What Are The Chances of a Clinton or Fiorina Presidency?

Source: Fiorina: Gage Skidmore [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons Clinton:By United States Department of State (Official Photo at Department of State page) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

There are two American women seeking their party’s nomination for President: Carly Fiorina (Republican) and Hillary Clinton (Democrat). Were one of them to be elected, they would join what is largely a fraternity of men. Excluding figurehead monarchs (queens), only about 1-in-10 of the world’s heads of state are women. Of these 18 women, 11 were elected. Half are the first women to hold their nation’s highest political office. It’s interesting to consider the Clinton and Fiorina candidacies in light of how women come to occupy these customarily male power positions.

Historically, one of the most common paths to executive government office is kinship. Many women heads of state were the daughters or wives of political figures. Citizens (and political party leaders) are often more comfortable with a woman head of state if they believe that she is a “political surrogate” (stand-in) for a husband or father (especially if that man was a political martyr, or a founder of democracy). That’s especially true in countries with traditional gender roles (for example, Corazon Aquino, Benazir Bhutto, Indira Gandhi, and Violeta de Chamorro). There are aspects of political surrogacy in Hillary Clinton’s presidential run and Clinton likely benefits from the Clinton name and Bill’s proximity. Fiorina, however, won’t benefit from the political career of a husband or father.

The “insider path” is another frequent path to women’s executive political power. Some women heads of state demonstrated loyal party service and worked their way up through party hierarchies, but even these women usually come to power under unusual circumstances, such as a divided political party or party scandal (true of Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, and Angela Merkel, for example). In parliamentary systems where prime ministers are elected by parliament or granted the position based on the application of party rules, insider women have a better chance because they can bypass a potentially biased public. Like many women heads of state that were first accepted into the party elite as surrogates, but eventually became political insiders (like Bhutto, Gandhi, Aquino, and Bandaranaike), Hillary Clinton is now a political insider. Although she is an ardent supporter of the Republican Party, Carly Fiorina’s insider credentials are weak but if the party believes they need a woman on the ticket, or if the party is divided and she’s a compromise candidate, she has a chance, though more likely as a VP.

When people are fed up with politicians, “outsiders” have more of a chance. Some women heads of state are more “outsider” than “insider.” They come to power as their countries recover from brutal dictatorships, corrupt governments, scandal, or a transition to democracy. Michelle Bachelet of Chile is a good example. Outsider women typically have a dash of insider and benefit from a combination of government service experience and a past history of activism in pro-democratic or anti-corruption movements. This increases people’s trust they’ll serve democratic ends rather than use their power for personal gain and political repression. They usually benefit from gender stereotypes that women are more ethical, less corrupt, less selfish, and less violent than men. Clinton and Fiorina are both disadvantaged in this regard since Americans currently mistrust insider politicians (hurts Clinton) and mistrust corporations and their influence over American politics (hurts Fiorina). Although in some ways Fiorina is a political outsider she’s not the right kind. Meanwhile, Clinton’s stint as Secretary of State and the Benghazi scandal may prevent her from being seen as an ethical outsider. From this vantage point, Senator Elizabeth Warren may have been the best outsider woman candidate because the focus of her government service is consumer protections and regulation of the financial industry.

Things are changing. The unstated requirement that the president must have military command or combat experience has fallen away and many more women have law degrees (as did many past presidents). Women in formal politics are more accepted and less likely to be rejected for violating their traditional gender role (that's not to say that women politicians don't face gendered attacks but that's another story...). The number of women with the types of legislative and state executive experience leading to the White House is slowly growing. Organizations like Emily’s List provide support and funding for women’s election to office. Major political parties show greater willingness to support women candidates. And, according to a recent PEW report, about 75% of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents say men and women are equally qualified for political leadership (though 22% of Republicans and 9% of Democrats say men make better leaders). We're going in the direction of greater gender parity in formal politics. But the Pew Report also noted that 38% of Americans believe a major reason there aren’t more women in top elective office in the U.S. is that they're held to higher standards than men. More than a third (37%) say the nation is just not ready to elect female leaders.

References

Burn, S.M. (2010). Women Across Cultures: A Global Perspective (3rd edition). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Eagly, A. H., & Carli, L. L. (2007). Through the labyrinth: The truth about how women become leaders. Harvard Business Press.

Jalalzai, F. 2004. Women political leaders. Women and Politics, 26, 85-108.

Jalalzai, F. 2008. Women rule: Shattering the executive glass ceiling. Politics and Gender, 4, 205-231.

Jalalzai, F. (2013). Shattered, Cracked, Or Firmly Intact? Women and the Executive Glass Ceiling Worldwide. Oxford University Press, USA.