Maybe you’ve heard by now that there’s some ~drama~ spreading throughout the Democratic primary. TL;DR: CNN reported that during a private meeting in 2018, Senator Bernie Sanders told fellow candidate Senator Elizabeth Warren that a woman could not win the U.S. presidency. He denies the accusation. Her response? “I thought a woman could win; he disagreed.”
Of course, these comments came up in Tuesday’s Democratic presidential debate and both candidates stood their ground. When asked about the convo, Warren pivoted to her own track record: “The only people on this stage who’ve won every election they’ve been in are the women: [Senator] Amy [Klobuchar] and me.”
True! But, uh, how are we still even entertaining this conversation and asking the question, “Can a woman be president?” It’s...dare I say, boring? Do we really need a reminder of all the women currently leading countries around the world? Welp, maybe we do. Here they are.
- Sophie Wilmès of Belgium
- Sanna Marin of Finland
- Zuzana Čaputová of Slovakia
- Sahle-Work Zewde of Ethiopia
- Mette Frederiksen of Denmark
- Salome Zourabichvili of Georgia
- Mia Mottley of Barbados
- Paula-Mae Weekes of Trinidad and Tobago
- Katrín Jakobsdóttir of Iceland
- Bidhya Devi Bhandari of Nepal
- Saara Kuugongelwa of Namibia
- Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand
- Halimah Yacob of Singapore
- Ana Brnabić of Serbia
- Kersti Kaljulaid of Estonia
- Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan
- Erna Solberg of Norway
- Angela Merkel of Germany
- Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh
- Jeanine Áñez of Bolivia
Jessica Goodman is the New York Times bestselling author of young adult thrillers They Wish they Were Us, They’ll Never Catch Us, and The Counselors. She is the former op-ed editor at Cosmopolitan magazine, and was part of the 2017 team that won a National Magazine Award in personal service. She has also held editorial positions at Entertainment Weekly and HuffPost, and her work has been published in outlets like Glamour, Condé Nast Traveler, Elle, and Marie Claire.
