Why Do Women Falter in Politics When They’re Clearly More Gifted?
This is a technical follow-up for Karen’s article, “Where My Girls At?”:
The simple facts of the matter are that American “girls” have been getting shut down and shredded for the last 90 years, and the act of sexual-selection is still alive and well in American politics. Karen is right, American girls are rarely a part of the political discussions of early childhood. Studies have also shown that women do not think about politics as much as men do (Brown Report).
Why do Women Falter in Politics?
There are two prevailing roadblocks to the success of women in politics. One of the impediments originates in the woman herself, and the other block is generated by the false assumptions of her own society. Voters are biased against the potential female candidate, and if the potential female candidate isn’t strong enough, then she can easily become biased against herself. Sarah Palin is the poster child for this assessment.
Sarah managed to rise to the governorship of Alaska, so she actually defeated the largest societal roadblock for a woman, but she eventually collapsed under the apparent weight of her own self-doubt (or Narcissism). She removed herself from office then selected the easier, more lucrative, role of ‘Grizzly Mama’. It almost appears that she grossly underestimated herself, in relation to the men she was competing with, and simply quit. This is political self-sabotage in the most general sense. Sarah’s own aide just compared her to Jello. We’d like to add that it’s probably fruity Jello. Needless to say, she is a victim of politics, not a politician.
Hillary Clinton has her own issues, but we have to admit that she’s weathered the storms that Sarah was unwilling to endure. In this regard, Hillary has survived what one Stanford study calls “The Jackie (and Jill) Robinson Effect”. The jist of the “Jackie” abstract clearly states that when the basic forms of sexual-selection are present, then only the strongest and most qualified female candidates will emerge from the fray. It’s also been proven that elected congresswomen perform better than their male counterparts.
They referred to the fact that congresswomen ”secure roughly 9 percent more spending from federal discretionary programs than congressman. This amounts to a premium of about $49 million per year for districts that send a woman to Capital Hill.” In fact, Anzia and Berry pointed out that women “sponsor and cosponsor more bills per congress than their male colleagues.”
In the end, women just suffer from a very Un-Natural Selection process. And other women are their worst enemies!
All The Single Ladies?
Unmarried women ”make up one of the fastest-growing demographic groups in the country and comprise 25 percent of the voting eligible population. Yet, in 2008, of the nearly 51 million unmarried women who were eligible to register to vote, only 35 million did. That’s 16 million women who could have voted did not even register” (Source).
Let’s face it, with the threats to planned parenthood, abortion rights, and the fact that the recession hit single mothers harder than almost any other subgroup should have driven single women out of their voting slumber. But it hasn’t. Those polling numbers are expected to drop.
Women face an unfair and very unnatural selection process, and we also have a failure, among women, to mobilize. And this is why you get MAN-PLEASING candidates like Sarah Palin or MAN-LIKE politicians like Hillary Clinton. It’s not surprising to hear that Christine O’Donnell once ran on a platform that declared masturbation as a form of adultery. In many ways, these women are playing toward the ancient male institutions that traditionally subjugate the role of women in America.
So where are my Girls?
Most of the “Girls” are operating from anti-masturbation platforms, with a shotgun in one hand, and a magic wand in the other, but the actual “WOMEN” are sitting across the table from the President while Osama Bin Laden gets off’d, or they’re actually taking a bullet for their political stances in places like Arizona.
The other “Girls” are part of the 16 million unmarried women that didn’t even register.
The media got it all wrong when they called 2010 “The Year of the Woman” in politics. Palin and O’Donnell did not emit “power.” They consumed attention. They were actually a setback for an advancing 90-year-old process.
Power creates more power. Showmanship, religion, and glamour feed an entirely different MALE machine.
“The Year of the Woman”? Not so much….
In fact, after the 2010 elections, there were no net additions to the female ranks of the Senate for the first time in 32 years, and the House actually suffered a net LOSS among the female membership. We’d call that an EPIC FAIL. Palin and O’Donnell are the poster children for this alarming outcome, not the solution.
I think we can see the problem. And it’s easily fixed.
