The American Presidency: No Women Need Apply?

Abstract

The United States is one of the few democracies in the world that never had a female leader. The 2016 presidential election marked the first time that a woman was nominated by a major political party. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by more votes than any other candidate that came before her, but despite this accomplishment she did not receive enough electoral votes and lost the presidency. Since then, many scholars have been trying to examine whether gender played any part in influencing the outcome of the election. With women being so underrepresented in American political offices, we must ask ourselves why that is. Is it because of mainstream media coverage being so gendered and biased against female politicians? Is it because of a culture of sexual harassment and sexism in the American workplace? Are voters simply not willing to have women in positions of power? Clearly, there were other unique circumstances and factors that played a role in the 2016 election, such as Russian meddling and inappropriate communication from the then-Director of the FBI. Yet it is telling that it has taken the United States so long to even reach the milestone of having a viable female candidate for the presidency, and it is even more telling that she lost to someone who has no government experience as well as many disqualifying scandals. This paper will explore sexism in American politics and will attempt to examine just how mainstream media and gender equality laws exacerbate it. It will focus on three case-study countries, all currently led by a female head of state: The United Kingdom, Germany, and New Zealand. This paper will strive to answer a very important question: what makes the United States so different from other countries that have managed to shatter their own glass ceilings?