Sex and Gender role in the 2016 American Elections

The masculine dominance in the American presidential elections in American had therefore been a hard ceiling and a hard one to be broken. The power of women in the current polls have shown the ability to crack this ceiling, but there is still a lot more to be done to convince every American to vote for a female president. There have always been gender norms and expectations that have associated the American political powers with masculinity and men an aspect of the great man theory. Sociological behavior describes the role of gender and sex in the 2016 American elections where competing interests were used to pinpoint the right candidate, but the masculine dominance acted as a glass ceiling to break while the assumptions and expectations of the roles that candidates promised to undertake, was based on gender stereotypes.

Great Man Theory To begin with, there has always been an expectation in America that a president is male and the masculine culture in politics had dominated the country. The ability of the candidates to fight for political dominance therefore finally determined the election outcome. The aspect of race acted as the sole decision maker among the voters by influencing their behavior. The missteps in the Clinton campaign, as well as the interferences caused by Russia, have also been cited as other determinants of the election outcome in the country. Gender role could not, therefore, be ignored in shaping the American 2016 politics (Coser, Lewis A, 2016). It is worthy to note that, giving a female the top seat in America would have disrupted the existing picture of presidential leadership in the country.

The slogan ‘make America great again’ that was used by Donald Trump indicated that the nation was about to attain the traditional ideas of providing power-sharing opportunities for males and females. The fact that Trump was a billionaire also made it clear that he would effectively develop good roles to improve the country’s economy hence a better future for all Americans (Sawicki, Jana, 45) Feminist theory Moreover, the idea of power-sharing was brought about by the electoral process in 2016 American polls. The Barbara Lee family foundation and the Centre for America Women and Politics developed the presidential gender watch in 2015, and it was a sign of relieving to women that they will finally have a chance to fight and win the top seat in the country.