Win/Lose. Presidential Elections. Literature & Language Essay

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Presidential Elections
According to the CITATION Mer182 \l 1033 (Merriam Webster) dictionary, to win is ‘to get possession of by effort or fortune; to obtain by work: earn.’ Paradoxically, to lose is not a direct opposite of winning, rather CITATION Mer183 \l 1033 (Merriam Webster)defines to lose as to ‘suffer deprivation.’ These definitions are among others, but they are closest to the subject of this article. When someone wins, individuals/candidates have obtained the desired result through work. However, when individuals/candidates don’t get the desired result through work, they have not necessarily lost but gained another result which they may not have desired but received anyway. The undesired result may not be a loss depending on how you interpret it. Therefore, winning and losing is a matter of perspective and both are beneficial depending on how they are approached. In the case of women and presidential elections, this article seeks to explain how the win or lose approach has robbed the US of many women who could have made great leaders. Though women have been unable to get themselves to the point where they are strong presidential contenders, this article seeks to argue that for over 240 years, the win/lose nature of US elections has denied the US a female president which is an unfair outcome.
In the case of presidential elections, many candidates eye the coveted seat, but only one of them gets it. For any election, there is always a winner and a loser. In the US, women have been unable to break this glass ceiling, and their losses have demonstrated how the society is not accommodative of nearly half of its population. Austin (np) writes and says that “winning isn’t everything, nor is it the only thing.” However, looking at the US presidential elections, the opposite seems to be true, and this has robbed the nation of great leaders even though research by Zenger and Folkman (np) shows that women are rated as “better overall leaders than their male counterparts.” Taking the win or lose approach, therefore, makes it impossible for women to showcase their ideas and strategy for leading the nation.
The society has never focused on designing the process to be equitable and representative of the population because it is fixated on a later pleasure derived from their preferred candidate oblivious of any other factors. Having the win or lose approach has made it difficult for women to be chosen as preferred candidates by the two major parties in the country. Men are believed to be better leaders and get to some positions undeservedly even though research does not support and also that they command crowds and will, therefore, much more easily garner support faster than women. The win or lose approach has diminished th...