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• Friday, May 26, 2006 07:22 AM

  Aggressive female leaders

  There's much older evidence than Thatcher than female leaders can be just as aggressive as male ones. Steve Kelner brings up Victorian England -- well, the Victorian age is, after all, named for Victoria, who was, last I checked, a woman. She was also the last British monarch to have any significant say in how the country was run, and her reputation was not exactly warm and cuddly. "Walk wide o' the Widow at Windsor ..."

  Going back a few more centuries, we have Elizabeth I. Please, someone try to argue that she brought a civilizing effect to the throne. Good luck with that one.

  Now, it could be argued that women in traditionally male positions of power feel the need to act more aggressive in order to prove themselves to skeptical men; that may be so, but it's also irrelevant. Whatever the reason, women who either rise to power or are born to it have proven themselves every bit as capable of ruthelessness as men are. Here in the US, we may not have any queens or female presidents to point at, but female corporate executives are certainly just as ready to axe thousands of loyal employees (while giving themselves fat bonuses) as are male ones.

  What we need are not necessarily more "woman leaders," but simply more thoughtful, rational, humane people, of either sex, who recognize that even the greatest empire can (and, inevitably, will) overreach itself, and that there are better ways to deal with the world than "the sword an' the flame." I still have some hope that we can find such people -- yes, even among politicians! -- but I really don't give a damn about their plumbing.

  —Daniel Dvorkin Read Daniel Dvorkin's other letters
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