News Staff Reporter
This January something amazing occurred: an agnostic, single-mother was elected the president of Chile, one of South America’s most socially conservative countries. On the very same day, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was sworn in as the president of Liberia, becoming Africa’s first female president ever. These surprise elections followed the November election of Angela Merkel as Chancellor of Germany, also the first female to take the office. With so many women worldwide accepting positions of political authority, why has the United States—a country boasting over two-hundred years of democracy under its belt—yet to elect a woman the Commander-in-Chief?
The first country to give women the right to vote was New Zealand, in 1893, followed closely by Australia. England, Germany, Canada and Russia awarded women suffrage in 1918 and the United States followed suit two years later. Switzerland was the last European country to give women suffrage in 1971. Though all of Europe by now offers equal voting rights to men and women, women’s suffrage is not a worldwide commodity. Many nations in the Islamic sphere, delayed by decades of conservative religious law, are only beginning to address women’s suffrage. Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, the UAE, Algeria, Tunis, Egypt, and, as of May 2nd, Kuwait, all allow their female citizens to vote—a big step in women’s rights. But how long will it take before these countries elect a woman into office?
In 1776 Americans fought for their independence from British colonial rule in the name of independence and liberty. How is it that a country that prides itself on democracy and freedom for all took about 150 years to give voting rights to women? The small nations of Iceland, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ireland, Poland, and Kyrgyzstan all awarded suffrage to women before the United States—a self-proclaimed spreader of democracy—did? .Is the opposition to equal political rights engrained into the very DNA of our political institutions?
The fight for suffrage in England and America was not a smooth one; unbending politicians forced women to resort to tactics that today would probably be considered terrorism—all in the name of the right to vote. In England, suffragettes bombed mailboxes of prominent Parliament members. And on both sides of the pond, women that had been imprisoned for protesting engaged in hunger strikes—and were consequently force-fed. Ironically, prisoners in Guantanamo Bay have participated in similar hunger strikes and have been force fed in the same way that women were 100 years prior. After all of this fighting, has the battle even been won? Are women truly the political equals of men?
Technically, women have equal rights. Their votes count equally towards the election of representatives, and they are treated equally under the law. But as long as women are underrepresented in the government itself, they will exert a diminished influence on politics. Issues relevant to women will be supported not because there are women in the government that believe in the cause so much as men are catering to women voters in hopes of remaining in office. A government with few female voices—or minority voices—will inevitably be unrepresentative of the people living in this country.
There is rumor of Hilary Rodham Clinton becoming the first female president of the United States in the 2008 elections. While I would like to believe that she could be elected president, I know that she won’t. But this time, women’s political rights are being limited not because the law denies them these rights, but because they are denied them by society. Hilary Clinton will not become the president because American voters have upheld—and will continue to uphold—the tradition of a male-dominated government. Voters simply cannot picture a woman in charge of the most powerful army in the world. We like to think that we have reversed the long-standing stereotypes of women as meek and incapable, but clearly, we have not. Just imagine how different our response to September 11th would have been if we had had a woman calling the shots. Or how similarly the events could have unfolded. Because a politician is a woman does not mean she will necessarily follow one suit of action or another. A female president might make different decisions than a male chief executive, but those deviations would simply be a result of her being a different person—and not her being a woman. Until we abandon sexist stereotypes, there is no way we will be able to embrace the concept of female leadership.
So as we celebrate the accomplishments and progress of other countries around the world, we must look inward and examine a harsh reality. Why aren’t we leading the way for women’s rights as we have for democratic rights? How can we expect to spread democracy abroad if there is none at home? Maybe someday, after even the smallest countries in the world have elected female leaders, we will finally realize that it is time we did, too.
