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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