Kristoff on intelligent, competent females

[Mo]

To: Spin...@yahoogroups.com, kshe...@calea.org, fit...@gmail.com,
patrick.f...@usdoj.gov, model...@sbcglobal.net,
jdr...@nejm.org, let...@courant.com, Jgerb...@cdc.gov,
len...@courant.com, michae...@po.state.ct.us,
con...@po.state.ct.us, executiv...@nytimes.com, managing-
edi...@nytimes.com, news...@nytimes.com, the-...@nytimes.com,
biz...@nytimes.com, for...@nytimes.com, me...@nytimes.com,
nati...@nytimes.com, dv...@cdc.gov, brigidc...@optonline.net,
tr...@hotmail.com, ubi...@courant.com, ma...@concentric.net,
camp...@courant.com, jhorn...@fff.org, thomas...@usdoj.gov,
thoma...@po.state.ct.us, kur...@washpost.com,
georg...@washpost.com, hor...@courant.com,
commissi...@po.state.ct.us, cohen...@aol.com,
FalN...@aol.com, brans...@comcast.net, vts...@comcast.net,
o...@po.state.ct.us, da...@davila-dilzer.com,
scott....@po.state.ct.us, govern...@po.state.ct.us,
attorney...@po.state.ct.us, randall...@usdoj.gov
Cc: fra...@ucia.gov, dr-ahma...@president.ir,
eugener...@washpost.com, hor...@courant.com,
bmi...@newstimes.com, tr...@hotmail.com, rast...@aol.com,
billc...@gmail.com, thomas...@usdoj.gov, amcg...@rms-law.com,
rjmu...@aol.com, paulcrai...@yahoo.com,
sidney_b...@yahoo.com, criminal...@usdoj.gov,
karla.d...@usdoj.gov, christophe...@usdoj.gov

Subject: [SpinLyme] Kristoff on intelligent, competent females

Date: Feb 11, 2008 1:47 AM

Neglecting to entertain the input from females who have been through
this prejudice
ringer, of course:
One statement:
Intelligent females are a threat to both males and females, mainly
because an extraordinary
number of females fake stupidity and incompetence in order to win the
attention
of males. And then in the presence of females who refuse to play the
stupidity-cute
game, we make the rest look like fakers.

Males have stated outright that they prefer females who are "cute and
stupid
and therefore unthreatening," and they have stated it as a matter of
commonly
understood fact.

Females are females' biggest enemies.

Therefore the recommendation is to play up the fact that many African
American and
Latino females are leaving their males in the dust, education-and
otherwise and
make the point dat duh hip-hop-esque "hoes and "bitches" are just
WASPy prejudice (fear) on a different scale.

We can deal with the hatred of intelligent women on the part of men
easier than
our sisters, because we know men are just men.

Ie., stupid, and need to be trained to keep themselves occupied.
As an example, of this other every day fact, when I went to buy my
house 10 years
ago, the real estate agent said, "When a bachelor is a slob, the house
*shows
better* than if the slob is a woman."

It other words, men can't manage simple things on their own, without
instruction.
This is a fact of the Western Culture, but is never mentioned as part
of the same
formulary of taboo.

When women talk about the incompetence of men in the presence of men,
they amazingly
don't even hear it. Yet another marker of their stupidity.

Here Kristoff even fails to mention what a wreck the world is in now,
entirely due
to males as incompetent, brainless leaders.

He's a man.
What do we expect?

Kathleen M. Dickson
http://www.actionlyme.org
==========================

The New York Times
February 10, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
When Women Rule
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

While no woman has been president of the United States -- yet -- the
world does have
several thousand years' worth of experience with female leaders. And I
have to acknowledge
it: Their historical record puts men's to shame.

A notable share of the great leaders in history have been women: Queen
Hatshepsut
and Cleopatra of Egypt, Empress Wu Zetian of China, Isabella of
Castile, Queen Elizabeth
I of England, Catherine the Great of Russia, and Maria Theresa of
Austria. Granted,
I'm neglecting the likes of Bloody Mary, but it's still true that
those women who
climbed to power in monarchies had an astonishingly high success rate.

Research by political psychologists points to possible explanations.
Scholars find
that women, compared with men, tend to excel in consensus-building and
certain other
skills useful in leadership. If so, why have female political leaders
been so much
less impressive in the democratic era? Margaret Thatcher was a
transformative figure,
but women have been mediocre prime ministers or presidents in
countries like Sri
Lanka, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Philippines and Indonesia.
Often, they haven't
even addressed the urgent needs of women in those countries.

I have a pet theory about what's going on.

In monarchies, women who rose to the top dealt mostly with a narrow
elite, so they
could prove themselves and get on with governing. But in democracies
in the television
age, female leaders also have to navigate public prejudices -- and
these make democratic
politics far more challenging for a woman than for a man.

In one common experiment, the "Goldberg paradigm," people are asked to
evaluate
a particular article or speech, supposedly by a man. Others are asked
to evaluate
the identical presentation, but from a woman. Typically, in countries
all over the
world, the very same words are rated higher coming from a man.

In particular, one lesson from this research is that promoting their
own successes
is a helpful strategy for ambitious men. But experiments have
demonstrated that
when women highlight their accomplishments, that's a turn-off. And
women seem even
more offended by self-promoting females than men are.

This creates a huge challenge for ambitious women in politics or
business: If they're
self-effacing, people find them unimpressive, but if they talk up
their accomplishments,
they come across as pushy braggarts.

The broader conundrum is that for women, but not for men, there is a
tradeoff in
qualities associated with top leadership. A woman can be perceived as
competent
or as likable, but not both.

"It's an uphill struggle, to be judged both a good woman and a good
leader," said
Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a Harvard Business School professor who is an
expert on women
in leadership. Professor Kanter added that a pioneer in a man's world,
like Hillary
Rodham Clinton, also faces scrutiny on many more dimensions than a man
-- witness
the public debate about Mrs. Clinton's allegedly "thick ankles," or
the headlines
last year about cleavage.

Clothing and appearance generally matter more for women than for men,
research shows.
Surprisingly, several studies have found that it's actually a
disadvantage for a
woman to be physically attractive when applying for a managerial job.
Beautiful
applicants received lower ratings, apparently because they were
subconsciously pegged
as stereotypically female and therefore unsuited for a job as a boss.

Female leaders face these impossible judgments all over the world. An
M.I.T. economist,
Esther Duflo, looked at India, which has required female leaders in
one-third of
village councils since the mid-1990s. Professor Duflo and her
colleagues found that
by objective standards, the women ran the villages better than men.
For example,
women constructed and maintained wells better, and took fewer bribes.

Yet ordinary villagers themselves judged the women as having done a
worse job, and
so most women were not re-elected. That seemed to result from simple
prejudice.
Professor Duflo asked villagers to listen to a speech, identical
except that it
was given by a man in some cases and by a woman in others. Villagers
gave the speech
much lower marks when it was given by a woman.

Such prejudices can be overridden after voters actually see female
leaders in action.
While the first ones received dismal evaluations, the second round of
female leaders
in the villages were rated the same as men. "Exposure reduces
prejudice," Professor
Duflo suggested.

Women have often quipped that they have to be twice as good as men to
get anywhere
-- but that, fortunately, is not difficult. In fact, it appears that it
may be difficult
after all. Modern democracies may empower deep prejudices and thus
constrain female
leaders in ways that ancient monarchies did not.

I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, www.nytimes.com/ontheground.
On the blog, you can also see readers setting me straight about
previous columns
and read posts from guest bloggers, including a Chicago teacher, Will
Okun, and
an aid worker in Bangladesh, Nicki Bennett.

Home