspondent and anchor Candy Crowley will moderate the second of the 2012 general election presidential debates. Another woman, Martha Raddatz of ABC, will also host a presidential debate.

“It’s absolutely amazing that the Presidential Debate Commission finally listened to the three of us, including the 180,000 people that agreed with our campaign… Now, with a woman moderating the presidential and vice presidential debates, little girls will be able to see positive role models on the political stage,” Siegel wrote in an email, according to the Forward.