It is said that the 2016 race to become the next president of the United States is Hillary Rodham Clinton's to lose. And just as it was in 2008 during the primaries, she may end up doing just that.
If that were the outcome, quite a few Democrats would be shocked. Much in the spirit of Obama's election, they feel that having a woman as president is "the next box to be checked" in U.S. history. In that endeavor and hope, they are helped by the fact that the electoral odds in presidential races tend to favor Democrats.
It is certainly an anomaly that the very country that led the global march for equal rights for women in the 1970s still has not had a woman as head of state or of government. That puts the U.S. in a league with the likes of China and Russia, two very paternalistic nations — and solidly behind nations such as Brazil, Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh, not to mention Germany, the United Kingdom and France.