adership, not gen
key to election success

_ 1 HAD planned to write a piece on misogyny as soon as the
election was over, but Audrey McLaughlin has jumped the
gun by complaining, even before the votz has been
‘counted, about an undercurrent of “anti-woman’’ prejudice
that has hurt ker chances as well as Kim Campbell’s.

It’s not just that the two female
federal leaders are being defeated,
they’re being thorcughly mauled.

If these were primitive times,
what those two women are going
through, in terms of public hu-
miliation, has to be an ordeal on
the scale of being stoned by a mob
and driven out of the Global
Village.

From an ego point of view,
what an utterly horrible experi-
ence!

And both those women, believe
it, have big egos.

“  T have never bought into the
argument that most women have
teeny-weeny, fragile little egos.

if you look at micro-history,
you see that in the privacy of the
home or the tent or the cave,
women have held their own with
men pretty much nun-stop since
the beginning of time.

There were trade-of fs —
washing dishes wasn’t all that
much fun — but then neither was
facing a sabre-toothed tiger, I bet.

The reason women used to die
early "yas because of childbirth.

‘ Once that was solved as a medical

_ , problem, women immediately lept
: into the category of being the

_ more long-lived, and therefore
"ultimately tougher, of the sexes.

Understanding this is basic to a
discussion of misogyny.

’ [have two daughters. I’ve had
two wives. I had « mother, and

, still have plenty of aunts. I have a

. mother-in-law, and several
sisters-in-law...

L also have the memory of all
my female teachers at school, the:

-imans before them, the present
day-to-day reality of plenty of

female co-workers, the thousands
of females of ali ages I have per-
sonally me: over the years, and |
the modest number I actually had
the pleasure of sleeping with, to
sustain me in this conclusion:
women have big, strong egos, just
like men. “.

Sure, there are plenty of shat-
tered women scattered across the
_landscape, but that holds every bit
as true for men. Shall we compare

casualty figures?
.. And, besides, just because
“someone is psychologically darm-
aged doesn’t mean they don’t still
exert a considerable field of in-
fluence over the lives of those
close to them.
Never underestimate the in-
‘ jured. Sometimes they have an
impact from great distances.
In the so-called contest between
men and women, the issue is really
influence, the power to make

STRICTLY PERSONAL

things happen, or to change
things, to dominate reality with
your will, rather than Se a feckless
victim of fate.

This is a strugg's that individu-
als undertake, however. It’s not
linsited to one gender, and cer-
tainly not to any one race, creed,
etc.

All this is by way of asking: was
there some kind of misogynistic
backlash occncring during this
election, as Ms. McLavghlin is

.. already claiming? Misogyny

wouldn’t necessarily be conscious,
you know, any tore than
xenophobia.

’ Given that, I still don’t think
this was a repudiation of either

- Campbell or McLaughlin simply
_ because they were women.

I don’t think there was an an-
ti-woman backlash at all. I think
they were both rejected because :
they are not good leaders, and it’s
obvious.

I’ve watched and listened to
both of them. They have to force
the fire in the belly. And they
don’t do it very well. ;

They are poor actresses. Lead- ©
ership is in gyeat part acting, |
that’s why Ronald Reagan was so
good at it.

Margaret Thatcher was a leader,
as, certainly, was Indira Gandhi,
and Golda Meir, to name but
three warrioresses.

This is to say, they had the
primordial will to lead. That’s
why they ultimately won power,
and that’s why neither Campbell
nor McLaughlin (or poor old Rita

Johnston) cculd do anything more -

than become the frontpersons for
one cabal or another within their
parties. They couldn’t win the
loyalty of the masses.

The fire — the lust to lead — is

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very much a gut thing, and natu-
rai leaders have it.

Leaders who arrive in positions
of power because of some com-
promise between fractions in a
ruling oligarchy generally do not
last, and certainly anyone who
gets there because highly cynical
power-brokers think they can lit-
erally hide behind her skirt is in
deep trouble.

The deciding factor in why they
were given the jobs, in both cases,
was precisely because they were
women, and the calculation in
delegates’ minds was that this was
somehow going to be useful at the
‘polls.

But they forgot that what
counts in the end is leadership
ability.

McLaughlin tried to make
leadership mean listening, which it
is, in part, but she could never
quite manage to bring what she
heard to life in a powerful voice.

Campbell most obviously did
not listen. She practised cutra-
geous Doublethink in public.

“| want to be inclusive,”’ she
said, slamming the door. She lec-
tured and scolded and spoke down
to just about everyone in sight.

Speaking is part of the exercise
of leadership, but it’s only half of
it, and it has to relate to the ex-

periences of people around you.

If you’re just on a personal
flow - of - consciousness trip,
you'll eventually float off into
psycho-babbie land, and people
will hit the mute button.

If either one of them could have
gotten the hang of both listening
and communicating, of synthesiz-
ing a widespread public mood,
they would be ahead in the polls,
not so abysmally behind.

The fesson for political parties
isn’t that they shouldn’t have fe-
male leaders, but they should be
damned sure they have picked a
person who is a deader first, and
only secondly a male or female.

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