Running Like a Girl

...with sass, smarts, and really nice shoes

Office of VP Kamala Harris, Public domain, via Wikimedia Common

When I was kid in the era of privileged mad men and women who ran things from behind the kitchen curtains, gender stereotyping was not only the norm, it was pretty much the only language we had.

Girls wore skirts to school, didn’t play “rough sports,” and were expected not to tussle with boys who were tussling with each other while sneering pejoratives like, “you fight like a girl!” or “run like a girl!” or “cry like a girl!” The theme was clear to us be-skirted ones: anything “like a girl” was dreaded status every boy I knew maneuvered hard to avoid.

Yet as much as I took umbrage with the cudgel of those gender-centric insults, I oddly found perverse pleasure in comments like, “You shop like a boy,” (my dad… because I was quick about it), or “throw like a boy” (I had brothers), or, most desirously, “run like a boy” (noted by anyone who tried to keep up with me). Just as “like a girl” had currency as an insult, the reverse was considered a compliment. Why was that?

It wasn’t that I had identity or gender issues. I didn’t feel inherently less by virtue of being a girl. It wasn’t that I personally deemed girly things of no value (no one loved/loves make-up more than me). And my mother often remarked that I was “boy-crazy” from second grade on (odds are good it was first grade). It was that life regularly made clear that being on a par with boys was considered better. It had more gravitas. Carried more value. More heft.

Because boys had more agency, more power and freedom. They demanded and got more attention. Schools and towns provided for their need for athletics and clubs and social interaction far more than they did for girls. In fact, it took Title IX, a federal civil rights lawsuit enacted in 1972, to mandate that females had the right to “equal opportunity in sports in educational institutions that receive federal funds, from elementary schools to colleges and universities.” It took a damn lawsuit, for God’s sake!  

Which brings me to politics.

Why is it that a modern, global superpower like the United States of America has never elected a female president?

Well, we kinda did back in 2016 when Hillary won almost three million more votes than Trump, but given the arcane (and absurd) machinations of the Electoral College, she could not be adjudicated “the winner.” What hell that twist of fate wrought is fodder for a whole other article, but the point is: why hasn’t a woman actually won the damn thing?

Frankly, very few women have even tried. And there are reasons for that. This, from a New York Times article written shortly after the 2016 results were in, makes some astute points on the matter:

Some scholars say that European democracies may view women as more suited to high political office because their governments are known for generous social-welfare programs, something that seems maternal. In contrast, the president of the United States is primarily seen as commander in chief, which is a frame more difficult for women to fit into.

“America is still seen as the policeman of the world, the guardian of the world and we still have a very gendered version of what leadership means,” said Laura A. Liswood, secretary general of the United Nations Foundation’s Council of Women World Leaders, a network of current and former female prime ministers and presidents. “Not only do we have to be liked, we also have to be tough.”

Sue Thomas, a senior research scientist at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation in Santa Cruz, Calif., said that unlike political leadership posts elsewhere, the American presidency “is seen as a very masculine institution that for historical reasons is extremely hard for a female to approach.” [Emphasis mine.]

That last line makes me want to scream, so reminiscent of girls being told not to “tussle with boys” on the playground, as if those boys were untouchable and we girls were too soft or weak.

Of course, given the deeply ingrained patriarchal foundation of the modern global superpower that is the United States of America, a place where women are paid less for equal work while charged more for materials and services, some see this discussion as a form of what we used to call “affirmative action,” but is now being sneered by the right wing as “DEI.” Trump and his Republican mouthpieces wasted no time swiping at Kamala Harris’s exuberant political ascendency as a “DEI hire,” a slur both expected and repugnant, but the most blatant ignorance of that racist/sexist invective is its contrast with truth: In fact, women are actually “more effective than men in all leadership measures.”

That’s the real headline of a recent Forbes piece that goes on to say:

Research from Leadership Circle, based on assessments with over 84,000+ leaders and 1.5 million raters (comprising boss, boss’s boss, peers, direct reports, and others), shows that female leaders show up more effectively than their male counterparts across every management level and age level. [Emphasis mine.]

Cindy Adams, President and CLO at Leadership Circle, makes the following points:

“Creative leaders’ behaviors flow from their values and purpose,” Adams said, “rather than from a set of assumptions about how leaders are supposed to behave.” Creative Competencies are highly researched and validated effective leadership competencies around the world. These include competencies that scale across five dimensions:

1.     Relating

2.     Self-awareness

3.     Authenticity

4.     Systems Awareness

5.     Achieving

Yet this very illuminating article also asserts:

Despite all the measurable benefits female leaders bring to organizations, many (organizations) still do not effectively develop and support them. [Emphasis mine.]

Certainly no “organization” is larger or more complex than the Executive Branch of the United States, which, disappointingly, fits squarely into that infuriating assessment.

So what do we do about that?

photo by Joe Pregadio on Unsplash

We change it. We now have a female candidate for the presidency who not only embodies every competency Cindy Adams lists (as well as others detailed in the article, which I encourage you to read), but Kamala Harris is setting the town on fire in every category essential to a successful presidential campaign: stellar fundraising, rising polls, and the enlistment of enthusiastic volunteers. She’s earning key endorsements, electrifying the electorate, pulling in the youth vote, and making people feel hopeful, optimistic, and uplifted… all those thesaurus words that have to do with FEELING LIKE WE CAN ACTUALLY SAVE OUR DEMOCRACY.  

photo by Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

AND with a woman.

A brilliant, accomplished, fearless woman. A woman with an infectious laugh, great dance moves, a loving husband and family, and a fierce level of energy. A woman who has tussled with every kind of man in every kind of situation without losing her footing or focus. A diplomat, an advocate, a fighter.

And, by the way, we’re taking back ”like a girl,” just as we’ve taken back the American flag back from co-opting right-wingers who somehow thought they had the franchise on patriotism. We’re redefining the phrase from a sneer of misogynistic condescension to something that signifies just what a strong, self-possessed girl really is: “…self confident, productive, optimistic, a go-getter, a fear-tackler, caring, unafraid to stand up for what one believes in, proud, unbothered by what others say or think, and true to one’s self.” [from DiscoveryMood.com]

That’s Kamala Harris, a woman who has won the necessary delegates to be the official Democratic nominee; a woman who is going to change the metrics for who gets to be leader of the free world; a woman who is, indeed, “running like a girl”… a kick-ass girl with smarts, sass, and really good shoes.

Let’s get her in the Oval Office, shall we?

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