STRENGTH OF A WOMAN
It’s been in the news recently that Hilary Clinton has decided to run for the President of the United States of America. And I think that’s pretty great considering the country has a well-known track record of having only men sit in the Oval Office. The United States Secretary of States has expressed her will to run for presidency and has made a statement that inclines to the fact that it was high time the country saw a woman president. And I don’t think she said that just to gain some sort of sympathy votes from the people (or, it could be, who knows?) but the fact that should be analyzed here is- Would Hilary Clinton have been running for presidency on the basis of her own efforts or should we go back in time and see the movements that changed the course of political history in terms of women participation and the platform it has set for women to be part of a government now? Jane Fishburne Collier writes in her essay-‘Women in Politics’ that natives and ethnographers viewed politics as a male pastime and women were exclude from political gatherings and illegible for political office and were just viewed as people who were occupied with domestic and child rearing tasks. She also writes that women were used by men as pawns in the political world but not given proper political recognition. Sadly, that was true. Gladly, it’s not true anymore. But in the ancient-unforgiving-times of governance, women weren’t allowed to vote. And now we have women across different governments who are gaining votes.
Granted, it’s not an established fact that every nation in the world has prominent woman leaders, but there has been a change in the past years and women have taken a progressive step from being passive units of a functioning society to actively taking part in the administration and betterment of the society itself. It’s important to understand that the amount of participation we see from women would not have been possible if we were living in times where men ruled the earth. Let this be said- the power of a woman in participating in state affairs was and should not be confused with prominent historical figures like Rani Laxmibai aka “Jhansi ki Rani” or Joan of Arc. We’re talking about contemporary politics, the kind that had its source in founded democratic states such as Athens and progressed into the kind of different versions of governments we see today. And after struggles like the suffrage movement, women finally have a chance to rise above the backward norms that held them back years ago and to step up and make a change.
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About the Author: This article is contributed by Joshua Moses, our intern.
