I've been interested in politics and leadership for over 2 decades and the role of women doesn't seem to have changed very much.

Currently l'm pondering lots of ideas presented in Anne Kornblut's book, "Notes from the Cracked Ceiling...Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and what it will take for a woman to win."
 
To quote the dust jacket of the book:

Kornblut identifies the surprising realities of gender politics, such as the harsh treatment female candidates often receive from women voters, the gap between the United States and other countries when it comes to the electability of women, the "mommy penalty" that handicaps women candidates with young children, and the special appeal that women with law enforecement backgrounds have with voters.

These issues existed before the women's rights movement and they still exist today. The only difference is now there are statistics to subtantiate the claims. I thought we'd moved further beyond gender stereotypes than was actually the case. I chalk that up to being an optimist who wants the best minds to work together to solve problems like poverty, hunger, access to health care, and the list goes on...no matter the gender of the body within which that mind is housed.

To become president, a woman has to have demonstrated leadership and that usually means as the CEO of a company or as a high-powered attorney in addition to having served as a governor, senator or member of the House of Representatives.

Here, too, gender plays a role. A recent HR journal stated that women have been set up for failure as leaders of corporations. They've been put in positions of leadership without a support system in place to ensure their success. It's like asking a person who just started jogging to run a marathon after only a few weeks of training while breaking in new running shoes. The jogger wouldn't  have the experience and stamina to finish the race. That  "failure" would be a function of the amount of time the person had for training and the efficacy of the training methodology rather than the jogger's abilities. For the jogger to become successful more quickly, the training process would have to change.

The same holds true for women who are put into positions of leadership to meet a requirement for diversity. How can they be expected to hit the ground running as a leader without training and to immediately demonstrate new skills without stumbling a time or two? What's sad is the fact that those stumbles are used as "proof" that women aren't effective leaders.  It's time once again to question that assumption. 

I thought we moved beyond sexism about a decade ago but I was mistaken. A woman still gets called a bitch if she displays the same characteristics that get a man labeled as a leader. If a woman shows her more nurturing and softer nature, she's seen as not being strong/tough enough for the job be that president of the United States of CEO of a fortune 500 company. She's in a "no win" situation and she's put there by men as well other women.

Currently there doesn't seem to be a middle ground. Women haven't been able to strike the right balance between feminity and toughness that's "socially acceptable". I look forward to the day when men and women are encouraged to develop the positive qualities that both sexes posses so they have a full range of characteristics, skills and feelings to choose from when there's a decision to be made. When there's more gender equality, we'll all benefit.