The United States of America is unquestionably the ideal emblem of democracy in the world, having made great strides in many ways, including liberal politics, and it still grapples with the magnanimous under-representation of women in nearly all positions of political leadership.
One of the most important issues for observers, and an issue that must be discussed, is why are there very few women in positions of national political leadership in Western liberal democracies.
This discussion would concentrate on a single nation, in this case, the United States of America, and offer insight into why this is happening.
Background Information
From several research studies conducted by different stakeholders and at different times, it has been found out that there are actually no differences between the leadership styles of either women of men. Actually, the performance appraisal of women is similar to that of their male counterparts if not better. There is no indication whatsoever from a look at electoral success, or number of votes among other parameters to suggest that those of women are much lower than those of the men. However, despite all these, there seems to be a wide disparity in the number of women having ever held political leadership positions in not only the United States but the entire sphere of western liberal democracies. This is of great concern to anyone, in an age where gender equality is highly vouched for and supported by many.
One of the ironies of women in political leadership especially in the United States is that, over the past ten years, there has been some very prolific women rising to political positions and being a great source of motivation and serving to prove wrong the narrative that women maybe weak or that they cannot deliver.
Among this category are women notably Nancy Pelosi, Sarah Palin and the most recent being Hillary Clinton. These are individuals who held nothing back, and evidenced that being a woman is no hindrance to one's political ambition. This brings into limelight one great concern, the issue of lack of women’s political ambition or fear or any other reason that discourages them for aiming to join politics. Apparently, there seems to be a huge gap in interest in political matters among the women. Therefore, following this discussion, it is obvious that on their part, women are not particularly lacking in ability to deliver when in political leadership, but more they lack interest or the ambition to vie for these offices. For this reason, it would be critical to understand and investigate the factors that bring this into play, understanding and answering the question; what discourages women to join politics?
Factors Hindering and Impeding Women from Wanting To Join Politics
Ambition is the center piece that determines the success of an individual. Unless one has the ambition to do something, even if they are forced to do it they will end up performing poorly in it because it was not from their own volition. For women, research has indicated that of all the possible factors in play, there are specific aspects that have served to cause lower ambitions to vie for positions of political leadership among the women. At the same time, these parameters may have complicated affairs for the women hence discouraging many potential suitable candidates. One glaring shock about this whole thing is that, there is no specific political office that is shunned or preferred by the women, the trend cuts across board. For instance, the following are the leadership position in the United States political arrangement; Senators, House of Representatives, Governors, Elected officials, Legislators and Mayors. Yet in all these roles, the trend is the same, with a wide dominance of males across the country. Research shows some of the factors leading to this unfavorable and heartbreaking trend at this day and age to be the following.
First and foremost, women in a higher level, tend to consider the electoral field as more biased towards men and very competitive than their male counterparts.
This intuition has served to work against the women over the years. From a study of previous elections and a case study at how women perform when pitted against men in political races over the past few decades, it has been seen that the women are as likely to win as the male, and there has never been any indication in any way to suggest that people would prefer a man to a woman for any political office. This assumption is simply an interior intuition that actually does more harm than good as far as women running for political office are concerned. Most just assume that the playing field is not level and forces are conniving and structured to work against them and that they will more likely lose than win if they vied for office against other men vying for the same. This factor alone has served to dissuade and discourage many suitable and potential female candidates from vying for offices.
Another factor that may seem to be of minimal effect but with far-reaching negative effects than many may be willing to admit were the candidacies of the two high profile women, them being Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton.
It has already been elaborated that women have an assumption that the political landscape is orchestrated to work against them and favor males, thus when two women were on the verge of rising to some of the highest political offices of the land, it being the vice presidency and the presidency for Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton respectively, although, at different seasons, the narrative of bias against women was further emphasized. From their keynote speeches, both Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton emphasized how their candidatures and potential wins would be landmark victories to entire women species worldwide. By so doing, these two individuals cemented the notion of bias against women vying for political office deep into the hearts of every woman listening to them. It served to confirm their greatest fear that politics is extremely difficult and does not favor women, further discouraging other women with similar aspirations from ever trying to venture into this area.
The third factor is also not any less different from the first two, with it being that women have been found to be likeliest to imagine that they are unqualified to run for any political office when compared to men.
It is all questions of perception; most women tend to feel inferior and regard themselves as not qualified at all to run for office compared to men, whom majority regarded themselves as totally qualified to run for whatever office. Furthermore, the reason behind this self-victimization may be due to less exposure and interaction with policies and also candidates vying for political office. The women also felt that they would likely not win even if they vied for office, often regarding themselves as underdogs even for no reason at all for them to feel this way.
Also, a factor that has served to work against the women as far as political leadership positions are concerned is that most women, more so that have the greatest potential to be good leaders tend to be less confident not to mention less competitive than their male counterparts.
At the same time, they tend to be more risk avoiding, attributes that cannot ogre well for anyone who wants to join politics at any level. Politics is a highly competitive race and one is doomed if they have no competitiveness within them. As far as this is concerned, women have a lot to do in regards to working on their attitudes if they wish to see a reversal of the narrative from male domination to female majority in political affairs.
The trend of negative attitudes and perceptions on the women’s part continues, this time is not in regards to their personal traits but in regards to aspects of politics that are critical and fundamentally important in order to see one succeed in the political arena.
As far as this is concerned, apparently women are technically shooting themselves in the foot; they hold in little regard the same aspects that will guarantee their landing a political office. They regard negatively matters such as soliciting of funds for campaigns, having to engage in negative campaigns to their advantage, going door to door to meet potential supporters, having to deal with party officials, the grim reality of having to spend less time with family and loved ones and also the unavoidable attribute of public scrutiny. These same things are the natty gritty details that serve to propel any candidate to success in the electoral process. Vying for political office demands that a candidate must be ready to play dirty to their advantage when the situation so demands, one cannot afford to be soft or play cool. Unfortunately, even for those women qualified to be good leaders, this seems a bit too much for them, and they opt not to vie for any office in the long run.
Conclusion
Apart from mentioning the fact that most women are basically the key family stakeholders being mainly involved in aspects of raising kids and running the household which may serve as a deterrent to most women, the factors discussed above seem to be among the major inhibitors to women’s involvement in political affairs. As far as this is concerned, there is a lot to be done and much ground that needs to be covered to change the narrative from male domination before we are able to see gender parity in matters politics or any other leadership for that matter. The main hindrance is the attitude that women hold in regards to themselves and politics as a whole. The feelings of inferiority and non-existent bias to themselves be what deter many women for ever considering vying for any office. It is a high time that stakeholders find ways to address the negative attitude that many women hold against politics as a whole. Until the problem is tackled first with the women themselves, the status quo may just remain the same.
Bibliography
Krook, Mona Lena, and Pippa Norris. “Beyond quotas: Strategies to promote gender equality in elected office.” Political Studies 62, no. 1 (2014): 2-20.
McBride, Dorothy E., and Janine A. Parry. Women’s rights in the USA: Policy debates and gender roles. Routledge, 2016.
Sen, Gita, and Avanti Mukherjee. “No empowerment without rights, no rights without politics: Gender-equality, MDGs and the post-2015 development agenda.” Journal of Human Development and Capabilities 15, no. 2-3 (2014): 188-202.
Waylen, Georgina. “Informal institutions, institutional change, and gender equality.” Political Research Quarterly 67, no. 1 (2014): 212-223.
