By Dr. Carmen Schaye, NWPC Vice President of Diversity
For many of us, Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the Presidency was extremely bittersweet. She was the first woman to win the nomination of a major political party, and she seemed destined to become the first female President. As we all know, however, that historic achievement was left painfully unfulfilled.
As the field of candidates for 2020 begins to take shape, we are witnessing a different sort of historical moment. For the first time, there are several highly qualified women competing for the nomination. To date, four senators—Kamala Harris, Kristen Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar, and Elizabeth Warren—have declared their runs for the 2020 Presidency. Each of these women has distinguished themselves in their careers and in the Senate, and each is a serious contender for the Democratic nomination.
The history of women running for the highest office in the land does not begin in 2016, however. Women presidential candidates stretches all the way back to 1872, thanks to a woman named Victoria Woodhull. Woodhull was a women’s suffrage and “free love” activist, advocating for women’s ability to marry, divorce, and bear children without government interference. She was nominated by the short-lived Equal Rights Party to run for President in 1872. Though Woodhull didn’t receive any electoral votes, her candidacy served to bring women’s suffrage and equal rights into the mainstream.
It wouldn’t be until almost a century later, in 1964, that another Republican woman entered the race. Margaret Chase Smith, a distinguished Congresswoman who served in both the House and the Senate, was the first woman to be considered at a major party’s convention. Then, in 1972, Shirley Chisholm became the first black candidate for the office, and the first woman to vie for the Democratic nomination. In 1984 Geraldine Ferraro was on the ballot for Vice President, and so was Sarah Palin in 2008. Over many decades, women inched ever-closer to the presidency, culminating in Hillary Clinton clinching the historic Democratic nomination in 2016.
For that reason, and many others, Clinton’s loss in 2016 was a crushing defeat, made all the worse by Donald Trump’s flagrant disregard for women and particularly women in power. Nonetheless, it would be a mistake to neglect the enormous progress that has been made since Victoria Woodhull sought the Presidency in 1872. Generations of women have fought to bring us to this historical moment, and the current array of eminently talented, qualified women vying for the presidency in 2020 is nothing short of inspiring.
