On Election Day, Donald Trump beat the second lady to ever win a major-party nomination for the presidency — simply eight years after he beat the primary. Did Kamala Harris’ loss this yr, and Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016, have something to do with their gender? Or was it one thing else? We requested a bunch of main girls in journalism, politics and academia to clarify why a girl has nonetheless not been elected president in the USA.
There’s loads of proof that voters may have gendered biases that factored into their votes in 2016 and 2024, and our contributors realize it properly. One pointed to research through which contributors judged a personnel file with a girl’s identify as much less competent than that with a person’s identify — after which, when extra data was included to indicate her superior competence, the identical contributors discovered her extra competent however much less likeable.
There have been others, although, who thought that gender is perhaps at play, however not essentially in a manner that might make voters much less prone to vote for a lady. “Harris didn’t lose the election as a result of she’s a girl, however she was put into the place to lose this election as a result of she was a girl,” one former Trump official wrote.
Lots of the girls blamed a combination — gender, sure, however gender mixed with the Democratic Social gathering’s failure to win working-class males and the way voters see the celebration generally. “No lady in the USA has but been in a position to clear that bar,” one contributor wrote. “The primary to take action could properly come from the appropriate.”
The US just isn’t prepared for a lady president — not less than not a Democratic lady president.
BY ANNE-MARIE SLAUGHTER
Anne-Marie Slaughter is the CEO of New America and former director of coverage planning on the State Division.
Okayamala Harris didn’t lose as a result of she is a girl. And the USA just isn’t prepared for a lady president — not less than not a Democratic lady president.
To know the complexities of the 2024 election and of future elections through which girls will proceed to attempt to break what Hillary Clinton referred to as the “highest, hardest glass ceiling,” it’s vital to carry each these claims in our minds on the identical time.
start line for analyzing the election outcomes is to show to the traditional political science knowledge on what occurs to incumbent presidents when the economic system is dangerous, or not less than perceived to be dangerous. They lose.
In accordance with CNN’s evaluation of exit polls, almost 50 % of voters on this election stated that they have been worse off than they have been 4 years in the past. Trump received this group overwhelmingly. When Biden was nonetheless within the race in July, after his debate efficiency, Republicans projected that they have been heading for a landslide. Solely after Harris entered the race did it tighten; certainly, she was main in nationwide polls via September. However in the long run, voters nonetheless perceived her because the incumbent. It’s at all times potential to argue that American voters say they’re ready to vote for a lady however simply can’t deliver themselves to do it within the secrecy of the voting sales space. However on this case Harris carried out as conventional voting fashions would predict given the state of the economic system, and considerably higher than the person she changed.
One other manner of wanting on the impression of gender is to match how Harris did amongst girls voters compared with Hillary Clinton. However Clinton’s lead over Trump amongst girls voters was 13 factors in 2016. Eight years later, Harris’s lead over Trump was eight factors. In different phrases, Harris misplaced assist amongst girls voters who had beforehand voted for a lady candidate. These voters should be making up their minds primarily based on points apart from gender.
In sum, pinning the loss on Harris’ gender is just too easy, irrespective of how tempting. Nevertheless it’s an element: Neither Clinton nor Harris succeeded in profitable a majority of American males. Each these candidates are additionally Democrats, although, which has lengthy not been the favored celebration of male voters. And that is perhaps the true problem for feminine Democratic nominees: a mixture of the celebration’s notion and the candidate’s gender.
Any lady planning a future run for the presidency should reckon with what it means to American voters not solely to have a girl within the Oval Workplace, but additionally, and crucially, as commander in chief of probably the most highly effective army on this planet. The US has by no means even had a girl secretary of Protection or chair of the Joint Chiefs of Workers, whilst girls have scaled the heights of the State and Treasury Departments.
Out of the 9 nuclear powers on this planet, solely Britain, Israel, India and Pakistan have elected girls to the highest job. Indira Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto have been daughters of highly effective political fathers in dynastic democracies. Golda Meir was famously referred to as the “greatest man within the authorities” by Israel’s first prime minister David Ben-Gurion. All three British girls prime ministers have been Tories. Angela Merkel in Germany and Giorgia Meloni in Italy have been additionally each elected as conservatives of their international locations.
Briefly, girls leaders in international locations with sturdy nationwide safety institutions should show that they’re harder than robust, one thing that’s simpler to do if they arrive from historically pro-military facet of the political spectrum. Voters should have the ability to think about them taking the nation to conflict or defending towards army assault. No lady in the USA has but been in a position to clear that bar; the primary to take action could properly come from the appropriate.
Harris was pushed off the glass cliff — repeatedly.
BY SARAH ISGUR
Sarah Isgur is a graduate of Harvard Legislation College who clerked on the Fifth Circuit. She was Justice Division spokeswoman throughout the Trump administration and is the host of the authorized podcast Advisory Opinions for the Dispatch.
Voters haven’t but elected a girl president as a result of the lady candidates who’ve gotten closest — Kamala Harris in 2024 and Hillary Clinton in 2016 — confronted very particular and totally different challenges.
Harris didn’t lose the election as a result of she’s a girl, however she was put into the place to lose this election as a result of she was a girl. A 2014 research discovered that Fortune 500 corporations have been prone to promote girls into CEO positions over white males when these corporations have been struggling in a phenomenon that has been dubbed “the glass cliff.” Harris was pushed off the glass cliff — repeatedly.
In March 2020, Joe Biden stated he would solely take into account girls to be his operating mate. He chosen Harris, who had much less expertise than any trendy vice chairman since Spiro Agnew. He did not try this to assist her; he picked her to assist him. After his disqualifying debate efficiency in June, the Democratic Social gathering did not have an open course of to permit their voters to select the most effective candidate. Many Democrats deferred to Harris as a result of they reportedly feared political backlash in the event that they handed over her. They did not do that to assist her; they did it to guard themselves. Harris may have spent one other decade or extra within the Senate, run in additional presidential primaries, all of the whereas changing into a extra polished politician with a greater sense of her personal political opinions. She wasn’t given that chance due to her gender, and now her political profession is sort of actually over due to it.
(And let’s be clear: If Biden had declined to run once more in January 2023, Democrats would have had a strong main. Given her weaknesses as an inexperienced candidate and her shut ties to an unpopular administration, it is unlikely that Harris would have emerged from that course of. However the one who did — whether or not male or feminine — would have had a a lot better shot at profitable the overall election.)
We have solely had one lady to ever win her celebration’s nomination and lose the overall election. Similar to Al Gore did not lose as a result of he was a person, Hillary Clinton did not lose as a result of she was a girl. They each misplaced as a result of they lacked her husband’s charisma however carried his baggage.
Voters maintain stereotypes that forestall them from seeing girls as succesful leaders.
NADIA E. BROWN
Nadia E. Brown is professor of presidency and director of the ladies’s and gender research program and affiliate within the Black research program at Georgetown College.
Americans haven’t but elected a girl president as a result of most voters maintain gendered stereotypes that forestall them from viewing feminine politicians as succesful leaders.
Analysis has proven that voters prize stereotypically masculine management traits — resembling assertiveness and competitiveness — in executive-branch leaders. This isn’t essentially true for all workplaces. Voters usually could want legislative-branch officeholders who show stereotypically female management traits, resembling empathy, collaboration, communal decision-making and inclusivity, and because of this, are extra open to voting for feminine candidates for these workplaces. Nonetheless, in relation to govt workplace, voters are much less prone to want a girl.
Along with these management preferences, voters want that each women and men candidates lean into coverage points which can be stereotypically related to their gender. Stereotypical girls’s points embrace well being care, pay fairness, social welfare coverage and schooling, whereas stereotypical males’s points embrace protection, international coverage and nationwide safety. Which means girls politicians usually tend to be elected when voters are most involved with female coverage points. Whereas students have discovered that People are usually not steadfast in these beliefs and have made notable exceptions to elect girls to workplaces which can be deemed masculine or belief girls’s means to excel at some masculine points — that is the exception and never the rule.
Political science analysis additionally persistently demonstrates girls politicians obtain a excessive stage of media protection that questions their competence. The novelty of ladies operating for govt workplace attracts extra information protection, however analysis finds that it’s gendered. Particularly, information protection of ladies candidates is commonly centered on female political points and character traits. This solely affirms and furthers voters’ present biases.
It is vital to notice that the overwhelming majority of political science analysis on this topic has not been performed on feminine candidates of shade. Nevertheless, the restricted research on intersectional stereotyping that target Latina and Black girls candidates discover that voter stereotypes are racialized and gendered. For instance, Latina candidates are usually not perceived as being sturdy leaders. Black girls are seen as efficient leaders however not likable. Moreover, as a result of ethnic-racial minority candidates are seen as being stronger on coverage areas which can be tied to their identities, resembling civil rights or immigration, they’re stereotyped as failing to grasp insurance policies that apply to a broader group.
These enduring stereotypes of ladies — and ladies of shade particularly — exhibit why People have but to elect a feminine president and why that downside is so deep-seated and tough to repair.
America didn’t remedy its sexism downside in eight years.
JILL FILIPOVIC
Jill Filipovic is a journalist, lawyer and writer of OK Boomer, Let’s Speak: How My Technology Bought Left Behind and The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness.
Why hasn’t the USA elected a feminine president but? Typically the only and most evident rationalization is the precise one: The U.S. hasn’t elected a feminine president but as a result of the U.S. stays a deeply sexist place, and the person who ran towards each potential feminine presidents was significantly adept at urgent America’s misogyny button.
This simple reply could really feel very 2016 and isn’t significantly satisfying for analysts and readers who need some contemporary, sudden take. However America didn’t remedy its sexism downside in eight years. In a nation the place girls have had the vote for a century, the place girls have outnumbered males within the ranks of faculty graduates for many years, the place there is no such thing as a scarcity of highly-qualified girls in politics, and the place there are extra girls than males in each the inhabitants and in voter numbers, the truth that the presidency has been an completely male area for 235 years says much less about girls than it does concerning the nation.
It isn’t that girls are unelectable; the U.S., I imagine, can and can elect a feminine president. However, whereas girls have occupied Senate seats and governor’s mansions, there appears to be one thing distinctive concerning the concept of a girl sitting behind the massive oak desk within the Oval Workplace. The prospect of placing a girl in that individual chair — and particularly a liberal lady — appears to the touch a deep sense of male displacement {that a} candidate like Trump has been in a position to exploit. It’s not a coincidence that Trump’s first marketing campaign, approaching the heels of the primary Black president, was one in all overt sexism and masculine entitlement: He spoke to a white male base who, having seen a Black man in cost for eight years, could have felt uneasy concerning the prospect of a girl in workplace after him, a change that additional signaled the demise of white male dominance in America. It’s not a coincidence that, after being bested by a white man in 2020, Trump once more leaned right into a macho posture in 2024 as he confronted down one other feminine opponent, once more asserting an authority that has not but been usurped: male energy.
This time, he emphasised a type of male pleasure as he appeared with numerous fixtures of the bro universe: male-oriented podcasters, wrestlers, blended martial arts fighters, tech entrepreneurs. The message was extra refined than 2016’s explicitly misogynist “Trump that bitch.” It was a press release about whose voices the marketing campaign values, whose tradition it embraces, and whose preferences it is going to put first — who can have a seat on the desk when America is being re-made, and what the nation will appear to be post-makeover. It was a press release about who is of course deserving of energy in America.
This impulse to protect the male monopoly on presidential energy just isn’t one which lives in most People’ frontal cortexes; few go into the voting sales space considering, “I’d by no means vote for a lady.” As a substitute, one thing baser appears to be triggered when confronted with the prospect of a girl taking on the best workplace within the land. The thought of probably the most highly effective particular person on this planet being a girl is a reminder that males are now not completely in cost — not of their properties, not in politics, not within the office. That is destabilizing for males, however for an entire lot of ladies, too.
I’ve little doubt that People who’re 4 or eight or 12 extra years used to girls in numerous positions of energy, voting in an election between a girl and a special type of man than Trump, may lastly yield a special and historic end result. The extra vital query, I feel, is whether or not we might be sensible sufficient to refuse to take these outcomes as guarantors of future failures and be courageous sufficient to attempt once more.
When voters look past traits like intercourse or ethnicity, the probabilities will drastically enhance that America will quickly elect a girl president.
STAR PARKER
Star Parker is the founding father of the Middle for City Renewal and Training (CURE), a Washington D.C.-based public coverage institute.
Candidates win elections once they supply a character and an agenda that appeals to nearly all of voters. So the extra helpful query could be to ask why we’ve not but had a girl presidential candidate who has achieved this.
I feel the extent to which girls imagine that sexual id, or ethnic characterizations, is a significant factor in who ought to lead the nation is an indication of the issue.
The primary names that come to thoughts of ladies who’ve risen to management — British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir — are girls whose lives have been consumed by love of their nation and of what they believed to be the truths and rules that their international locations wanted. I doubt both was significantly motivated to be a feminist icon.
I imagine that when extra girls — and males — are in a position to look past traits like intercourse or ethnicity, the probabilities will drastically enhance that America will quickly elect a girl president.
Our nation has main issues. Polls level to the deep dissatisfaction amongst residents concerning the path of the nation. This dissatisfaction, for my part, is properly justified. Annual GDP progress since 2000 is way lower than what it was from 1950 to 2000, fertility charges are properly under substitute charges, we’ve large federal debt and deficits and our main entitlement packages — Social Safety and Medicare — are dealing with insolvency. Ethical truths which as soon as held main sway in constructing our nation are disappearing.
When a girl emerges whose ardour is to not be somebody however to do one thing, whose love of nation transcends her private id, who’s in contact with the everlasting truths that make our nation nice, she could be the first lady who achieves our nation’s highest workplace.
Altering attitudes on gender is sluggish work.
BETSY FISCHER MARTIN
Betsy Fischer Martin is govt director of American College’s Ladies & Politics Institute.
It’s straightforward — and harmful — to assume that Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris misplaced their bids for the presidency solely as a result of they’re girls. The truth is extra advanced, formed by an array of things in a political panorama that has but to completely embrace feminine management on the very high.
But, it’s nonetheless important to replicate on each how far we’ve come and the limitations that also stay in our journey towards electing a girl as commander in chief.
In our current survey of ladies voters, She Votes: From Points to Influence, seven out of 10 girls imagine the nation is now extra open to electing a girl president than it was when Hillary Clinton misplaced her bid in 2016. Amongst Democratic girls, almost 90 % share this optimism.
This shift in perspective displays the hard-won progress of current years and underscores the impression of efforts to raise girls in any respect ranges of presidency. The truth that we’ve had a girl serving as vice chairman for the previous 4 years has undoubtedly performed a vital position in reshaping public attitudes and normalizing the thought of ladies within the highest echelons of management.
Nevertheless, as inspiring as this progress is, it usually looks like we’re transferring two steps ahead (securing the nomination) and one step again (shedding the overall election).
Essentially the most discouraging insights from our ballot surfaced in response to a blunt query: “Do you personally know somebody who wouldn’t vote for a lady for president?” Shockingly, 4 in 10 girls stated sure — they know somebody, whether or not an in depth pal, member of the family or perhaps a vital different, who wouldn’t assist a feminine candidate, no matter her {qualifications}.
Maybe much more troubling, 10 % of ladies total — and 20 % of Republican girls — admitted that they personally wouldn’t vote for a lady for president. This internalized bias highlights the deeply rooted cultural and social norms that proceed to solid doubt on girls’s management potential, even amongst different girls.
This knowledge makes clear why, regardless of actual progress, we nonetheless haven’t shattered the best, hardest glass ceiling. Altering attitudes, particularly on points as ingrained as gender in management, is sluggish work. It’s vital to proceed preventing to vary minds, amplify girls’s voices and pave the way in which for extra girls to run and win.
Ladies leaders must stroll too excessive of a tightrope within the electoral system.
KATE MANNE
Kate Manne is a author, philosophy professor at Cornell College and writer of Unshrinking: Face Fatphobia and Down Woman: The Logic of Misogyny.
America hasn’t had a feminine president but — in distinction to so many different nations — due to a mixture of sexism and misogyny, along with the character of our electoral processes. Sexism, in line with my definition, encompasses beliefs and concepts that say that girls are much less competent than males in relation to historically masculine authority positions just like the presidency. Misogyny encompasses the wishes and social actions that maintain girls of their place, and actively punishes those that are seen as not staying of their lane, for instance in having an ambition to be president. Despite the fact that sexism is on the wane in some sectors of society, misogyny stays a prevalent pressure, even when it’s unconscious. Individuals do not know why they do not belief a selected lady, however they nonetheless discover her abrasive, shrill, suspicious, untrustworthy or comparable. After which it occurs repeatedly with feminine candidate after feminine candidate. It is not a coincidence; it is misogyny.
These issues, although, have not prevented girls from changing into the political chief of different nations, resembling my residence nation of Australia (though Julia Gillard, our first feminine prime minister, was topic to intense and now extensively acknowledged misogyny throughout her tenure). One of many principal causes it’s so onerous to elect a girl within the U.S. is that we’ve head-to-head races, each within the primaries and within the basic election. And an influential research by psychologist Madeline Heilman and her colleagues at NYU that I’ve written about earlier than for Politico Journal present that gender bias usually impacts these sorts of selections. That research confirmed that in the event you give individuals two personnel information to match, which embrace details about candidates’ efficiency critiques, character and private lives, for a lady named Andrea and a person named James for a historically extra male position (as assistant VP at an aeronautics firm on this case), upward of 80 % of individuals will decide James extra competent than Andrea. That is though the information are simply being switched for each second participant, so individuals get similar details about the 2 workers on common.
A second experimental situation confirmed that, in the event you embrace additional data, to indicate unequivocally that each Andrea and James are extremely competent, then this bias disappears. However a brand new one crops up: Individuals now discover Andrea much less likable than James — a measure which encompassed being perceived as abrasive, untrustworthy, manipulative and interpersonally hostile — in upward of 80 % of circumstances. So mainly, in the event you examine a girl and an equal man, then she tends to be discovered both much less competent or much less likable than him by the overwhelming majority of individuals, and, notably, by feminine contributors simply as a lot as male ones.
There’s a manner of combating these biases, nevertheless it factors to a really tough tightrope: It’s a must to embrace data that the feminine chief just isn’t solely extremely competent but additionally exceptionally communal — type, thoughtful, caring, attentive to others’ emotions, and so forth. Then the biases towards Andrea disappeared or have been even reversed in some circumstances. We are able to extrapolate this might work for feminine politicians, too.
However I’m not satisfied that such perceptions of feminine politicians have a tendency to stay within the public creativeness; or, somewhat, they’re extraordinarily onerous to domesticate and fragile even when they’re established. We watched Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren take over 100,000 selfies with voters and earn this kind of status early on within the 2020 Democratic primaries. That status of being extremely communal dissolved for a lot of leftists as quickly as she had a heated alternate with Bernie Sanders throughout a debate (which, notably, he was not blamed for taking part in equally). The communality requirement for feminine however not male leaders is a double commonplace, and it’s not a sustainable one.
So I’d be shocked if we get a girl president of this nation on the left, or center-left, in my lifetime. Vice President Kamala Harris had a fairly good shot, regardless of the racism she additionally confronted with a substantial portion of the citizens, amongst different points like anti-incumbent sentiments.
Our first feminine president will probably be a conservative or right-wing lady, whose gender is much less of a legal responsibility, as a result of she is seen as defending “conventional” or “household” values. In different phrases, the notion of being an upholder of patriarchy will drastically mitigate voters’ misogyny. That will be my guess, together with many different theorists’.
However we won’t deal with this chance as an inevitability. I intend to throw my assist vigorously behind the most effective Democratic candidate subsequent time round, and I’d be unsurprised if that occurs to be a girl, given what feminine leaders usually deliver to the desk — even when which means dealing with down, as soon as once more, the misogyny and sexism they’ll undoubtedly encounter.
Earlier than Democrats can run a girl once more, they want extra working-class males.
JOAN C. WILLIAMS
Joan C. Williams, writer of White Working Class and Outclassed: How the Left Misplaced the Working Class and Win Them Again (St. Martin’s, forthcoming Could 2025).
Why hasn’t the US but elected a girl president? That’s straightforward: sexism — and sophistication dynamics.
Kamala Harris was much more adept than Hillary Clinton at strolling the tightrope that requires girls to be seen as each authoritative and heat. Harris forefronted her position as “Momala,” and on the Democratic Nationwide Committee, each her stepkids and husband upped her heat.
It didn’t matter.
Harris nonetheless triggered two different varieties of gender bias. The primary was one other impact of assumptions about femininity. Competence-based bias implies that girls are stereotyped as a poor match for management. The Equality Motion Middle (which I direct) has 10 research that present repeatedly that competence-based bias is strongest for Black girls. Trump mirrored this in his coarse manner when he referred to as Harris “silly, lazy and weak” and opined that world leaders would “deal with her as a play toy.”
Voters’ views on femininity little doubt affected the election end result, however their views on masculinity most likely performed a bigger position; that’s the second gender bias Harris encountered. Trump voting is predicted by endorsement of hegemonic masculinity (a.okay.a. macho masculinity) in each women and men — which predicts Trump assist even higher than racism does.
So sexism positively performed a task in 2024 — however so did class dynamics pushed by working-class masculinities. The sharp drop in noncollege males’s financial fortunes implies that extra are searching for reassurance that they’re “actual males.” Not shocking: All 4 key parts of mature manhood — breadwinner standing, homeownership, fatherhood, and marriage — are more and more elusive for males with out levels. When males’s masculinity is threatened, research have proven that males double down on attitudes and preferences which can be seen as extra masculine, resembling expressing extra assist for conflict and homophobic attitudes — or, one can infer, like voting for Mr. Macho. It’s additionally not simply taking place amongst white males: The shift of males in direction of Trump in 2014 over 2016 was pushed by elevated assist amongst nonwhite males.
Earlier than Democrats run a girl (or a person) once more, they’re going to wish to construct a extra sturdy coalition and win again extra working-class voters, and significantly working-class males. To do this, the celebration must take two essential steps. The primary is to cease ceding masculinity to the far proper: Masculinity is a cherished id that’s sturdy amongst faculty grads and doubtless even stronger amongst non-college males as a result of they lack different sources of standing. Democrats received’t echo Trump’s Unhealthy-However-Daring masculinity, however they’ve received to put different claims to this highly effective actual property. The second is to bridge the diploma divide. The times are over when Democrats can rely upon individuals of shade to make up for his or her lack of votes amongst People with out levels. Bridging the diploma divide is the one viable path.
We should always make it simpler for moms to run for workplace by prioritizing their recruitment and normalizing children and onsite childcare on campaigns.
EMILY JASHINSKY
Emily Jashinsky is a author at Unherd, the host of Undercurrents, and co-host of Counter Factors.
Even as a conservative, I imagine strongly within the idea of illustration. That’s very true within the case of public workplace as a result of I imagine women and men are totally different, so it’s important for ladies to have an equal voice in politics.
My glass-half-full take is that we’ve made exceptional — virtually unthinkable — leaps towards electing a girl president during the last century, and because the bench of feminine politicians grows, so too will the percentages that we elect one president.
It would at all times be more durable to recruit as many ladies into politics as males, for among the identical causes it is going to at all times be tougher to recruit as many ladies into CEO jobs. A few of these causes are most likely innate, and a few are most likely realized social habits. The scheduling calls for of a political profession, together with lengthy hours and frequent journey, are a significant barrier to entry for moms, particularly from the center class. That issue alone probably prevents many ladies from pursuing their political ambitions.
We should always make it simpler for moms to run for workplace by prioritizing their recruitment and normalizing children and onsite childcare on campaigns. Politics must be extra kid-friendly generally, with children inspired to affix their dad and mom at rallies, occasions, cellphone banks, canvassing, door-knocking and in all places in between. Little one care makes it simpler for fogeys, particularly moms, to do all these issues as properly which, in flip, makes it simpler for them to become involved on the floor flooring. We’ve made nice strides, and I feel the bench will develop deep sufficient that individuals in our lifetimes will see a girl president who’s elected on the deserves of her {qualifications}.
