According to this Liberia gets the first female president in Africa.
England had Thatcher
India had Indira Gandhi
Pakistan had Benazir Bhutto
Germany has Angela Merkel
And now Liberia has Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf
Why is the U.S. behind the rest of the world in this respect?
“Rest of the world”? I’d be extremely surprised if a majority of the countries of the world have had female heads of state. Rather, England, India, Pakistan, Germany and Liberia (and a few others, Finland and Iceland coming immediately to mind) are ahead of the rest of us.
Let’s not be picky here. If you like, you can consider the question:
“Why is the U.S. behind England, India, Pakistan, Germany and Liberia in this respect?”
Or more generally:
“Why hasn’t the U.S. elected a woman president yet?”
Why haven’t we elected a woman president yet? Because one would have to run for the nomination of one of the major parties, win the nomination, run in the general, and win in the general.
A woman just needs to run and win. Not very complicated, is it?
Why hasn’t France had a woman president? Why hasn’t Spain? Is France less progressive than Germany because Germany just elected a woman chancellor and France hasn’t?
Sheer luck? 
That’s a man, baby! 
Never would have happened w/o he being the daugher of Nehru.
Daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
Meh. Our time will come. If not Hillary or Condi, then someone else. Of course if it’s Hillary, we will be following in the renowned 3rd World tradition of electing wives or daughters of former Presidents.
Us not having a female president is us “behind the rest of the world”? How so? Is there some competition I don’t know about? Would a female president solve our problems? Have we had a serious female nominated by a serious party?
This is lame.
You left out Merkel
Well, it would be a start.
Do you guys think that most Americans consider women to be equally capable of running the country, or are we not there yet?
No, I think American women are smart enough not to run. Being President is like being Queen. Every hour of every day is listed on some assistant’s day-planner. You can’t go to the bathroom without a reporter turning it into a story.
Do you seriously think women don’t run because of this? What is your evidence?
There’s so far ahead of us, they’ve even had black presidents!
Actually, maybe. Compared with other european countries, France doesn’t do particularily well re. women’s presence in the political arena.
Though we had a female prime minister. Who also was an absolute failure. After losing the job, she was made one of France’s commisioner in Bruxelles. And had the EU commission engulfed in a scandal of her making and resign in whole.
I think Magiver was just riffing on how much of a farce political life has become. Someone (Reagan?) once said that “Politics is show-business for ugly people.” Now politicians have their own paparazzi, turning every bad bad photo or out of context quote into a story.
You seemed to have missed Lemur866’s questions. I’ll re-post them as I’m interested in your thoughts.
Female presidents are to male presidents as DVD players are to VCRs. If you haven’t got one yet, you’re behind the times. Get with it!
A minor distinction should be made between “head of state” and “head of government”. Canada has had two female heads of state (Queens Victoria and Elizabeth II), several female resentatives of the head of state (Governors-General Michaelle Jean, Adrienne Clarkson, Jeanne Sauvé) and one female head of government (Kim Campbell).
No, but feel free to take the evening off and have some fun.
Most Americans? Yes. All Americans? No.
As I’ve said before, I think the first woman president (as well as the first Black president) in the US will be a Republican. A woman or minority is more likely to “steal” some votes away from his/her Democratic challenger than vice versa. I wouldn’t really count Hillary, though, since she follows Bill. I’m talking about the first woman or Black to make it to the top w/o riding a relative’s coattails.
Perhaps a parliamentary system helps. Here people primarily vote for parties and not so much for candidates.
e.g. Merkel rose within the party hierarchy over the years. By the time she was chosen as a candidate - by people who had known her for many years - she was already an obvious choice. In direct comparisons of the candidates she polled behind Schröder consistently but the chancellor isn’t elected directly.
Merkel wasn’t elected. She was negotiated in.
That’s an interesting point. Did Thatcher get her position the same way, or was she elected directly?