Wrestlemania: The Gender Factor in the 2016 Election

Extract

Part of the reason Hillary Clinton's loss in the Electoral College was such a surprise was that the two major obstacles faced by female candidates and politicians appeared to have been cleared by Clinton. The first is what I call “barriers to entry.” The research has long suggested (although some of it is now being challenged) that women cannot raise money as effectively as men, they are less likely to be asked to run for a vacant seat, they are less likely to have a secure place in the old boy's network, less able to point to vast experience as a qualification, and more likely to be burdened by childcare and family. Women of color face these hurdles in often particularly intense ways.