Women's leadership

A thought had seeded in me, more than three years ago, of the natural disposition of women, the expectations from society; and that these things fostered the disadvantage and high standards women face when taking the role of leadership. Women cannot seem to assert the role the way men do, do the same things and receive the same amount of obedience and admiration. It seems that either a woman must be matronly in her leadership, or a harridan. Asserting a masculine role of leadership would bring obedience, but also cultivate disrespect. Catherine the Great was not known for her beauty but her iron will. During her time she was given many dishonorable nicknames by the press, most notably ones that disparaged her inability to act like a woman should and critiques on her suspected wantonness. Neither Peter the Great nor Alexander the Great received such attention, and if they had any sexual indiscretions it would not have been considered a fault worthy of name calling in their time.
Of course, since the feminist movement, standards have changed. Clinton was ruined by the Lewinsky scandal, and Condoleeza Rice is a role model. Still, some things haven’t changed. Women need to work harder and be more excellent to be able to gain the leadership roles of men, and the harshest critics are women themselves. For Hierarchies are different from Matriarchies. For men, once you have gained an advantageous position, it is easy to maintain it (sometimes through tales of honor…etc). For women, that advantageous position can be maintained by the lack of confidence in other women, by virtue, but not simply by what you have done in the past. Men like status, women like equality. An intelligent woman is always scrutinizing the leader to understand what he/she has that she does not. That is why it is difficult to form women armies, but once they have bonded and share a consensus they would excel. (This also puts into account that though for some countries women are now given the opportunity to join the army, the disinclination to do so is highly apparent in the imbalance of gender ratio.)
Of course, the degree of freedom women receive in government still varies from culture to culture. Women in Taiwan are the first to criticize our current vice president for her lack of beauty and tact in dealing with diplomatic issues (and she immediately ceased to be active diplomatically, at least up front). Men wonder why she hasn’t married yet.
Below is an excerpt from an article by Simone de Beauvoir called ‘The Second Sex’. De Beauvoir (1908~1986) was a French philosopher and feminist. Some of her complaints have been corrected by time, some have not:
Man is accustomed to asserting himself; his clients believe in his competence; he can act naturally: he infallibly makes an impression. Woman does not inspire the same feelings of security; she affects a lofty air, she drops it, she makes too much of it. In business, in administrative work, she is precise, fussy, quick to show aggressiveness. As in her studies, she lacks ease, dash, audacity. In the effort to achieve she gets tense. Her activity is a succession of challenges and self-affirmations. This is the great defect that lack of assurance engenders: the subject cannot forget himself. He does not aim gallantly towards some goal: he seeks rather to make good in prescribed ways. In boldly setting out towards ends, one risks disappointments; but one also obtains unhoped-for results; caution condemns to mediocrity.
…What women essentially lacks today for doing great things is forgetfulness of herself; but to forget oneself it is first of all necessary to be firmly assured that now and for the future one has found oneself. Newly come into the world of men, poorly seconded by them, woman is still too busily occupied to search for herself.