There’s a belief, often expressed, that America would never elect a female President.
Perhaps that explains why first Hillary four years ago and now Kamala, are never seen wearing dresses. Instead they wear pants suits and in my view suffer for it.
A similar belief applied to Catholics until Kennedy disproved it. Thus we no longer hear this despite Biden being Catholic.
The same thing was said about blacks then along came Obama.
The fact is Americans readily elect women as Senators, Congress-Women, State Governors and mayors.
The fact that to date there’s only been one woman Presidential candidate, namely Hillary, but that doesn’t disprove my assertion that this belief is a myth to the contrary.
For reasons I could never fathom there was a weird disdain for Hillary but she still gained almost 3 million more votes than Trump and was denied the Presidency only because of the undemocratic process. In short the belief is a myth.
Worldwide, only Africa and Moslem nations excepted, women Presidents and Prime Ministers are common-place.
So back to pants suits. Why for God’s sake? Helen Clark mostly wore them but Jacinda never does.
Merkel mostly does but Thatcher never did.
They’re unbecoming and drab compared with the colour and dash offered by a dress and women candidates shouldn’t shy from them.
Kamala is a good-looking woman which is always a head start and she should exploit this advantage.
Should she find herself the Vice-President I hope she’ll revert to a dress, therein adding to her appeal.
3 Comments
Could not agree more with your second to last paragraph.
Pity it does not apply to our new Minister of Foreign Affairs, replete with face scribbles, morbidly obese , lazy and totally clueless.
God, it’s totally depressing and pathetic the depths Ardern will go to destroy our credibility in the world.
It would be the first appealing thing about her.
Personally I don’t care what anyone in public service wears as long as they are suitably qualified for the role they fill, their appearance suits the position they fill and they can hold an intelligent/ understandable conversation.
Sadly that rules out most of Ms Aderns Caucus (and infact, Ms Adern) .
What I really want to see however is for it to become complusory for all ministers of Foriegn Affairs throughout the world to have to sport some form of defacing in the form of a Moko or the like. This would make our representative stand out way less this leveling the playing field.
It is also now becoming more apparent why so many immigrants arrive here believing they will succeed as politicians. This belief is clearly driven by the perception that NZ lacks people with any of the required qualifications. A desire to change a country you have immigrated to v’s changing the one you left behind has always puzzled me.