Kamala or how U.S.A. has a new chance to break the glass ceiling
Hillary Clinton declared that Kamala Harris has a new opportunity to surpass the most important goal ever achieved by women in the United States: to become Pres
Here we go again. America has a new opportunity to do something it should have done a long time ago: elect a woman as President of the nation.
It is not an easy road. Nor is it a matter of electing her just because she is a woman; however, up until now everything has revolved around being a woman: glass ceilings, the wage gap, the preponderant role in domestic chores..... The United States has a long history of male preponderance in politics. Kamala Harris has a great career, she is a politician and she is a woman.
Hillary Clinton knows the situation all too well. Eight years ago she was the nominee, but various circumstances prevented her from making it.
The world is deeply resistant to empowering women. Starting with the right to vote. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, New Zealand, England, and the United States were the first nations to open the ballot box to women. And nearly 70 years later, Sri Lanka was the first country to have its first woman Prime Minister.
So it's been a long, slow story.
Even the companies have the same story. Katharine Graham, CEO of The Washington Post, was in 1973 the first woman to lead a Fortune 500. Today only 10.8% of the Fortune 500 is led by women.
This is the metaphorical “glass ceiling” that has been coined to express the huge problem that it represents not only for women but for society as a whole, to have a natural boundary in their careers.
RELATED CONTENT
That is why Hillary Clinton said during the Democratic Convention: “Together, we have put many cracks in the highest and hardest glass ceiling (...). On the other side of that glass ceiling is Kamala Harris raising her hand and being sworn in as our 47th President of the United States.”
The United States has been slow to embark on this new path that other countries are now treading. The world currently has women presidents or prime ministers in Italy, Peru, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Trinidad and Tobago, Malta, Macedonia, Thailand and Mexico, where Claudia Sheinbaum will take office starting next October.
Latin America has had several female presidents: Cristina Fernandez in Argentina, Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, and Michelle Bachelet in Chile.
Again: it is not just about being women, but so far it has all been about being women. The United States has a new opportunity to consider Kamala Harris' proposals from a gender perspective and see the new option: a woman, with a lot of qualities, managing the reins of one of the world powers.
LEAVE A COMMENT:
Join the discussion! Leave a comment.