Kathryn Carley, reporter/producer, New Hampshire News Connection, a bureau of Public News Service.
Vice President Kamala Harris has reignited enthusiasm among voters this election season, yet polls show not everyone is ready for a woman president.
More than 50% of respondents in a recent YouGov poll believe a woman can serve as commander in chief. However, that’s down from more than 60% in 2015.
Still, University of New Hampshire Professor Emerita of History Ellen Fitzpatrick, author of “The Highest Glass Ceiling: Women’s Quest for the American Presidency,” said Harris is boosted by voters’ concerns about the state of democracy and a younger generation looking for change.
“And in that context,” said Fitzpatrick, “the gender question seems to be not very salient to me.”
The bar is set higher for women
Fitzpatrick said women often have to work harder than men to prove they’re qualified for a job. Over 30% of Democrats surveyed said Harris needed a man as her running mate.
Fitzpatrick noted that Harris’ campaign would not be possible without the women trailblazers who came before her. That list includes former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, and Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm of New York. Chisholm became the first African American woman to seek a presidential nomination in 1972.
Fitzpatrick said Chisholm foresaw early on the coalition of working-class people, women, and minorities who’ve coalesced behind Harris today.
“It was her central insight,” said Fitzpatrick, “that younger voters and all of these other groups might provide the basis for the election of the nation’s first woman president.”
Still, Fitzpatrick noted there will always be some voters opposed to a woman leading the country and who believe women are incapable of making decisions related to war and peace.
A Pew Research Center poll finds only one in four U.S. adults believe it’s extremely or very likely that the U.S. will elect a woman president in their lifetime.
Support for this reporting was provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
