My sister sent me an interesting article today. I share it, not to be partisan (I'm not, and I am also neither American nor French) but because it raises issues dear to my heart: mothering and working in the world.

Motherhood and politics / Clinton and Royal have made gender the key to their campaigns. In the face of entrenched sexism, the risks are high, writes Madeleine Bunting


Here's a dream. It's the 2009 G7 summit and the photo call of the seven world leaders. All eyes are trained on the trio of women at the centre of the group: the US president, the French president and the German chancellor. To mark this moment of female achievement, these three world leaders have invited the Chilean and Liberian presidents to the summit as observers. The five women release a joint statement on a huge fund for women's health and education after a private meeting.
Reality erupts rudely into this daydream when one imagines the headlines and stories that might accompany such a picture: would President Segolene Royal have got beyond being routinely referred to as a "glamorous mother of four"? Would President Hillary Clinton still be described as cold and calculating? Would Chancellor Angela Merkel's leadership style still be characterised as one of "female modesty"? And would reporters be able to resist frequent comment on the clothing and hairstyles of these political leaders? Depressingly, the conventions that dominate political reporting seem to cling even more stubbornly to gender stereotypes than the political institutions themselves.
There is about a week to go until the first round of voting in the French presidential elections. Every way the UK looks - across the Channel, across the Atlantic, across the North Sea - a woman is at the centre of politics, and their gender is at the centre of political debate. Gender is no longer an issue of competence. The crude question of "can a woman hold top political office?" has transmuted into exacting assessments of the candidates' personal attributes according to sexist stereotypes. But what makes the campaigns of both Royal, the socialist presidential candidate in France, and Clinton, bidding for the Democratic nomination in the US, so novel is how both these daughters of the feminist movement are deliberately using these stereotypes, pioneering a new way of women doing politics. Breaking away from a Thatcher model (adopted by Merkel) of never explicitly drawing attention to the fact of one's sex, Royal and Clinton have put the fact that they are women and mothers!
at the centre of their campaigns. It is a fascinating experiment.
"Because I am a woman, things will be different," declared Royal. "The fact that I'm a woman and a mom is part of what I am," announced Clinton. At her recent rallies, Royal has had the Marseillaise played and the French tricolour flag flying as she launches herself as a modern-day M arianne - the famed symbol of the French revolution - storming the barricades of an old, staid, male political world. Her use of a very feminine wardrobe of pretty skirts and pale (often white) jackets is a contrast to the usual female political wardrobe of sober trouser suits and pillar-box bright colours. She makes no apologies for her femininity; "Mother Nation", the admiring newspaper Liberation has christened her.
Clinton's style may be different, but she also emphasises her femininity as a sharp break with the prevailing political culture. Rejecting the Texas cowboy image of the US incumbent, she made the first public appearance of her presidential bid at a children's healthcare centre, holding hands with a child. Motherhood is now offered by both candidates as a political asset - a form of authority and leadership.
In a politics driven by personality, motherhood offers some shortcuts. It helps humanise the politician, it can be used to project an emotional warmth and empathy in an age when the primary requirement of political leaders is that they "understand" the voter. Voters show in polling that they think motherhood makes women less driven by self-interest and more by the welfare of others. At a time when politicians are held in such low regard and there is pervasive political cynicism, the "mother nation" figure has some real emotional resonance in both electorates.
But motherhood is a double-edged political instrument. Motherhood and ambition are still an awkward combination on both sides of the Atlantic, as is clearly evident in the reception of both Clinton and Royal in recent months. Accusations of being "calculating", "ambitious", "cold" have dogged them from the start of their campaigns. Such terms when applied to a male candidate would hardly be seen as a drawback - what president hasn't been ambitious? - but it makes these mother politicians appear less motherly. That then raises questions about their sincerity or their opportunism, the one issue on which voters are unforgiving.
The difficult task Clinton and Royal have to pull off is to meet two sets of conflicting and shifting expectations as both good mothers and good politicians. In her recent book, Royal attempted to counter critics of her mothering by declaring that she thinks of her children (the oldest is 22, the youngest 14) all the time and that she would give up politics "without even a thought" if one of her children were sick. It is an odd way of laying out your political stall.
Being the first women to run for president offers a dramatic opportunity for a country to make a fresh start, a sharp break with the past. That is what thrust Michelle Bachelet into power as Chilean president a year ago. She was an icon of a new future for Chile, reconciled after its violent past and emerging from its entrenched social conservatism. Mary Robinson played something of a similar role when she became president of Ireland. Their elections transformed the image of their countries overnight. This is the big pitch of both Clinton and Royal, but there has to be a real hunger for that change - and in neither the US or France is that self-evident.
For all Clinton and Royal's boldness in using their sex, they are both well aware that it is the issue that could just as easily break their political careers as make them. Polling for the Clinton camp indicates that at least a third of the US electorate do not believe the US is ready for a woman president - regardless of her attributes. Meanwhile Royal has been dogged by persistent sexism. "Who will look after the kids?" was one comment from a party comrade on hearing of her presidential bid. Also, their husbands could prove a real liability. It's far from clear whether either Royal or Clinton's partners can be as supportive as a wife is routinely expected to be. Royal's partner makes no bones about his own thwarted political ambitions. It's an issue that fascinates France because it reflects the competitive tensions of so many dual-career couples.
The irony is that the handful of women at the top of politics give the impression that women have finally stormed power, when nothing could be further from the truth. In France, women account for only 12.6% of the legislature and in the US, only 16% of Congress are women. Royal and Clinton are bravely using their sex to leverage themselves into power, but all the evidence is that sexism remains entrenched.
The stakes couldn't be higher. If their candidacies contribute to the election of loathed rightwing alternatives - in particular if Royal doesn't get the socialists through to the second round - their failures will haunt, and be used to intimidate, women politicians for a generation.