The Chair of the Democratic National Committee
The Republicans seldom look more silly—and politics seldom looks more cynical— than when the GOP complains that the media or liberal interest groups are ignoring conduct by a progressive politician that they would vociferously criticize if a conservative politician behaved similarly, even though the Republicans themselves see nothing wrong with the conduct, and would scream that the criticism was unfair if it was focused on a conservative. This is yet another of the funhouse mirror versions of the Golden Rule in action, being employed for a dubious “Gotcha!”: “Do Unto Others As You Would Do Unto Me, Even Though If You Did That Unto Me, I Would Condemn You For It.”
It is the game Republican women’s groups and conservative pundits are playing now, because the National Organization for Women hasn’t rapped the knuckles of President Obama for calling Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D.-Fla.), the Democratic National Committee Chair, “cute.”
Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America (a conservative women’s organization), called out NOW on its double standard, and said,“Of all people who ought to be offended at President Obama’s statement it should be an ardent feminist like Wasserman-Schultz. Isn’t objectifying women by their looks a mortal sin among feminists?” Charlotte Hayes, a senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum, the conservative twin of NOW, argued, “If a conservative had said this, [NOW] might have gone quite crazy. The Democrats might have gone quite crazy and tried to have his head on a platter. I guess Democrats could get really mad because you say a woman has a charming smile.”
But, she added, “I’m not one of those people who gets mad if you said I have a charming smile. I would be flattered.”
For its part, NOW has said that it has more pressing matters than criticizing a major ally’s politically incorrect gaffe, much as it couldn’t be bothered to criticize Bill Maher for calling Sarah Palin a “dumb twat” or MSNBC’s Ed Schultz for describing conservative pundit and single mother Laura Ingraham as a “right wing slut.” The President and the woman with the cute smile, meanwhile, are ignoring the whole thing.
Here is the irony, and the problem: they are all wrong. What Obama did was not malicious, but it wasn’t trivial either. Talking about Wasserman Schultz’s as Obama did is one of the most persistent and pernicious ways men keep the glass ceiling intact, whether that is their intent or not. NOW, the Independent Women’s Forum, Concerned Women for America, the President, and Wasserman Schultz should all be using his error as a “teachable moment”–-isn’t this President supposed to love those?—-and explain why his words weren’t just inappropriate, but actually harmful.
In case your own ethics alarms didn’t sound when you read or heard Obama’s remarks, allow me to explain.
Obama referred to Wasserman Schultz a couple of times while speaking Monday at a various Democratic National Committee fundraising events in Miami, part of the chairwoman’s congressional district.
“To Debbie Wasserman Schultz, thank you for letting me in your district,” the President said. “If you’re in the foxhole, you want Debbie alongside you, because not only is she charming and has that dazzling smile, but she’s tough as nails. And that’s what’s needed during challenging times.” At another fundraiser that day, he said, “What do you guys think of our new DNC chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz? We are so thrilled to have her. You want Debbie on your side. She’s a mom, she’s got that cute smile and all that, but she is tough. Don’t mess with Debbie. We are so glad of her leadership.”
Nice, right? Only a hard-boiled, bra-burning, paranoid, man-hating femi-nazi could fault Obama for such praise, right?
Wrong.
Such subversive niceness goes on in staff meetings, board meetings, business gatherings, speeches and working lunches hundreds of thousands of times every day, and the result is to send powerful cultural, sexist messages as old as discrimination itself:
• Women are refreshing to have in the workplace.
• They brighten up the “foxhole”, which would otherwise be filled, as usual, with unexciting, drably dressed, business-like men.
• Women are ornaments…not that they aren’t helpful too!
• We notice them as much because of what they look like and their “charm” as we do because of what they can do.
• They need to be treated differently than men.
• We assume that they are going to be weak and submissive, so it’s surprising and impressive–and cute!— when they aren’t.
• Women trying to be managers and leaders are adorable, kind of like little kids dressing in adult clothes.
• We men are in charge, and in a position to show our superior position by generously bestowing personal compliments on women in our fields that we would never dream of bestowing on men….who don’t really require that kind of gallantry.
• No doubt about it: women are different, exotic, amusing, arousing, fun additions to the workplace, God bless ‘em!
Obama’s words, like words I have heard male supervisors, CEO’s and managers use toward female colleagues on many occasions, are the equivalent of a pat on the head, or somewhere else. Often I suspect that compliments like “charming” and “dazzling smile” are really socially acceptable stand-ins for “hot” and “great rack.” Did Obama mean them that way? Of course not. But he, like me, has been watching men treat women in the workplace “nice” all his professional life; it comes natural to him, like saying thank you. But by using such condescending words, he still perpetuates a culture of male domination in places of power.
The issue isn’t “objectifying” women, but subtly poisoning expectations and perceptions. Calling women “cute,” and “charming, “ and “dazzling”; saying that they “brighten up the room” or that they shouldn’t be underestimated because they are “tough as nails,” these all reinforce female stereotypes in a manner that is almost impossible for the woman to resist. This is the Chivalry Curse.
I once pointed out to the sole woman in a weekly management meeting at a large trade association that our male executive director used a completely different manner, vocal tone and demeanor toward her than he did to the male managers, and I likened it to the way people talk to babies or dogs. “Don’t you look wonderful this morning!” he would say to her, while he greeted the men in the meeting with grunts. “It always perks up a meeting when you’re here!”
“Oh, he’s just being nice!” she protested to me. “Sure he is,” I said. “And niceness like that makes it clear that he doesn’t regard you as an equal, and every man in that room gets the message that you’re in the meeting to brighten up the room as much as for what you bring to it in substance.”
“So what do I do?” she asked.
Tough question. Any woman who protests such seemingly gracious words and conduct is asking to be labeled, if only in the silent reaches of their male colleagues’ minds, a hyper-sensitive, irrational bitch. This is why it would be such a positive development if Obama, or NOW, or Wasserman Schultz stepped up and exposed the Chivalry Curse, using the President’s words, and empowered women to reject the insidious condescension that has always kept and continues to keep strong, capable women one step behind their male competitors.
Forget about the Republican women’s groups: they just don’t get it, though their members are victims of the phenomenon. NOW has no integrity, as the Maher incident proved. The organization’s leaders refused to criticize President Clinton for harassing workplace conduct that it had specifically condemned before he shared cigar tricks with his intern. Wasserman Schultz? She would be a perfect messenger, but the courage it would require for someone in her position to explain why Obama’s nice words have not-so-nice consequences is a great deal to ask—though if she were as tough as Obama claimed she is, she would be up to it.
The best messenger would be Obama himself. If a nice white politician introduced him early in his career by saying, “We’re so glad to have Barack on our side. Sure he’s black, and has that dazzling smile, but don’t underestimate him! Believe it or not, he’s smart and capable,” Obama would know what was being done to him. He should understand what his words about Wasserman Schultz mean in their cultural context. Obama is the President, and he sets the standards of conduct. His effusive praise of a professional woman’s cuteness and attractiveness—Would a man say this about another man? Never. Would a woman describe a fellow female professional this way? Of course not— reinforces the Chivalry Curse, and guarantees that it will still be going strong, diminishing women in the workplace and holding them back with compliments, long after he leaves the White House….long enough, in fact, for his daughters to be victims of the curse too.
I wish the Republican women would raise the issue seriously, rather than cynically. I wish NOW really cared about women and not just ideology, and I wish Wasserman Schultz was as tough as she is supposed to be. I wish President Obama was more sensitive than other male leaders to the damage done every day by the Chivalry Curse. Most of all, I wish that so many of the brilliant, strong, talented professional women I know, both with dazzling smiles and without them, including my own remarkable sister and talented wife, didn’t have to be dragged down by the weight of this insensitive behavior.
But they are. And I don’t see any end in sight.
Ethics Alarms 
I think you’re over-reaching. I’ll grant that “cute smile” is a little condescending, but to call someone “charming” is hardly so. “Would a man describe another man this way? Never.” Well, it’s a term I applied to my (male) boss only a couple of days ago. Was I, in fact, demeaning him? No. Because he is, in fact, charming, and that is a positive attribute in virtually any business. I don’t know Ms. Wasserman Schultz, but I’m willing to take on faith that she’s charming, too: that’s a trait of personality, not physicality. By the way, President Obama has a great smile and is apparently charming, as well. Does that make him a good president? Of course not. But those are characteristics which help a candidate, and are even useful to an office-holder.
I’m reminded of a listserv exchange I had many years ago, when Joanne Akalaitis was fired as Artistic Director of the New York Shakespeare Festival. One of her supporters was indignant at the sexism implicit in the description of her as “abrasive.” “No one would ever describe a man that way,” she sputtered. Of course, I had been described with that very word in an official, written, performance review I’d received not a week earlier. I said so. The response was that the term is still code, and still gender-laden. No, it’s a perfectly useful descriptor, and one which, if true, can be a serious detriment to a professional’s capacity to do one’s job. Whether it is an apt term for Ms. Akalaitis (or for me) is another matter. Similarly, you’re assuming that “charming” is code. Perhaps it is; I suspect not. And, of course, a leading Democrat did once describe then-candidate Obama using a term many considered racist for the same reason you’re calling “tough as nails” sexist: “articulate.” I thought the fury was a bit over-wrought. So did Mr. Obama, apparently: that speaker became his running-mate.
Some women are charming and have great smiles and are still tough as nails. Some men are charming and have great smiles and are still tough as nails. In your anecdote, you contrast effusiveness towards a female manager with grunts to the men. Yes, in that case there’s a distinction, but I’d argue it’s a significant problem only if a). it creates a “chilly climate” for the woman or b). the attitude is manifested in other ways—denying her opportunities to advance either her department or her own career, for example.
More importantly, President Obama describes Ms. Wasserman Schultz not merely in terms of traits ancillary (but by no means irrelevant) to the job: he concentrates on her toughness and leadership, qualities that are “needed during challenging times.”
Last but not least, I think that Obama’s remarks are different not merely in degree, but in kind (or sufficient in degree to be in kind) with those of Maher or Schultz, and they fall far short of the actions of a plethora of powerful men with Bill Clinton as flag-bearer. I know you bring up these issues only to demonstrate the double-standard of NOW, but the conflation is far too much to bear up under scrutiny. If Clinton (or Bob Packwood, or Arnold Schwarzenegger, or Anthony Weiner, or…) is a felon in gender attitude, Obama is barely guilty of jaywalking.
I don’t think his comments are vaguely related to Maher’s comments, other than the fact that NOW brushed them off. The fact that Obama mentioned Debbie’s virtues after noting her feminine whiles is what matters—DESPITE these things, she’s competent. Most men, and even more women, agree with you, and it’s a trap. Men may call men charming, but not in this kind of context. I know for a fact that this kind of “nice” rhetoric puts women at a permanent subordinate disadvantage. Until they start objecting, it won’t stop.
You see, I’m not convinced that this has anything to do with feminine wiles. It’s a standard rhetorical structure: “s/he might not seem like it, but…”
I could reasonably say of my Dean that “he’s very soft-spoken, but don’t think that means he won’t uphold standards.” Same thing… or at least it could be. You’re assuming “charming” and “dazzling smile” are grounded in gender; I’m not. They could be, but we don’t know.
By the way, I note that in your reply you refer to “Maher” and “Obama,” but “Debbie.” Hmm…
The “Debbie” was intentional—a pop quiz. You passed.
Let me go into some more detail here, because I feel strongly about this, and I know it’s no well accepted,.
I think you’re over-reaching. I’ll grant that “cute smile” is a little condescending, but to call someone “charming” is hardly so. “Would a man describe another man this way? Never.” Well, it’s a term I applied to my (male) boss only a couple of days ago. Was I, in fact, demeaning him? No. Because he is, in fact, charming, and that is a positive attribute in virtually any business. I don’t know Ms. Wasserman Schultz, but I’m willing to take on faith that she’s charming, too: that’s a trait of personality, not physicality.
You can sugar-coat it, but the fact is that this kind of dichotomy in describing women is far, far more common than describing men. (She ISN’T especially charming, either, but that’s beside the point.)
By the way, President Obama has a great smile and is apparently charming, as well. Does that make him a good president? Of course not. But those are characteristics which help a candidate, and are even useful to an office-holder.
Also not the point. We don’t talk about male leaders leading with their social attractiveness and physical characteristics. The only women who aren’t treated this way, in contrast, are the old, the over-weight, and the unattractive—the sexless.
I’m reminded of a listserv exchange I had many years ago, when Joanne Akalaitis was fired as Artistic Director of the New York Shakespeare Festival. One of her supporters was indignant at the sexism implicit in the description of her as “abrasive.” “No one would ever describe a man that way,” she sputtered. Of course, I had been described with that very word in an official, written, performance review I’d received not a week earlier. I said so. The response was that the term is still code, and still gender-laden. No, it’s a perfectly useful descriptor, and one which, if true, can be a serious detriment to a professional’s capacity to do one’s job. Whether it is an apt term for Ms. Akalaitis (or for me) is another matter.
You’re ignoring the very specific context and type of speech the post is about..that very special, condescending “niceness’ that says, “she’s weak, she’s submissive, she’s hot” …but amazingly, she actually can do something!! That’s the message that is conveyed, both to men and other women, whether they realize it of not. “Abrasive” is not sexist. Are women called abrasive for conduct excused in men? Sure. And that IS sexist.
Similarly, you’re assuming that “charming” is code.
Not at all. I’m assuming that in a workplace context, it’s no more apropriate than “sexy” or “hot.” When men think women are charming, however, that’s usually because they also think they are sexy or at least easy to look at and listen to.
. And, of course, a leading Democrat did once describe then-candidate Obama using a term many considered racist for the same reason you’re calling “tough as nails” sexist: “articulate.” I thought the fury was a bit over-wrought. So did Mr. Obama, apparently: that speaker became his running-mate.
That’s because it was Biden, and Biden doesn’t know what he means half the time. If a Jesse Helms—or Pat Buchanan— had said it, everyone would have known what he meant, right?
Some women are charming and have great smiles and are still tough as nails. Some men are charming and have great smiles and are still tough as nails. In your anecdote, you contrast effusiveness towards a female manager with grunts to the men. Yes, in that case there’s a distinction, but I’d argue it’s a significant problem only if a). it creates a “chilly climate” for the woman or b). the attitude is manifested in other ways—denying her opportunities to advance either her department or her own career, for example.
Not chilly. Just different is good enough. Another example, which wasn’t relevant to the post: male professionals hugging or kissing colleagues as a greeting. I used to tell my female staff members that I would dock them raises if they let a male member hug them at a convention. It’s a power move, and women fall for it every time.
More importantly, President Obama describes Ms. Wasserman Schultz not merely in terms of traits ancillary (but by no means irrelevant) to the job: he concentrates on her toughness and leadership, qualities that are “needed during challenging times.”
No, he leads with the irrelevant stuff-there’s a but there. “She’s cuet BUT she’s tough as nails. That equals “She’s a girl, BUT she’s tough as nails.”
Last but not least, I think that Obama’s remarks are different not merely in degree, but in kind (or sufficient in degree to be in kind) with those of Maher or Schultz, and they fall far short of the actions of a plethora of powerful men with Bill Clinton as flag-bearer. I know you bring up these issues only to demonstrate the double-standard of NOW, but the conflation is far too much to bear up under scrutiny. If Clinton (or Bob Packwood, or Arnold Schwarzenegger, or Anthony Weiner, or…) is a felon in gender attitude, Obama is barely guilty of jaywalking.
I’m not talking about gender attitude, I’m talking about culture-building. It’s just a bad habit, and one that has serious consequences.
I don’t think we’re going to reach a consensus on the important points, but I note that I hug/am hugged by a lot of people at conferences… male and female alike. In those moments, they’re friends as opposed to colleagues, and I don’t see it at all as a “power move.” If I insisted on a hug from a female colleague I barely know, that would be different.
No disagreement. The hugs at the association were assuredly initiated by near, though not total, strangers, usually “men of a certain age.”
Ah. Ew.
Ew is right.
If I can be so bold as to say this, I feel confident that Jack and I could not be more on the same page on this one – I completely agree with him.
To double-check me on this, if you have the time and interest, read my evisceration of Obama when he called a female journalist “sweetie” as she tried – unsuccessfully – to get him to answer her while on the trail in 2008 here: http://www.writeslikeshetalks.com/2008/05/15/obamas-not-quite-macaca-moment-but-sweetie-reporter-none-too-happy/ and here (I offer both so people can read through the comments as well which are also interesting) http://themoderatevoice.com/19643/obama%E2%80%99s-not-quite-macaca-moment-but-%E2%80%9Csweetie%E2%80%9D-reporter-none-too-happy/
Again – I appreciate the ethical/unethical critique Jack goes through – as you’ll see in what I wrote, I definitely don’t use the same looking glass, but we get to the same conclusion.
It’s refreshing to have members of both genders recognize just how debilitating these bad habits can be, whether the speaker is cognizant or not, and it is in fact the times when people are not cognizant that are the most indicative of how entrenched some stereotypes and bad habits are.
Thanks for this post, Jack.