Power or popularity?

It’s hard not to like Hillary Clinton. She works phenomenally hard, is canny, warm, clever and funny. She ran for President, came extremely close, and went on to be a competent secretary of state. She has endured relentless sniping about her marriage, her face, her ankles, her clothes, her hair, her voice - oh yeah, and her politics - and kept going. Respect.

This is why she is the most admired woman in America – and has been for an astonishing 16 years. Last year, she was also the most popular national figure – male or female - in the country. Which is staggering when you remember the dirt flung at her during the 2008 presidential campaign. She was called an “ageing and resentful female”, told she was “unlikeable” and criticised for the fact that she remained married to an unfaithful man. “If I want to knock a story off the front page, she said, “I just change my hairstyle.” Robust policy debate is one thing; personal scorn is another.

"We simply are not used to seeing women grasp, use, abuse or exert power. So the most basic of flaws can too easily be seen as fundamentally undermining their eligibility for ruling the country." 

Funny, though, now that she is seen just doing her job, and not aiming to be the leader of the free world, she’s suddenly much more likeable. Our own leader, Julia Gillard, wouldn’t top the most admired list in Australia now. But isn’t it true that she was liked far more when she was a deputy Prime Minister – while ostensibly remaining the same person? Almost all commentators agreed on her likability then: she was real, genuine, and unaffected.

Not so much now. Of course, she has disappointed many as a Prime Minister, with the overt politicking, compromising, maneuvering, and the promise-breaking that got her into the Lodge. The shafting of Andrew Wilkie was particularly hard to stomach. But are we tougher on her because she is a woman? Do we expect her to stay cute? She believes so, saying recently: “I don’t remember people looking at John Howard and saying ‘gee I wish he’d be warmer and cuddlier and more humorous… They looked at him and said ‘well, he’s the bloke running the country’ and I think the same standard should apply to me. I’m a woman running the country.”

Few things will annoy the press gallery more than the suggestion that an under-performing politician might be being attacked more because she is female. It can be hard to pinpoint sexism today, partly because the true test of bias is not outrageous remarks from dinosaurs about wrinkles. Nor is it the pointing out of a politician’s faults. It is how harshly we judge them for those faults, how loudly, for how long and with what consequence.

We simply are not used to seeing women grasp, use, abuse or exert power. So the most basic of flaws can too easily be seen as fundamentally undermining their eligibility for ruling the country. 

Hillary was blasted for being aggressive and for playing political hardball like a man during the campaign. Gillard is criticised for not being likable enough, now that her tendency to play politics rough - like the most shrewd and possibly unscrupulous of men – has become painfully obvious.

But let’s face it, likability seem to matters a less for men who pursue power. Let’s not forget Hillary Clinton was a heroine until she wanted to be president of America.