MADAM PRESIDENT?[Scholastic Update]

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Madam president? 
Scholastic Update; New York; Mar 8, 1999; Susan Hayes; 

Volume: 
                  131
Issue: 
                  11
Start Page: 
                  11
ISSN: 
                  07457065
Full Text:
Copyright Scholastic Inc. Mar 8, 1999

[Headnote]
No woman has ever won the White House, but as the number of female leaders
around the world rises,
so do the chances of a woman winning in the U.S. 

                    
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: The highest-ranking woman in
                    U.S. history. 


When Elizabeth Dole resigned as president of the Red Cross in January, the
news made
headlines across the country. "I believe there may be another way for me to
serve our country,"
she said vaguely. 

So why all the attention? 

Because even though she didn't say it, everyone knew the real reason Dole
was stepping down:
to run for President of the United States next year. 

Dole, 62, a two-time Cabinet member and wife of 1996 Republican Presidential
nominee Bob
Dole, won't be the first woman to run for the Presidency. But many say she
has the best chance
of being the first to win it. 

Twenty women have tried before, beginning with social reformer Victoria
Woodhull in 1872 and
including U.S. Representative Shirley Chisholm in 1972, the first
AfricanAmerican woman ever
to run. None of them ever came close to winning. In 1984, U.S.
Representative Geraldine
Ferraro was nominated for Vice President by the Democrats, the first and
only time a major
party has put a woman on a national ticket. But neither party has ever
chosen a female
Presidential nominee. 

That may change, however, as female leaders are becoming more commonplace
around the
world. In the last three decades, women have risen to power in countries as
diverse as Great
Britain, India, Israel, Nicaragua, and the Philippines. But that doesn't
make these countries more
progressive than the United States. In fact, in some of these nations,
women's rights are heavily
suppressed. 

During this century, 32 women have served as presidents or prime ministers
of their countries.
Twenty-four have held power in the 1990s. Impressive as the trend may seem,
women are still
vastly underrepresented in positions of power. They make up 51 percent of
the world's
population, but less than 10 percent of elected government officials. 

Have women been gaining more power, and if so, what is the likelihood of a
woman finally

capturing the U.S. Presidency? How did the comparatively few female leaders
in other countries
manage to beat the odds and achieve positions of leadership? And have those
female leaders
helped or hindered the chances for other women to hold high office? 

Many experts say it is only a matter of time before a woman wins the White
House. The odds
have improved dramatically in recent years as women have gained more power
in other positions
of government. Nine women are now U.S. Senators, 56 hold seats in the House of
Representatives, and 3 are Governors. Dozens more are mayors and members of
state
legislatures. 

In 1993, President Clinton named Janet Reno to the highest law-enforcement
job in the country,
making her the first female Attorney General. In 1997, he appointed
Madeleine Albright as the
first female Secretary of State, putting her fourth in line for the
Presidency, after the Vice
President, the Speaker of the House, and the President Pro Tempore of the
Senate. 

Seventy-six percent of Americans now say they're prepared to elect a woman
as President. A
USA Today/CNN Gallup poll taken last June showed Elizabeth Dole beating
presumed
Democratic Presidential candidate Al Gore in a head-to-head race in 2000. 

Not all women who assume power have actively pursued it, though. Around the
world, many say
they were forced into leadership out of a sense of obligation. Nearly a
third of female world
leaders were propelled into office after the death of a husband or father
who was a political
leader, and few considered themselves feminists. 

Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka became the world's first female prime
minister in 1960,
taking her husband's place after he was assassinated. "I had no intention of
taking up politics
during my husband's life," Bandaranaike told filmmaker Laura Liswood in her
documentary
Women World Leaders. "After his murder, I was more or less forced into
taking up the
leadership of the party. I did not want to, but after much consideration I
did." 

Corazon Aquino, president of the Philippines from 1986 to 1992, was drawn
into politics after
the murder of her husband, Benigno Aquino Jr. Aquino, who had been a mother
and housewife,
says, "I was a reluctant candidate, and I was really hoping up to the very
last that there would be
somebody else other than me." 

But elsewhere, other women steadily climbed party ladders to get to the top.
Margaret Thatcher,
the first woman to head a modern European government and Britain's
longestserving prime
minister this century, was first elected to Parliament in 1959 and went on
to win three terms as
prime minister, from 1979 to 1990. 

Some female leaders have used their positions to make life better for other
women. Indira
Gandhi made birth control available to women throughout India when she
served as prime
minister from 1966 to 1977, and again from 1980 until her assassination in
1984. Aquino
appointed many women to influential government positions. The first thing
Khaleda Zia did on
becoming prime minister of Bangladesh in 1991 was to introduce legislation
that made education

compulsory for girls. 

Thatcher, on the other hand, appointed no women to her cabinet, saying it
would amount to
preferential treatment. She also showed she could be as tough as any man in
times of war,
helping to dispel a lot of myths about the perceived weakness of female
leaders. "She was
tough," says Bob Dole. "I remember when she told President Bush not to go
wobbly during the
Persian Gulf war." 


   Aung San Suu Kyi Pro-democracy leader, Myanmar (formerly
  Burma) Benazir Bhutto Prime Minister, Pakistan, 1988-1990 and
1993--1996 Golda Meir Prime Minister, Israel, 1969-1974 Margaret
      Thatcher, Prime Minister, Great Britain, 1979-1990 


And Benazir Bhutto, the first woman to lead an Islamic state, who twice
served as prime minister
of Pakistan, demonstrated she could be as corrupt as any man. She appointed
family members
to powerful government positions, was accused of granting political favors,
and was ousted in
1996 on charges of corruption. 

How a female U.S. President would lead is anyone's guess. But Senator Dianne
Feinstein
(D-Calif.), considered a possible future Presidential candidate herself,
believes Americans should
get the chance to find out. "I would hope, given the progress that women
have made, that there
will one day be heard in the halls of Congress the words `Madam President."'