I'm a little too beat to write on this now, but I wanted to see if anyone had any thoughts on
this article in today's NYT, "When Women Rule" by the amazing Nick Kristof (LM, JW, and RZ, I'm looking at you in particular):
In particular, one lesson from this research is that promoting their own successes is a helpful strategy for ambitious men. But experiments have demonstrated that when women highlight their accomplishments, that’s a turn-off. And women seem even more offended by self-promoting females than men are.
This creates a huge challenge for ambitious women in politics or business: If they’re self-effacing, people find them unimpressive, but if they talk up their accomplishments, they come across as pushy braggarts.
The broader conundrum is that for women, but not for men, there is a tradeoff in qualities associated with top leadership. A woman can be perceived as competent or as likable, but not both.
It's no secret to his regular readers that Kristof is Team Obama, nor is it unknown that his background is strong in women around the world - specifically developing countries. Still, with those understood truths, I still find the argument confusing... Maybe it's the food poisoning, but I'm perplexed. What is he saying? Do you know? Women are better rulers but we aren't ready for that in America? Give Hillary a chance and then wait to judge (I doubt it)? Just vote Obama because Americans aren't ready for Hillary (or any woman), sad but true?
Ugh. I need water.
