Compromising with the Glass Ceiling

“I have seen this institution change for a lot of reasons. One reason it has changed for good is because of women,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid remarked last January. “Women think differently than men.”

There’s normally backlash when 74-year-old white guys pontificate about the inherent differences between genders, but Senators Elizabeth Warren, Patty Murray, and Amy Klobuchar—flanking Leader Reid as he announced their membership in his new leadership team—smiled and nodded. Politicians on both sides of the aisle, men and women alike, have been keen to support the trope of the conciliatory, centrist woman.

Two years ago, after the 2012 elections, ABC News celebrated the record-breaking 20 woman senators of the 113th Congress with a special roundtable interview. “With all due deference to our male colleagues,” Senator Susan Collins told Diane Sawyer, “women’s styles tend to be more collaborative.”

“I think by nature we are less confrontational,” Senator Claire McCaskill agreed.

Why?

“We’re less on testosterone,” Senator Dianne Feinstein opined.

Typecasting all women as collegial and more likely to compromise is unfair and shortsighted. It ignores the tremendous diversity of women’s experiences and personalities and dangerously limits women to the roles that affirm this generalization.

This past midterm, the U.S. reached a record high for female representation in Congress (with a paltry 104 voting members). This is a step forward, but it’s hardly an occasion for self-satisfied back patting. The sobering reality is that we have only five woman governors, and have yet to elect a woman president.

Voters look for strong, decisive candidates for executive office, but women who are firm and forceful rather than conciliatory are lambasted as power-hungry, untrustworthy shrews. In January 2008, CNN host Glen Beck called Hillary Rodham Clinton, then a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, a “terminator” bent on “stripping away all trace of emotion, femininity, and humanity.” Women are denigrated when they exhibit the characteristics associated with executive leadership positions.

In response to these disparagements, leaders are playing into societal expectations rather than challenging them. The claim that female politicians are “collaborative” and “less confrontational” is simply a modification of the centuries-old dogma that a woman should be seen and not heard. “Collaborative” women end disagreements instead of starting them. They keep the peace instead of leading wars. They embrace an antiquated, oppressive brand of femininity in the mold of the midcentury housewife—sensitive to the personalities of male legislators, listening deferentially. We are preserving a double standard for women politicians. Men can be terminators, but “collaborative” women cannot.

The trope of the conciliatory woman limits women politicians to the few positions compatible with their perceived strengths. We need more women in politics, but not just women who will compromise, build consensus, and never offend. We also need women who will generate controversial ideas. We need women who will crack skulls and whip votes and lead their party into battle. We need women who will become commanders-in-chief and lead our country into battle. Equality can come only when women are free to realize every role that men play in American politics, not just those consistent with a sexist double standard.

The trope of the conciliatory woman may increase women dealmakers in Congress, but it inhibits the election of women to governorships, presidencies, and other executive offices. Above all, it denies women the right to define themselves and still be viable candidates. That’s not real progress.

“Collaborative,” “less confrontational” dealmakers have a place in Congress, but legislators of all genders have the responsibility to work together and get things done, and women should not have to “think differently than men” to be elected and respected. We can achieve true equality only when women are free to be both bargainers and bomb-throwers. Typecasting all women as collaborative peacemakers may help shatter glass ceilings in legislative bodies, but it reinforces glass ceilings for executive offices—and the stereotypes and double standards that erected them in the first place.

Let’s stop using the trope of the conciliatory woman. Bipartisan compromise is great, but compromising with glass ceilings is not.

Ted G. Waechter ’18 is a Crimson editorial writer living in Canaday Hall.