Extract from "Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism" by Natasha Walter
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Y1eVeyOTuNQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Natasha+Walters+Living+Dolls+contents&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAWoVChMIwMPPouCzxwIViDkaCh1XvApV#v=onepage&q&f=false


>"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