Is Hillary Clinton Fit to Lead? - New Studies in the Past Raise This Important Question

It seems like everyone is talking about the next Presidential elections already. The problem is, they're still more than a year and a half away. Nonetheless, both parties seem like they're already picking their favorites. On the Democratic side, it looks like it's going to be between two firsts: a woman, Hillary Clinton, and an African-American, Barack Obama. Both of these have large appeal as Americans love to support the underdog. They're even saying, for Obama, that it's the first time an African-American stands a really good chance of making it all the way to the Presidency. For Hillary, it's even more virgin territory. Receiving more than 50% support in polls (conducted by Time), she may very well make it as the official Democratic candidate and she would be the first woman from one of the two major political parties to ever make it that far. She's got massive attention; practically everyone knows her and knows she's running for President. She's got plenty of money to run her campaign and plenty more on the way (being married to a two-term former President will help with that). But world history and even current trends suggest that her bid for Presidency may be a failed attempt from the beginning.

Let's start with current trend. According to Gallup polls, the possibility of a woman running for President has been steadily gaining support among the general public. However, that gain in support still only leads to about 50% to 66% of people being willing to vote for a woman at all. That means about 34-50% won't vote for any candidate that's a woman. So, that's not too good. For those who would, they said they'd have to consider her qualifications. And Hillary has a lot, as far as that goes. She's been in the office before as a President's wife and she is experienced as a politician in her own right. Poll responses also indicate that a woman would have better chances of being elected if she ran in the Democratic Party. So, Hillary meets all of the qualifications. On top of all that more than 50% of Democrats support her run for Presidency. But the same polls suggest that in a match-up with her and any of the major Republican candidates, she'd lose every time. Nonetheless, for any woman, she probably stands the best chance. But does any woman stand a very good chance? Let's look at the history of all sorts of cultures throughout the world.

The first thing you might say is that history is blatantly chauvinistic. Certainly, in our own Western history, the dominant path that males have taken is pretty clear, and we can say that only recently women have had equal rights. Well, there are also a few exceptions: there have been several major Queens of England, including most notably, Elisabeth I (in the middle of a very chauvinistic time, right?), Joan of Arc was quite the leader, and if I were more studied in feminism, I'm sure I could list plenty more female leaders throughout Western history. Nonetheless, Western history is definitely dominated by men. Would it surprise you to learn that all of human history has been dominated by men? I'm not just talking about globe-stretching empires or large women-repressing theocracies; I'm not even just talking about all countries that have been recognized as nations. Even the most miniscule and tiny societal groups with hardly any form of social stratification (which just means separations based on class, race, gender, or anything else) have rarely had women in the highest position of official leadership. Think of primitive tribes now: many of them enjoy great social equality without anyone lording any leadership position over another, without restricting any rights to an individual that aren't restricted to the whole group. These are known as egalitarian societies and in many ways they have much more equal rights than we do. Wouldn't this be the perfect opportunity for women to exhibit equal leadership? Yeah, it probably is. But they don't, they haven't, and perhaps they never will. Even in societies where women have been highly revered and more generally honored than men, they have rarely held the highest form of leadership.

Why is that? After all, women and men are created equal right? I certainly believe that. But it doesn't mean that women and men are the same. The obvious things stand out and they're pretty much all biological: a man will never bear or breast-feed a child, a woman is generally less hairy, and the truth is that men have naturally stronger muscular build and aerobic capacity. There are even some (debated) psychological distinctions: women are more nurturing, men are more aggressive and women passive. Anthropology suggests that it is precisely these differences that have made the differentiation between men and women in leadership more or less universal worldwide and throughout history. Let me clear this up: I think that if someone is trying to make a general point about people, you should try to have a really broad perspective of experience. The study of anthropology is concerned with every society and every custom/action within that society that has ever existed. It studies the largest and most complex people groups (such as the U.S.) and the smallest and simplest. That's pretty broad, so it's to anthropology that I look for answers on this perplexing and universal phenomenon.

Some of the answers are simple: women are almost universally the primary care-givers to children, and children are one of the few things that occupy much time and importance in every society. It is said this may prevent them from spending as much time outside the home and building the large social networks that are essential for effective political leadership. However, there are many societies in which women do much or most of the traveling/trading (thus establishing necessary social networks) and they correspondingly receive higher importance in those societies. This does increase their likelihood of attaining the highest leadership position, but it's still very rare. Another suggestion is height. It really has a lot to do with choosing leaders, though anthropologists aren't sure why. Men are generally taller than women. Finally, it could have a lot to do with warfare. In most societies, women aren't permitted to engage in warfare, and if the psychological evidence is true, they usually don't want to. This could be because they have children to raise and they can't raise them if the women are fighting or die in combat. Even if they don't currently have children, it could be that the society values their potential fertility in the future: if too many women die, a population could be decimated and thus unable to continue or maintain its sovereignty in war or defense. It could be because men are the more aggressive and physically fit ones. They have the strength and desire to follow through in a combat situation, either offense or defense. This experience in warfare that's almost exclusively male could go a long way towards a leader making properly evaluated decisions about war, since they know the costs and what is required to follow through. Our current President's lack of experience in this department seems a good exhibit of both his natural male aggression and his apparently poor decision-making about the war.

While participation in warfare seems to be the most consistent feature that would prohibit women from the highest leadership positions, it's likely that it results from a combination of these elements as well the possible psychological differences. Anthropology generally considers any cultural trait to be adaptive (which means simply that it works and promotes the survival of the culture), particularly if it continues to exist over a long period of time and especially if it continues through other environmental changes. Therefore, it is highly likely that if almost all cultures throughout history have followed these same principles in choosing leadership, there is probably quite a bit of merit to them. That is, they must be highly adaptive.

Nonetheless, considering these things does not specifically mean it's impossible for women to hold the highest leadership positions. After all, I already mentioned a few women and I understand that there have been quite a few more. It's just rare. Also, it should be noted that while women have rarely ever held the highest positions of authority, cultures vary greatly concerning the degree of influence women have within their society, even in the political realm. In some societies, women's influence is almost non-existent outside the home, but in many, their influence matters a great deal, and in some, they have greater influence than men (just without the officially highest leadership position). So, those rare exceptions in which women have actually held the highest positions of leadership might be the result of certain exceptions to these regular gender differences as well. While these differences occur most of the time, everybody doesn't always fall directly into the role of their own gender, whether because of genetic differences or different behavior/attitudes. Those women who have succeeded to the highest positions were probably also exceptions to the gender norms. I think that means for a woman to be considered for the highest position of leadership within a particular group or country, we should pay special attention to some of the regular gender traits that usually cause women to be excluded from those positions.

So, let's think about Hillary Clinton: would the normal reasons a woman wouldn't hold a high political office prevent her also? Maybe, maybe not. The first one, domestic life might not be a problem. The absence of domestic life is probably one thing that helped Elizabeth I a long time ago. Sure, Hillary does have a family. But would it prevent her from doing her work? Her daughter is full-grown and no longer under her care. And as far as I can tell, her husband Bill's constant infidelities seem to indicate they don't highly value much spousal responsibility. So, family care is probably not at all an issue. It certainly hasn't prevented her from establishing social networks necessary for political interactions; if it weren't for her husband Bill, she may have never acquired the social network, and thus political influence, she has. As arbitrary as it seems, let's consider her height: 5' 6" - average for a woman, short in general. Her main competition, Barack Obama, is apparently about 5' 10" - about average for a man, but a significant difference from Hillary. Once again, height may not be a good judge of leadership, but it's apparently a good judge for people's perception of leadership. What about war? Certainly Hillary has no personal experience there. She may also lack natural male aggression (though some might disagree) and that may be a good thing. By this time, almost every American is tired of the kind of aggression that leads to war. Then again, we're still in the middle of war, and although the election is some time away, President Bush gives no signs that we won't still be in it by the time his successor takes the office. It would also be hard to deny that the kind of world we live in today, with nuclear technology increasingly showing up in the hands of unstable foreign leaders, the thought of warfare must be at least considered. Whether a strong stance is good or bad is up to individual opinion, but if a person believes a strong stance is necessary and if Hillary exhibits a usual feminine lack of aggression (and an obvious lack of experience), she may not be the person we want making those decisions.

When it comes down to it, it does seem as though traditional limitations on women in leadership apply less in our society today with the general dissolution of family and the increasing sameness of genders that make it harder to distinguish general differences. Maybe we are ready for a woman in leadership, as polls suggest the increasing possibility of that. But it shouldn't be a decision to support the underdog or achieve a "first" in our page of history. As world history itself suggests, we should make sure that whatever "feminine" characteristics have previously limited women's involvement would also not limit their capability to lead in every area today. Whether or not Hillary Clinton suffers any of those limitations is up to you to decide, but it will not only be a rare occurrence for her to achieve the highest position of leadership available to her, it will be a gender-defying moment as well.