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Hawaii has a reputation as a place where diversity thrives, so it seems natural to imagine us leading the way in electing women of color to top executive roles. But here we are in 2025, and while we’ve made some progress, the reality is sobering: women of color continue to face a uniquely steep climb to offices like governor or president.

Hawaii made history in 2002 by electing Linda Lingle as its first woman governor, but despite being one of only two majority-minority states in the nation, we’ve yet to elect a non-white woman to our state’s top executive post.

At a national level, Kamala Harris’s rise to the vice presidency marked a turning point for representation, offering a fragile hope that the country might be ready to embrace leaders who reflect its diversity. With the benefit of hindsight, it’s clear that even Harris’s position as vice president wasn’t enough to convince the country that a woman of color could hold our nation’s highest office.

That said, it’s important to acknowledge that elections are complex, and gender and race are never the sole reasons why someone wins or loses. Harris faced significant challenges that went beyond her identity. She inherited an uphill battle against anti-incumbent sentiment, as voters often blame sitting administrations for economic struggles and global instability, even when those factors are beyond their control. Her campaign also faced time limitations.

But these factors don’t erase the historical and systemic barriers that women of color face in reaching the highest offices.

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According to the , women will hold 26% of U.S. governorships in 2025, a new record. But of those 13 women governors, just one is a woman of color. Since 2004, only five women of color have ever served as governor. And if you’re keeping count, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley was the only woman of Asian or Pacific Islander descent to serve in a state’s top executive role, and no Black, Native, or Middle Eastern women have ever held the office. Let that sink in.

Meanwhile, the isn’t faring much better. Women currently hold approximately 21% of all C-Suite positions, and women of color occupy only a fraction of those roles. In the country’s largest companies, women CEO are even more rare. Among S&P 500 companies, only are women, and only .

These are far from equal representation, but they have increased over time, suggesting a growing acceptance of women in leadership positions — up to a point. Women, including women of color, are reaching higher levels of leadership in government and business, but they are still disproportionately excluded from roles that carry ultimate decision-making authority. Whether in politics or business, the hurdles grow steeper the closer one gets to the top.

Some of those hurdles are structural. In an email, Hawaii House Speaker Nadine Nakamura, Hawaii’s first woman to hold that position, pointed out “the greatest challenge lies in securing opportunities to identify community needs and gaining the resources and support of leadership to address the needs.”

Running for governor or president requires enormous resources — money, networks and institutional support — all of which have been historically harder to access for women of color. But Harris didn’t lack those resources. Neither did Colleen Hanabusa or Mazie Hirono when they ran for governor. Clearly, there are other factors involved.

For years, researchers have talked about the which is the no-win situation women leaders face when they are expected to exhibit dominance and authority but are judged as “socially deficient” or not likeable when they do.

For women of color, broader cultural biases about race and ethnicity create additional hazards. Racist stereotypes of docility or aggressiveness compound Asian and Black women’s difficulty navigating the double bind.

Further, women of color also face what some researchers call which is the observed tendency for “nonwhite women’s behavior to be generally less seen, heard, or recalled.”  In short, women of color have to work hardest to be noticed and taken seriously as leaders.

So how do we fix this? It starts with changing the way we think about leadership. Voters need to start seeing leadership as more than just toughness or decisiveness. We also need to examine the unconscious biases we harbor.  Despite my determination to see more women in top leadership roles, I catch myself holding women in leadership to excessively high standards. It’s hard to get away from the stereotypes and definitions society pushes on us so we should be ruthlessly questioning our own judgments.

That’s not easy to do. It’s even harder to get other people to do. But Congresswoman Jill Tokuda reminded me of something important. 

When she was 8 years old, she supported Geraldine Ferraro as Vice President, and she’s been waiting to call a woman “Madam President” since then. While she didn’t get her wish this election, she said, “It’s been 40 years, and I will not give up hope while I have breath that we will elect a woman and especially a woman of color.”

Achieving true representation may be slow, but we can’t stop working for it. Vice President Harris’ run for office got us closer than we’ve ever been, but we still need to pause and reflect.

What will it take for us to get ready, truly ready, to elect a woman of color as president? The answer may lie in assessing the biases that keep us from electing a woman of color as governor here at home.