Gender Matters: Women in Leadership and Management
A. Srinivas Rao 16th May 2011
Do Amma, Didi and Behenji defy every convention we have held about women in power and is there an unconscious stereotyping of women in power, as more dominant and ruthless and generally mercurial, unpredictable and non rational than their male counterparts? Do women who storm male bastions tend to be considerably more autocratic, vindictive and less likely to share power with others Or are we more sensitive to what is un-womanly behaviour and highlight the performative spectacles of dominance/subjugation? Does the presence of women in power make their opponents cast them as sexual objects of derision (calling them “that woman”) and find it difficult to accept their legitimate worth as equals or superiors? Are the appellations of Amma, and Didi and Bahenji rhetorically constructed sexist devices to soften their triumphal possession of male bastions of leadership (as though women can’t be seen other than as mother, sister or wife)? Does their apparent spinster status, betray the incompatibility of a balance between public and private selves and the sacrifice of a family life in the pursuit of fulfilment and power?
Let’s consider the things that have shocked us about them as examples of hubris, corruption and ruthlessness that portray them as deviant from the stereotypes of nurturing, kind, caring images we have of women. Jayalalitha has rarely hesitated to order arrests of her bete-noir Karunanidhi, journalists (even the Hindu), the Kanchi Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati, and others on various counts. She has often been found not resisting (probably encouraging) her senior ministers like O Pannerselvam and the prodigal KKSR Ramachandran prostrating to her in public. Jayalalitha was portrayed at one time as Marcoesque having 10,000 sarees and more than 700 pairs of footwear. Mayawati’s infamous garland of rupee notes valued at Rs 18 lakhs was a sign of Dalit arrival as the new power brokers and she was known to possess 72 houses, plots, shops and 54 bank accounts. Mayawati has been censured for her elephantine obsession with statues of icons including herself and notorious for her birthday bashes. DSP Padam Singh, her chief of security removed his handkerchief and bent down to clean the chappals of Mayawati while she kept talking to some officials and party workers. Mamata’s performances include dancing on the bonnet of Jayaprakash Narayan’s car, taking off her shawl and preparing a noose to kill herself when questioning Congress’s secret deals with the Marxists, hurling a sheaf of papers at the Deputy Speaker on being disallowed notice on an issue (Bangladeshi migrants) in the Lower House. Despite these, one cannot but admire and in their defence, state the insuperable obstacles and circumstances of their triumph by sheer grit, perseverance, determination and indomitable courage, virtues we usually ascribe to men. Jayalalitha had to not only overcome being a woman, but being a film star (held in contempt by the conservative Tamil society), and a Brahmin (which was against the grain of Dravidian politics). Mayawati was a Dalit and had little apart from a native intelligence and skills of a street fighter to secure more than 22% of the fractious UP vote. Mamata would have the spirit of a Bengal tigress, nay veritably be the Mahishasuramardini herself to bring down one of the longest serving Left governments on the planet since the 'fall of the wall'. Indeed some of them had powerful mentors and sponsors like MGR and Kanshi Ram, though in general women tend to have mentors but few or no sponsors.
