It began with an interview with 16 prominent women in Jan. 1968 McCall's, where she said: "I would not want to be President and would not vote for a woman president. A woman cannot reasonably want to be a commander-in-chief. I prefer to answer the question by outlining what a rational man would do if he were President."
She answered the many letters that she received by students in the vol 7, no. 12 1968 issue of The Objectivist. She started by that they study her heroines in her novels, especially Dagny Taggart. It was more about wanting to rather than whether a woman could do the job, but had to do with values. She indicated that it would not take much for a woman to do a better job than most of the presidents up to 1968.Regarding the presidency, she said not to ask " 'Could she do the job and would it be good for the country?' Conceivably, she could and it would---but what would it do to her?" Her essence of femininity was hero-worship which she considered "the desire to look up to a man." Where, "To look up" does not mean dependence, obedience or anything implying inferiority. It means an intense kind of admiration..."
She says that "for a rational woman, would be an unbearable situation." speaking of the position of the President with relationship to every one in the executive branch being inferiors under the president.
She ends the article with, "For a woman to seek the Presidency is, in fact, so terrible a prospect of spiritual self-immolition that the woman who would seek it, is psychologically unworthy of the job."

Ayn Rand commented on feminists back in the late '60's:

"Feminism has surpassed me in one respect; I had no idea that it was possible to blow the character of Comrade Sonia up to such gigantic proportions."

There is no way she could have been thinking of Shrillary when she made this comment, but it certainly fits.

margaret thatcher, Benazir Bhutto, Golda Meir...cleopatra, Elizabeth, geez

Yes, I remember this.

Rand held that no rational woman would want to elevate herself to a social, political, or other station superior to that of any man she is likely to meet. That went double, in her mind, for the Presidency of the United States--because the United States was then the most powerful (militarily) of all the nation-states of the world.

And the reasons were entirely--are you ready for this?--sexual.

In her world, the man always dominated during sex. (I surmise from this that she utterly abominated homosexual or bisexual orientation and practice--and again, because such practice offended her aesthetically only.) How, she then asked, can a man take a dominant position in a relationship in which the woman holds a more important job than his? For Rand, sex reflected the rest of life. She did not "compartment" personal intimacy.

So she decided: no rational woman would want the job of POTUS, because such a woman would shut herself out from any kind of sexual enjoyment. Any woman who would take pleasure in being in the dominant position, or holding the dominant rank, she would consider dangerous to life, liberty and property, and would vote against her for that reason alone.

Now look at Hillary Clinton. Her history is of having a husband for show, and having to indulge him, directly or...indirectly, if you catch my drift. That's why Rand would never vote for her, in addition to her demonstrable criminality while in office, and since her leaving it, to say nothing of her lock-step down-the-line advocacy of grand theft. (A thief is an unauthorized wealth-redistribution agent.)

On the other hand, someone already mentioned Baroness Thatcher, Golda Meir, and especially Queen Elizabeth I. I wouldn't cite Cleopatra VII--she got what she wanted through her manipulation of the Roman Dictator Julius Caesar and later the Roman Proconsul Marcus Antonius. I would cite Hatchepsut, the first woman in any nation-state to dare call herself a king--that is, a regnant monarch. I can tell you this: Hatchepsut definitely had her share of detractors who accused her of using sex as an advancement tool. (You find that on at least one off-color tomb drawing.) As to Elizabeth I, all accounts say she never married precisely because she never met the man she could trust implicitly to content himself with the role of Prince Consort. In the ultra-violent Tudor era, her decision might have been entirely appropriate. But Queen Victoria, the next English regnant queen to have a long reign, did not so abstain. Recall Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, her consort for many years. Not to mention the current reigning Queen Elizabeth II and her consort, Philip Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh. (Though that marriage isn't very happy, either--I think the consortship has always chafed him.)

Judge for yourselves whether Rand's concern had any validity at all--and definitely judge whether it would be the deal-killer she thought it was.

This was one of the times she was simply wrong and spoke on a very subjective basis.

Did she foresee Mrs. Clinton as a presidential
candidate? Makes you wonder!!

Ayn Rand was correct in suggesting that we have fallen pretty low when a woman candidate was a better choice than any male candidate that could be found (for a, historically, male oriented position). It's not much different than when Bruce Jenner was voted "Woman of The Year", or something like that. Were there no "true" women in the world, more qualified than him?

I'm not going to say that a woman could never be President...I'm merely saying that our current PC culture is not up to the task of selecting the "right" woman and we would likely end up with a very poor alternative, to be sure.

WELL>>>>>
No one can be right all the time.
While I admire Ms. Rand greatly, in this matter, I cannot agree with her. She has, in this particular matter, the old eastern European bugaboo, that because of hormones, genetics, etc. a woman cannot be a person who conducts war. I think that had she lived for another 10 years she might have changed her mind -- or not.

I think one thing that Rand longed for in her life was a man she could look up to, and I personally don't think she ever found it. It would be wrong for a woman to diminish herself in order to have a man in a dominant position. I don't think Rand even found a man who would be her equal.

I disagree with her on this, even though women are
commonly viewed as more likely to be pacifists than
men. . I am confident, from personal experience with
some very fine women, that there definitely are those
who would be fine commanders-in-chief. . I knew one
with an IQ of 165 who could out-think most men in the
realm of business and politics and common sense.
then, there was the one who went straight to her MS
in engineering without bothering with the bachelor's.
then there were the ones who started their own businesses
just to be independent and creative and, yes, self-
defensive. . they are out there, IMHO. . we may have
some here in the gulch. . just hide and watch! -- j
.

Just part of clay on the feet of Idol Rand. For all the good she did, poor lady (Rand) made many mistakes and this is but one.

I thought it was a liberal idea to vote, especially for someone based on their race or gender. How about voting strictly on ability ???