But the underrepresentation of women in U.S. politics is not the only obstacle to America getting its first female president, as Farida Jalalzai, an expert on women in political leadership at Oklahoma State University, has documented. In a 2010 paper, Jalalzai noted that while more than three-quarters of all female presidents and prime ministers had come to office since 1990, spurred on by policy reforms like electoral gender quotas, these trends werent evenly distributed around the world.
Women, she found, are more likely to serve as prime ministers than as presidents, perhaps because in parliamentary systems women can bypass a potentially biased general public and be chosen by the party after working their way up its hierarchy. Very few female national leaders attained their office initially through a popular election. To win a national vote in a presidential system, women must contend more directly, and on a larger scale, with sexism and stereotypes. The more a leadership position is perceived by the public as powerful, the harder it is for women to secure itat least until a woman manages to occupy that position and challenge its association with masculinity.
