They Say the Owl of Minerva Was a Grocer’s Daughter
By Eve TushnetThere was only one time I ever felt like Yale students respected me less because I was a woman.
The Yale Political Union had invited Larry Flynt, the man who brought us Hustler, to speak on the topic of pornography and free speech. I certainly agreed with his position (no restrictions) then, and I would probably agree with it now. But he drew a crowd. That’s why he had been invited. And I was supposed to give a speech about why you should join a right-wing philosophical society, in front of a crowd who’d come to hear Larry Flynt.
There were five speakers before me: a male leftist, a male liberal who played guitar, I don’t remember, something conservative and blond, and then a tiny Anglo-Vietnamese woman who was all but shouted down by the usual white Yale leftist men as she tried to express the ethos of her traditionalist debating group.
And then me. After the first few paragraphs of my speech I think they were scared of me, because I was right-wing enough and weird enough to be scary; but before that, the catcalls and the sexualization were like nothing I’d ever experienced in college.
What I want, in bringing up this story, is to ask about women’s leadership. We have Maggie Thatcher; we have Golda Meir; we have Christina and two Elizabeths and, for Catholics, at least two Catherines. But on a normal day, in front of a crowd of men, how do women lead? Sarah Palin was of course ridiculed for winking, for trading on her sexuality; Hillary Clinton was ridiculed for trying to avoid it.
I think it’s obvious that we can support both gender roles and women’s leadership. We have so many models! But can we give any advice, sustenance, guidance to the women who want to try?
Specifically, for more conservative women, how do we affirm more gendered models of leadership (e.g. the “Yale man”) while still showing women how to lead? Should I have noticed and traded on positive aspects of my gender role as a leader and a woman? How would I have done that?
(title references: Hamlet/Hegel/Lady Thatcher)
Tags: leadership
November 20th, 2008 at 8:19 am
I’m not sure that there is an example of a successful female leader who plays up her sexuality as Palin did. There are certainly female politicians in Europe (Segolene Royal, Ukraine’s Julia Timoshenka) who are beautiful and use it, but in a less accessible way. Royal is incredibly elegant, and Timoshenka picks up patriotic symbols with her coronet of braids. Their femininity is a tool that never crosses into signals of sexual availability, and that was (one of) Palin’s mistake. Especially where she had been plucked from relative obscurity to this position, cues of sexuality paired with evidence of incompetence provided an explanation for her presence on the ticket. Perhaps if her strength and competence hadn’t been in doubt - she would have had more room to manoevre. But I still think that actively flirtatious behaviour witht he public at large is not smart for any female leader. It may give Rich Lowry “starbusts” but it doesn’t make her a convincing leader!
November 21st, 2008 at 12:10 am
[…] Ladyblog » Blog Archive » They Say the Owl of Minerva Was a Grocer …There were five speakers before me: a male leftist, a male liberal who played guitar, I don’t remember, something conservative and blond, and then a tiny Anglo-Vietnamese woman who was all but shouted down by the usual white Yale … […]
November 21st, 2008 at 1:27 am
[…] Ladyblog » Blog Archive » They Say the Owl of Minerva Was a Grocer …There were five speakers before me: a male leftist, a male liberal who played guitar, I don’t remember, something conservative and blond, and then a tiny Anglo-Vietnamese woman who was all but shouted down by the usual white Yale … […]
November 21st, 2008 at 1:30 am
Using sexuality might be easier to get away with, or more accepted, if you are already connected to someone famous. Like Evita Peron or the various Queens of Europe from famous fathers. Eleanor of Aquitaine was pretty wiley, but she also used some amount of flirtatiousness/sexiness in youth.
If you are being “introduced” or are “self-made” it might fail more. That could be true with men too. Mitt Romney and JFK both played on sex-appeal, but neither of them was precisely a self-made man. Romney maybe went from “rich to richer”, but he didn’t come from a remotely ordinary background. For a woman “self-made” plus “uses sexiness” could bring up images of “slept her way to the top” or at least “flirted her way to the top.”
The test of this will be if the daughter of a former Presidential candidate, or wealthy CEO, will be able to use sex/flirtiness in a campaign without hurting her credibility. If so we might have our female JFK.