Attitudes Towards Female Leaders
Since Hillary Clinton is a full-fledged presidential candidate now, I've been thinking about American attitudes towards women holding America's highest office. Until really recently, it's been pretty much dead certain that a lot of the US was against having a female president. Now I am hearing a lot that a woman might not be so bad...as long as it's not Hillary. I still think that, Hillary or not, we are a decade or more from the first female president. This (follow the leap here) got me thinking about Margaret Thatcher.
The way I understand it, Britons vote for their MP in their local constituency and the party with the most MPs becomes the ruling party while the head of that party becomes the Prime Minister. So Margaret Thatcher came to power because the Conservative party was in power and she was the head of the Conservatives.
My questions to the Brits out there, especially the ones old enough to remember living under Thatcher, are these: If the UK had a system of electing the PM like the US elects the President, do you think Brits would have elected Thatcher back in 1979 as a woman and on her own merits? Do you think a woman would stand a chance now?
The way I understand it, Britons vote for their MP in their local constituency and the party with the most MPs becomes the ruling party while the head of that party becomes the Prime Minister. So Margaret Thatcher came to power because the Conservative party was in power and she was the head of the Conservatives.
My questions to the Brits out there, especially the ones old enough to remember living under Thatcher, are these: If the UK had a system of electing the PM like the US elects the President, do you think Brits would have elected Thatcher back in 1979 as a woman and on her own merits? Do you think a woman would stand a chance now?