What the past two chapters have shown is that there are substantial gender data gaps in government thinking, and the result is that governments produce male-biased policy that is harming women. These data gaps are in part a result of failing to collect data, but they are also in part a result of the male dominance of governments around the world. And while we may not think of male-dominated government as a gender data gap problem, the evidence makes it clear that female perspective matters.
Several US studies from the 1980s to the 2000s have found that women are more likely to make women’s issues a priority and more likely to sponsor women’s issues bills.1 In the UK, a recent analysis of the impact female MPs have had in Westminster since 1945 found that women are more likely to speak about women’s issues, as well as family policy, education and care.2 An analysis3 of the impact of female representation across nineteen OECD countries4 between 1960 and 2005 also found that female politicians are more likely to address issues that affect women.
The OECD study also found that women’s words translated into action. As female political representation increased in Greece, Portugal and Switzerland, these countries experienced an increase in educational investment. Conversely, as the proportion of female legislators in Ireland, Italy and Norway decreased in the late 1990s, those countries experienced ‘a comparable drop in educational expenditures as a percentage of GDP’. As little as a single percentage point rise in female legislators was found to increase the ratio of educational expenditure. Similarly, a 2004 Indian study of local councils in West Bengal and Rajasthan found that reserving one-third of the seats for women increased investment in infrastructure related to women’s needs.5 A 2007 paper looking at female representation in India between 1967 and 2001 also found that a 10% increase in female political representation resulted in a 6% increase in ‘the probability that an individual attains primary education in an urban area’.6
In short, decades of evidence demonstrate that the presence of women in politics makes a tangible difference to the laws that get passed. And in that case, maybe, just maybe, when Bernie Sanders said, ‘It is not good enough for someone to say, “I’m a woman! Vote for me!”’, he was wrong. The problem isn’t that anyone thinks that’s good enough. The problem is that no one does. On the other hand plenty of people seem to think that a candidate being a woman is a good enough reason not to vote for her. Shortly before the 2016 US presidential election, the Atlantic published the results of a focus group of undecided voters.7 The main takeaway was that Hillary Clinton was just too ambitious.
This is not a groundbreaking opinion. From Anne Applebaum (‘Hillary Clinton’s extraordinary, irrational, overwhelming ambition’8), to Hollywood mogul, democratic donor and ‘one-time Clinton ally’9 David Geffen (‘God knows, is there anybody more ambitious than Hillary Clinton?’10), via Colin Powell (‘unbridled ambition’11), Bernie Sanders’ campaign manager (‘don’t destroy the Democratic Party to satisfy the secretary’s ambitions’12), and, of course, good old Julian Assange (‘eaten alive by her ambitions’13), the one thing we all seem to be able to agree on (rare in this polarised age) is that Hillary Clinton’s ambition is unseemly. Indeed, so widespread is this trope it earned itself a piece in the Onion headlined, ‘Hillary Clinton is too Ambitious to be the First Female President’.14
Being the first woman to occupy the most powerful role in the world does take an extraordinary level of ambition. But you could also argue that it’s fairly ambitious for a failed businessman and TV celebrity who has no prior political experience to run for the top political job in the world – and yet ambition is not a dirty word when it comes to Trump.
Associate professor of psychology at UC Berkeley Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton has a cognitive explanation for why we may view Clinton’s ambition as ‘pathological’.15 She ‘was forging into a territory that is overwhelmingly associated in people’s minds with men’. As a result, he explains, voters experienced her candidacy as a norm violation. And norm violations are, Mendoza-Denton writes, ‘quite simply, aversive, and are often associated with strong negative emotion’.
There’s a very simple reason that a powerful woman is experienced as a norm violation: it’s because of the gender data gap. I personally grew up heavily buying into the myth that women are just . . . a bit rubbish. Yes, this was partly because that’s how women are represented in the media (consumerist, trivial, irrational) but it’s also because women are so under-represented. I was one of those girls being taught, via a curriculum, a news media and a popular culture that were almost entirely devoid of women, that brilliance didn’t belong to me. I wasn’t being shown women I could look up to (either past or present). I wasn’t being taught about female politicians, female activists, female writers, artists, lawyers, CEOs. All the people I was taught to admire were men, and so in my head power, influence, and ambition equated with maleness. And, if I’m being really honest, I think I experienced this norm violation as well. I was all too ready to accept the idea that female bosses were just too ambitious – which as we all know is code for bitch.
The unpalatable truth is that it is still considered unladylike for a woman to want to be president. A 2010 study found that both male and female politicians are seen as power-seeking, but that this is only a problem for female politicians.16 In a similar vein, Mendoza-Denton conducted a study which found that context determines how ‘assertive’ men and women are judged to be.17 In a stereotypically ‘male’ context (car mechanic, Wall street, president of the United States) a woman is judged to behave more assertively than a man saying exactly the same as her. And while it was OK if a bit odd for men to be assertive in a ‘female’ context (choosing curtains, planning a child’s birthday party), it was definitely not OK for a woman to be assertive in any context. Assertive women are bossy.
The social downer on women being seen to seek professional power is partly because social power (being seen as warm and caring) is women’s ‘consolation prize for renouncing competition with men,’ write psychology professors Susan Fiske and Mina Cikara.18 Social power for women is therefore intrinsically incompatible with professional power: if a woman wants to be seen as competent she has to give up being seen as warm.
But so what. So you’re disliked. So you’re seen as cold. Suck it up. If you don’t like the heat, get back to the kitchen, right?