Last week, Veronika Hoffman (President of the Politics and
International Relations Society) and I (AUSA Women’s Campaign Convenor) ran an
event titled ‘“Who Runs the World?” Do Women Make Better Leaders?’ with the
shout out to Beyoncé just for kicks.
The title was
obviously provocative- designed to get people to ask us if we thought women
were ‘better’ than men, and why we thought so, with all the issues that arose
from it. (Just for clarification, if you really need it, neither I nor Veronika
actually think this.) Before the event it occurred to me that the chosen title
would not help with my ongoing campaign to convince people that the word
“feminism” does not equate with women having more rights than men, but equality
on every side of the gender divide, and that when I call myself a feminist I am
not imagining myself dressed as Boudicca running around with a spear and
surrounded by semi-naked men in chains. (You may think I’m joking, but I have
recently been painfully made more aware that some people actually think this.) So
my faith in humanity was somewhat restored when no-one brought this up.
Professor Marysia Zalewski spoke for about forty minutes,
and we then had a Q&A/discussion round. I am not going to outline
everything she said but instead raise a few points about the evening and my
thoughts.
Marysia spent some time elaborating on why we would think
women would make better leaders, and that this is all tied into our socially
defined view of men and women- mothers versus soldiers, nurturers versus
protectors. (Just to clarify, when I say men and women I’m referring to them in
a cisgendered sense.) She quoted the President of Liberia, who publicly stated
that she wanted to bring “motherly sensitivity” to the role. (I mean, really,
what does that even mean!?) Obviously, this is wrong. There was general
agreement from the audience, about differences between men and women not
playing a part in leadership qualities. What was not mentioned however, and
it’s something that I feel rarely gets pointed out- is that quite simply, men
and women are different. From certain facets of our biology to the way we are
raised, the way we are treated in the classroom and the relationships we have
with the people who impact on our lives, we become two differing groups of the
same species. What is important is that this is placed to one side when we are functioning
in our schools, our friendship groups and key to this discussion, our jobs.
So why do we care whether women make ‘better’ leaders or
not? Primarily, we feel it could solve the problem. More women in leadership
roles means that overall discrimination will be reduced, women in charge are
more likely to promote the interests of other women, the symbolism of having a
woman in charge will make a big difference. Well, this is clearly not the case.
Margaret Thatcher was an obvious example. Something else to think about with
regards to her is that she is probably the most controversial Prime Minister of
Britain since- well, ever. Sure, she did a lot of things and made many changes
that incited outrage and debate. But would she be so infamous and would her
name incite so much passion had she been a man? Has she tainted the position of
Prime Minister for women to come? Some thoughts to chew on when discussing
whether or not women in leadership are capable of solving gender
discrimination.
The first question put to Marysia was about quotas, whether
she agreed with them or not. I have to say that this is an issue which incites
a lot of personal frustration and in fact I incidentally had the same
conversation with someone on Saturday night. People are against quotas, there
is huge resistance from both women and men. It comes from the fundamental idea
that people of either gender should be employed on merit and should not be privileged
because they are a certain sex. From the gentleman on Saturday night’s point of
view, he would not want to fail an interview just because the other candidate
was a woman and no other reason. “It may be a cynical view, but one could say
you support quotas because as a woman you are benefitting from them”. Let’s
point this out clearly: as a woman, I do not feel like I am “benefitting” from
positive discrimination, the very wording of which makes me automatically
uncomfortable. One of the big reasons people are against them is because no
woman would want to be employed just because she was a woman, any more than
someone would want to be employed because of their looks or because their Dad
plays golf with the boss (and yes, that’s intentional stereotyping I’m using
there.) Every person needs a feeling of self worth in their occupation, it is
fundamental to being a happy and productive human being. However, as Marysia
correctly said, this argument against quotas completely misunderstands the
reason we are trying to put them in place. It is unfortunately
a fact (note use of the word fact) that there is an unstated quota for men
already in place. This is because there is a variety of social norms in place
that we are not always consciously aware of that affect our decision making
processes, and it is the sad case that many of them lead to women losing out in
one way or another. We need quotas for a
period to break that cycle. We need to force employers to consider just as many
women as men in their employment processes; we need women to be in equal
numbers to men in the jobs they want to be in. Once this in place and we can
see that the process is occurring naturally, we can remove quotas and see what
happens. If the system degenerates to the way it was before, then we need to
come up with a new solution. But right now, quotas seem to be the simplest and
easiest enforceable way of doing it. Marysia stated “On balance, yes, I do
agree with quotas”. She was much more eloquent than me in her argument, but I
would go a step further. We need quotas for now, and I have seen that proven in
the variety of women and men higher up in their careers who have sadly stated
that we do need them. But I think I can speak quite plainly when I say no-one
shouts “positive discrimination!” with enthusiasm.
As I was chairing the discussion I refrained from this rant.
We moved on from quotas to more general points about women, gender, and
discrimination. At this point I confess I was a little unsure of how to
proceed. The discussion seemed to be veering rather off topic. We were no
longer talking about female leaders, but the wider issues in gender
discrimination- maternity and paternity leave hours, issues to do with
childcare, popular culture- Marysia stated that if we are to look for issues
with discrimination and perhaps their solution, the media was the first place
to start. But was the point of the evening to talk about general gender
discrimination, or discrimination and gender issues in the political forum?
So anyhow, I sat and watched and made notes on the
various points many of the participants made about their own issues with
sexism, their personal experiences and upbringing. This is something that I
have now watched several times over, (predominantly) girls sitting in forums
and sharing their own revelations about gender bias and how to get through life
with it. I do think it is an incredibly important stage that every person has
to go through, looking around at your society, breaking it down and realising
the conscious and subconscious impact it has on your everyday life. But as I
was supposed to be chairing, I was silently becoming a little anxious about the
discussion leaving the advertised topic. I am grateful that Marysia
(unknowingly) put me to shame on this point.
“Women have been having this discussion for years; the same
things are said over and over. And see how it keeps coming back to the
personal? It always comes back down to individual lives.” It’s true. Women (and
men, to a lesser extent admittedly) have been saying these things for decades,
coming to realise the intricacies of their society they didn’t notice before,
and expressed frustration about it. If we are going to discuss issues about
women in power, and how to get them there on an even footing, we need to start
at the grassroots level. Both women and men need to make these realisations.
But this process can’t keep happening generation after generation with no
result. It has to trickle up somehow. We need to break the cycle of individuals
after individuals developing ideas and then getting nowhere with them. Do we
campaign? Do we stand outside Parliament with banners? Do we protest and get
gender specified sweets, toys and pens banned? (For some amusing
procrastination, please read the customer reviews here:
Is there another way to tackle this?
Or, do we dance to Beyoncé, discuss our revelations and try
to make practical applications of these issues to our everyday lives? Feel free
to comment below.
Many thanks to Veronika & the P&IR Society Committee
for co-hosting a great event, thanks to Marysia for her enlightening words, and
most importantly, thanks for the many girls and boys who came along with ideas,
passion and debate. It was a fantastic evening.
Monique Bouffé
