In 2020 "Women and the Presidency" was published as a chapter in the bookThe Best Candidate: Presidential Nomination in Polarized Times.
This chapter looks at the women who have run for the presidency and vice presidency of the United States. Some of these women were qualified candidates who were never given a fair shot. Others were people who should never have sought executive office in the first place. After examining this history, this chapter provides a closer examination of the structural barriers that women in the United States face in politics, as well as the innovative strategies that will enable more women to run, win, serve, and lead at all levels of government. These strategies include reforming how women’s campaigns are financed, changing the candidate recruitment rules used by parties, implementing ranked choice voting, and promoting balanced media coverage. The strategies discussed in this chapter are designed to expand the pool of women candidates and to translate that success into the likelihood that a woman will eventually attain the highest office in the land.