What Will It Take to Make A Woman President?

Reading Marianne Schnall's What Will It Take to Make A Woman President?, over the past month has been difficult. The book, a series of interviews with civic and business leaders exploring the role of gender in politics and leadership, decries a lack of progress, but is inherently optimistic.

Published in 2013, almost everyone interviewed in the book is certain that a woman president is imminent, and many call out an eventual presidential run by Hillary Clinton in 2016 as the expected breaking of this highest glass ceiling. If you had asked me the same question four years ago (or even four months ago), I would have answered similarly: not only was it time for America to elect a woman president, but that president should be Hillary Clinton.

We all know how that turned out, and most of us are still reeling. When I see the abhorrent actions of the current POTUS, I think of this passage in What Will It Take to Make A Woman President?, articulately astutely by Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi:

I can guarantee you: if you lower money and increase civility, you will have many more women. And that's what we have to do: create our own environment. We've been operating in an environment that has not been friendly to the advancement of women, especially now that it's become so harsh and so money driven.

(The preceding was an overview of the notes I took while reading Marianne Schnall's What Will It Take to Make A Woman President? in February 2017. Originally published on inthemargins.ca .)