I made the first edition of She’s Running the Country in the run-up to the American elections in 2016.
The Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton had become the first woman to run for president and at the time she was a shoo-in to win against her unlikely opponent Donald Trump.
On the cusp of this historic event I decided to celebrate all the women in the history of world democracy who had become their countries elected leaders.
The idea was to print their names and the countries they represented all over an armchair but sadly there weren’t nearly enough to do that. In fact, disappointingly there were just enough names to cover the front sling of a deck chair – if I repeated the names on the back.
When Kamala Harris threw her hat into the ring for 2024 US elections I decided it was time to revisit the subject.
The good news is that in the intervening eight years the number of female elected leaders has exactly doubled.
There still aren’t enough names to cover an armchair but they do at least cover the front and back of a deck chair.
Winning the race to the White House would arguably have made either Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris the most powerful elected female leaders in the history of modern democracy and the world would have been spared the turbulence of two Trump presidencies.
It may seem perverse but I’m happy to leave Kamala’s name on the role call.
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