Issue date: 2/9/06 Section: News

What do Chile and Liberia have in common?

They just elected their first female president.

These are only two from a list of many countries where women currently reside in powerful leadership positions. New Zealand, Bangladesh and Mozambique, for example, all currently have female prime ministers and Germany just elected its first female chancellor.

With the increase of female leadership in other countries, many people wonder if this trend will continue in the United States, particularly in the upcoming presidential election in 2008.

Katharine Romack, professor of Women's Studies at University of West Florida, said the United States is theoretically ready for a woman president, but it will depend on the candidates and whether or not they are "packaged well in the media."

There is a lot of expectation that Sen. Hillary Clinton D-NY will run for the office.

"The public image of Clinton has been so damaged in the media that voters will not be able to extricate her stand on policy from her reputation as 'dishonest' and 'corrupt'," Romack said.

Mary Ruud, director of Women's Studies at UWF agrees.

"Senator Clinton, as most people already know, would polarize the vote to a great extent, mostly because of who she is rather than what her capabilities are," Rudd said.

With the spotlight that has been placed on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during the Bush administration, she seems to be the most-likely female Republican candidate.

Romack does not foresee Rice running for the office, however.

"Rice has far too little political experience," she said.

Ruud agreed.

"In Dr. Rice's case, running for office and being appointed are two very different things," she said. "Although she might be highly respected as an appointed official, the story could be very different if she were running for office."

Currently, there are vastly more men than women residing in U.S. representative roles. As Ruud said, women only constitute 14 percent of the U.S. House of Representatives, and 14 percent of the U.S. Senate.

She said she doubts a woman will win the presidency until these numbers increase.

Another interesting issue is whether or not women generally gravitate towards certain political parties and positions.

"In the case of the senators and representatives, almost twice as many are Democrats as Republicans, and there are only 2 of 8 female governors who are Republican," Ruud said.

Amy Steinmetz, a fine arts major at UWF, said women are generally better leaders for some positions, such as organizational ones.

She said she doesn't think people should be gender-blind when it comes to politics.

"We need to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of both sexes, not condoning the demeaning of women and idolizing the strengths of men; but we can't talk about the issues without recognizing the character of the people they concern," Steinmetz said.

Don Lott, psychology major at UWF, disagreed.

"I don't think there's a gender-defining role for anything," Lott said.

Lott told his plan for remedying the controversy of gender distinctions. He said we should put the candidates in a black box, ask them questions, and then alter their voices so we cannot distinguish things like gender.

Since that is not likely to happen, Lott recognized that whether good or bad, gender distinctions are an inevitable part of the political process, at least at this point in America's history.

Whatever influence issues such as these may have on potential voters, Steinmetz and Lott both agree that for a woman to be elected president, she will have to work harder and have a better resume than a man in her position.

Mary Lowe-Evans, Chair of the Department of English and Foreign Relations and Professor of Women's Studies, said she thought it would take even more for a woman to be elected over a man.

"She would have to have a cleaner record than a man too; that is, she would not be forgiven if she had used narcotics, or had a history of drinking or sexual promiscuity."

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools