U.S. society is uncomfortable with powerful women and that is why the United States has not yet elected a woman President, President Barack Obama said on Sunday.
Mr. Obama, who is eager to see fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton succeed him in office, told a fund-raiser for her in New York that the election between her and Republican businessman Donald Trump should not be close.
However, political polarisation in the country would make it tight, he said.
The first African-American U.S. President then told the group of donors why he thought a woman had never held the office.
“There’s a reason why we haven’t had a woman President,” he said. “We as a society still grapple with what it means to see powerful women. And it still troubles us in a lot of ways, unfairly. And that expresses itself in all sorts of ways.”
Polls have tightened between Ms. Clinton and Mr. Trump. “This should not be a close election, but it will be,” Mr. Obama said. “And the reason it will be is not because of Hillary’s flaws, but rather because, structurally, we’ve become a very polarised society,” he said.
‘Trump not qualified’ Mr. Obama told the donors that Mr. Trump was unlike the two candidates he faced in the 2008 and 2012 general elections. “When I ran against John McCain, we had deep differences, but I couldn’t say that he was not qualified to be President,” he said. “I couldn’t say that electing Mitt Romney would be an unmitigated disaster. This guy [Trump] is not qualified to be President,” he added.
