I promised myself I would not be upset or annoyed by any more news on the political front until after the elections, but the Associated Press neatly took care of that resolve:
Women running for top offices need to appear competent and attractive, according to a new study. For male candidates, seeming competent may be enough...
"For female candidates, it really matters if they're perceived as competent and perceived as attractive. Those two qualities are sort of twin predictors of whether or not someone is going to be more or less likely to vote for them," [the lead researcher] stressed.
I suspect this extends far beyond the voting booth. Not only are we less likely to vote for a woman who is perceived as "unattractive," I bet we're less likely to give her a leg up in any capacity. However, if a man looks like a gargoyle but spouts the right rhetoric, we'll let him in.
And this goes beyond Sarah Palin and the flap over her Republican Party-financed makeover. A respondent to Morgan Felchner's article in U.S. News and World Report suggested that, had Hillary been younger and more attractive, she'd be the one leading the ticket. Are you kidding me?
As a woman who never did get invited to the prom, literally or figuratively, I am really, really weary of this. First it was lookism, then sexism and now ageism. I can't ever win. I had always hoped that, with experience, my net worth and my sense of self would grow, but it seems to keep eroding. The message seems to be that, for women, competence alone just isn't enough.
Original source: http://metafootnotes.wordpress.com/?p=951
