Monday, March 03, 2008

The Feminization of the Presidency: Obama and the Coming Consensus

Feminists active in the Democratic Party have insisted for at least a decade that the only way to rectify the imbalance of power between the sexes is to elect a woman President. They may not be wrong. But the ironies of this primary season are intense both for Hillary and Obama. In addition to their other talents, both candidates embody the mostly unspoken yearning of “their own kind.” The inchoate cry is deafening: “If only one of US (a black or a women) was in power, it would be a sea change and it would transform politics around the world.” How bitter then, for the Hillary lovers, that “their girl” appears to have lost the race for the nomination. The assumption that Senator Clinton’s loss has destroyed the hopes of a new political order based upon cooperation and consensus misses the mark.

The truth is this: Obama’s way is far more “feminine” than any Presidential candidate in history, MALE OR FEMALE! While domestically we don’t have many examples, if one looks around the world, one sees a specific pattern. Women elected as Presidents or Prime Ministers have uniformly appeared at the time to be more hawkish and tough than their male competitors. From Margaret Thatcher to Golda Meir to Benazir Bhutto to Angela Merkel; the threshold question these women leaders had to answer was: “Is she tough enough to deal with a crisis?” Hillary Clinton has lost the race to Barack Obama PRECISELY because the American people are tired of testosterone driven governance. Historically, it has been a terrible indictment of our culture that women have trouble getting elected to high office, unless they prove that they are “man enough.”

So along comes Obama with his mastery of the technique of consensus building and his seeming sensitivity and empathy toward others. In other words, Obama is the estrogen candidate and Hillary can’t afford to be. Hillary was put in a trick box. If she took a softer line, say on Iraq, she would be considered too weak. Yet here in the last few days before the Texas and Ohio primaries, she has played the “I’m tougher and more reliable” card. Like in Ghostbusters, Hillary is asking “Who you gonna call?” The skinny young guy with no experience, or the woman you know can take a hit and keep on coming? Yes, we are headed toward a softer, gentler, more just and - o.k. I’ll say it - “feminine” society. Unfortunately for Ms. Clinton, she won’t be leading the parade

More Jungian than Jung, I remain

Savant