With the much-hyped ABC prime-time drama “Commander-in-Chief,” America is finally going to have a female president – on the small screen. According to previews, for the program, the script calls for an “independent” female vice-president to inherit the office upon the death of her erstwhile running mate.
It’s noteworthy that the drama’s writers elevate a woman to the Oval Office through succession, rather than election. That may be because, in real life, a woman being elected President is like the old truism about being accepted at an Ivy League school: The hardest part is getting in.
There are a number of reasons why America – unlike Israel, Great Britain and now, perhaps Germany – has never elected a female executive. Among them is a visceral concern on the part of many voters about the way that a female President would under pressure or in a crisis. Sadly, the recent behavior of some of America’s prominent female politicians has done nothing but .play into misogynist stereotypes.
Take Dianne Feinstein’s ridiculous behavior throughout the John Roberts hearings. From the beginning, she arrogated special authority to herself by virtue of her gender – “[A]s the only woman on this committee, I believe I have an additional role in evaluating nominees for the Supreme Court, and that is to see if the hard-earned autonomy of women is protected,” she announced in her opening statement.
What presumption. It would be outrageous for a man to assume that he could speak for an entire gender. And, indeed, politicians are supposed to do their jobs on behalf of all their constituents – not just those of a particular gender, race or even political affiliation. With her self-aggrandizing grandstanding, Feinstein lived down to the stereotype that women’s decision making is more often based on personal experience than rational analysis.
But Feinstein’s stated reasons for opposing Judge Roberts were, if anything, even more demeaning. Apparently, she was disappointed not to hear the judge "talking to [her] as a son, a husband and a father." Why would she need an in-depth understanding of the judge’s family relationships in order to assess whether he’s qualified to sit on the Supreme Court? How exactly are the particulars of his apparently stable marital and familial relationships even relevant? And how ridiculous would a man sound making the same intensely personal, hyperemotional argument?
But Feinstein hasn’t single-handedly tarnished the image of female politicians – she’s had some help, particularly from Louisiana’s senator, Mary Landrieu, and its governor, Kathleen Blanco. In the midst of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, both women crumbled, crying on television and even – in Landrieu’s case – threatening to “punch [the President] in the nose” if he dared criticize any aspect of the state and local disaster response.
No one can blame the two women for crying, caught as they were in what was probably the most devastating event they will ever witness. But crying in public - and projecting an image of weakness, rather than strength – isn’t an image that will bolster the public’s confidence in female leadership.
If a woman is ever able to convince the American people that she has the capacity to serve as their President, it won’t be a person who takes rhetorical refuge in the personal, like Dianne Feinstein, or someone given to public displays of unbridled emotion, like Mary Landrieu or Kathleen Blanco. America’s first female president will gain the trust of Americans because they will believe that she is tougher (and smarter) than any man – at home or abroad – that she is likely to encounter. Yes, she’ll be held to a higher standard than her male counterparts, but no one ever said that being a pioneer was easy.
It will be interesting to see how ABC’s fictional female president will confront the challenges that doubtless await her. One can only hope that she will handle them with more strength and less emotionalism than some of her real-life political counterparts have demonstrated – and that life quickly begins to mimic art, at least in that respect.
[This piece originally appeared at The One Republic.]
