The Candidate Whisperer

The NY Times today has a brooding piece by Gloria Steinem about the challenges women face as leaders. Key line: "...sexism is still confused with nature as racism once was..."

She's right that there is no "nature" basis for saying that a woman can't lead as well as a man. But here's the sticky part: As many evolutionary biologists and neuroscientists have shown, nature has rigged it so that the human animal and many other animal tend to line up behind the aggressive, large male. This is an innate tendency of many species, even ours. As a 5'7", low-key person, I rue that some 6'2" guys will be seen as my superior by many people, even if I have better abilities in certain areas. But I accept reality, and adjust.

Yet these scientists' realism and empiricism gets blasted by ideologues on both the right and the left. If nature was misinterpreted in past times as a basis for wrongful actions, science has a duty to correct itself, and it eventually does, when left to itself. But if science corrects itself in a manner that offends the ideologues, they go nuts and they can destroy careers.

Science shows that the human brain responds to certain lower, reptilian, emotional signals, higher values be damned. A shorter, non-alpha-male guy like me has to figure out how to work this to my advantage. So does a female politician. Perhaps a woman who seeks office has to tap into a more maternal energy rather than attempting to impress them with her pantsuits and her maleness. I'm just saying....