Don's Home > Politics > 2024 Results > Female President

last updated 26 Nov

In my page which followed the 2024 presidential polls I expressed fears that misogyny and xenophobia would determine the results.
Post election analysis was still going on 3 weeks after the election and there were a variety of issues which affected the results. I didn't see any which tried to rank sexism among those factors.

Why America Still Doesn't Have a Female President Every woman is the wrong woman. By Olga Khazan, The Atlantic

Females in Politics:
We've never had a female president, but women make up nearly a third of Congress. Twelve governors are women.

Members of Congress, meanwhile, aren't held to this same macho standard. There are more of them, they individually have less power, and they are seen as servants of the people. They're middle managers to the president's big boss.

Female heads of state tend to emerge in countries--including Germany and the United Kingdom--that have parliamentary systems, in which leaders are chosen by political parties, not by voters.

Some Female heads of government.

When researchers ask voters to list the traits that they want in a president, they rate masculine-coded traits, such as strength, as more important than feminine-coded ones, such as compassion.

Will Americans ever elect a woman president? | KQED Forum 11-13-2024 9AM | Apple Podcast
Many factors contributed to Vice President Kamala HarrisÕ loss in the 2024 election. But for those hoping that Americans would elect the countryÕs first woman president Ñ especially when picking between a Black and Asian woman and an adjudicated rapist Ñ her defeat stung deeply. At the same time, 45% of female voters Ð and a majority of white women voters Ð cast their ballots for president-elect Donald Trump. WeÕll talk about the roles racism and sexism could have played in this election, and whether the U.S. could have a female president in our lifetimes.

Some points made in the discussion:

This tight race is, in part, about sexist backlash. But feminists can lash back, too Moira Donegan, The Guardian.
"There's one story of the 2024 presidential contest that says that this election is all about men, and their anger. Men, in this account, have gotten a raw deal: the decline of the industrial economy in the years since the postwar boom means that many of the jobs that gave dignity, structure, and steady paychecks to their fathers are now gone, and some men, especially those without college degrees, have fallen into a cycle of desperation and despair, unable to make the kind of living for which they could respect themselves."

Seth Masket, a professor of political science and the director of the Center on American Politics at the University of Denver and author of "Learning From Loss" warns of of blaming Harris' loss on misogyny, without any hard evidence has the danger of discouraging qualified women from running in the future.
He said "22% of the men I spoked to said she lost because of her sex, 77% of the women I spoke to held that view."

Links:
Nine experts on why the United States hasnÕt elected a woman president yet Ñ and whether it ever will. | Politico