Attitudes Towards Female Leaders

[deke]

Since Hillary Clinton is a full-fledged presidential candidate now, I've been thinking about American attitudes towards women holding America's highest office. Until really recently, it's been pretty much dead certain that a lot of the US was against having a female president. Now I am hearing a lot that a woman might not be so bad...as long as it'

Comments

[mandydax]

(American here). If you look at it that way, then the British PM's more appropriate analogue in the US is Speaker of the House. Speaker Pelosi is the first woman in that position, and is also now second after the VP if the President is removed from power outside an election.

[deke]

Good point. The main difference though is that the Speaker of the House or the Senate majority leader is not the one with his/her finger on The Button.

What I'm really trying to get at though is the prevailing attitude towards women in the upper echelons of power in Britain. I know we're making progress here in the US with Pelosi and Condoleeza Rice, but I don't for a moment believe that either one would be a truly viable presidential candidate in 2008 and it would take a "King Ralph"-style act of God to get them sitting in the Oval Office.

So my real question remains. Would Brits vote to give a woman that power if they could vote person rather than party?

[deke]

I agree that thinking gender matters as to how one can govern is silly, but that's always been the prevailing attitude in the US. I really like your point about the Queen having been around for most, if not all, of most Brits' lives and how that would affect cultural attitudes towards women in power. I hadn't really given much thought to the Queen in this context to be honest, as I figured she was pretty much a figurehead and no real power politically. Thanks for reminding me.

[gramarye1971]

Truth be told, I'm hard-pressed to think of any real political contenders in the 1979 General Election, regardless of gender. Both Jim Callaghan (Labour) and Ted Heath (Conservative) were definitely out of contention. At the time, the Labour Party was moving left at a rate of knots -- I honestly can't imagine the average voter thinking that Michael Foot would be a viable prime minister. The Liberals weren't really a political force to speak of by that point, nor was the SDP. Of the Tories...well, it's a little difficult in retrospect to think of anyone who might've posed a specific challenge to Thatcher at the time

[deke]

The precedent's already been set, after all.

That's a good point. There probably isn't the resistance to the idea of a female national leader in the UK like there is in the US because it HAS been done before. And with Thatcher being in power for 11 years like she was, it seems pretty logical to think that she kept her position largely on her own merits.

[myfirstkitchen]

Thatcher had no merit. At all.

[missedith01]

Amen.

[frostedmessiah]

My questions to the Brits out there, especially the ones old enough to remember living under Thatcher, are these: If the UK had a system of electing the PM like the US elects the President

I don't know, I kind of like our system where the person with the most votes wins...

Anyway!

Maggie Thatcher. Say what you want about her, she was a hard-nosed cow that took milk from children, told hunger-striking IRA prisoners that "a crime is a crime is a crime" and let them starve, and lots of other perhaps unappealing things, but at least she got the job done, and I feel better off for having grown up under her rule much more so than I would have under the slimy old Tony Blair.

(To be honest though, I'm a Lib Dem at heart, so I'd have taken Paddy Ashdown any day, mostly because he was ex SAS and probably knew where I lived).

[davywavy]

I always used to think that the very best party political advert for the LibDems would have been:
"This...is a dead foreigner. He was shot dead by Paddy Ashdown. Who was in the SAS. How cool is that?"

[frostedmessiah]

"Paddy Ashdown. He knows where you live. He's been watching you for weeks. He has a collection of knives. This General Election, vote Liberal Democrat - If you don't... Well, you wouldn't want to get any nasty stains on that nice Axminster that you got last August now, would you?"

(Obviously the advertising costs for that campaign would be quite high, what with the highly personalised targeting and all ;) )

[croydonjohn]

Well I liked Charlie Kennedy. He'd have been to busy getting stuck into the drinks cabinet to go round the country f---ing things up!

[bogwitch]

What you have to remember, is that this isn't a fair comaprison anyway. The Prime Minister is not the Head of State like the President of the USA, the Queen is and rumour says she is a woman.

[deke]

The Queen is a woman? When did THIS happen?

[themargeaux]

I think she got her surgery in the late 80s. ;)

[spencerpine]

Yes, I think Thatcher would have won a presidential-style election: there was a big cult of personality with her.

And, yes, I think a woman would stand a chance now.

[rich_edwards79]

Whilst I do still believe a woman *could* become PM today, I see no potential candidates whatsoever. Could you imagine Teresa May or Tessa Jowell running the country? 'Blairs Babes' (a horrible, patronising media phrase) were all about show, and few lasted beyond the first term - and the only woman in the Labour Party I had any real, genuine respect and admiration for (Mo Mowlem) was taken by cancer long before she'd fulfilled her immense political potential.

Maybe my pessismism is more of a commentary on the thoroughly dire state of British politics today.

[rich_edwards79]

Amen to that. RIP Mo.