Vicki Haddock: Are we ready for a woman president?
The French may experience another revolution by doing it next week. India did it years ago, as did Israel, Great Britain and the Philippines. So did Germany, Chile and Liberia. Even Pakistan, where women in some regions are forbidden to leave their homes without a male escort, is among the 42 countries that have had at least one woman as president or prime minister over the last half century.
So why has it taken the United States this long even to seriously consider doing it?
When Gallup began polling in 1937 on whether U.S. voters were willing to support a woman for president, less than a third said they could vote for a women. Today, at long last, a woman has become the front-runner for a major party's nomination to the White House.
Yet Hillary Clinton's distinction is almost lost amid a crowd of "me-too" major contenders who could themselves make history: Barack Obama as the first African American president, Bill Richardson as the first Latino, Mitt Romney as the first Mormon, John McCain as the oldest president upon election. How ironic, from a historical perspective, that many regard Clinton as the preordained establishment candidate, depicted in a YouTube parody of an Apple Computer ad as the droning authority of the status quo.
It's as if in the last half-century, the notion of a female president went from heretical to banal without ever having become, you know, reality.
Meanwhile the most powerful political post in Europe -- the presidency of France -- is for the first time in history within feminine grasp. Socialist Segolene Royal won a spot in the runoff next Sunday by placing second in the first round of voting.
Is it fair to presume that the United States lags behind much of the world because of a subterranean sexism? Have we made only little progress in the 40 years since historian Richard Neustadt blithely prefaced his popular book on the presidency with the observation: "When we inaugurate a president of the United States we give a man the powers of our highest office."
While about 90 percent of Americans say they could support a female presidential candidate, that figure may be deceptive -- only about 60 percent said yes last fall when Gallup pollsters asked the more revealing question: Are Americans ready to elect a female president?
"I think we do still suffer from the notion that women are not as good as men -- that they aren't as rational. If you have 1 in 10 admitting that to pollsters, you must understand there are still more who think so privately but won't say so publicly," said Farida Jalalzai, assistant professor of political science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis....
Read entire article at San Francisco Chronicle
So why has it taken the United States this long even to seriously consider doing it?
When Gallup began polling in 1937 on whether U.S. voters were willing to support a woman for president, less than a third said they could vote for a women. Today, at long last, a woman has become the front-runner for a major party's nomination to the White House.
Yet Hillary Clinton's distinction is almost lost amid a crowd of "me-too" major contenders who could themselves make history: Barack Obama as the first African American president, Bill Richardson as the first Latino, Mitt Romney as the first Mormon, John McCain as the oldest president upon election. How ironic, from a historical perspective, that many regard Clinton as the preordained establishment candidate, depicted in a YouTube parody of an Apple Computer ad as the droning authority of the status quo.
It's as if in the last half-century, the notion of a female president went from heretical to banal without ever having become, you know, reality.
Meanwhile the most powerful political post in Europe -- the presidency of France -- is for the first time in history within feminine grasp. Socialist Segolene Royal won a spot in the runoff next Sunday by placing second in the first round of voting.
Is it fair to presume that the United States lags behind much of the world because of a subterranean sexism? Have we made only little progress in the 40 years since historian Richard Neustadt blithely prefaced his popular book on the presidency with the observation: "When we inaugurate a president of the United States we give a man the powers of our highest office."
While about 90 percent of Americans say they could support a female presidential candidate, that figure may be deceptive -- only about 60 percent said yes last fall when Gallup pollsters asked the more revealing question: Are Americans ready to elect a female president?
"I think we do still suffer from the notion that women are not as good as men -- that they aren't as rational. If you have 1 in 10 admitting that to pollsters, you must understand there are still more who think so privately but won't say so publicly," said Farida Jalalzai, assistant professor of political science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis....