Former United States President Barack Obama has renewed his call for greater opportunities for women and younger generations in leadership, saying he believes governments around the world would perform better if women were placed in charge for a period of two years.
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Obama made the remarks during a wide-ranging conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin at Salem State University in Massachusetts, where discussions centred on leadership, democracy, political division and the need to create opportunities for the next generation.
The September 21 event formed part of the Salem State Series and attracted about 3,600 people to the university’s O’Keefe Sports Complex, with hundreds of students, faculty and staff watching from a satellite location on campus.
Reflecting on leadership during his years in the White House, Obama said he had sometimes imagined what would happen if governments across the world were temporarily led by women.
“Even when I was president, I sometimes fantasised about if you put women in charge of every government for like two years and then just kind of saw, all right, how are things going?” he said.
Obama acknowledged that such an arrangement would not produce perfect governments but said he believed the results would nevertheless improve.
“I have a strong belief that things would they wouldn’t be perfect. But they’d be better. I’m confident about that. I really do,” he said.
The remarks were made while Obama was discussing the importance of allowing younger and emerging leaders to take on positions of responsibility rather than allowing older generations to remain indefinitely at the centre of political and public life.
His comments echoed a similar position he expressed publicly in 2019, when he argued that governments could improve if women were given greater opportunities to lead. His latest remarks were framed as his personal view about leadership rather than as an empirical claim that every government led by a woman would necessarily perform better.
The conversation also turned to the increasingly polarised political environment in the United States.
Obama argued that the divisions visible in national politics and the media were not always an accurate reflection of relationships among ordinary Americans.
“We’re not as divided as our politics or our media would indicate,” he said.
According to the former president, much of what appears to be deep national division is intensified by political and media dynamics, while day-to-day interactions among people remain considerably less hostile.
“The loud, noisy, polarized dialogue is in part manufactured for a variety of interests,” Obama said.
“When you get on the ground, it turns out people are still treating each other decently and with respect.”
He also argued that progress made over decades in areas including civil rights, women’s rights and LGBTQ rights had not simply disappeared despite the contentious nature of contemporary American politics.
“Today, we are rife with divisions, and our democracy seems broken in so many ways and the tenor and tone of the times feel mean-spirited,” Obama said.
“We’ve gone through times like this before. I believe we can get out of them.”
Obama said his interactions with young people through the Obama Foundation had reinforced his belief that younger generations should be given more opportunities and platforms to influence public life.
That theme also emerged at the end of the discussion when Goodwin asked whom the university should invite as a future speaker.
“At some point, you should probably get Michelle, because she’s better than I am,” Obama said, referring to former First Lady Michelle Obama.
He added: “I’m very big right now on getting folks who are younger than me getting younger voices out there, giving them platforms is really important.”
Obama served as the 44th President of the United States from 2009 to 2017. Since leaving office, much of his public work has focused on civic participation and programmes intended to support emerging leaders through the Obama Foundation.
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