Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Men vs. Women
I liked that quote a lot that Graham used about women not having the chance to make the same mistakes as men. I've never really thought about it that way before. I think as a society we definitely blame the men in power for things such as war, the economy and basically everything wrong with America and every other country on the planet. However, what we don't think about is that if women had been given the same opportunity to lead as men have been given they would still have to make those hard decisions and would be blamed for their bad choices. I think we put women politicians up on a pedestal and think that they operate by a different set of ideals and rules but in reality that isn't true. What would have been very interesting is having Hilary Clinton as president to see how the media reacted to her making tough decisions that we have only had the opportunity to see men make. Would a woman's decisions on topics like war and combat have a different public response than if a man made the same decision. I believe that it would and that she would never escape her gender. Anytime she would do something, it would always be perceived as a result of her gender while men's decisions are always separate from their gender.
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I really liked that quote too! I also think you're making a very valid point when you commented on the possibility that if Hilary was elected her decisions would always be viewed as resulting from her gender. While we won’t know if that would really be the case you have to wonder, because of the way women are regarded in politics. Interestingly, Condoleezza Rice hasn’t received the same amount of sexist treatment as Hilary or Palin (not that I’m saying she has been so lucky not to have experienced any at all), and I’m wondering why that is. Are her credentials better? Her experience more buzz worthy? Is Rice just not as intimidating or feminine enough? Or is it something that I haven’t considered?
Yeah, I agree that it's definitely a problem that women are believed to have an entirely different moral, emotional, and intellectual make-up that would affect their political decision making. It is interesting, though, how often the stereotype of women as 'morally-superior' has actually been used to hold them back, because it alludes to the anti-masculine quality of sensitivity and a lack of an ability to make 'tough' choices.
And yet Ghandi and Martin Luther King, two men, both advocated non-violence, while Golda Meir and Margaret Thatcher, two women, presided over wars. I wonder if these two men were ever seen as unmasculine for their policies? I suspect these two women were seen as less feminine for theirs.
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