Kamala Harris Loses, and Many Wonder if a Woman Will Ever Be President

On the arduous climb toward the “highest, hardest glass ceiling,” female presidential candidates persisted and resisted.They promised they were unbought and unbossed.

Most of all, they believed the nation was ready for them.And, one by one, they were proven wrong.The United States has been led by men for all of its 248 years, and that will continue for at least four more.

On Wednesday, Vice President Kamala Harris became the latest woman to fail to break the gender barrier to the presidency, and the second to be defeated by Donald J.Trump.Across the country, on text chains, during their commutes, in offices, with friends and family, women were processing the sting of another loss.

Mothers consoled their daughters.Others tried to figure out how to explain what it meant, to their loved ones and to themselves, that Ms.

Harris had been defeated by a man like Mr.Trump — who had bragged about stripping away the rights of women, about grabbing them by their genitals, and who had been held liable for sexual abuse.“I’m terrified by him, to be honest,” said Nicole Saylor, an independent voter in Hendersonville, N.C., who has voted Democratic in the past few elections.

“And I’m terrified that I live in a country where 51 percent of the people voted for someone who is bigoted and misogynistic.I’m terrified that half of the country thinks it’s OK.”Ms.

Harris’s loss brought many women a wave of sadness and pain, to be sure.But this time, there was another emotion at play.

When Hillary Clinton lost to Mr.Trump in 2016, the anger and shock had been so palpable that it sparked a pink-hatted protest movement.

Now, faced with the reality that Mr.Trump had been swept back into office with a broader electoral mandate than before, women across the country expressed grim resignation that their country was more welcoming to a second Trump term than to the idea of a woman leader.“It’s just nothingness in my head.

I can’t look ahead,” said Abby Clark,...