Hillary or Condoleezza? Forget it!
Let’s do a reality check. No woman has ever led the presidential ticket of a major political party in the United States. Only one—Democrat Geraldine Ferraro in 1984—has been nominated for vice president by either the Republicans or the Democrats.
Earlier, Shirley Chisholm as the first black woman ever to run for President of the United States made an unsuccessful bid even for the 1972 Democratic nomination.
Today an AP report focuses on how US lags behind in female political representation. Yet, the report would not mention how the country could learn from others that have implemented radical quota systems to ensure women participation in the legislation. In fact the report attributes some unnamed experts as saying that factors helping female politicians outside the U.S. include financial support, women-focused reforms within individual political parties, and an organized effort by the media and the general public to champion political parity.
Whereas all these factors might be valid, the fact that countries like Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Chile, Liberia, apart from Israel and UK have had absolute success in electing women politicians to the highest office does not much support the thesis of financial support and media reforms. In addition, a concerted effort to prevent women from joining the highest political battlefield can only be overcome through an equally passionate effort at ensuring participation, not by merely opening the platform to unfair competition.
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