Where Are All The Mistresses Of The Universe?
Apparently, few women admit to being ambitious. I was a bit amazed by that, because I always have. In fact, I'm kind of proud of it.
Yet, Leslie Bennetts writes for ELLE that in all her years of interviewing people, only one woman has ever admitted to being ambitious:
I've listened to countless famous women deny they were ambitious, at least for themselves, although many allowed as how they wouldn't mind accomplishing worthy things on behalf of others. Even those whose names were household words claimed to have no interest in power. Power? Eek! The very word elicited such alarm that you'd think I was prying into some shameful secret.Nor am I the only journalist to observe such reactions; to hear many women tell it, their careers are propelled mainly by coincidence and good fortune. "Things sort of happened," said Drew Gilpin Faust when The New York Times asked how she became the first woman president of Harvard University. When Jennifer Granholm was asked by The Detroiter where she gets the energy that helped her become governor of Michigan, she replied, "I don't know. Lucky, I guess."
Whatever their level of attainment, women typically portray themselves as passive and reactive rather than as game-changers--as if their success flowed from outside forces rather than their own ability to pursue clear goals effectively. Men have less trouble owning up to their intentions, not to mention formulating them in the first place. One survey showed that 46 percent of male political candidates, versus 28 percent of female ones, agreed with the statement "It was entirely my idea to run." Another study demonstrated that women are also more likely than men to attribute agency to others: Twenty-two percent of women but only 14 percent of men said, "I had not seriously thought about running until someone else suggested it to me."
Listen to the way Hillary Clinton described her reaction when Barack Obama asked her to become his secretary of state: "I was stunned," Clinton told a women's magazine. "I really was very unconvinced.... I just really had a lot of doubts, and I kept suggesting other people. 'Well, how about this person! How about that person!'"
Even when they reach the top, women balk at owning their success. "I don't think of myself as a businesswoman," Oprah told Fortune--a remarkable statement coming from the richest self-made woman in America and the country's first black billionaire.
Former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice couldn't even acknowledge her own intelligence. "You graduated from high school when you were 15. At what point did you know you were a very smart girl?" Oprah asked her in O magazine.
"Never," said Rice.
One explanation:
Power is perceived as enhancing a man's desirability; as former secretary of state Henry Kissinger--a paunchy, bespectacled older man known for dating improbably beautiful starlets--once observed, "Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac." But women tend to be neutered by elevated status. "Even highly successful and ambitious women, like CEOs I've interviewed, are loath to identify themselves as ambitious because they feel it desexualizes them," says Anna Fels, MD, a psychiatrist and author of Necessary Dreams: Ambition in Women's Changing Lives.
Your thoughts? And your thoughts about your own experiences?
Most times ambitious women are equated with being a bitch. And they are. The Devil wears Prada is true.
And from my personal experience -- guys who are successful managers -- if you are willing to move the team forward he doesn't care what you have hanging between your legs.
If you are a woman manager -- you want everyone to float the boat -- but the women get more excuses.
Just my view
Jim P. at December 26, 2010 5:21 AM
Here's another way of looking at it: this just shows that anyone, male or female, can achieve great success while still remaining humble. I don't see this as a bad thing. These women were obviously ambitious in order to have acheived what they did - success does not just fall into anyone's lap. Being power-hungry and having a hugely inflated ego are not necessary for success, and I'm not sure why anyone would consider such things to be good traits.
KarenW at December 26, 2010 6:23 AM
I don't know that I agree w/ the author. Because I work among a lot of successful women, and they're certainly not shy about telling you how powerful, intelligent, and capable they are. Actually it's sort of become de rigueur for women generally to declare that they are strong and powerful, regardless of what they've accomplished. Take a look at a site like The Frisky, and look at how women talk about themselves.
LILU at December 26, 2010 6:37 AM
Most times, when some guy brags about his accomplishments, he's really telling you that he's pretty insecure. It sounds like successful women have avoided this trap.
kevin_m at December 26, 2010 7:40 AM
This doesn't surprise me. I have always been insecure about my own intelligence. Luckily, I've had high IQ scores to "prove" that I was not an idiot. The highest official one in grade school was 149. In college, we took an unoffical one one the computer that gave me a score of 168.
I've been called a "dumb blonde" countless times and been told not to even try to sound intelligent. A few times my brilliant repartee was met with howls of laughter. They thought my origanal problem-solving was a joke.
I realize that I don't come across as knowledgable. I believe that in part, this is because of my intellect. I see things as many faceted. I can foresee many possible unintended consequences of an action as well as the intended consequences. Things are not black and white to me: I see many different choices all at once.
People like to fall behind a leader who has all of the answers. Invariably, that means a man. Men do not always have more information or sharper tools with which to reason, but inevitably, they have more confidence.
Jen at December 26, 2010 8:03 AM
I don't know... being humble is one thing, but if you can characterize your successes as being entirely due to luck, then you can do the same with your failures. Not accepting personal responsibility goes both ways. Further, if one wants to set an example and pass along lessons to the up-and-coming, what kind of lesson is it to say that it was all due to luck?
I know it's fashionable these days to pretend everything that happens in life is fated, that the only way to get ahead is to win the lottery, and hard work is for chumps. But if the idea is to encourage the next generation to make something of themselves, the quotes that Amy quoted are entirely the wrong way to go about it. In auto racing, there's a saying that "luck is where preparation meets opportunity". Without the preparation, the opportunity doesn't matter.
Cousin Dave at December 26, 2010 8:10 AM
Oh, it's just false modesty. Women like to claim to be empowered and strong, but not in an icky,climbing-striving-amass power, kind of way.In Oprah's case, she always hires absolute savages as her 2nd in command, so she can stay above the fray of hiring, firing and dealing with the messy parts of management.
KateC at December 26, 2010 8:57 AM
If you didn't *seek* the position...but people gave it to you anyhow because of your wonderfulness..isn't that in some ways more of a compliment to yourself than if you had actively sought it?
david foster at December 26, 2010 9:02 AM
I think this is one reason (among others) that the left has such a hard time with Sarah Palin. She reeks of ambition and competence. I'm not suggesting that she's all that competent, but she clearly thinks she is. That's a powerful thing in anyone, but esp. in a woman.
KateC at December 26, 2010 9:03 AM
Jen...see the smart-talk trap
david foster at December 26, 2010 9:05 AM
It is so funny that Cousin Dave mentions that "if you can characterize your successes as being entirely due to luck, then you can do the same with your failures. Not accepting personal responsibility goes both ways." I have been contemplating this very thought. Your thinking makes sense, Cousin Dave, but does not always hold true.
My husband was recently diagnosed with colon cancer. Our family’s reactions could not be more different. It brought to light that our families have very different viewpoints on success, failure, and fate.
My family takes the blame for every failure, but credits success with luck.
My husband's family, on the other hand, takes credit for their successes, but blames hardship or failure on bad luck.
I mentioned this to our mothers and they both agreed with my observation. My mother-in-law said that my husband's family thinks positively while mine thinks negatively. I don't exactly agree, but I can see that my husband family may have a more adaptive attitude. It is easier to keep trying and have more confidence when taking full credit for successes and attributing failure to circumstance.
Jen at December 26, 2010 9:06 AM
David,
That article hits on my pet-peeve. I can't stand criticism without a better idea. It is always easy to find fault. Finding a better way is much more difficult.
Jen at December 26, 2010 9:22 AM
Considering the beating Hillary took when she mad the comment that she wasn't there to stand by her man and sit home and bake cookies, I'd be very surprised if she ever did anything but downplay her ambition. She had to get rid of her headbands, come out with a cookie recipe in a women's magazine, and then took another beating for staying with her husband after he cheated. There were times I wondered, based on the press of course, who was actually the wronged party there. Its all about public perception and there are still many people who are threatened by a strong successful women.
Kristen at December 26, 2010 10:46 AM
Jen, that's fascinating. I've been thinking of these issues myself, lately. I don't think looking at the world through rose-colored glasses is the same thing as positive thinking. As you yourself point out, it's not terribly adaptive. Looking at the world through shit-colored glasses is only going to make you spend a lot of time being needlessly unhappy, though.
I think it's a combination of both luck AND the consequences of your decisions that affect you. Spend your mental energy discerning what is what. When you've identified the part that belongs to luck, ignore it. Then focus on the rest. Where you made good decisions, keep doing the same thing. Where you made bad ones, do something different next time. It's very much a step-by-step process that is easily derailed by emotion. I struggle with it all the time.
Pirate Jo at December 26, 2010 11:43 AM
I have no problem thinking of myself as smart and ambitious but if I had to speak about it in an interview I might characterize myself differently, I don't know. Celebrities like Oprah and politicians like Condoleezza realize that they have to speak in a certain way to maintain popularity/votes among their fans and constituents, and downplaying their ambition might be a strategic move. (The same way female actresses will act like they eat Big Macs and milkshakes daily to seem more relatable, when we all know that's not true.)
Jen I get called a dumb blonde often too. I have a high-pitched Marilyn Monroe type voice which doesn't help. I try not to let it bother me. The people who call me dumb aren't the ones grading my tests or reading my resume, so it doesn't really matter what they think. I also have perfect SAT scores which is nice because it provides an objective measure that I'm not an idiot. (I get that this is irrelevant ten years down the line but I'm still in college now). I hope that someday my accomplishments will speak for themselves just like my grades and test scores do now.
Shannon at December 26, 2010 6:01 PM
Jen, thanks for the interesting comments. I definitely think that optimism is in general more adaptive. However, as you point out, living in la-la land is maladaptive if it prevents one from learning from one's mistakes. So what's the diff? In the case where you have achieved a notable success at something, there are two attitudes you can take towards it. You can take the attitude that it happened because you worked hard and applied yourself, and you were ready when that opportunity came around. Or you can take the attitude that it happened because you are an inherently better person. The former is called confidence, and it's generally healthy. The latter is called arrogance, and it is seldom healthy.
Cousin Dave at December 26, 2010 6:29 PM
Whenever I have been around people like this, it has seemed to be that most of the time it is false modesty.
In general I found that people with a lot of success way under estimate the role of luck.
My father has pointed out to me that he had a great stroke of luck with some key retirements where he first worked which caused/allowed him to move the chain quite fast. By his reconing if he had started in the the same job 10 years earlier, he would have still made it to these positions at the same time because those ranks were filled.
On the other hand, less successful people to over estimate the part of luck and underestimate the hard work part.
The Former Banker at December 27, 2010 1:12 AM
From "Little Town on the Prairie" (after a deadly blizzard - late in April):
“But whoever could have expected such a blizzard, so late," said Ma.
"Nobody knows what will happen," Pa said. "Prepare for the worst and then you've some grounds to hope for the best, that's all you can do.”
Laura objected. “You were all prepared for the worst last winter, Pa, and all that work was wasted. There wasn't one blizzard till we were back here and not prepared for it.”
“It does seem that these blizzards are bound to catch us, coming or going,” Pa almost agreed.
“I don't see how anybody can be prepared for anything,” said Laura. “When you expect something, and then something else always happens.”
“Laura,” said Ma.
“Well, it does, Ma,” Laura protested.
“No,” Ma said. “Even the weather has more sense in it than you seem to give it credit for. Blizzards come only in blizzard country. You may be well prepared to teach school and still not be a schoolteacher, but if you were not prepared, it's certain that you won't be.”
lenona at December 27, 2010 10:17 AM
I've never had a problem emphasizing my strong points in interviews. I've also been offered 90% of the jobs I've ever interviewed for.
For some reason, I interview well.
I am not sure if it is coincidental, but I find that men enjoy working with me and appreciate my directness - while women can find me abrasive and at times even condescending. Over the past few years I have learned to be more aware of how direct I am when I speak to women. This has helped me out in my work environment quite a bit. I've never had to do this with men - ever.
Also, grandiosity cannot take place of earnest self confidence (or true accomplishments). That is almost as bad (if not worse) then false modesty.
Feebie at December 27, 2010 4:29 PM
> In Oprah's case, she always hires absolute
> savages as her 2nd in command, so she can
> stay above the fray of hiring, firing and
> dealing with the messy parts of management.
That's not just a talk show thing, but it's certainly not just a female thing, either. Carson and Letterman have been described the same way. (Letterman did prove to be patient with respect to SOME messes that his staffers created....)
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at December 28, 2010 6:07 PM
> Its all about public perception and there
> are still many people who are threatened
> by a strong successful women.
Well, you're speaking of Hillary, and let's be perfectly clear about this: She'd never have gone anywhere if she hadn't married Bill.
And if you going to say 'we'll never know' or 'A personality of her magnitude might have done well anyway', let me state how desperately, tragically sorry I am that she didn't TRY to do it without marrying a re-elected President of the United States. Oh Dear God in Heaven, I so desperately wish we knew for sure.
But she didn't do in on her own, did she? She married power, in the manner of ambitious women since the dawn of the species. She's not a genuine feminist, or even modern personality, as is Palin.
(Meaning Sarah OR her husband, take your pick.)
(What's his name? Doug, right? Love that guy. No, Steve. Whatever.)
Now certainly, Bill Clinton, with moist eyes and roaming fingertips, would never have made it to the White House without Hillary riding shotgun.
But let's never forget who's who and what's what.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at December 28, 2010 6:15 PM
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