When Will the United States Elect a Female President?

Although Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 U.S. presidential election by 77 electoral votes, she garnered 48.2% of the popular vote -- compared with 46.1% for current President Donald Trump. Yet although those numbers seem to suggest that a woman will win the White House one day, a 2019 survey proved less promising.

The Reykjavik Index for Leadership found that only 49% of American men would be "very comfortable" with a female president, compared with 59% of American women. Similar surveys were undertaken in all G7 nations, polling 22,000 adults on their views of women in leadership roles in a variety of settings, from education and banking to media and entertainment.

Overall, America ranked third in terms of how accepting both men and women are of female leaders. Generally speaking, Americans are much more open to having women holding the top spots in media/entertainment, banking/finance, and natural sciences, than in defense, gaming, vehicle manufacturing, and the police. Canada and France scored the highest overall scores in the survey, while Russia and China were last.

Michelle Harrison, the global CEO of the public division of Kantar, the data consultancy firm that helped with the survey, said that there's lot of work to be done before equality can be achieved between the sexes. "This year’s study reveals that in every country studied, there are significant prejudices against women and we have a long way to go until equality is the social norm," she said.

Unfair to the fairer sex: