and god help you if you are an ugly girl
course too pretty is also your doom
cause everyone harbors a secret hatred
for the prettiest girl in the room
- ani difranco, 32 flavors
Is it just me, or does everyone else notice that women who make it to some reasonable level of power in North America are painted as either sluts, junkies, airheads, bitches, witches* or some other awfully negative female stereotype?
I don’t know…is this because we tend to elevate poor role models to power or that we are still threatened by powerful women? Or both? Either way, it seems to be getting worse, not better.
* I was listening to some talk radio show in a cab the other day, where people were calling in about Hillary Clinton’s cackle…ostensibly, this is big news, too.
October 12th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
the truth is that in the case of Paris Hilton I’m afraid that is not the role model I want anybody following. I think is not really based in any merits besides having sex published all over the web, and from there I can only give her the credit for exploiting that.
On the other hand we have woman like Hillary Clinton who is being criticized for her laughter, the President of Chile that is being criticized for her weight, and many other women that when are business oriented are perceived as bi***es although the same attitude in a men is not at all regarded as anything but professional. When a woman is upset then she is a neurotic b****, when she is happy and friendly then she is so crazy.
I myself work with a powerful woman. She is very funny and good humored. She has the most amazing character and sweet as a sugarcube but when she is at a meeting or conducting business she is forced to be serious and hide her funny and sensitive side, otherwise she wouldn’t be taken seriously. Before starting to work with her I was told I would be working with a very “tough” woman and that was the constant word to describe her. When I got to meet her and realized the huge difference between what people though of her and the reality she explained to me that this was the only way for her to compete.
October 12th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
I almost forgot. One of the saddest things about this matter is that the worst criticism towards woman sometimes comes from women themselves. My husband once told me he heard about this study where women were more likely to NOT vote for other women for public office. It doesn’t cease to amaze me.
October 13th, 2007 at 8:53 am
A bit of column A, and a bit from column B, I reckon. Big boobs and rich daddies can take some girls a long way, it seems.
It’s a difficult balancing act to need to be seen as a pro-active, ambitious leader, yet a gentle and caring woman, and I think it results in some women with good intentions looking a lot more ruthless than they are.
On the other hand, I’ve seen too many girls around me tone down their ambitions for fear of appearing bullish or scaring men off, which is a real bloody shame, if you ask me!
But thankfully, there are some great, positive role models around, and I guess it’s our duty to take the spotlight off Paris and onto them.
PS – You made my day by quoting Ani.
October 13th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Well, she’s doing much better than John Edwards. His hair cut story got only 56 mentions on Google News, compared to Hillary’s cackle at 88:
http://news.google.com/news?sourceid=mozilla2&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&um=1&tab=wn&q=John+Edwards‘+Haircut+&btnG=Search+News
So perhaps there’s gender bias at play here, but it may also be the case that Hillary is the more serious contender in the presidential race than Edwards ever was, and so will be vilified more frequently.
October 21st, 2007 at 7:01 pm
Well, first off, Paris Hilton is about as far from a role model as one can get. She is famous for having sex on camera, getting arrested for drunk driving, wearing nearly nothing, and partying. Using her (or a photo about her) to start a discussion on an important topic immediately kills the validity of said discussion, at least in my opinion.
But yes, I think we’re still working on catching up as a society. Not surprising, considering we’ve had a couple of generations to work on this and thousands of generations to build to it. Fixing ills should always be worked on as fast as possible, but let’s remember how far we’ve come too. I’m still surprised at the level of problems that many countries in Europe still exhibit. The US is light years ahead in some ways… image that!
There are (finally) enough women even GETTING to positions of power to have a discussion about how we accept them once they’re there. I’ve been stunned at the reality of what our grandparents grew up in after watching Mad Men.
But all that aside, specifically talking about Clinton, I don’t know what talk show you were listening to, but I’d consider the source. Talk shows use idiotic issues to fill airtime all the time, regardless of male/female, logical/stupid, etc. Clinton is also an inherently divisive personality who’s had years in the spotlight to set herself up for critism not by her gender but by her statements and her actions.
So to recap, yes still issues with women in power positions, but I don’t use Paris Hilton or Clinton as the measuring stick of those issues.
October 25th, 2007 at 7:07 am
[Comment timed out the first time -- sorry if this posts twice.]
It’s a mistake to conflate Hilton and Clinton. They do both have celebrity but they don’t both have power. Or rather, Hilton has the very limited brand of “power” that comes from grabbing celebrity headlines — and from being a millionaire. Clinton, meanwhile, is a world-famous (and also rich) U.S. senator from a large state. That is, she has ACTUAL power.
For a counterpoint to the litany of “sluts, junkies, airheads…” stereotypes, check out Fortune magazine’s recent “50 Most Powerful Women” issue, which does a good job of profiling women leaders with balanced attention to both the power element of the equation and the women-in-a-man’s-world element of the equation.