Who Can Do What: Gender, Leadership and Crisis

• In Event: Gender, Crisis and Political Power (Pre-Recorded)

Abstract

“Be stubborn and thick skinned. Because I think even if you’re passionate, and even if you’re really good at what you do, I think you are likely to be subject to preconceived notions of who can do what.” - Anab Jain, digital artist and futurist

Our critical perspectives contribution offers a novel typology of crisis in relation to gender norms. Drawing on our previous research focusing on women executives in in the West, Asia, and Latin America, we argue that types of crisis interact with gender stereotypes in complex ways, presenting different consequences for women’s political leadership. Crises that evoke responses emphasizing communal strengths, such as being caring, supportive, empathetic, and emotional facilitate women’s political leadership, given traditional associations with femininity. Crises that emphasize agentic traits such as assertiveness, aggressiveness, or competitiveness, link to top-down and hierarchical leadership, and are thus less open to women’s governance.
Successfully responding to a public health crisis necessitates communal rather than agentic skills, rendering the public more willing to support women’s leadership. In contrast, when faced with economic and security crises, traits associated with men and masculinity will be sought after, making it more difficult for women to be perceived as leading effectively in these contexts. Subfields/research agendas engaged include comparative politics as well as the women and executive literature.

Authors

• Louise K. Davidson-Schmich, University of Miami

• Malliga Och, Idaho State University

• Farida Jalalzai, Virginia Tech