Where's my flying car?

[labellementeuse]

Here's what I think about the inauguration: You know all those movies, usually vaguely crappy sci-fi/natural disaster movies, set somewhere in the indeterminate future? Like Independence Day and Deep Impact and stuff. Well, sixth_light and I realised some time ago (because we watched a lot of aforementioned vaguely crappy SF movies) that the President was always black. It's like it was a rule: In The Indeterminate Future, the President will be African-American. Putting This In Our Movie Makes Us Seem Liberal, Right?

So anyway. Welcome to the future, y'all.

Comments

[amarynth.livejournal.com]

I don't think Helen Clark is particularly masculine when viewed objectively, by which I mean, 'stereotypically male'. Short hair is pretty common among women of her age. It's arguable that she is the power figure in her marriage - we know nothing of the internal dynamic. As for physical attractiveness, very few female politicians meet the Hollywood-chick standard of beauty, successful or not. It'd be hard to argue that being forceful and confident didn't help her - who wants an underconfident Prime Minister? - so to the extent these are stereotypically masculine values, yes I suppose so.

However, I think New Zealanders are less demanding of stereotypical masculinity in our Prime Ministers than Americans are in their Presidents. The office of the Prime Minister is less powerful on both an absolute and relative scale. Less powerful on an absolute scale in that the New Zealand state and its head-of-government commands far fewer resources, particularly co-ercive ones, than the American state. Less powerful on a relative scale in that, while the New Zealand PM is not checked by the regions or the judiciary wing of government, they are much more subservient to Parliament, particularly in the MMP era.

In other words, a New Zealand PM doesn't need to make as many quick, personal, non-consultative decisions as an American President does, particularly decisions involving co-ercive instruments. So much of the thought process the US public and punditocracy goes through when assessing people as candidates for President involves command of the armed forces, particularly the nuclear arsenal. But even in unrelated areas the language they use is so often that of confrontation and personal struggle - in foreign policy, they ask if a President can go 'eye to eye' with Putin or Ahmadinejad. In health policy they talk about the President pushing through reform. This may not have been the case prior to World War II and the buildup of the nuclear arsenal - American Presidents generally seem to be less flamboyant before Roosevelt, but that may simply be the product of less mass media.

Once again I'm straying from the point. To the degree that Clark was masculine in that she was confident and correct, yes. But for the most part, New Zealand politicians do not need to be as stereotypically masculine-acting as American politicians need to be, and they also don't need to rely as much on their personality traits, as opposed to their policy platforms, as their American counterparts. As you can probably guess I don't think this is due to some innate wisdom of New Zealanders. It's partly due to the reality of the New Zealand' states lack of co-ercive power on the world stage, and partly a product of a party-based, rather than personality-based, system of government.

This is why I get annoyed when elections are framed as a contest of personalities. It's moving us towards the American model, which prizes values that I don't - and while it's bad that these values are stereotypically masculine, even if they were seen as gender neutral, I would think them undesirable.

As an aside - physical attractiveness is seen as a masculine quality?

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Truthfully, I think the *factuality* of her masculinity is less relevant than the widespread perception of it (especially since I know we agree that calling a specific trait masculine or feminine refers to nothing inherent about men or women - unless it is, for example, the possession of breasts or a uterus, and even this must only be considered strictly biological rather than social, as we see with transgender men and women.) But anyway, I agree with most of what you're saying. I think you're right on the button with your assertion that New Zealand politicians - particularly during an era where the NZ armed forces and the direction thereof are considered pretty unimportant in the scheme of things - are not expected to hold those traits, although I wonder if we might not find that this really does have a lot to do with the situation we are in right now; and if we might not find a reversal should, say, WWIII bust out next week (Hopefully not, of course, touch wood) despite our perceptions of our relative power on the world stage.

Yes, although I dislike John Key, I found the Slippery John rhetoric kind of annoying last year, and would have liked to see more policy-based material coming from the LW (from the RW, too, it goes without saying.)

re: physical attractiveness, actually that was me trying to be tactful and coming out incoherent. I meant physical unattractiveness (although I really don't think she is any less attractive than any of her colleagues, TBH, except maybe Metiria Turei who is kind of cute) but what I should have been referring to was her general physical presentation.

[amarynth.livejournal.com]

Well, I think those who saw her as masculine generally didn't mean it as a compliment. But she seemed to succeed without their support, so I don't know if it really affected her ability to be an effective politician - I suppose she could have been more effective if she had had their support, but realistically in an MMP system you are doing damn well if you get 40%+ of the vote, something Labour did three times out of five under her leadership.

Even if WWIII did break out, I don't think we'd reach the same level of militarisation of the head of government as the USA has now (let alone if WWIII broke out!). Even if we were spending positively obscene ammounts on defense, we would still be followers, not leaders, and crucially we wouldn't have the long range strike capacity - not necessarily nuclear, cruise missiles and bombers and all that count too - that informs so much of the popular conception of Presidential decision-making. Going back to pop culture, it's much more common to see the President angsting over, say, a meteor pulverising earth or some bunch of terrorists who need a good beating than a healthcare plan or a tax cut. Part of it of course is that such things make good B-grade dramas, but I think that says more about why you see more American Presidents in American TV programs than New Zealand Prime Ministers in New Zealand TV programs.

I also found the slippery John stuff a bit frustrating. I also found the lauding of Helen Clark's personal qualities a bit annoying, for the same reason. I'm sure Helen Clark would be the first to say it was a team effort.

OK, now I get you. I'm not going to get into speculation about whether or not Helen Clark was attractive. But I do really think her look is not untypical of middle aged, middle class pakeha women. I don't mean to stereotype, but having short hair and wearing pants could well be the norm. It certainly fits most of the people I know in that category.

Her voice... well, to me it never sounded particularly male. It was too idiosynchratic for that... I always knew it was her talking, don't get me wrong, but it didn't sound particularly like a man's voice, because it didn't sound like anybody's voice!

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Well, I think those who saw her as masculine generally didn't mean it as a compliment.

No, indeed, but I think that some of the same traits for which she was punitively called masculine - and I'm referring here to personality traits like directness, ambition, and discourse style - were those which were appreciated by her voters (including me.) I guess my question really is, would we see someone like Jeanette Fitzimons, who is perceived as a more consensus leader, in the PM's seat? - leading a party like National or Labour? Leaving aside the assertion that personality politics generally are less important in NZ, with which I agree with you and for which I am grateful. I actually think that the ability to be reconciliatory is something which might be applauded in a male leader (as someone getting in touch with his sensitive side, or whatever) even as it is criticised in a woman as indicative of a softness. Of course that is more speculatory.

Indeed. I very much disliked the Trust-themed pamphlets that were being distributed by Labour (as well as thinking they were not likely to be especially successful since no-one trusts anyone, party or politician, who's been in power for 9 years.)

I agree that her look is not unusual. I guess what I'm responding to here are the comments I had from a LOT of young women - and rarely men, but the men I usually heard it from were straight-up assholes, whereas the women I was hearing it from were sometimes polticially naive but otherwise perfectly nice people - that they "just didn't like her" because she's "just not feminine/too butch/whatever" (insert a range of comments here that went from the very vague to the extremely specific.) *shrug* I mean, I think it's a ridiculous thing to even have to talk about - I can count the number of seconds I spend thinking about Key's appearance on one hand - but there you go.

[amarynth.livejournal.com]

I could see somebody like Jeanette as PM. Maybe not Jeanette herself - and maybe, if Jeanette was in a position to take the PM's seat, she'd start acting less consensually - but yes, I don't think she would be precluded. Historically there have been quite a few Prime Ministers who worked that way - although both the examples I can think of, Holyoake and Bolger, were from the right. Admittedly the political landscape has changed since Bolger's day (let alone Holyoake's) but I don't think it's out of the question.

Yes, I thought those trust pamphlets were a bit jarring. I'm not sure I want to live in a polity where the relationship between the electorate and politicians is mainly one of trust. But that's neither here nor there.

I wonder if part of it is a generational thing? I imagine most of the people you were talking to were around your age? I'm not suggesting they'd be totally unfamiliar with her look, but it might inform their view somewhat.

I suspect most of the men who said it had already made up their mind not to support her - I'll be charitable and be say for other reasons - and that most of the women were probably unsure. Generally she, or at least her party, attracted significantly less support from men than from women. Of course that may have been true before she became leader, and it may continue to be true afterward.