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

[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.

[thekumquat]

There is, however, resistance to the idea of a female national leader in the UK, because 'look what happened last time'. The Tories stayed in power almost solely through lack of an effective opposition, and when things are going well members tend not to challenge the leadership of their own party.

Once Labour started to sort themselves out, the daggers came out for Thatcher, followed by each other in the Tory party, leading to the nonentitiy Major becoming leader (and PM) just because he hadn't hacked anyone off yet.

[goose_entity]

there was a joke at the time - John Major was the first man in history to leave the circus to become an accountant...

:)

[deke]

So do you think there's a "once bitten, twice shy" because Thatcher is the only example you've got? Or is there a perception that a woman in politics has to be that hard to get anywhere?

[thekumquat]

I think that any woman in politics is now desperate to prove she's not like Thatcher, which is difficult as since Thatcher, soundbite skills and photogenicity have become so much more important (I know people who voted for Thatcher in 1979 because she was prettier than the alternative... I think that effect wore off by 1990

[gramarye1971]

it seems pretty logical to think that she kept her position largely on her own merits.

This is where I disagree. She kept her position for that length of time because Labour under Foot and Kinnock couldn't win an election, the SDP-Liberal Alliance was hobbled by the nature of the first-past-the-post system (as well as the Steel-Owen infighting that marked the later part of the 1980s), and her own party didn't dare to oust her until it looked like she was an electoral liability. Michael Heseltine nearly had a chance in 1986 after the Westland helicopter incident...but then again, a choice between him and Thatcher would've been something of a Hobson's choice.