Women in Politics

Politics has been considered a profession for males only but in the last 3 decades, the

world has seen many women leaders, including some women heads of the states as

well. When it comes to USA, it hasn’t got any woman president elected so far, but

women have served on important posts in the recent decades. Sara Palin, the governor

of Alaska, Condoleezza Rice the secretary of state for USA and Nancy Pelosi are some of

the prominent women who have recently served for USA.

These women have a story of long struggle behind their success as the political structure

of USA ensures and demands. No one can succeed to get a major political success in USA

through shortcuts. So is the case of these women. However these women were lucky

enough that they got the chance to be in a modern world country which believes in the

equal rights of women. Had they been born in some third world country, their chances

of going ahead in politics would have been next to nil.

One main trait which has led these women to success is their self-confidence, their

belief in them. Self-confidence is the key pre-requisite for being a leader. If a person

wishing to be a leader can’t have the self-confidence, how can he/she expect other

people to have confidence in him/her? Self-confidence means to have confidence in

your decisions and policies made by you and that once you make them; you stand by

your decisions. Self-confidence also means that criticism for criticism doesn’t let you

down even an inch and you don’t lose your ground. These three women have self-

confidence pitched in their personality, that’s why that they have remained unshaken

despite the heavy criticism from national as well as global media.

It is their self-confidence which has given them the strength to face conditions of

extreme pressure.

These three women not only show this confidence in their planning and strategic affairs,

but in their views as well. For example, 4 years ago Nancy Pelosi was confident that the

Republicans party will gain the majority that she had started to raise funds for the legal

defense funds. She had been making statements that the Republicans will win the house

back. She didn’t give an impression, even for a second that she doubts what she is

saying or what she means by it.

Let me give another example. Last year she criticized that the Defense of Marriage Act

was unconstitutional. This Act which was actually passed in 90’s and was signed by ex-

President Bill Clinton, prohibited the same sex marriages in USA. This law came under

subjugation once again in 2013 and Pelosi said that Defense of Marriage Act was

actually unconstitutional and that she hoped that SC would agree with her. This time her

confident opinion was a right one, not completely though. SC gave a ruling on hearing

which blew most of the parts of that Act.

Same is the case of Condoleezza Rice. She had to face critical moments as the secretary

of state many a times. When Russia troops had entered Georgia, she in her own words,

‘literally stood up to Putin’ on that occasion. She says that gender should not make

segregation. If you are a woman, secretary of state and someone treats you badly, it is

your fault not his.

What she means to say is that you should be confident and bold enough to stay firm in

the male dominant society otherwise the society will crush you and you’ll not have a

legitimate ground to blame others.

Once an anchor asked her in a show that if USA’s way of execution of Iraq war was

wrong? She tackled the question very confidently and positively and said that we could

have better. This kind of attitude and the ability to answer the questions make a leader

different from the common people, because confident doesn’t mean that you keep

sticking to your wrong opinion nor does it mean that you let the others rush on you

openly, rather a leader knows to choose the best possible wordings and then deliver the

message with quite confidence.

One of the evidence of her self-confidence is her brilliant past. She has reached to such

a high level post without caring for racism. Racism in USA is a reality, one can’t deny it.

To reach such a high level post, despite being from the minor race is really something

big and in fact, there have been very few such examples in the history of USA. Had she

lost her confidents, fearing off the obstacles she would counter in her political career,

she would be living a normal life like some other black girl, anonymously. But she stood

to her ground, remained courageous, maintained her confidence and eventually

emerged as one of the most powerful women politicians in the history of USA.

Having proved that the confidence is the common characteristic among all four of them

let me tell you that this trait was actually thought to be a male-oriented one. Women

were considered weak and frail as well as unable to make decisions up to a few decades

ago. Men were considered ideal for policy making and politics because they had bulk of

self-confidence.

History has recorded many politicians who were famous for their confidence. Hitler, J.

F .Kennedy, George W Bush etc are some examples. However, I personally think that
neither it will be right to make an effort to compare them with any male politician nor

can we make any such comparison fairly.

As far as the question of leadership theories is considered, since it is obvious that these

ladies were confident since their childhood, we can safely claim that traits of leadership

theory deserves the most to be applied on them. Trait leadership is defined as

integrated patterns of personal characteristics that reflect a range of individual

differences and foster consistent leader effectiveness across a variety of group and

organizational situations (Zaccaro, Kemp, & Bader, 2004).

Confidence is a trait, a characteristic which these ladies possess more than others and

this makes them distinct from the rest!

References

Zaccaro, S. J. (2007). Trait-based perspectives of leadership. American

Psychologist, 62(1), 6.

Kipnis, D., & Lane, W. P. (1962). Self-confidence and leadership. Journal of Applied

Psychology, 46(4), 291.