supporting presence, despising politics: on feminism and female politicians
Shortly after being rushed off stage in the middle of her victory speech, Pauline Marois, premier-elect of the French province of Quebec, Canada took to the podium, and said:
‘This is an example of a woman head of state. Voila.’
She then calmly told everyone to evacuate the building.
On 3 September, Marois and the Parti Québécois became the minority government of Quebec, significant for many reasons, not least of all because Marois is the first woman premier of that province.
That night, a gunman opened fire outside of the victory party headquarters – the Metroplis in Montreal – prompting Marois’s security team to whisk her off stage. Reporters, audience members, and Marois herself were stunned and confused.
By midnight, two people had been shot (one fatally), the back door of the theatre set ablaze, and the alleged gunman captured; Richard Henry Bain, 62, was dressed in a housecoat and wearing a balaclava, and shouting in French: ‘The Anglos are waking up!’
I’m relieved Marois wasn’t hurt and I’m happy to see the province of Quebec elect its first female premier. Her calm after a frightening event was just another example that centuries of claims that women cannot be political leaders – that they are too emotional and distracted with their hormones and “lady problems” to be heads of state – are bullshit.
However, I’m not happy that Marois and her party, specifically, won the election, and I process the cheers from around the world, at a female politician’s historical success, with mixed feelings. While it’s fantastic to see a woman lead the province, I think her goals are lofty, divisive, draconian, and unrepresentative of the majority of Quebecers. The Toronto Star went as far as to call her the ‘new threat to Canada’.
Whenever a female politician is thrust into the public eye, it becomes a feminist topic. Because men have dominated in politics, female heads of state – even on a smaller scale as in the case of Quebec – become relevant far beyond their reach of power.
But to what degree are we, as feminists, expected to support high-profile female politicians?
When Sarah Palin exploded onto the political stage during the 2008 United States presidential election, she eclipsed Hillary Clinton, who’d just lost the Democratic nomination race. Clinton, who has long been the face of strong, female political leadership in America and an icon for young women, was suddenly being compared to Palin. Younger, non-threatening, more “feminine”, the bright-eyed vice-presidential candidate was everywhere until Barack Obama and the Democrats defeated the Republicans that November.
Palin was touted as the new (attractive) face of female politicians, much to the chagrin of pro-choice feminists. She was famously and relentlessly mocked for being uninformed and over-confident. Similarly, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who appeared shortly after Palin’s media popularity dwindled, and who flirted with the presidency, wasn’t much of an improvement.
How should I support their assent in a traditionally male environment when I abhor everything they stand for?
Feminists inevitably face the accusation of defining the “right” way for feminists to think and be, and of isolating right-wing feminist women who might lobby for Palin, Bachman, or Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who has spoken out against same-sex marriage in Australia. But the expectation that women back female politicians simply because they are women, reeks of tokenism and is insulting to those who venture into the boy’s-club of politics. As if we shouldn’t expect the same level of knowledge and competence from our female leaders, or (in the case of right-wing politicians) that they recognise the basic human rights of the people they lead.
There is no question that countries suffer when women are denied a voice in the political arena. The United Nations recognised this when it recommended a minimum 30% of decision-making power in politics be allotted to women. This spring, the Economist reported women occupy 20% of all parliamentary seats. Rwanda is the only country where women outnumber men, and Nordic countries seem to do better than the rest of the world at representing its female population ‘in single or lower houses of parliament’. It’s not surprising then that Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden continue to outrank other nations in gender equality, gender empowerment, and human development – not to mention overall happiness.
Having people who live and have lived through the hardships of half or more of the country’s population in positions of power mean there are greater possibilities for change. Consider both Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and the late Pakistani prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, women whose time in office has shed a brighter spotlight on the situation of women in their respective countries*.
Likewise, women writing about politics, in general, focus on different issues. Slate reported that, while male journalists might dominate election coverage (and still see more bylines on stories dealing with foreign policy, economics, and opinion writing), women who do cover politics focus on social issues including reproductive rights and women’s rights.
When I say that I support female politicians, I mean that I support their right to a voice, and to be valued more for what they think than for their looks. It means that I will call out sexism in political reporting when I see, read, or hear it; a goal of the incredible website Name It, Change It. Despite what Amy Sherman-Palladino might say (she was criticised by fellow producer Shonda Rhimes for the lack of diversity in her new show ‘Bunheads’), women should criticise successful women when warranted. It is not betraying the sisterhood by holding one another to a high standard.
If female politicians become more and more prominent around the world, those concerns begin to occupy more space in daily discourse. Where these politicians stand on the issues are irrelevant – the conversations they provoke are what matter.
