Madam president: America’s wait for one seems to stretch on endlessly

In 1872, Victoria Clafflin Woodhull became the first woman to stand as a candidate in an American presidential election (for the Equal Rights Party). The spirited spiritualist chose the radical abolitionist Frederick Douglass as her running mate, albeit without seeking his consent or informing him. 

Also the first female broker on Wall Street, Woodhull was a suffragist. “They cannot roll back the rising tide of reform,” she said, according to popular accounts. “The world moves.” It could’ve been a historic year for US democracy, with a woman president and an African-American veep. 

As it happened, she was prevented from voting herself, received no electoral-college vote and an unknown number of popular votes. In any case, she couldn’t have voted in a world of unequal civil rights. One woman who tried to do so that November, Susan B. Anthony, was arrested. 

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In August 2020, Donald Trump pardoned her—but his executive grant of clemency drew outrage from American women, who argued Anthony had committed no crime and needed no pardon. After all, she had not paid a penny of her $100 fine for a reason.

Gender courses through the lifeblood of US democracy. The latest White House election that handed Trump a clear mandate to rule for the next four years was another flashpoint in the history of a long struggle. 

A full 152 years after Woodhull’s abortive bid, 2024 could have given America its first female president—and indeed, the first ‘of colour’—in Kamala Harris. In the event, it was Trump who created history by becoming only the second person in 132 years to be re-elected president after a break. 

Dashed hopes raise the question: Is America still unprepared for a woman president? The answer is more nuanced than what a gender lens alone may lead us to. Still, this is the third election where women have played a strong role and yet bitten the dust. 

Both the previous occasions featured Hillary Clinton. The first time around, in 2008, she was defeated in the primaries by Barack Obama. Appointed Secretary of State by Obama, she then lost to Trump in the 2016 presidential election, despite winning nearly 3 million more votes across the US. 

In both 2016 and 2024, the electoral-college victor, Trump, was accused of making misogynistic statements about his rival. So much so that millions participated in a worldwide women’s march in 2017 to protest Trump. 

Also read: The miscalculations that sent Kamala Harris to a devastating loss

The US capital Washington led, with about half-a-million marchers, the biggest one-day gathering in America until then. And yet, this year’s election seemed like a replay of the one in 2016. 

Once again, crude remarks were hurled at women, even as Harris made abortion rights a cornerstone of her campaign. With exit-poll data out, the bald facts stare at us. 

Fewer women voted for Harris in 2024 than for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020; Trump got the disproportionate support of men in general and Latino males in particular; and Harris won fewer votes from young voters and far fewer from the middle-aged. Harris did very well, though, with African-American women.

Sure, American voters were motivated by a range of concerns. Even so, it’s hard to overlook or gloss over the role played by a mix of class, ethnicity and gender, and a long history of patriarchy, in dashing hopes of a woman leading the world’s most powerful nation. 

Race and gender are notoriously difficult to unpack in US politics. And it would be no surprise to learn that both biases conspired to keep Harris out of the White House.

Also read: Donald Trump returns to White House with an unexpected win