# Why no women presidents? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 20, 2001, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-women-presidents/51034 "2001-01-20T17:13:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![labdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/5fc32e/32.png) [@labdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/labdude)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2001, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-women-presidents/51034/21 "2001-01-21T16:37:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by wbricks \* > \*\*Interesting thing to ponder, but I’d wager that if say it was Colin Powell that beat Al Gore, he would be assasinated. It’s a horrible thing to say, but I know I would be afraid for my life to be the first black President. We have a history of killing Presidents who too strongly supported non-whites (Lincoln, Kennedy) - imagine what would happen to a President who wasn’t white? > \*\* You cannot logically infer that kennedy and Lincoln were shot because of their support for black people. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2001, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-women-presidents/51034/22 "2001-01-21T17:09:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by home schooled \* > \*\*The Phillipines now has a second woman head. > > Denmark has had several queens lately, haven’t they? \*\* Yes, re the Philippines, but she was not elected as President, but as Vice President. Gloria Arroyo just replaced Estrada on his resignation. Also, queens don’t count, as they are not elected. There have been plenty in history back to ancient times. > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by wbricks_ > **We have a history of killing Presidents who too strongly supported non-whites (Lincoln, Kennedy)** Hmmm…so where do the two assassination attempts on Ford and one on Reagan fit in that pattern then? We mostly have a history of assassins being nuts, rather than doing it for any particular political reason. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2001, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-women-presidents/51034/23 "2001-01-21T18:32:25Z")
This is down a level from women as heads of national or federal governments, but Prince Edward Island in 1993 was the first Canadian province to have two women square off against each other for the Premier’s chair: Catherine Callbeck ran for the Liberals, and Pat Mella for the Progressive Conservatives. (I believe there was a guy running for the N.D.P., but that party never does well in PEI.) Ms. Callbeck’s party won the election, so she became the first woman elected Premier of a Canadian province, and Ms. Mella became the first female Leader of the Opposition in PEI. [Women in Prince Edward Island Politics](http://www.gov.pe.ca/election/provincial/historical/women/index.php3) ---
**Author:** ![keeper0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b19c9b/32.png) [@keeper0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/keeper0)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-women-presidents/51034/24 "2001-01-22T05:02:28Z")
Many thanks to Wendell for the details and analyis. It is easy for me to not comprehend the social changes in the 15-20 years preceeding my earliest memories (~1976). We are getting closer to having a woman President as more women gain positions of power in the Republican party. It is my pet theory that the first African-American President and the first woman President will each be Republicans. For the same rationale as “Only Nixon could go to China.” This theory is based on the observation that political women and African Americans are often perceived and categorized as being further left than their records and statements warrant. In order to capture the moderate center that is crucial to a presidential election, a woman would have to be politically right of center. I suspect this insidious bias will outlast the “bitch factor” analysis or chauvinism, and will hinder Democrat women candidates until we get our own version of Margaret Thatcher to blaze the trail. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-women-presidents/51034/25 "2001-01-22T09:04:58Z")
I think is it because both parties are afraid of loosing if they do. But really (since you ranted), instead of being concerned about he gender of our elected officials, how about just trying to get the best person for the job. for the sake of the forum …enough said ---
**Author:** ![Damhna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@Damhna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damhna)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-women-presidents/51034/26 "2001-01-22T09:18:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by scratch1300 \* > \*\* > (A good question: _Has_ any country elected two or more women to head of state? _I_ can’t think of any, but I’ll admit I’m ignorant and too lazy to look it up. > \*\* Yup…Ireland is currently enjoying the steady helwomanship provided by our second (consecutive) female president. Finland also recently elected a woman president Tarja Halonen. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-women-presidents/51034/27 "2001-01-22T10:41:30Z")
[QUOTE] \*Originally posted by Damhna \* \*\* > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by scratch1300 \* > Yup…Ireland is currently enjoying the steady helwomanship provided by our second (consecutive) female president. > \*\* Also interesting to note that 4 out of 5 candidates at the last presidential election are women. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-women-presidents/51034/28 "2001-01-22T12:59:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by k2dave \* > \*\*I think is it because both parties are afraid of loosing if they do. But really (since you ranted), instead of being concerned about he gender of our elected officials, how about just trying to get the best person for the job. > > for the sake of the forum …enough said \*\* So the “best person for the job” is always a man? That’s all we’ve had so far: 43 to 0. Kind of lopsided. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-women-presidents/51034/29 "2001-01-22T13:44:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jomo Mojo \* > \*\*I would vote for Hillary, but my hope is especially on Chelsea in 2016. Go Chelsea! \*\* I’ve been saying that if the Democrats run a Gore/Clinton (as in Hillary) ticket in 2004, the Republicans might as well nominate a dead guy for all the chance they have. I also have felt since the first time I saw her that Chelsea Clinton is just destined for greatness. I don’t know how or why, but she will make history. I just know it. ---
**Author:** ![john\_e\_wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3da27b/32.png) [@john\_e\_wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/john_e_wagner)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-women-presidents/51034/30 "2001-01-22T13:58:07Z")
Wendell Wagner – \>\>Fifth, for those of you not old enough to remember any \>\>time before 1970, it’s only been about three or four \>\>decades that the idea of a women becoming president has \>\>even been thinkable anywhere in the world. Remember, the \>\>women’s liberation movement (as a mass movement, not as a \>\>set of intellectual manifestos) dates from about 1970. \>\>It’s a decade younger than the civil rights movement and \>\>about the same age as the gay liberation movement. Yes, \>\>there were some important writings in the early '60’s, \>\>but I think of those as being intellectual manifestos, \>\>not a signs of a mass movement. Um what about Cady Stanton fredrick Douglas, and Susan B. Anthony in the late 1800’s? They were campaigning for voting rights for blacks and women. (THey parted ways when Douglas found it expedient to focus on black voting rights, which is ironic because women were actually able to use sufrage in America and in a large part of America it was in name only for blacks until the 60’s. So I think you are off by about 100 years. John ---
**Author:** ![Danimal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bb73d2/32.png) [@Danimal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Danimal)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-women-presidents/51034/31 "2001-01-22T15:01:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jomo Mojo \* > **Seems kind of weird that no women have ever been elected president of the United States. Lots of other countries have elected women leaders. What’s wrong with this one?** It _is_ strange. The Democrats have many more women in Congress than the Republicans, yet it is only the Republicans that I have heard give any consideration to nominating a woman for president (Jean Kirkpatrick back in the '80s, Elizabeth Dole in 2000). That may change in '04, as some have considered nominating Hillary Clinton, despite her exceedingly slender credentials for the office. (Apparently being married to the president and serving 4 years in the Senate is considered a better qualification than serving 12 years in the Senate and 10 years as mayor of San Francisco, as Dianne Feinstein will have done by '04). And as other posters have pointed out, societies where sexism is more prevalent than than in America (including Pakistan, for Pete’s sake!) have nevertheless elected female leaders. > [@](#): > > \*\*The idea that you have to have a big boss man in charge finds its ultimate result in dictators like Saddam Hussein. Father knows best and all that. > \*\* Historically, female leaders have proven themselves just as capable of violence and oppression as male ones; note China’s Empress Wu and Jiang Qing, England’s Queen Mary, and France’s Catherine de Medicis. I agree that the “big boss” need not be a man, but it is foolish to expect that opening leadership to women somehow will prevent dictatorship. That said, I am a big fan of Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, Corazon Aquino, and Violeta Chamorro. Most of this century’s female heads of government have been well above average, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![ticker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@ticker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ticker)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-women-presidents/51034/32 "2001-01-22T15:16:37Z")
IMO Thatcher only became PM by being more hard nosed, aggressive and downright unpleasant than her male counterparts. i.e. she over-emphasised normally masculin traits. We are still waiting for a leader who can claim to be representative of women in general. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-women-presidents/51034/33 "2001-01-22T15:56:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ticker \* > \*\*We are still waiting for a leader who can claim to be representative of women in general. \*\* That’s why I would like to see Chelsea go for it. In the meantime, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (Bobby Kennedy’s daughter) is the lieutenant governor of Maryland, and people are saying she looks really good. I hope she will achieve more and more on the national level. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-women-presidents/51034/34 "2001-01-22T16:22:54Z")
john\_e\_wagner writes: \> In a message dated 1/21/01 10:23:35 PM Eastern Standard Time, [gfunk@junction.net](mailto:gfunk@junction.net) writes: \> Um what about Cady Stanton fredrick Douglas, and Susan B. \> Anthony in the late 1800’s? O.K., notice that I’m trying to make a perhaps arcane distinction here. The women’s liberation movement of the early '70’s, which advocated women actually reaching political offices and important professions, and in large numbers, is not the same as the suffragists, which advocated women being given the vote and being given legal status to own property and such. The overall women’s movement, I contend, had stalled by the '50’s. Women had the vote and legal status, but very few women were in inportant professions or in important political offices. The renewed movement, whose intellectual origins started in the early '60’s and only got going as a mass movement in the early '70’s, is what brought women into political office in substantial numbers, although still not in anything like equal numbers. ---
**Author:** ![manhattan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manhattan/32/7_2.png) [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-women-presidents/51034/35 "2001-01-22T16:33:00Z")
I think this question has been adequately answered. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-women-presidents/51034/36 "2001-01-22T16:44:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ticker \* > \*\*IMO Thatcher only became PM by being more hard nosed, aggressive and downright unpleasant than her male counterparts. i.e. she over-emphasised normally masculin traits. We are still waiting for a leader who can claim to be representative of women in general. \*\* OK, this is the kind of thinking I get annoyed at. So Margret Thatcher wasn’t a “real” woman? Any woman who doesn’t fit your stereotype of what women should be doesn’t represent women? Please. And anyone who thinks Hillary or Gore have a shot at the presidency are simply engaging in wishful thinking. Face facts. Now, why don’t we have a female president? Well, a high profile female governor, senator, or victorious general has to run for president first. Every president for the last hundred years or so has held one of those jobs first. Make a list of the female senators and governors and try to get them to run. Oh, and they are going to have to be pretty much political moderates too, so forget the Barbara Boxers and such. We could have a female president in 04, easily, as long as a qualified candidate RUNS. ---
**Author:** ![ticker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@ticker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ticker)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-women-presidents/51034/37 "2001-01-22T17:10:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lemur866 \* > **OK, this is the kind of thinking I get annoyed at. So Margret Thatcher wasn’t a “real” woman? Any woman who doesn’t fit your stereotype of what women should be doesn’t represent women? Please.** 1. Thatcher represented conservative views which did not promote an independant, progressive role for women - except for herself. Womens rights were conspicuously negelcted by Thatcherism. She was despised by many groups who promoted womens issues. 2. Politics is dominated by aggresive men. IMHO there is room in politics for a more compassionate, less combative style. I believe women are more likely to bring this, without being any less strong (e.g. Mo Mowlem). Thatcher certainly did not an ounce of compassion (except perhaps for Apartheid and General Pinochet). 3. If you want to continue this lets move to Great Debates or the Pit. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2001, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-women-presidents/51034/38 "2001-01-22T18:15:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ticker \* > \*\*3) If you want to continue this lets move to Great Debates or the Pit. \*\* I think that’s what **manhattan** was hinting three posts up, guys. 😉 Any further elaboration shoud go to GD. (Probably not Pitworthy just yet.) ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2001, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-women-presidents/51034/39 "2001-01-23T13:47:52Z")
> [@](#): > > So the “best person for the job” is always a man? That’s all we’ve had so far: 43 to 0. Kind of lopsided. kind of - maybe but lets inject some reality here. Women were not concidered part of the election process (on both giving and receiving ends) till, at least, they had the right to vote - so starting back at George Washington is not a true comparson. but still ‘kind of lopsided’ none the less. Here’s the other part of the reality check - the genders are NOT equal and will never be equal no more then a chair is equal to a table. I’m not saying one gender is ‘better’ then the other - just they tend to fill certain roles in society. - if you want to go any further with this discussion/debate, please restart this thread in the correct forum (the pit or GD). ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2001, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-women-presidents/51034/40 "2001-01-23T16:13:38Z")
I never said the sexes are equal. Women are naturally superior. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-women-presidents/51034.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-women-presidents/51034.md?page=3)