Glass Ceilings
A composition from a photo I got when she visitied Berlin on November 9th, 2009 and from a visit to Washington in 2006, viewed through a glasshouse roof (ok - maybe a bit bland ... :()
There has been a lot of talk about glass ceilings and about their perceived capacity to keep women from reaching the top echelons in business and politics.
As the last US election has shown quite clearly, this glass ceiling is not only contrived by men protecting their turf, afraid of strong women bosses. Unfortunately, these glass ceilings are equally or more so supported and enforced by females:
other women are a more serious threat and more difficult to manage for ambitious women striving to get to the top.
When we are educating our daughters, we teach them to become independent thinkers, to be proud of their own achievements, to lead the lives they chose to lead. But we don't talk of an inherent womanly character flaw:
Sadly, women can be so judgemental, resentful and envious of other women and begrudge their successes for no reason at all except that they are women. Some women will go to length to stop other women from achieving their perfectly fine goals even at a cost to themselves.
What does it matter why and when a woman changed or did not change her surname to adopt her husband's?
Why would it be interesting ot know whether a woman can make cookies if she is not applying for a job as cook?
Why do we want to know, why a woman decided to stay with an unfaithful husband and save a marriage - surely it must have been for all the wrong and selfish reasons?
And all these questions were asked about one of the most highly educated women with a long list of proven accomplishments and a perfect capability who was applying for the most difficult job in difficult times.
I feel so ashamed of my fellow white ladies who apparently predominately decided to shun an eminently suitable respectable woman leader for a misogynist gross bully. I thought we had come further. I thought, we had independently thinking women, proud of their own achievements and supportive of each other, we would decide which work to do, we would decide which guy to marry and we would decide who we want to be represented by. But it seems more than half of the population of white female voters chose the gorilla.
Why would normal women vote for the biggest bully on earth? For a proven liar, using abusive hate language, treating half the population as crap, having cheated on his series of wives, with no political record and lots of empty promises ...
Because they like self-proclaimed "winners"? They like the biggest and loudest ? The rich guy? Isn't it some primeval, animalish, instinctive, atavistic drive to be male-supported? Looking for the strongest guy who might surely know what is best for us? Are we subconsciously dreaming to be the lady of a gorgeous big monster? Rather the cheater than being cheated? Even though he has proven to be not a protector but denigratory, divisive and abusive?
We, mothers and grandmothers, have to educate our daughters to be conscious and beware of these faults in our genetic makeup, when we are judging other women. We have to be good examples for our daughters. We have to learn to be critical of our own opinion about other women, and analyze exactly why we don't like a woman. We must learn that whenever we are asked for an opinion about another woman to switch on our brains, to not judge her on her relationship to the other sex. It seems our judgement is even more negative, if she has a successful or attractive husband: she "must have slept her way up", or she "must have ridden on his coattails". We must learn to not make assumptions that have no basis in reality. Assumptions made by women about other women are very often very negative and irresponsibly taken for fact. We must learn to be supportive of each other. We must trust and earn the trust of each other and not see the competitor in the pursuit of men.
Because if these pitfalls have resulted in such a US president, all women who voted for him not because of his virtues and programmes (which certainly is their right), but because they have had some undefined unreflected hatred of Hillary Clinton, surely deserve that special place in hell that Madeleine Albright talked about.
