Over 35 years, I worked for various bosses at various newspapers. I had some very bad bosses who were men. And some very good bosses who were women.
I also had some very bad female bosses, and some very good male bosses.
Their abilities and talents had virtually nothing to do with gender.
Zip.
Still, the argument that women are better at leading organizations — governments, businesses, nonprofits — is paraded before us again and again.
At an appearance in Singapore in December, former President Barack Obama said the world would be a better place if women were in charge:
“There would be less war, kids would be better taken care of, and there would be a general improvement in living standards and outcomes,” Obama told an audience at a private event.
About the same time, back in the states, actor Martin Sheen, who used to play president on TV, claimed at a climate protest that the world needed to be saved by women.
These are intended as compliments, but I find them patronizing.
And ridiculously inaccurate.
As Sheen and Obama were gushing about women, a United Nations court was investigating claims of genocide in Myanmar, a nation led by a woman, Aung San Suu Kyi.
Her administration is accused of oppressing and killing members of an ethnic minority.
Hardly the kind of behavior one would expect of a woman.
Or a man.
It shouldn’t be that difficult to treat men and women as individuals, rather than play to banal stereotypes. It makes no more sense to laud all women for great leadership attributes than it does to view all women as enticements to sin.
