Four women were serious candidates for president. What happened?

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren Credit: Steven Senne

Editor's note: Swanee Hunt, former US ambassador before Austria, she is the founder of the "Women and Public Policy" Program at the "Kennedy" Faculty of Government of Harvard University and "Seismic Shift", an initiative dedicated to increasing the number of women in high public office. She is also the author of "Rwandan Women Rising." The opinions expressed in the column are those of the author.

(CNN) - On Thursday, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren announced the end of her presidential campaign after a daunting performance in the primary elections. Now there is only one woman who is running for the highest position on this earth; a woman who, according to any electoral metric, has virtually no chance of winning.

In 2007, when Hillary Rodham Clinton first announced "I'm in and I'm going to win," she stoked hope in everyone who dreams of political parity: that a woman could soon be president of the United States. Immediately after Clinton's candidacy in 2016, and his loss to a flagrant misogynist, countless women ran for public office.

Therefore, it was promising to see six women Democrats step up the contest for the presidency this time. Even if two, author Marianne Williamson and Hawaii's representative, Tulsi Gabbard, did not have many options to win for a variety of reasons, they left four highly qualified women in the race: Warren, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, Senator from New York Kirsten Gillibrand and California Senator Kamala Harris. Now, the possibility of a woman winning the 2020 presidential race is void.

What happened?

There is no doubt that sexism played a role in bringing us to this point. But social influences are perverse problems: they are diseases, difficult to diagnose, even more difficult to cure.

• LOOK: Warren still does not define who will give his support among the aspiring Democrats

As is usually the case, perhaps, these candidates seemed to have a higher level when it came to being presidential, eligible and even pleasant. In fact, for women, those three characteristics fight each other. A woman who seems to be kind (nice) pays a high price. Gillibrand took a soft approach when wearing dresses in contrast to the suits (with pants) worn by many candidates. However, beyond the optics, he dealt with issues more openly focused on women than his competitors.

And Harris. Did his strong show of audacity, like when he faced Vice President Biden in the race, made her unpleasant? Why did she, like Gillibrand, not succeed in obtaining support? Beyond the problems of the campaign, what invisible forces stood in the way? Harris was not simply a black candidate; Our former president opened that path. She was a black woman.

While the campaign continued, Warren and Klobuchar established themselves as powerful and presidential, much more, surely, than most men in the race. Hence, the New York Times supports not one, but both. But by then Warren had fallen at the polls. Some questioned his ability to face President Donald Trump, fueling doubts about his ability to choose. In Nevada, Warren drew attention to the non-winning situation he faced as a political woman: "If you complain about that, then you are complaining," he said. "And if you don't complain, the rest of the women think, 'What planet are you living on?' Then, you get caught between the two. ”

Klobuchar took the approach to emphasize that she was throwing herself on her merits, not her gender, although she would be proud to be the first woman president.

Without qualms, he called sexism when he commented during a debate, referring to the former mayor of South Bend, Pete Buttigieg, that no mayor of a small town would be in his position in the contest.

Was that complaining? Questions like this, even when asked in a seemingly neutral context, are potentially toxic. Women must work doubly not only to be hard, but to do so in a visibly attractive way.

Sympathy can be the reason why Warren, in an Instagram video, pulled a Michelob Ultra from his refrigerator while talking casually in his kitchen.

The irony is, of course, that the most detestable president in memory resides in a White House contaminated by corruption, deception, greed, amorality, which a woman desperately needs to shovel everything.

Yes, we are seeing progress below the presidential level. Women represent about a quarter of the body of voters of the 116th Congress, a record number (although women in both houses are predominantly Democrats).

Since 100 years ago American women obtained the right to vote, it is difficult for many of us to understand the fact that we still have to take a seat behind the desk in the Oval Office. Maybe in 2020 we will see a woman vice president. That would be progress, but not the progress that the nation needs for a truly representative democracy.

In his book “What Happened,” Hillary Clinton tells a successful story that David Foster Wallace told in a 2005 graduation speech at Kenyon College. Two young fish are swimming when an older fish that comes towards them nods and says: “Good morning, boys. How is the water? ” Young fish swim happily. Finally, one looks at the other: "What is water?"

In fact, the most important realities may be the most difficult to see and speak for voters. But we must observe and speak. Sexism was a force in this year's Democratic primary.

There must come a day when we can see the election results without saying, "We have to do it right next time." As Shakespeare would say, if there are failures they are not in our stars, but in ourselves.

Amy Klobuchar Elizabeth Elizabeth