Vol. 5, Issue 10.
March 7, 2013.
What is wrong with you, America? America is one of the birthplaces of progressive ideals, of first-wave feminism, and the country of Susan B. Anthony and the women’s suffrage movement. We are a country that prides itself on being one of the leaders of women’s rights, at least more so than other countries, where women, according to some reports, rank higher in inequality than Americans.
Yet it has been Argentina, the Philippines, Chile and England who have elected female leaders. Even Pakistan elected Benazir Bhutto as Prime Minister - a country which ranks 134 out of 135 according to the World Gender Gap Report, published by the Global Economic Forum.
In Mexico, a country where the machismo culture can be predominant, a female candidate won her party’s nomination in the 2012 Mexican presidential elections. Josefina Vasquez Mota was nominated by PAN (Partido Acción Nacional, the National Action Party) in the Mexican presidential elections, by a party that is considered to be far-right and conservative on the political spectrum.
Senora Vasquez Mota recently visited the University of St. Thomas, and spoke eloquently on how she will continue to fight for the betterment of her people, in spite of her loss of the presidential race.
Angela Merkel, a member of the Christian Democratic Party (similarly a right-leaning, conservative party) has managed to keep Germany from succumbing to the European economic crisis, even leading her country to help bolster the rest of Europe.
More recently, Park Gyun-Hye was elected the first female President of South Korea. Again, her party, the Saunuri, or Grand National Party, is the conservative party of country, both in economic and to some degree, social policies. In a dim sort of irony, these political ideologies are most often demonized as anti-woman, yet they have elected women as their party and country leaders.
Again, what is wrong, America? Hillary Clinton did not even manage to win the Democratic Party’s nomination: American Democrats, who are the party that champions women’s rights; yet they could not even help a woman break through the glass ceiling that has held back American women from attaining the presidency. Though she was awarded the prestigious position as Secretary of State, she did not get any closer to the presidency.
I am not complaining about a lack of women’s rights in America. In comparison to others, America can be a better place for women. This isn’t ethnocentrism speaking, but facts: the Gender Gap Report breaks down variables of educational access, economic participation and opportunity, access to healthcare, and political empowerment to measure equality. The United States currently ranks as 22, with the Nordic/Scandinavian countries of Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden ranking as the top four, respectively. So the next time you think of shouting “USA is Number 1!!”, stop and think of this data: American women’s political empowerment earned a score of 55. Similarly, Mexico - which ranks 84 overall - earned a political empowerment score of 48; barely better than the United States.
Again, by comparison, America is still a great country. Yet when it comes to the political discourse, there a scant 20 female senators, something which has been hailed as a historical milestone, as it is the most female senators ever elected into office.
This disparity has not always been a glaring one: it was not until I attending Senora Vasquez’s lecture did I sit up and notice the difference in economic and educational ranking (with the United States far outreaching Mexico’s). It should mean American women have greater political empowerment. We do...barely.