Elizabeth Warren out? Politics is truly the domain of a chosen few

After a long, brutal fight, Elizabeth Warren, the senior senator from Massachusetts, finally dropped out of the race for the US Democratic nomination. As I write this, I am still arguing with my friend if she will throw her weight behind Bernie Sanders or ‘Joe-mentum’ Biden, who performed nothing short of a miracle on Super Tuesday.

Before Elizabeth Warren was Amy Klobuchar, another strong female candidate who ended her race on Monday to support Joe Biden. There was also Kamala Harris, who was also in the race until early December and has been awfully quiet, leaving me wondering what she’s got up her sleeve.

Warren’s decision to drop out of the race made me realise how tough this presidential bid is for women. It also got me thinking just how far Hillary Clinton went. More importantly, I just thought how the US presidency, or any other presidency, is the ultimate glass ceiling that women never seem to crack.

As we celebrate International Women’s Day tomorrow, March 8, I want to take this opportunity to celebrate female presidential candidates, both local and international. I choose to celebrate them today because most of us will never understand the journey and effort it takes to offer oneself for candidacy.

We don’t know what these women sacrifice to have their names on the ballot. We don’t know the battles they have to fight and the mountains they have to scale to be brave enough to take on something of this magnitude.

The presidential race is brutal enough for a man. We tear male candidates apart, we scrutinise them, bring up their past, criticise them and put them in our own little fish bowls, watching every move and every word. I cannot begin to imagine how tough it must be for the women who have to deal with all this and our inbuilt sexism that causes us to apply double standards to women.

We do not admit it, but we judge these women a little more harshly than we do the male candidates, and this is why I am inclined to think that women who run for the presidency are cut from a different cloth from all of us, and that is why we need to celebrate them more.

This is why today I will start by celebrating Maria Mbeneka, who ran for president of the Law Society of Kenya and came in second. She may not have clinched the seat this time, but I hope she runs again, because I know I speak for many when I say that Maria is capable. I share the opinion of many who advise Maria that “some we win and some we learn”.

I also take this opportunity to celebrate Martha Karua, who shares the moniker ‘Iron Lady’ with the UK’s Margaret Thatcher. Say what you may about Karua, but you will agree with me that we can learn a lesson or two about courage and audacity from her. She is tough as nails, unrelenting and, who knows, the best female president Kenya may never have.

I also want to celebrate the indefatigable Charity Ngilu, Kenya’s first female presidential candidate who is now Kitui governor and one of Kenya’s first three female governors.

In the same vein I want to celebrate governors Anne Waiguru and the late Joyce Laboso, who, together with Ngilu, made Kenyan women proud by becoming Kenya’s first female governors.

I particularly want to celebrate Waiguru and Ngilu, who have proved to naysayers that they are not just ‘flower girls’ in the Council of Governors, but movers and shakers whose voices come out very strongly on national matters.

I want to celebrate Hillary Clinton, the only woman who has ever gone as far as she has to the White House. Hillary’s tenacity and brilliance, right from her days as first lady to a formidable opponent to President Trump, are something worth applauding.

As we reflect on this year’s theme — “An equal world is an enable world” — I hope we begin to think about levelling the playground for women in leadership, that we apply the same standards we do to men while judging women, and that we give women a chance to lead.

We may not yet have a female president from Kenya or the US, but there just might be a flicker of hope.

The optimist in me believes that maybe we might have a woman in the White House sooner than we think, in the name of Amy Klobuchar. That is, if Joe Biden wins this Democratic nomination, and if he makes her his running mate. I will be back to discuss this soon.

Meanwhile, do not forget to celebrate the women in your life. Happy International Women’s Day!

The writer is the director of the Innovation Centre at Aga Khan University Graduate School of Media and Communications. The views expressed in this column are the writer’s own.