What might the first female American President look like?

Donald Trump’s victory over Hilary Clinton in last year’s American presidential election came as a huge shock to many feminists both in the US and beyond. Like many around the world, I found myself consumed by this fascinating and controversial race. Had Hillary been elected, she would have been the first female President of the US. 

Despite the disappointment that some liberals and feminists felt at the result, it seems to be largely taken for granted among women I meet that there will be a female (liberal or conservative) in the White House someday. This has led me to wonder what kind of future female President would prove a good role model for women both in America and around the world. 

As an Irish person who, before August of this year, had never been to the US, I cannot claim to be an expert in American politics. My perspective therefore is merely that of a respectful “outsider looking in,” and is based on experience and knowledge of my own country, Ireland.

In Ireland we can claim some pedigree when it comes to women Presidents. Two of our last three Presidents have been females, Mary Robinson (1990-97) and Mary McAleese (1997-2011). Of course, unlike America, Ireland is no superpower. Our international profile could never equal that of the US. Irish Government also works differently to here. Our Presidents are more figureheads than politicians, with the political role kept separate and played by the Taoiseach (Prime Minister). This is very different to America where the President combines both the figurehead and political functions. All this makes comparisons between the two offices neither easy nor always reasonable.

Nevertheless, I feel that Ireland’s two past female Presidents merit at least some consideration as good role models for feminists and any future, aspiring American woman President. Both Robinson and McAleese played pivotal roles in transforming Ireland into a more liberal, peaceful and inclusive society. In their own different ways, too, each showed examples of compassion, courage and sincerity that, to my mind, ought to resonate with all women. 

On a personal level, I initially came to admire Robinson because she was the first Head of State of any country to visit my own native West Belfast. This was an area whose people had been devastated by the Irish ‘Troubles’ of the 1960s to mid-90s and which had become deeply embittered by decades-long marginalization and repression. In the teeth of establishment outrage, Robinson went into West Belfast and publicly praised the spirit of its long suffering community. She also, on her visit, met with and shook hands with the community’s then infamous elected representative, Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams. It was a vital and key first step in the Irish peace process.

Likewise, Robinson challenged traditional Irish nationalist shibboleths by becoming the first Irish President both to visit the United Kingdom and to meet, at Buckingham Palace, a British monarch, the present Queen Elizabeth II. On foot of this, she welcomed senior members of the British royal family, most notably the Prince of Wales, to her official residence in Dublin, Áras an Uachtaráin. These were bold moves that dramatically changed the face of existing Anglo-Irish relations.

For me, though, the most compelling example Robinson gave us of a great female Presidential role model came in 1992. She was one of the first world leaders, at that time, to highlight publicly the horrors of famine and genocide in Somalia and Rwanda. After personally visiting, over 3 days, thousands of sick and dying refugees across the region, a visibly tearful and shaken Irish woman President stood before the press cameras and famously declared:- 

“I’m sorry that I cannot be entirely calm speaking to you, because I have such a sense of what the world must take responsibility for.”

Her words and demeanour on this occasion shamed the West into action and led to the first concerted international humanitarian response to the Somalian and Rwandan crises.

Robinson’s successor, Mary McAleese, during her time in office, worked tirelessly to address issues of sectarianism and violence in the north of Ireland through an openly declared policy of “building bridges”. Picking up the mantle of her predecessor, McAleese invited Britain’s Queen Elizabeth to make a first ever state visit to the Republic of Ireland in 2011 – a move that initially discomfited some Irish Republicans but ultimately helped open a new door - not necessarily of agreement - but certainly respect and understanding between them and the British Royal Family. 

Early in her Presidency, McAleese also incurred the wrath of the then powerful, male dominated Catholic hierarchy in Ireland by accepting communion in an Anglican church. Although a devout Catholic herself, McAleese saw the move in the context of Ireland’s long history of religious conflict. For her, respecting and representing Irish people of different religious traditions was a core, and hugely important, responsibility of her office. 

It was a similar sense of duty that impelled McAleese, as President, to call for the complete deconstruction of homophobia in Ireland. In a broadcast from Áras an Uachtaráin (Ireland’s equivalent to an Oval Office) McAleese endorsed the Irish LGBT rights campaign and praised campaigners for working to bring fully to fruition the country’s founding Proclamation that “all the children of the nation shall be cherished equally”. In 2010 she signed into law the state’s first legislation recognising the validity of same sex relationships (civil partnerships). Within 5 years of this, attitudes to LGBT people in Ireland had changed so dramatically that the country, by popular referendum, voted to amend the Irish constitution to allow for same sex marriage. The extent of the shift in Irish social attitudes that McAleese helped bring about is no better testified than by the appointment, just last June, of Ireland's first openly gay Taoiseach (Prime Minister), Leo Varadakar. It is an extraordinary change in a country formerly dominated by the Catholic church.

It seems to me, then, that in order to become a great role model for women in the US and across the world, the first American woman President should consider becoming a transforming President, at least in the spirit of Robinson and McAleese. Ireland is, of course, a tiny country. But perhaps women from even a great country, like the US, who aspire to great political office, like the American President, can sometimes look towards a small country and draw some inspiration? Perhaps too, that first American woman President, when she takes office, might be able to connect, in some way, with the thoughts of Mary Robinson, after she was elected Ireland’s first woman President:-

“I must be a President for all the people, but more than that, I want to be a President for all the people. Because I was elected by men and women of all parties and none, by many with great moral courage, who stepped out from the faded flags of the Civil War and voted for a new Ireland, and above all by the women of Ireland, mná na hÉireann, who instead of rocking the cradle, rocked the system. And who came out massively to make their mark on the ballot paper and on a new Ireland.”