DID HILLARY CLINTON LOSE BECAUSE SHE’S A WOMAN?

THE significance of the election, against all expectations - if the subsequent downward spiral of global markets is anything to go by - of Republican Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States is that in an open democracy even the village idiot stands a fair chance of being elected into public office.

Contemporary and future political scientists and analysts, not to speak of historians, will for years attempt to psychoanalyze, in a bid to knit the pieces together of how a rank outsider with no political pedigree whatsoever, except for a questionable business track record, made it to the most powerful position as leader of the free world. Even more astounding, prior to his election victory, was Trump’s nomination to be the ticket holder of the Grand Old Party (Republican) in the race for the White House.

Equally so, feminists, as well as gender equality activists, will wonder if one of the world’s more matured democracies had still not been liberated from the shackles of the male supremacy stereotype. In which case could it be conclusive that the former Secretary of State and First Lady Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was undermined by her gender since America was not ready for a first female president and commander-in-chief?      

Conversely, and in the midst of it all, yours truly would be left figuring out if the hand of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) had not been the decisive factor in swaying the electorate in Trump’s favour. Apparently the FBI had, as hours ticked into minutes before the election, announced that it was reopening its investigations into Clinton’s use of a private server for her emails while still America’s top diplomat, on the strength that a fresh batch of emails had surfaced. The FBI announcement immediately ate into Clinton’s double-digit opinion poll lead over Trump to a wafer-thin margin.

As I see it, when the FBI subsequently made an about-turn on the eve of the election and abandoned its investigation, the damage had already been done to scare voters away from Clinton to the benefit of Trump’s camp. Paradoxically, in a discussion – or maybe an argument - over the impact the election of Trump into the White House would make on global affairs days leading to the election, I had been vociferous in playing down his outspokenness and at times ridiculous policy positions by arguing that his extremism would be tamed by America’s strong institutions with their tested checks and balances.

Perhaps I was wrong if the FBI shenanigans were anything to go by.
But of certainty is that the FBI director can rest assured that his position is well- secured under a Trump presidency.
To bring you, dear reader, up to speed, I had no intention of lobotomising the pros and cons of the outcome of the US presidential election on this column save for a one liner adding to the voices congratulating and praising the election of the first female president of the world’s most powerful country.

That was based on the assumption, wrong as it turned out, that Clinton was walking in the park and that Trump had no chance at all given his incendiary disposition and specifically after he was endorsed by the ultra-racist white supremacist Ku Klux Klan. Instead, I had planned to enter the fray over South Africa’s decision to pull out of the Rome Statute that created the legal framework for the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC). But God willing, that will now be a topic for another day. This is especially so that our government has also had a word on the matter by justifying why the Kingdom of eSwatini had bulked from signing the treaty.
Of the varied thoughts on how the American electorate chose Trump over Clinton, the one that needs examining is the gender issue. This is most interesting because countries, such as the US, championing democratic values across the globe have prevailed, even in Africa, to get countries to enact laws protecting and promoting the cause of women.

Within this premise one would think that matters of gender equality were no longer an issue in the American context. If this was the case, it would easily discount the gender issue as having been decisive in the outcome of the election.
As I See it, perhaps we are all missing something when it comes to gender-equilibrium issues. It may be that society is merely academic and cosmetic when it comes to these issues purely for reasons of acceptance ostensibly because it is civil and politically correct to do so as this is what society expects of all of us.

But subliminally there may reside conflicting and contradictory beliefs and attitudes which are still persuasive when it comes to practice. In African society, for example, cultural beliefs remain dominant even among women who still believe they are inferior to their male counterparts and, therefore, must be always submissive to them.
Empirical example on the domestic front is provided by the constitutional framework requiring the election of four female legislators from the four geographic regions of the kingdom. To date nothing has come of that because, according to Prime Minister Sibusiso Barnabas Dlamini, of the absence of the requisite legal framework.

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