Women Aren't Allowed to Want Their Wants

        

        Recently I was chatting on Facebook with an acquaintance from high school about the (then) upcoming election. One of the reasons she cited for her choice of candidate was that “She (Harris) just wants fame and control to line her pockets along with her buddies.”  

I nearly fell out of my chair as I read that. SHE wants fame and control?! She wants to use the office of the President of the United States to enrich herself?! I wondered if my acquaintance maybe lived in a cave throughout the last time this man was in office…or for the last 20 or so years. How is it possible that she had not been outraged by this man’s insane, ludicrous-to-the-point-of-being-comical ego? All he is, is ego.

Had my acquaintance not heard that he BRAGGED about his building in New York City being the tallest after the Twin Towers fell on 9/11? Had she not heard him brag about his large crowd sizes, even when there was video documentation that this was false? Had she not heard him brag that he has “the best words,” that he heals faster than anyone else, that doctors are astounded by his health, that he wants to sleep with his daughter? Had she not heard how he profited from his presidency? Had she not heard this man’s ego ROAR unabashedly for the last decade?

Sure, she had heard many of these things. I happen to know that she was not, in fact, living in a cave for the last while. It’s just that, these things don’t matter because he is a man. He is entitled to his ego, entitled to bragging, to ambition, to his wants. Men are allowed to want, to crave, to desire. Even to the point of parading a blustering, unchecked, power-hungry, maniacal ego. Women are punished for even a whiff of want.

Female ambition is a liability. Women aren't allowed to want their wants.

Sadly, these are some of the requirements for a successful leader. (Not an unchecked ego, I believe that is a detriment to becoming a good leader. However, want and ambition are necessary to drive the commitment that a successful campaign requires.) Ambition fueled by action translates to drive which can result in success. But not for women. For women, ambition is verboten, punished.

And success without ambition is next to impossible.

You see the catch 22 here? Women aren’t allowed ambition, or at least, we aren’t allowed to express it. Everything we do must be ONLY for the greater good. It must be ONLY acts of selflessness that drive us - the desire to help others, never an ounce of desire for our own pride or accomplishment.

Of course, if one is running to occupy the highest office in the world, there should be some element of altruism, a desire to help others. I believe most who have run for this office, including Harris, are motivated by these desires at least to some extent. But I would wager that any who have been elected, who have won, have also marveled, “I am the dang President of the United States!” And what an accomplishment in which to revel. That pride is merited for such an accomplishment. But only for men.

No doubt Obama thought this, the Bushes, Clinton, Reagan and on and on back to George Washington. And that’s ok. Because they were men. Men are allowed to want their wants. They are allowed to let their ambition drive them, and then celebrate their accomplishments when they succeed.

Women are allowed to serve. We are allowed selflessness in service to others. But God help us if we want. And if you are a woman and you want, you had better keep your damn trap shut about it and pretend the whole endeavor is only 100% about others.

Our society allows a man to be ALL want, fueled only by ego, while we demand that a woman must be ALL altruism, fueled only by selflessness.

When I read my acquaintance's comment, my brain ticked back to another conversation eight years ago, when a different woman was running for the highest office in the world. One of my Liberal friends told me he was voting for her, but begrudgingly. “She just seems too ambitious. She just wants it too much,” he told me.

To that I say, “WHAT THE HECK?!”

You hear that, Ladies? You can run for office, I guess, but you can’t want it too much. It’s unbecoming. You just seem selfish. Everyone is just a little squicked out by women who want.

Has anyone ever achieved anything by not wanting it badly enough? My guess is “no.”

Why don’t we ever, EVER ask this of the men who are running, even when they are egomaniacal mad men, obsessed with themselves, with power, with riches? We never ask a man to not want it. To not be driven. I have literally never heard anyone chastise a man for his ambition, his desire.

Men are always allowed to want, and they are allowed to be vocal about their wants. And they can articulate this at no cost to their reputation or standing.

From a Liberal Feminist perspective, the Office of the President of the United States is one area that will likely continue to be dominated by men. Because a woman isn’t allowed to want it. If there is evidence of even the smallest trace of her ambition, she will be scorned, eviscerated.

And without the drive of ambition and want, success will always be just out of reach. A woman who wants will almost certainly always be trounced in an election, and a woman who doesn’t want will never have the drive to fuel a successful campaign.

This is by design, as it serves the dominant hegemony, which is that men belong in positions of leadership and power, and women, who are less capable, belong in the kitchen making sandwiches, and in the bathroom scrubbing toilets.

With pervasive messaging across both traditional and social media, what do you think? Is this a hurdle women can overcome? And if so, what needs to change to make that happen?