Many, perhaps even most of us, have witnessed the truth of this axiom. We may debate about the meaning of “bad,” but we do usually admit that there is such a thing, and that it shows up in the actions of powerful men. There was a prime example yesterday.
But what about “bad” women? Are we somehow exempt from the deleterious influence of power?
We have so seldom exercised visible power in the past that the question hasn’t been asked. The power of a “good woman” is usually manifest in her fulfillment of her social duties, raising children, keeping house, tending to the needs of her community. The subversive power of women that often goes unnoticed, and therefore has a hidden but powerful effect, has depended on subterfuge and manipulation.
But now, at last, we do have women in positions of visible power, as CEOs and political leaders. Are we going to exercise our newfound power in ways that are damaging to individuals, or to the environment?
I began to wonder about this question the other day when a friend told me with horror and sadness that a woman newly appointed to run an admired conservation non-profit here had succeeded in ousting the man who founded the organization and has run it very successfully for decades. The reason given was sexism in the office, where nearly everyone is an older white man.
Her action was without a doubt cruel. This dedicated, life-long fighter for the conservation crises here in New Mexico—oil, wildfire, manufacture of more plutonium pits with no safe or permanent storage of their waste—was abruptly sidelined, given no influence in the organization he founded.
I don’t know if there was sexism in that office; my friend gave me no examples but seemed to conclude that an office populated almost entirely by older white men is in itself an example of sexism. This could certainly be argued.
Yet we all know the issue is far more complex. There are men, and perhaps now a few more of them, who are able to notice and appreciate the enormous contributions of women in every sphere. Why, then, were more women not hired?
I don’t know, but it seems possible that the cozy club atmosphere men sometimes create makes it unlikely any member of that club would welcome a woman. We are only now beginning to create groups, official and personal, of women—the new members of the U.S. Congress are an excellent example—who are as comfortable together, and as supportive of each other, as the men I used to glimpse through the windows of the Yale Club, sitting in comfortable leather armchairs with drinks and newspapers in their hands.
For far too long, our absence from these scenes of power has led to women behaving cruelly to other women, with the backstabbing and pernicious gossip that have fueled so many old-time comedies, and that still seems to make its ugly appearance when a woman feels underestimated or threatened.
Be that as it may, the question of whether we, as women, come relatively recently to power, will also be corrupted and behave in damaging ways has yet to be answered. We do not possess a female moral code, and the codes of loyalty and friendship that often bind men together don’t operate as often with us.
But we need to be aware. We need to be alert. Perhaps there is never an excuse for cruelty, and yet for generations men striving to climb to the top have used cruelty in all its forms to get rid of competitors—some of them, even in that far off day, women.
Is there any other way to climb?
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