Proponents call for more women to seek higher office in the US

The United States is one of the few large Western countries that has never had a female president.

The closest the country has come to having a woman in the executive office is Vice-President Kamala Harris. While Harris lost the presidential election on Nov 5 to President-elect Donald Trump, her campaign still advanced women in politics, say advocates, who added that much more is left to be done.

The number of American women who have become their party’s presidential nominees has been minuscule aside from Harris and Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016.

The other two female vice-presidential candidates were Republican Sarah Palin in 2008 with John McCain, and Democrat Geraldine Ferraro with former vice-president Walter Mondale in 1984.

Many other women, dating back to Victoria Claflin Woodhull in 1872, have unsuccessfully run for president in the United States.

“Vice-President Harris’ run for office highlights that women can serve at all levels of government and serve well,” Deidre Malone, president of the National Women’s Political Caucus, told China Daily.

Harris won 54 percent of women voters nationwide while Trump won 44 percent, an exit poll by Edison Research showed. Trump’s decisive victory was in the popular vote in addition to the Electoral College.

“I think it’s perfectly clear what Harris’s candidacy means for American women: we are a country of racist, misogynist, foolish people who prefer vicious lies to the truth in front of them,” Nancy J. Hirschmann, professor of political science and gender, sexuality and women’s studies at the Ronald O. Perelman Center for Political Science and Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, told China Daily.

“The hatred of women, and the belief of too many men that they have a right to dominate women can no longer be denied in this country,” Hirschmann said.

Democrats Lisa Blunt Rochester from Delaware and Angela Alsobrooks from Maryland, two black women, will serve together in the US Senate for the first time in history. There were 126 women in the House of Representatives and 25 in the Senate before the election.

“The numbers are improving, but women are not close to being equally represented in all levels of government,” Malone said. “Women make up 28 percent of Congress, and that’s the highest percentage in US history. We continue to have work to do in this area.”

The global picture for women leaders is quite different.

In October, Mexico elected its first female leader, President Claudia Sheinbaum.

The United Kingdom has had three female prime ministers. In November, the Conservative Party nominated its first black, female leader Kemi Badenoch.

As far back as the 1970s, Britain’s Baroness Margaret Thatcher, dubbed the “Iron Lady” for her economic policies known as “Thatcherism” and toughness, became leader of her party in 1975, and then prime minister of the Conservative Party in 1979. She led her party and country until she resigned in 1990.

She was the longest-serving British leader of the 20th century, weathering several storms, including high unemployment, between 1979 to 1981; economic policies to tackle and reverse high inflation amid a “winter of discontent”, and the privatization of state-owned companies. Thatcher died in 2013. 

In Germany, Angela Merkel, the country’s eighth chancellor from 2005 until her departure in December 2021, was the first female leader of the opposition from 2002 to 2005 and headed the Christian Democratic Union Party from 2000 to 2018.

Merkel was known as a careful steward of the economy. She was an important figure in the EU and NATO.

Her chancellorship faced several challenges, such as the 2007 to 2008 financial crisis, European debt issues, the 2010 European migrant crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Worldwide, the number of female leaders is growing, but there still are far fewer of them than men. At least 30 women have served as heads of state, in 28 countries since September 2022, according to the United Nations women division. Overall, Europe has had more female leaders than any other region.

Kathleen Dolan, distinguished professor and chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee told China Daily that “voters have become more accustomed to seeing women candidates”.

Harris, of black and Asian Indian descent, was district attorney of San Francisco in 2004, elected attorney general of California in 2010, and sworn into the US Senate in 2017.

Malone said that while women in politics have some ways to go to clinch the top job, she is encouraged.

“Some of the roadblocks holding women back from running for office include that they do not see themselves in elected office,” she said. “More are showing interest in running because they see other women stepping up and serving.”