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The same way that racism was not solved simply by passing constitutional amendments, nor by having a black president of the United States, one candidate or future president of the United States alone can’t break the glass ceiling. Not even the most qualified candidate of recent generations, with an incomparable resume devoted to public service. Hillary Clinton’s loss in the presidential elections of 2016 teaches us a great lesson about what is still left to accomplish in the fight for equality. It really does take a village.
The same way that racism was not solved simply by passing constitutional amendments, nor by having a black president of the United States, one candidate or future president of the United States alone can’t break the glass ceiling
It isn’t important that previously unthinkable goals be achieved. Winning more votes doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that a vision of greater minority representation be promoted. Indeed, none of those things matter when done by one person alone. And they were.
The truth of our world is that, whether we like her politics or ideas, Hillary represents all of the aforementioned things. She was, without question, the candidate with the most complete resume in public service of our time. Her career has at no moment has stopped being in the service of improving the lives of others. She achieved what many women before here were unable to in securing the presidential nomination of a major political party. She won around 3 million more votes than Trump in the election. Hillary had everything in her favor to surpass the ultimate challenge and still was unable. She didn’t even show up to the glass-ceilinged venue chosen by her campaign to make her victory speech, should she have won the election that fateful night.
Hillary had everything in her favor to surpass the ultimate challenge and still was unable
For as horrific as society considers Trump’s unfettered misogyny, it’s still more comfortable with that than the novelty of women occupying positions of greater responsibility. We see this in the statistics of female participation in politics around the West, where it’s rare that they make up even half of a Parliament. We can see it in the ever-persistent wage gap. Women in the richest country in the world are also the only ones in the world who do not, by law, have the right to even a single week of paid maternity leave.
A presidente has the capacity to effect changes in all of these policies. They have the potential to create progress on equality. But they wouldn’t be able to transform society themselves alone. They need the support of congressmen, of governors, of city laws, of corporate boards, of volunteer organizations. They especially need society’s confidence in the participation of women, even at the highest ranks, is beneficial to everyone. Even more so when they have the equity they need to make their own choices about their lives. Without this, the glass remains unbroken.