Bob Barr

U.S. May Be Next to Elect a Female Leader

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

January 25, 2006

Winds of change are sweeping the globe, and they have nothing to do with Iraq, Afghanistan, terrorism, or even George W. Bush.

Citizens in countries from Western Europe to Africa to South America are electing women leaders in regions that have rarely—if ever—taken such steps in the past. Whether those winds reach the shores of the world's last superpower standing remains to be seen. But leaves are already rustling on the banks of both the Potomac and the Hudson rivers. Two political figures of national prominence—U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice—have their sails ready to catch that wind if it arrives.

It has been more than a quarter of a century since Margaret Thatcher—"The Iron Lady"—stunned the Western world by being elected to the prime ministership of our closest ally. That was a novelty to many Americans and was not seen as posing a true threat to the male dominance that has maintained a monopoly on the U.S. presidency since George Washington took our nation's first oath of office in the late 18th century. Many Americans remained vaguely aware that women had served as prime ministers in a number of other faraway lands with exotic names—Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan and Israel, among other countries whose names most Americans could not even pronounce. However, the notion that a member of the "fairer sex" could in fact rise to occupy the most powerful political post on the planet remained more a thing of Hollywood's imagination than of serious political analysis.

Events of the past three months, however, have cast this debate—if indeed it even remains such—in an entirely different light. Reflect for a moment on what has happened on the world stage just since November:

•Africa—a continent that has never elected a woman chief executive—has seen its first woman sworn in as a nation's chief executive, in Liberia. The transition from male rule to the new era was accomplished without bloodshed or upheaval on a continent hardly known for such transitions. The inaugural ceremony was given the imprimatur of the United States by having first lady Laura Bush attend.

•Germany, which has given the Western world some of its most iron-fisted male rulers—from Otto von Bismarck to the fiendish Adolf Hitler—has for the very first time elected a woman to serve as chancellor, Angela Merkel.

•In South America, the continent where the term "macho" was coined and still serves as the bedrock for much of its countries' social culture, Chile has just elected its first female president, Michelle Bachelet.

The achievements of none of these new leaders can be attributed to factors divorced from their skills and political acumen. Each had to fight long and hard to reach the point at which they would be taken seriously as a possible contender for the top job. Two— Bachelet of Chile and Liberia's Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf—served time in prison for political crimes. All three served with distinction in top posts in their governments prior to running for the top job.

Bachelet's election is particularly illustrative of the deep and wide changes that are sweeping our planet's political landscape. Virtually every taboo that in decades past would have argued against this 54-year-old woman being elected president was broken in the course of her ascension. She is an opponent of the current regime and was imprisoned and exiled by its earlier occupants; and she is a dedicated socialist in a country that has, since the 1973 coup that ousted the Marxist Salvador Allende, served as a tribute to free-market economics. In a continent with the strongest ties to the Catholic Church outside of the Vatican, not only is she a single mom, but she does not shy away from the fact that one of her children was born out of wedlock.

By every historical measure, none of these women should now be serving (or about to serve) as heads of state. Does this represent a true global trend or simply reflect a handful of isolated examples in which unusual national factors produce aberrations? I suspect that the future lies in the former description, not the latter.

The elections of both Merkel and Bachelet were preceded by periods in which the party in power had run the course of a lengthy stay at the helm. Malaise, if not unrest, was setting in, as was drift and fatigue with the governing crowd (sound familiar?). The culture of both countries and regions had already shifted in many respects from the post-World War II and subsequent Cold War mentality of the tough male as the very definition of the modern leader. Women had clearly proved their mettle in Cabinet posts; the daily news was being presented 24/7 on cable news networks overwhelmingly dominated by female broadcasters. The time for change had come, not as a shock or aberration, but as a smooth and logical step.

While that culture change in other continents does not automatically translate into a gender change at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., the seeds are not only sown but thriving. Whether Hillary Clinton or Condoleezza Rice, or another woman candidate, will reap the crop that has been thus sown remains to be seen; but the planet will no longer be knocked off its axis if she does.

Bob Barr occupies the 21st Century Liberties Chair for Freedom and Privacy at the American Conservative Union Foundation.