Backwards and in High Heels
Former Texas governor Ann Richards passed away the other day at the age of 73. Wish she had been the former Texas governor in the White House.
Wednesday at lunch I and a couple of colleagues were discussing whether the U.S. is ready for a female president. I don't think it's that the nation isn't ready for a woman in that role so much as that the right woman isn't on the scene. (Forget Hillary Clinton. She is a lightning rod for controversy, a political opportunist, not to mention a supporter of this--finally--unpopular war. It's not her gender that's the problem.)
Was England ready for a female prime minister when Margaret Thatcher took the reins? I wouldn't have said so, but they were clearly ready for Mrs. Thatcher herself.
The thing I always admired about Maggie Thatcher (since it certainly wasn't her political views) was that she was so clearly comfortable in her job and in her skin, and had no fear of confrontation--on the contrary, she seemed to thrive on a good fight. At her final prime minister's question time (a much more raucous spectacle, complete with heckling and booing and name-calling, than our own legislative bodies), she paused in the middle of a boisterous debate and said, "I'm having a wonderful time!" Which she clearly was.
And so was Ann Richards, I think. Richards spoke her mind boldly, fearlessly, and often wittily. She had the courage of her convictions (which ultimately cost her reelection to the Texas governorship when she vetoed a couple popular pieces of legislation, including a bill that would have freed Texans to carry concealed weapons and own semiautomatics) and made sure the voters knew what those convictions were. And she was apparently no less quick, sure, and courageous offstage: there's a much-repeated story in which a white man dismissed a black public official, refusing to shake his hand, and moved quickly past him to Richards, asking her name. Without missing a beat, she cheerfully introduced herself as the black man's wife.
Ann Richards once famously said that Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but Rogers had to do it backwards and in high heels. Moreover, Rogers did it sufficiently effortlessly that she never got quite the same recognition for it that her dancing partner did. Likewise, for a woman to be elected to the highest office in this country, she will have to be better than her male rivals, not just in her ability to do the job (which, come on, is virtually impossible to assess in the course of a campaign of sound bites and attack ads; and in fact doing a bad job doesn't seem to keep someone from being reelected), but in her ability to win the hearts and minds of the American voter with apparent effortlessness. We have to not pay much notice to the fact that she's a woman, not because she's pretending to be or indistinguishable from a man, but because it's minor compared to what we do notice about her.
There's no woman in the national political arena today who fits the bill: Hillary Clinton is many things, but I wouldn't put "genuine" among them; Nancy Pelosi sometimes comes off as defensive, as if she's trying too hard, and lacks the speaking-from-the-heart confidence in her views that both Thatcher and Richards epitomized; and can you name another woman with national stature?
Thatcher and Richards were leaders with guts. Those are in short supply in both male and female political candidates and elected officials. If a woman comes along who has them, we'll be ready for her. Backwards and in high heels or not.
Wednesday at lunch I and a couple of colleagues were discussing whether the U.S. is ready for a female president. I don't think it's that the nation isn't ready for a woman in that role so much as that the right woman isn't on the scene. (Forget Hillary Clinton. She is a lightning rod for controversy, a political opportunist, not to mention a supporter of this--finally--unpopular war. It's not her gender that's the problem.)
Was England ready for a female prime minister when Margaret Thatcher took the reins? I wouldn't have said so, but they were clearly ready for Mrs. Thatcher herself.
The thing I always admired about Maggie Thatcher (since it certainly wasn't her political views) was that she was so clearly comfortable in her job and in her skin, and had no fear of confrontation--on the contrary, she seemed to thrive on a good fight. At her final prime minister's question time (a much more raucous spectacle, complete with heckling and booing and name-calling, than our own legislative bodies), she paused in the middle of a boisterous debate and said, "I'm having a wonderful time!" Which she clearly was.
And so was Ann Richards, I think. Richards spoke her mind boldly, fearlessly, and often wittily. She had the courage of her convictions (which ultimately cost her reelection to the Texas governorship when she vetoed a couple popular pieces of legislation, including a bill that would have freed Texans to carry concealed weapons and own semiautomatics) and made sure the voters knew what those convictions were. And she was apparently no less quick, sure, and courageous offstage: there's a much-repeated story in which a white man dismissed a black public official, refusing to shake his hand, and moved quickly past him to Richards, asking her name. Without missing a beat, she cheerfully introduced herself as the black man's wife.
Ann Richards once famously said that Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but Rogers had to do it backwards and in high heels. Moreover, Rogers did it sufficiently effortlessly that she never got quite the same recognition for it that her dancing partner did. Likewise, for a woman to be elected to the highest office in this country, she will have to be better than her male rivals, not just in her ability to do the job (which, come on, is virtually impossible to assess in the course of a campaign of sound bites and attack ads; and in fact doing a bad job doesn't seem to keep someone from being reelected), but in her ability to win the hearts and minds of the American voter with apparent effortlessness. We have to not pay much notice to the fact that she's a woman, not because she's pretending to be or indistinguishable from a man, but because it's minor compared to what we do notice about her.
There's no woman in the national political arena today who fits the bill: Hillary Clinton is many things, but I wouldn't put "genuine" among them; Nancy Pelosi sometimes comes off as defensive, as if she's trying too hard, and lacks the speaking-from-the-heart confidence in her views that both Thatcher and Richards epitomized; and can you name another woman with national stature?
Thatcher and Richards were leaders with guts. Those are in short supply in both male and female political candidates and elected officials. If a woman comes along who has them, we'll be ready for her. Backwards and in high heels or not.
posted by Maines at 11:24 AM
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