Donald Trump is now the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party for the US presidency. And more likely than not, it will be Hillary Clinton who holds the hopes for the Democrats. She will also be holding the hopes of women who have longed to see the first female president of the United States.
Even if Mrs Clinton does make it to the White House, I believe this will be an evolutionary step in women’s participation, not the revolution that many have been hoping for.
A political joke that has been doing the rounds on the internet highlights a key feature of Mrs Clinton’s electability: that she’s the lesser of two evils. The joke involves someone wavering over how to vote, who notes: “Hillary oversaw a coup in Central America that installed a regime that murders indigenous rights activists.” A Democrat replies: “Do you want Trump to win?”
Mrs Clinton may well be elected because Americans want to achieve the milestone of having a female president. Such icons are important. The glass ceilings that are broken allow more women to participate and for fresh air to enter the discourse. And the exceptions and the firsts that any group achieves are important: they mark them onto the political landscape and act as stakes in the ground of progress. But their real value is in their symbolism. In this sense, electing Mrs Clinton will mark a new phase in women’s leadership.
While such symbols are striking, and often then lead to an outpouring of change, they rarely trigger revolution across the whole of society of the kind that we hope for.
Margaret Thatcher continues to hold her place in UK history as its first and only female prime minister. Yet 26 years after she left office, women still suffer from a pay gap, employment discrimination and rife sexism.
Barack Obama’s election was said to herald a “post-racial society”. To have a man of black skin colour elected to the Oval Office shows how far America has come in the past 50 years since the civil rights movement. Who could have even dreamt of a black president 100 years ago?
Yet it is in the era of the Obama administration that we’ve once again seen protests by African Americans about the way they are treated and the rise of the Black Lives Matter campaign.
None of this is to deny that Mrs Clinton has faced abuse in her campaign simply because she is a woman. Of course, she is available for people to criticise, but much of it is simply because she is not a man. She will also suffer hostility because she didn’t speak, wear or look the way women are supposed to. And instead of her policies being supported or critiqued on their merits, she may face questioning over choices that have nothing to do with her intended political office.
A female leader should get no free passes. But equally, predictions of failure because she is a woman, even while disguised under some other excuse, must be ignored.
And in our excitement that a woman may be elected as president, we need to ensure that women across the board are treated better. Icons are important. But ensuring change at an every day level is just as important and just as hard to achieve.
Shelina Zahra Janmohamed is the author of Love in a Headscarf and blogs at www.spirit21.co.uk