Bea V. Larsen . . . .Commentaries

Bea V. Larsen is a Senior Mediator at the Center for Resolution of Disputes in
Cincinnati, Ohio 
Bea V. Larsen

For a number of years Bea V. Larsen, senior mediator at the Center for Resolution of Disputes in Cincinnati, Ohio [www.cfrdmediation.com], presented weekly commentaries on WVXU radio, both on her professional work as a mediator and on more personal or general experiences. These broadcasts reached thousands of listeners in a number of midwestern states and elicited many comments. This new series of online commentaries will continue that tradition, now broadcast to the world via the internet. Comments, which can be posted directly to this blog, are warmly encouraged. More personal background information can be read in the "Introductions" category below.
 

A Gender Divide?

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This entry was posted on 3/17/2007 5:25 PM and is filed under Generally Speaking.

    Not too long ago, it was thought divorce would make election to public office unlikely. Apparently neither McCain nor Kerry was tainted (although both former wives offered their support).

   Now with Giuliani in the political swim, his divorces, and his widely publicized affair with his present wife while still married to another, is raising eyebrows and questions about the likely impact on the electorate.

    Will Gingrich's recently acknowledged affairs, even with his mea culpas, do him in? Having led the presidential impeachment charge, perhaps he has tripped over his double standard.

    A pundit now suggests: adultery is the new divorce.

    It would seem all we know with some certainty, is that power is a potent aphrodisiac, and the threat (or lure) of seduction is ever present. Is the electorate becoming more accepting of human frailty, as personal lives become ever more public? Perhaps we endorse those with susceptibilities we can recognize in ourselves. Was that not part of the Bill Clinton phenomena?

    A display of vulnerability may even become the new macho, a man able to show his feminine side seen as more complete.

    But will we offer forgiveness without regard to gender? Could a woman admit to sexual transgressions, or even serial monogamy, and still be acceptable as a candidate or a CEO?  I doubt it.

   Do most women of high achievement, either in politics or the boardroom, even allow themselves to expose their feminine side, or are they called upon to be more "manly", display toughness in order to succeed. (Hillary Clinton seems to be on this path).

    Linda Obst, author of a book about life in the world of movie making, wrote of sometimes having been brought to the brink of tears as she navigated the competitive business world still largely controlled by men. She said: I hate crying. It scares men, and I don't blame them, because they're afraid you'll turn into their wives or daughters or worse, their mothers.

    Is that it? She concludes women seeking powerful positions have to develop and always maintain a thick skin just to survive.

    Most of us are cared for from infancy by women we are dependent upon in our formative years, women who appear, at least to young eyes, as disciplined and above reproach. Is that what we then require of women who seek a leadership role? Whereas social delinquency on the part of men offers vicarious pleasure?

     Until they want to become the big daddy.

   

 

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    • 3/20/2007 8:18 PM Janet Biehl wrote:
      Probably most people who seek powerful positions, men and women, have to have a thick skin in order to survive. Linda Obst may be right that men (and perhaps other women?) despise the sight of such a person crying because it reminds them of their mother or other woman upon whom they were dependent. But do you think more may be at work in this feeling as well? Women have had two main routes to power: by going for it directly, openly seeking powerful positions, as they have famously done in recent years; and by going for it indirectly, as they did in traditional, prefeminist settings when they were generally more dependent on men. In the latter case they sometimes resorted (or do still resort) to manipulations of men--through tears, or by sexual manipulation--in order to achieve their aims. Such means are morally questionable but often were the only route by which they could sometimes get their way. Do you think tears in powerful women may make people uncomfortable because they seem a fallback to the indirect, manipulative approach to seeking power rather than adhering to the healthier, direct one? Even when the tears are generated by a genuinely painful situation, and not by a desire to manipulate, they may produce this negative reaction. Just a thought, inspired by your always-interesting commentaries, Bea.
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      1. 3/21/2007 8:25 PM Bea Larsen wrote:
            Your comment is so interesting, Janet. Thank you for adding these thoughts. Perhaps I am just projecting, but I think most men and women react to women's tears as a display of weakness, whereas today, may see men's tears as a valued show of compassion. Certainly that did not used to be the case. Remember Senator Muskie? His tears sort of knocked him off the political map.

            Just today, while lunching with a friend, we got into a discussion with our waiter who was from New Orleans. I mentioned that I had just heard that Goveernor Blanco had announced she would not seek reelection and the waiter immediately referred to her having wept in public a day or so after the hurricane hit suggesting that pretty much disqualified her as being worthy of the position. I know she can be criticized, as so many others can be, for the inadaquacy of the state response, but for the tears?

            Even though I predate the most recent feminist wave of the sixties and thereafter, I don't believe I ever knew any women who used tears as a manipulation. Although that certainly is widely assumed. Known? Now, sexual games, that's another matter.

             I am so delighted that you are following me along, as I am following you. Bea
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