Gender | Women can’t lead
From Theresa May to Hillary Clinton, the political disasters of the past two years are quintessentially feminine.
Women can’t lead.
That is not say that women cannot be leaders, but rather that when they are leaders they are less likely to succeed than men.
The reasons why women are less successful than men at leadership lie in three particularly female qualities: attention to detail; a conciliatory social stance; and, a practical nature.
Qualities that make women strong in one area make them weak in another, as is also true for men.
I could provide a justification or reasoning for the three female qualities listed above.
I could say that women have better attention to detail than men because in our evolutionary history women were responsible for childcare, and those mothers who paid especial attention to a child were less likely to see the babe dragged off by saliva-flecked hyenas.
But I do not know if such an evolutionary ‘just so’ story is true, nor do I know if causal arguments about the ways historical and social systems that have pinched the sexes are true.
What I can say is that the qualities listed above accord with what I have observed and read about female behaviour. Whether these behaviours are to do with testosterone (lack of), evolution, or the patriarchy is beyond this essay’s scope.
I will further add that I consider leadership to consist of three qualities: the ability to be decisive (especially in a crisis); the ability to have a strategic view, which involves using contradictory tactics to achieve a final goal; and, a willingness to defy resistance.
Readers may object that leadership so defined is leadership considered on a male basis alone.
This may be true — there may be unique feminine qualities that can be brought to leadership — but the absence of the three qualities listed above constitutes an absence of leadership.
Addition is possible, but subtraction is failure.
Attention to detail in women contrasts with system building in men. A man will categorise his vinyl collection according to a rigorous, abstract system, but a woman will notice the details on each album cover.
And the amount of dust each album has accumulated.
Perfectionism is a female vice, primarily.
A conciliatory social approach that seeks to create links between people and maintain harmonious social situations contrasts to masculine indifference to company. Men, additionally, lack concern about how one is perceived in a social setting.
Women are more practical than men, who tend to be romantic in nature and so willing to undertake risky, exploratory exercises that seem unlikely to succeed when analysed practically.
In leadership these difference become much more apparent. What unites Hillary Clinton and Theresa May is the feminine nature of their political styles.
In both cases, an emphasis is placed on avoiding risk as manifested in unnecessary contact with the public.
When Theresa May visited the site of the Grenfell Tower disaster she was careful to only meet with officials from the emergency services, but not the public.
This was because the public in that area were council tenants, and mainly drawn from the non-white population. They were not natural Conservative voters, and would be unlikely to offer a warm welcome to a Conservative Prime Minister in the circumstances.
The situation was not amenable to control. Desire to control is consistent with attention to detail, along with a desire to be liked by the dominant social group.
Caution was May’s approach while Jeremy Corbyn was adored for wading among the masses.
This relates to a female desire for a conciliatory social stance, which means to be ‘liked’ by most people. To appear unpopular, or to be generally shunned, is among the greatest fears for women. Accordingly, even the perception of unpopularity must be avoided.
A man, by contrast, relishes the chance to stand against a mob, and win them over to his position.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the presidency was characterised by celebrity endorsement. As with May, the main priority was to appear popular and liked by the most socially prominent people in society. And this is also, of course, a female priority.
Trump is a celebrity himself but felt no need to associate himself overly with socially popular people. The male approach is to not necessarily seek the most socially popular people, but those who hold the most power.
These are not always the same, although they appear to be the same for women.
An eye for attention for detail means that women will be interested in exerting control over apparently insignificant details to an extremely high degree. The desire for control — the perceived safety of being ‘in control’ — was apparent in both the May and Clinton campaigns.
Rallies for both campaigns were vetted, organised, and made as predictable as possible. This contrasts to Trump and Corbyn who allowed the general public in all its multi-coloured, multi-faceted glory to roil and rollick at their rallies.
Corbyn and Trump were prepared to go into uncontrolled situations, face down hecklers, and possibly even madmen with guns.
Clinton and May carefully screened their events, with the result that they energised fewer people in their campaigns and were perceived to be artificial and remote.
Men enjoy the challenge and power that comes from taming a mob with words.
Women retreat in panic and confusion.
Clinton and May put forward what they believed to be reasonable, practical proposals to the public. Women are practical. They ask, “And how will that help us now? What can we do about this? When will this be fixed?”
But this makes for poor politics.
Trump and Corbyn offered what only men can offer: a vision for a new way of living. Their ideas, promises, and general vision were extravagant. Trump promised a vast wall and to ‘make America great again’. Corbyn promised to renationalise the railway system and make higher education practically free.
These were bold, fantastical plans.
Male plans.
May and Clinton could only offer a ‘sensible’ approach, which was utterly uninspiring — especially at a time when large sections of the population in the United States and the United Kingdom felt left behind due to economic crisis and social dislocation.
These people did not need business as usual. They needed a bold vision for the future, even if this vision seemed impractical. Trump and Corbyn could deliver this because they are men.
This lack of boldness has dogged female leadership throughout history.
Here is Sir Walter Raleigh’s judgement on Elizabeth I (1533–1603) and her handling of an attempt by Spain to invade England:
“If the late queen would have believed her men of war as she did her scribes, we had in her time beaten that great empire in pieces and made their kings of figs and oranges as in old times. But her Majesty did all by halves, and by petty invasions taught the Spaniard how to defend himself, and to see his own weakness.”
A half measure, taken partly from fear of being seen as ‘wrong’ by socially successful people and partly from a desire to be practical and not overly adventurous, is a characteristically female fault in leadership.
Women also tend to be inflexible in their practicality, but strategy is a paradoxical art.
Strategy means that one must be prepared to undertake contradictory actions to achieve one’s objectives. These contradictory aims may seem impractical to the female.
To capture a city that is surrounded by flat grassland on three sides and desert on the fourth strategy demands an attack over the desert, even if this is the most impractical and possibly dangerous route.
Even female leaders widely considered to be successful, such as Margaret Thatcher, suffered from an inflexible approach in strategy that almost led them to disaster — if fortune had not intervened.
This lack of flexibility in leadership also explains why women in leadership positions are perceived to be more difficult to work for than men.
There is less ‘give’ in their plans, and the expectations for individuals tend to lead towards perfectionism rather than a more open, forgiving masculine approach.
Men lead like rubber. Women lead like concrete.
Rubber is made to be hit and return to form.
Concrete cracks under assault.
Readers may object at this point that women are perfectly willing to defy resistance, and that Margaret Thatcher is a fine example of a woman who was defiant both against ‘wets’ within her own part and the Labour Party outside it.
But it is the nature of the defiance that is problematic. Men defy other men in the spirit of competition, but women tend to defy opposition in a fanatical, ill humoured way.
A practical nature lacks the imagination to forgive because circumstances have changed.
The reason for this lies in the excessive desire in female nature to be seen to be right rather than being right.
The result is a leadership style that is at the same time too inflexible and too rigid.
Women are often soft when they need to be hard, and hard when they should be soft.
What women can do — what women excel at — is commanding.
As Leonard Cohen sang:
“Our law of peace
Which understands
A husband leads
A wife commands”
Command is different to leadership.
Command sets the priorities for a leader. The commander is in the background, but the commander sets the values that will be pursued.
Women should command rather than lead.
