Women leaders are more dictatorial

March 17th, 2009

Mayawati is eyeing the post of the Prime Minister in the upcoming General Elections. She is not alone a whole bunch of women leaders promise to make an impact in the upcoming elections. Madam Sonia leads the oldest party in India. Mamata Banerjee is playing pressure politics with Sonia and her party. Down South Jayalalitha plans to defeat DMK in the coming polls. Women leaders are calling shots this election season in India.

Isn’t it ironical that the West which has always championed the cause of equality amongst women has been very orthodox when it came to putting a women for top job in a country. Other than Margaret Thatcher the former Prime Minister of United Kingdom the West has hardly anything to show when it comes to being ruled by the fairer sex.

On the contrary the so called Third World nations of the Indian subcontinent have shown good examples of empowerment of women if not in daily lives at least in politics. Starting with Sirimavo Bandaranaike in Sri Lanka in 1960 all the countries in the region have been ruled by the fairer sex. Be it Indira Gandhi in India, Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, Chandrika Kumaratunga in Sri Lanka or Sheikh Hasina and Khalida Zia in Bangladesh women have time and again helmed the politics in the region.

Coming back to the context of women leaders in India have been more dictatorial than there male counterparts when it came to controlling their parties. Right from the time of Indira Gandhi to present day people like Sonia Gandhis, Mayawatis, Jayalalithas and the Mamata Banerjees are the last word in their party.

Can anyone name a few leaders from the BSP, TMC or the AIADMK who can match eye with these leaders? The truth is leaders like Mayawati, Jayalalitha and Mamata Banerjee don’t like and don’t have a second leader in their party who can raise a voice against the. These very people who promise us democracy all round the year do not even have an election process to select the leader of their parties. They promise to run democracy with the methods of autocracy.

It is the same country where women are fighting over equality and from home to the corporate world they have to prove themselves everyday. On the other hand there are leaders whose ego won’t let them bow before anyone. Isn’t India a land of irony?

filed under Scribe Next Door on Tuesday, March 17th, 2009.
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One Response to “Women leaders are more dictatorial”

rinita
responded:

There is a difference between one “figurehead” representative and the general condition of women. True there are more female “leaders” in South East Asia compared to the more egalitarian societies of UK and USA. But is that what Democracy means? When it come to income, education, health and job disparities, child care, women have definitely been much less than men in these emerging Nations.

On the note of “dictatorial” I think your argument is a case of red herring. When men are “dictatorial” they are only considered “dictators” (Stalin, Hitler) they are not considered men who are dictatorial, in other words, the question of gender does not arise, but in case of the “other” gender, gender becomes a marker of their identity, not only their dictatorial attitude. I think this is what Simone De Beauvoir called the mark of the oppressed… as we hear in language, lady doctor, lady pilot….!!!