By Earl Ofari Hutchinson
Contributing Columnist
Two weeks after the 2016 presidential election, two female scholars at Harvard’s Business School summarized the peril that a Donald Trump presidency would mean for women, especially poor and low-income, Black, Hispanic and working women.
They were: a potential rise in hate and sexual crimes that particularly victimized women, a step back from tough enforcement of sexual harassment statues, a decline in programs that promote women’s advancement in top tier positions in businesses, colleges, corporations and the trades, an ultra conservative Supreme Court that would severely undermine protections for women in the workplace, and scrap Roe v. Wade, and a gut of the Affordable Care Act that could reduce access to birth control and health care.
This is the second in a two-part series on women and the U.S. presidency from an excerpt from Earl Ofari Hutchinson’s “American Presidency — Men Only Need Apply” (Middle Passage Press).
Still, millions of women ignored that potential peril, and backed Trump. That raised a second question beyond the obvious one of why so many of these women seemingly voted against their interests in backing Trump. In rejecting Trump’s Democratic presidential opponent, Hillary Clinton, a woman, they ensured that the U.S. would remain one of the few western nations along with some Asian, African and Latin American nations that have never had a woman hold the top political spot, be it president or prime minister.
Even more telling, women served for many years in the top power position in non-white former colonial nations that were deeply patriarchal. They included Bangladesh, off and on for 23 years, India, 21 years, Ireland, 21 years, and the Philippines, 16 years, and Pakistan.
Overall, the U.S. had a smaller percentage of female lawmakers in Congress and governorships than other nations. Since nearly all U.S. presidential candidates are either governors or from Congress, the numbers lag severely decreases the political pool of potential female presidential candidates.
Some of the nations that have had an excellent track record of electing female presidents and prime ministers bumped up the numbers of potential female presidential candidates by imposing gender quotas. The quotas mandate that a certain number of women be elected or represented in their countries’ governing bodies.
Mexico is a good example. Its imposition of a gender quota for political office set the stage for it to elect the first woman president in June, despite the deep cultural and social patriarchy that exists there. That was even more remarkable since women did not even get the right to vote there until 1953, three decades after women had the right to vote in the U.S.
Currently, half of the members in Mexico’s lower house of Congress are women. At the state level, more than one-third of the leaders of the nation’s 32 states are women.
The law that mandated gender quotas was part of a constitutional overhaul in 2019. It openly called for parity in everything in the governance system, not just the national legislature, but also state governments, and the courts and executive branches of government.
The gender quota in Mexico and other nations accomplished two things. First, it increased the number and public visibility of women lawmakers. Second, it diminished the prevalent belief that women were incapable of handling the rigors and the pressure of the country’s top political post. This did much to shatter the stereotype that the presidency and its demands were off limits to a woman.
Though lagging behind Mexico in its elevation of women to top political posts, the U.S. has made some progress. In 2020, six female presidential candidates set new political ground. The increased number was directly tied to the ramped-up number of women in congressional and state offices.
Still, women continued to face a tough uphill climb in matching parity numbers with men in office that other nations have attained. One reason was that both parties, but especially the Republicans’ process of recruiting and backing promising candidates for office, leaned top heavy toward men.
The second reason was money. It takes a lot to run a credible campaign for any congressional or statewide office. Women are far less likely to attract major corporate and labor donors than male candidates. And very few women have the deep pockets to self-fund their campaign, which can easily run into the tens of thousands of dollars.
The third reason was that women candidates were also much greater targets of online threats, harassment and negative and vicious typecasting and stereotyping than men. This was a huge disincentive for many women to forego a political run. These three impediments are far less of an obstacle to women many other countries.
Despite the formidable roadblocks women face in climbing up the political ladder in the U.S., it’s certain that the nation will eventually end its two and half century gender bar for a woman in the Oval Office. When that day comes, the U.S. will simply finally be joining the many other nations that have long since come out of the dark ages in accepting and embracing a woman at the top of their country’s political heap.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is “President Trump’s America” (Middle Passage Press). He is the host of the weekly The Hutchinson Report live streamed on Facebook.
