Is it Against the Rules for a Woman to be President?

With the strongest female contenders for the Democratic Presidential nomination now out of the 2020 race, how much longer can we pretend that the barriers to women’s national electoral success would be surmountable if only the right candidate appeared?  A century after women’s suffrage was achieved (only through women’s activism, mind you), the U.S. lags behind almost all countries in the world in the representation of women in political office.  In terms of legislative representation, only Greece, Latvia, Croatia, and Hungary have lower numbers.  In the U.S., progress continues to come at a snail’s pace.  Having seen repeatedly the extra burden that accomplished, qualified, articulate, ethical, and competent women have in gaining recognition and support at the highest electoral levels, who is likely to come forward in 2024 to try to challenge these barriers?

The thing is, we know what works to move the ball:  quotas.  In a 2018 analysis, the Carnegie Endowment concluded that “[i]n Europe, the single most effective tool to increase the number of women in politics has . . . been the introduction of electoral targets and quotas.”  And it’s not just Europe: half of the world’s countries have implemented some type of electoral quota for their parliament.  

Americans often start from the premise that quotas are off the table — they are simply too controversial in the U.S.  But it’s worth noting, as the Carnegie Report observes, that “campaigns for quotas have often been spearheaded by women’s groups within political parties, typically after other means of improving representation—such as trainings and mentorship programs—failed to produce lasting change. In both Austria and Sweden, for instance, women threatened to create separate women’s parties unless party leaders took action.”

The media’s analysis of what went wrong for Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, and Elizabeth Warren is already well underway.  All three have identified sexism as a factor in their candidacies — a factor that will, unfortunately, be an issue faced by every woman candidate for high office unless and until we change the rules.  With the 2020 U.S. presidential race apparently down to three 70+ white men, what better time for a women’s movement for political gender quotas?