We’re living in an age where “girl power” dominates social media, brand marketing and Netflix shows. It became so prevalent a couple of years ago when brands like Glossier and Nasty Gal were making waves for their eye-catching social media and messages of empowerment to young girls. It was this era of social media where the term “girl boss” was coined and feminism permeated pop culture but years later, we know it was a facade at worst and hopeful at best.
The reality of driven, ambitious women that reach certain levels of notoriety and success is a bleak one. There still exists a double standard where ambitious men are the norm while women face unwarranted scrutiny for just reaching higher. When women get to such high positions in male-dominated careers like politics, we see the absurdity of people’s resistance to them.
Aside from her political ideas, Hillary Clinton was an interesting example of how even the most acceptable type of woman was still not enough to shift society’s perception of what success looks like for women. During the 2016 election, Clinton was famously described as unlikable and disconnected and flawed. Her smile, demeanor, body language was analyzed in a way that Trump completely evaded. This pattern of chipping away at women’s credibility by turning them inside out haunts every successful woman that has walked that path.
When we saw Elizabeth Warren announce her run for presidency, her image started to be tarnished with the same adjectives that describe Hillary. For a while, Elizabeth sold a different image of herself to the public, more motherly and soft. These types of attributes are acceptable and received with open arms to the public until the woman in question becomes so soft, she’s squished and thrown to the side. This game of tightrope women face is also upheld by other women.
A 2020 study was conducted on a group of undergraduate students to see whether successful women that sought out their current position or successful women that got to where they are through luck or coincidences were criticized. The findings showed that successful women in male-dominated careers were less likely to be penalized if they got there due to circumstances and lucky breaks rather than a focused pursuit. The study sought out to demonstrate that it’s not only being in the role but how the women got to that position that is criticized. These results are not the first of their kind; there have been multiple studies throughout the years that show this resistance and deep-rooted rebellion towards women in power.
It’s even been shown that women aid in that witch hunting. A 2008 study demonstrated that a need in women to salvage self-confidence and self-worth drove them to characterize successful women as unlikable in order to avoid being compared to them. Helping men destroy a successful woman’s character was hypothesized to be a self-defense mechanism for women. If you don’t want to be the target, you help take it down.
Recently we’ve seen women like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar who are in their 30s, who grew up in a different era where it was possible to see women in power but the vitriol they face is an unimaginable toll that not many will deem worthy of an influential role. The possibility of losing their sanity shouldn’t have to be a sacrifice that ambitious women face if they want to go farther in their careers.
As this upcoming election sees two men screaming over each other in a presidential debate, I can’t help but wonder where all the comments about likeability have gone. As every young girl has seen their icon get taken down by the media, I wonder where the 2024 election will take us and what the consequences of reaching higher will look like.
Sources
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/03/why-ambitious-men-are-celebrated-and-ambitious-women-are-criticized/
- https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jasp.12702?af=R
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5640068_Motivated_to_Penalize_Women%27s_Strategic_Rejection_of_Successful_Women