Extract from "Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism" by Natasha Walter https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Y1eVeyOTuNQC&printsec=frontcover&...
"The way that masculinity and femininity are now so often seen as mutually exclusive, so that the more masculine you are the less feminine you are, operates against women who seek power. Because in the eyes of those influenced by traditional stereotypes, a man seeking power enhances his masculinity, but a woman seeking power reduces her femininity. And this can be extremely negative for a woman who goes into politics, as it makes her seem not quite human, as though she has given up something essential about herself.
We can see this unease with powerful women constantly in our culture. Every woman who seeks power runs the risk of becoming a figure such as Hillary Clinton, who seeks power who was the failed candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in the US in 2008, and who was constantly characterised as competent, but cold and inhuman, or a figure such as Ségolène Royal, who was the failed candidate for president of France in 2007, who was characterised as elegantly feminine, but therefore insufficiently competent and authoritative. What women who seek power gain in authority, they will lose in femininity, and vice versa. It takes a terrific balancing act, achieved by few women, to maintain both the necessary authority and the necessary femininity to be seen as fully human in politics. On the other hand, there will always be a man running alongside the would-be powerful woman, who will be benefiting from the operation of the stereotype of the masculine leader, and whose humanity will be enhanced rather than threatened by his bid for power.
The discomfort our society still feels abut the woman who overtly seeks power means that thirty years after Margaret Thatcher managed to crack the stereotype temporarily, British politics has reverted to an aggressively masculine cabal; the leaders of all major parties are men. Women who attempt to break through this wall of masculinity do not need to be substantively attacked, they can simply be mocked as unfeminine and the operation of the stereotype will do the rest. A loss of femininity in style or appearance, in speech or manner, will be enough to discredit the woman who seeks power, who will immediately be seen as strident, chilly and even inhuman."
Marie
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2015 09:51:26 -0400 From: neotarf@gmail.com To: gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Gendergap] What on earth is "second generation gender bias"?
For anyone who has a hard time keeping up with current permutations of gender theory, the Harvard Business Review has a useful explanation of "What Is Second-Generation Gender Bias?" in this article side box. An excerpt:
"Research has moved away from a focus on the deliberate exclusion of women and toward investigating “second-generation” forms of gender bias as the primary cause of women’s persistent underrepresentation in leadership roles. This bias erects powerful but subtle and often invisible barriers for women that arise from cultural assumptions and organizational structures...
"Double binds. "In most cultures masculinity and leadership are closely linked: The ideal leader, like the ideal man, is decisive, assertive, and independent. In contrast, women are expected to be nice, caretaking, and unselfish. The mismatch between conventionally feminine qualities and the qualities thought necessary for leadership puts female leaders in a double bind. Numerous studies have shown that women who excel in traditionally male domains are viewed as competent but less likable than their male counterparts. Behaviors that suggest self-confidence or assertiveness in men often appear arrogant or abrasive in women. Meanwhile, women in positions of authority who enact a conventionally feminine style may be liked but are not respected. They are deemed too emotional to make tough decisions and too soft to be strong leaders."
https://hbr.org/2013/09/women-rising-the-unseen-barriers
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