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Winter-Spring 2001
Vol. 63, No. 2-3

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Rochester Review--University of Rochester magazine

ReView Point
An occasional column of faculty opinion

We Haven't Come Such a Long Way, Baby

By Nora Bredes

Here we are, on the cusp of the 21st century, and my 5-year-old is still right to proclaim, "But Mom, a woman can't be president of the United States!"

Of course I'm quick with political corrections: Yes, a woman can; yes, women have tried; yes, someday a woman will be. . . .

But the sad fact is that my corrections seem less true than the assertion.

For all our strides over the last 100 years, Elizabeth Dole, the only woman in the 2000 presidential campaign, withdrew four months before the first primary. Women are not even half of all the political, professional, and business leaders of our time.

If I didn't know the value of hope in a young child's life, I'd be tempted to say, "We haven't come such a long way, baby."

Why not?

The issues are complex.

The U.S. government has recognized gender-based discrimination at least since the Kennedy administration's Commission on the Status of Women quantified the problem.

Passage of the Equal Pay Act (1963) and the Civil Rights Act (1964) gave women a legal foundation on which to build an equal power structure.

But while more women work outside the home today than at any other time in history, job segregation by gender still keeps women from leading.

What gives? Certainly access to high quality child care, the challenge of working the "second shift" at home, the social pressure to marry and have children rather than to pursue professional degrees must all figure into women's leadership lag.

But underlying all of this is an attitude. Rarely spoken but active nonetheless, what women learn in the leadership maze goes something like this:

Sure, you can work outside the home, expand your horizons, share your gifts, but don't overreach. As long as your job and your position are within traditional gender norms-to nurture, assist, host, even manage-that's OK. Just don't try to lead the way.

This attitude may explain why no woman is ready for that quintessential leadership position-the presidency.

Self-reliant women who lead in close proximity to the presidency have been targets of brutal public scrutiny.

Eleanor Roosevelt, compassionate but independent, was a prime target of her husband's political opponents. In 1942, the Gallup Poll found that Mrs. Roosevelt brought out fervid emotions: "She was the target of more adverse criticism and the object of more praise than any other woman in American history."

And then there's Hillary Rodham Clinton. If the president is America's archetypal leader, certainly the first lady is our archetypal first mate.

Polls have shown that Americans were happiest with Hillary Clinton when she performed traditional and subordinate roles: White House hostess, cookie- baker, helper, and, especially, wife/victim.

When she decided not to fade into the ether of history but to run for the U.S. Senate, controversy erupted again. William Powers, chair of the state Republican committee, raised funds for her opponent by writing that Mrs. Clinton is an "ambitious, ruthless, scheming, calculating, manipulating woman."

The series of insults hits home with the word "woman." Powers doesn't use "candidate," "politician" or even, "Democrat." Clinton's gender becomes his most cutting slur.

The message is clear: a woman's ambitions are properly realized through her husband. She must rise and fall through him, not on her own.

We can defeat this unspoken but potent attitude when we acknowledge its existence and then work to reverse it.

At conferences, lunches, at work and at home, as mentors, colleagues, and friends, women can encourage one another by exploring how gender-based attitudes about autonomy and leadership may affect our own choices.

We can look to successful women leaders to understand their confidence and inspiration.

We can close the leadership gap with a full understanding of the pitfalls women face as we attempt to lead.

We need to voice the attitudes that move us forward and hold us back. If we can recognize the social truths that seem obvious even to 5-year-olds, perhaps we'll make it out of the leadership maze in time to prevail in the 21st century.


Nora Bredes is director of the University's Anthony Center for Women's Leadership and has worked with nonprofit agencies and government on issues central to women's lives.

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