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-         When Systems Are Designed By Men, For Men

By Emeka Chiaghanam       

I thought about this and countless times asked myself this question. Have you ever noticed how the most powerful nation on earth, the one that trumpets freedom and equality from every rooftop, has never once trusted a woman to sit in its highest office?

Two hundred and fifty years of democracy, forty-seven presidents, and not a single woman among them has ever governed the United States of America. Even as legal barriers fell, invisible ones remained, hardened into tradition and expectation.

Across oceans and borders, women have been steering nations through stormy seas for decades. The question isn’t whether America could have a female president, it’s why haven’t it already?

From Africa to South America, Asia to Europe and the Oceania they have all produced female leaders. Sri Lankan gave the world its first democratically elected leader. Sirimavo Bandaranaike was a trailblazing Sri Lankan politician who made history as the world’s first female prime minister upon her election in 1960. She led the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) for 34 years (1960–1994) and was elected Prime Minister three times. Her first term ran from 1960 to 1965, and her second from 1970 to 1977 — when the country was still called Ceylon, and later in a ceremonial role from 1994 to 2000. During her first two terms, Bandaranaike wielded significant executive power, implementing progressive policies and shaping Sri Lanka’s post-independence political landscape. She towered high in South Asia politics. Till date her legacy speaks as a pioneer for women in global leadership.

The first woman to serve as president of any country was Isabel Perón of Argentina. Having served as vice president, she assumed the presidency in July 1974 upon the death of her husband, Juan Perón, though she was not democratically elected to the role. Vigdís Finnbogadóttir of Iceland made history in 1980 as the first woman to be democratically elected president. Later, in April 1990, Violeta Chamorro of Nicaragua became the first democratically elected female head of state and government in the Americas (North, Central, and South America).   

In Africa, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, made history as the first elected female head of state on the African continent, as the 24th president of Liberia, she was in office from 2006 to 2018. And in the Europe, Margaret Thatcher was not only the first female Prime Minister in the United Kingdom, outside Europe Julia Gillard became Australia’s 27th Prime Minister and the first woman to occupy the country’s highest political office.

When Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s former prime minister stood before New Zealand after the Christchurch massacre in March 2019, her voice didn’t shake. Her compassion wasn’t performance, it radiated from her like heat. “They are us,” she said of the Muslim victims, donning a hijab and embracing survivors with genuine grief etched across her face. In that moment, leadership wasn’t about power or posturing. It was about humanity.

While in America, they’re still debating whether a woman would be “too emotional” for the job.

The Global Sisterhood of Power

Let’s travel the world together! Not a polite, diplomatic tour, but a raw look at what happens when women actually get their hands on the levers of power.

In Germany, Angela Merkel, a quantum chemist turned politician, ruled Europe’s economic powerhouse for sixteen years. The “Mutti” (mother) of Germany wasn’t charismatic in the way we’ve come to expect from leaders. She didn’t thump podiums or deliver soaring rhetoric. Instead, she steered European debt crisis, the refugee crisis, and four American presidents with the calm persistence of someone who knew exactly what she was doing.

When a million refugees arrived in Europe during the 2015 crisis, leaders across the continent didn’t know how to respond. And most borders slammed shut. Barbed wire unspooled across fields. But Merkel stood firm: “Wir schaffen das.” We can handle this. It wasn’t naïveté, it was courage wrapped in pragmatism. Her approval ratings plummeted, then rose again as Germans realized she’d made the tough call instead of the popular one.

In New Zealand, Ardern didn’t just manage crises, she redefined what government priorities should be. While other countries measure success in GDP and stock market numbers, she introduced the world’s first “wellbeing budget,” allocating resources based on what actually makes people’s lives better: mental health, child poverty reduction, indigenous empowerment. When COVID-19 hit, her clear communication and decisive action turned New Zealand into a global success story while other nations floundered.

And Finland? When 34-year-old Sanna Marin became the world’s youngest PM, it shocked the old-school power crowd. Here was a woman raised by two mothers, working-class, with a small child of her own, taking over a nation. Her coalition government consisted of five parties, all led by women, most under 40. They didn’t just survive the pandemic; they thrived, with Finland consistently ranking among the world’s happiest countries.

These aren’t cherry-picked success stories. They’re evidence that women don’t just lead differently, sometimes they lead better.

America’s Glass White House

I wonder what America’s excuse is.

Should I blame their electoral system, with its brutal primary process that rewards aggression and conformity? I could point to campaign financing that favours established networks and old boys’ clubs. I could dissect media coverage that obsesses over women’s appearance, voice pitch, and “likability”, that nebulous quality men are rarely measured by.

But the real problem goes beyond just unfair systems. And I mean it. America has a psychological block when it comes to female authority. They’ve mythologized the presidency into something almost religiously masculine: the Commander-in-Chief, the man with his finger on the nuclear button, the father of their country.

“Americans just aren’t ready,” political consultants murmur, as if readiness is something that happens spontaneously, like fruit ripening, rather than a muscle developed through exposure and practice.

The irony drips like acid: They weren’t “ready” for a female president in 1789, when women couldn’t vote or own property. They weren’t “ready” in 1920, when women finally secured voting rights but still faced legal discrimination in almost every aspect of life. Still they weren’t “ready” during the feminist revolution of the 1970s. Neither were they “ready” in 2016, when Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by nearly three million votes but lost the Electoral College.

When, exactly, will this magical readiness arrive?

The truth is, countries don’t wake up one morning suddenly “ready” for female leadership. They create female leaders by electing them.

When Systems Are Designed By Men, For Men

America’s political system wasn’t built with women in mind. The Founding Fathers, and yes, they were all fathers, not mothers, created structures assuming participants would look, think, and live like them. Even as legal barriers fell, invisible ones remained, hardened into tradition and expectation.

Take the presidential campaign trail: an endless slog of fundraisers, rallies, handshakes, and baby-kissing. Who designed this marathon? Men who had wives at home handling household management and childcare. For women candidates, especially those with young children, this schedule becomes a high-wire act performed under microscopic scrutiny.

“Who’s watching her kids?” nobody asks male candidates.

The double standards are so ingrained they’ve become almost invisible, until you start counting. Think about it, count how often female candidates’ ambition is framed as calculating or power-hungry, while men’s is described as visionary. Have you thought how often women must prove their toughness while simultaneously remaining “authentic” and “warm.” Have you taken into account how many female candidates have faced questions about whether they’re “electable” that circular logic where voters won’t support a woman because they don’t think other voters will support a woman?

Elizabeth Warren had policy plans so detailed they could wallpaper the Pentagon, but media coverage fixated on whether she was “likable” enough. Kamala Harris was simultaneously criticized for being too tough as a prosecutor and not tough enough to lead. Amy Klobuchar’s intellect and legislative effectiveness were overshadowed by reports she was demanding of staff, behaviour hardly remarkable in male senators.

And Hillary Clinton? After decades of public service and policy work, she became a vessel for every anxiety America has about powerful women. Too ambitious. Too entitled. Too cautious. Too calculating. Too loud. Too robotic. Too emotional. Too much and never enough. Everything on the negative was too much on her side when it comes to leading the United States.

The goalposts don’t just move for women candidates in the United States they gallop.

Learning From the Global Laboratory

What might America look like with a woman at the helm? We don’t have to wonder; we can see it. Research consistently shows that female leaders govern differently. And it’s a confirmed observation. For sure they’re more team-oriented, happier to share praise, and put education and people’s needs first. Countries with higher female representation in government have better healthcare outcomes, more progressive environmental policies, and often stronger economies.

This isn’t about women being inherently better leaders, it’s about different perspectives yielding different priorities.

When Jacinda Ardern was asked how she managed both a newborn and a nation, she replied, “With a lot of help.” That simple acknowledgment that leadership doesn’t happen in isolation, that vulnerability isn’t weakness represented a seismic shift from the American ideal of the lone, strong man making tough calls from the Oval Office.

In Iceland, after the 2008 financial crisis decimated the economy, women stepped into leadership roles in the banking sector previously dominated by men. They brought a longer-term perspective, more risk awareness, and less testosterone-fueled decision-making. The result? Iceland recovered faster than expected.

Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin understood COVID-19 communication needed to reach everyone, including children. She held a special press conference just for kids, answering their questions about whether they could celebrate birthdays or see friends. It wasn’t a stunt, it was recognition that good governance means seeing all citizens, even the smallest ones.

These approaches aren’t soft or weak they’re effective. They get results because they engage with reality as it exists, not as tradition dictates it should be.

The Cost of America’s Failure

The United States inability to elect a female president isn’t just a symbolic failure, it has real-world consequences.

They’ve deprived themselves of perspectives shaped by different life experiences. No American president has ever known what it means to walk through the world in a female body, to traverse workplaces designed for men, to balance professional ambition with gendered expectations about family and caregiving.

No American president has ever experienced the biological realities that shape half the population’s lives; menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, menopause. These aren’t trivial matters; they affect healthcare, economic participation, and quality of life for millions.

No American president has ever had to fight for reproductive rights that determine women’s physical autonomy, economic futures, and very survival. Not for once they’ve never had a commander-in-chief who intrinsically understands what’s at stake when these rights are threatened.

What is the cost; incalculable, in policies never championed, problems never prioritized, solutions never implemented. How many wars might have been averted? How many social programmes might have been funded? How many innovative approaches to governance have we missed by drawing their leaders from only half the talent pool?

And perhaps most damaging: we’ve told generations of American girls they can be anything they want, except the most powerful person in their country.

Could 2028 Change Everything?

The United States definitely sits at a crossroads. The 2024 presidential election came and went with Donald Trump returning to office, but Tue, 7 Nov 2028 looms on the horizon. Will America finally break the ultimate glass ceiling, or will they add another man to their unbroken chain of male presidents?

The path to a female president faces formidable obstacles. Misogyny didn’t disappear when Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in 2016. If anything, it became more visible, more vocal, emboldened by her defeat. Sexism doesn’t just lurk in right-wing circles, it permeates progressive spaces too, manifesting in purity tests and ideological demands rarely applied to male candidates with equal rigor.

And yet, something has shifted. Women are running for office at unprecedented rates at local and state levels. The pipeline is filling with diverse female talent that will eventually reach presidential timber. The American voters are becoming more accustomed to seeing women in positions of executive power as governors, mayors, and CEOs.

Maybe most importantly, younger generations show less gender bias in their voting preferences. They’ve grown up seeing women lead major corporations, anchor news broadcasts, command military operations, and explore space. To them, a woman president isn’t shocking, it’s about time. A case of overdue change. But change won’t happen through passive evolution. It requires intentional disruption of entrenched patterns. It demands that voters examine their biases, that media revamp their coverage approaches, that party structures actively support viable female candidates rather than merely tolerating them.

It requires them to stop asking whether America is “ready” for a female president and start asking what they’re missing by not having one.

Beyond the First: Transforming Leadership Itself

The first woman to reach the Oval Office will bear an impossible burden. Like Barack Obama before her, she’ll be expected to represent her entire gender flawlessly. Every decision, every word, every facial expression will be scrutinized not just as the actions of an individual but as proof of whether women can lead.

This is manifestly unfair. The United States’ had mediocre male presidents whose failures reflected only on themselves, not on all men everywhere. The first female president deserves the same grace, the right to be evaluated on her own merits, not as a referendum on her chromosomes.

But beyond this first milestone lies a more weighty possibility: the chance to transform the presidency itself. To question whether constant aggression represents strength. This is to redefine power as the ability to build rather than dominate. And to focus on lasting results, not just quick wins. Countries with female leaders often report higher citizen trust in government. They tend to invest more in social infrastructure. They frequently implement more family-friendly policies that benefit not just women but entire communities. Don’t see this as coincidence, it’s the result of different lived experiences informing different priorities.

Imagine an America where a president brings both toughness and tenderness to the Situation Room. Could this be possible, yes it could. Where empathy isn’t seen as weakness but as essential intelligence about the human impact of policy decisions. Where collaboration replaces chest-thumping as their diplomatic approach.

It’s not about women being inherently more peaceful or nurturing that essentialism does everyone a disservice. It’s about breaking open calcified patterns of leadership that have brought them endless wars, environmental degradation, and widening inequality.

The World Is Watching

As America continues its fraught relationship with female leadership, the world moves on. More than fifty countries have already had female heads of state or government. Rwanda’s parliament is majority female. New Zealand, Taiwan, and Denmark have shown that women can lead through crises with extraordinary effectiveness.

The United States hesitation makes them look not traditional but backward. They’re not careful, they’re scared. And it’s not about principles, but bias. Each time they fail to elect a qualified woman, they send a message to their allies and adversaries alike: America talks a good game about equality, but when power is on the line, they revert to familiar patterns. They undermine their moral authority on human rights globally when they can’t implement basic gender equity at home.

The question isn’t whether America will eventually elect a female president, demographics and social evolution make that virtually inevitable, even if it takes decades more. The question is whether they’ll be leaders or laggards in this global transformation of power.

Will they recognize the strength in diverse leadership before they’re forced to by historical necessity? Will they choose to evolve, or will they be dragged, resisting, into a future that the rest of the developed world has already embraced?

Breaking the Spell

Maybe what America needs isn’t just a female president but a fundamental reimagining of what leadership looks like.

The mythology of the American presidency the lone cowboy, the general, the patriarch has become a straitjacket. It rewards bluster over substance, conflict over resolution, and dominance over partnership. It’s a paradigm that hasn’t served them well, regardless of the gender of its occupant.

Women like Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Margaret Thatcher, Merkel, Ardern, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and Marin haven’t succeeded despite being different from traditional male leaders they’ve succeeded because of those differences. Their willingness to listen rather than immediately assert, to admit uncertainty rather than fake confidence, to prioritize collective welfare over individual glory these aren’t feminine weaknesses but leadership strengths.

America stands at the edge of transformation. Their politics feel broken, their discourse toxic and their challenges overwhelming. Maybe what they need isn’t just to put a woman in the existing system but to let women help them reimagine the system itself.

What if strength meant the courage to compromise? What if being powerful meant lifting others up? What if leadership meant actually leading toward a better future rather than dominating the present?

These aren’t soft questions, they’re existential ones for a democracy in crisis.

The rest of the world isn’t waiting for the United States to figure it out. While they debate whether a woman can handle the presidency, women elsewhere are handling pandemics, economic crises, climate disasters, and geopolitical tensions, often with remarkable success.

The irony would be comical if it weren’t so tragic: the nation that sees itself as the world’s greatest democracy, as the shining city on a hill, can’t seem to trust a woman to lead it. That not a good example. They tell themselves comforting stories about being the land of opportunity while systematically denying the highest opportunity to half of their citizens.

It’s time to break the spell. It’s time to admit their failure isn’t about women’s capabilities but about their own limitations of imagination. It’s time for the United States to recognize that true leadership transcends gender while being informed by it.

When, not if, America finally elects a woman as president, it won’t be the end of their journey toward equality. It will be the beginning of a new chapter in how the greatest democracy on earth conceive of power itself. That’s not just good for women, it’s essential for America.

The question isn’t whether America is ready for a female president. The question is whether they’re ready to become the nation they’ve always claimed to be.