Are We Ready For a Woman President? Really?

It would be interesting to see that chart by party affiliation.

and i never said anyone did

the comment about the misogynist racist thing just got me thinking

Sure thing Engineer,

Is it just me? I can't make any sense of that chart.

Which one?

On the topic of a woman in charge...(yeah, I'm going there)

I served in the Army under a whole bunch of different kinds of leaders. Some were fresh-out-of-ROTC green ass officers who really didn't lead, so much as serve as Company or Platoon Figurehead while some hardworking NCO did all the managing and planning. Some were war-hardened NCOs who people would follow instinctively, and who gained the trust and affection of their troops naturally. Some of my leaders were men, some were women. And while I have to say that the military is the closest organization to a true meritocracy I've experienced personally - where you are rewarded rank, status and privilege in proportion to the work you put in, some of those with rank really didn't wear it well.

A lot of people put in pivotal positions and given great amounts of authority over a group of people seem to default directly to megalomania, and start making life harder than it has to be for anyone in their charge. And unfortunately, I've seen examples where women are the absolute worst examples of inability to handle being in charge with grace. Some of it is probably compensation for a lack of power from some other time in their lives, but I have to say that there is little worse than having to serve under a woman who is constantly - constantly - having to prove how powerful she is.

Now is that opinion misogyny on my part? I don't know, in today's cultural climate, who knows. I just thought I'd throw it in as maybe relevant to this discussion about a possible female POTUS.

This is going to sound off tract, but please bear with me. I get a ton of catalogues offering everything from stationary, clothing, candy & cookies and also a few catalogues with things that are novelties. I contact the catalogue folks to get removed from their mailing list but that only lasts about 6 months before they resume sending them.

The problem with these publications is they occasionally offer vulgar or distasteful novelties. One offers a metal nutcracker designed to look like Hillary Clinton complete with blue pants suit. As a woman, that pisses me off and I call to complain. They always say they will discontinue the product because so many people complain, but they don't. For awhile Nancy Pelosi nutcrackers were offered.

As engineer mentioned, a women's appearance and clothing seem to be fair game, Hillary is described as old and frumpy and when Nancy Reagan was First Lady she was described as extravagant on her outfits, and foolish when she replaced the White House China.

I think the thing I believe is most maddening is any fat guy dressed like a shlub thinks he's entitled to be offended and can comment on how sub par some women appear. No one ever seems to call out the person making the unflattering, unfair comments.

Racism isn't Hillarys problem, jealousy and resentment are. People have conveniently forgotten that Hillary was not born into a wealthy, uber privileged family. She's worked hard, she is wicked smart, and has become an accomplished figure. (That sort of thing really pisses off less accomplished people) I really don't need a President I can yuk it up and drink beer at the bar, I want a smart, savvy, strong leader who will keep our country safe and economically sound.

The US is already drowning in reality shows and show business programs. I don't care what Mama June thinks about elections and I don't know why most of us are so easily amused with lowbrow, sleazy shows. However, this fascination with coarseness is spilling over into other areas of our life.

I work in engineering. In my career I think I have had 6 female bosses (counting quickly in my head). In my experience they haven't been any different real difference between male and female bosses.

I have never known anyone who had a problem with this. I just checked with a co-worker and he hasn't seen any issues either.

Glitterbag,

There have been rather unflattering comments made about Donald Trump's hair. Have these comments bothered you? I wonder if you have a double standard here.

to be fair a couple of radio shows i like did make fun of Gov. Chrisite's cmeltoe aka mangina when he stupidly chose to wear the baseball uniform

To interpret the chart in regard to female candidates, it indicates that 97% of Democrats say they are willing to vote for a woman, 89% of Independents make that assertion as do 91% of Republicans.

Here here GB

Well, that settles it. If you or your co-worker haven't seen the same thing as I have, it must not exist.

and nobody ever lies to a pollster

Interesting. So if one third of the population are independents and she automatically loses 11% of that, she is down 3.4% or so.

Good point. This Wikipedia entry about the "Bradley Effect" deals with the phenomena of people telling pollsters only what they think sounds good.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_effect

I've had no run ins with female bosses, as I've said before, but I remember hearing about it second hand, aka hearsay. I haven't had run ins with male bosses either. Discussions at the worst ; ). I have thought some teachers, male or female, were out to lunch, but that didn't affect me much; inversely, I've had pretty fabulous teachers generally, and that affects my opinion of dual competency of men and women at those jobs.

I think the field one works in matters. I haven't been in the armed forces (what a bad idea, I'd be terrible) but I can imagine certain antagonisms going on between males and females and power and disrespect issues - emanating from either or both the person with seniority and the one of lower rank - and that when there are difficulties, things can get hairy. I can imagine females of rank going through some trying times to have respected control. I can imagine female paranoia, re being women and bossy, men not wanting women bosses, that would have some basis sometimes. I can imagine a power hungry female. I suppose there are books written about all this.

I've been a boss in the sense that an architect can demand a redo of a botched job relative to what was in the plans and specs, and refuse approval of payment. I've never had to go as far as refusal of payment though. They fixed whatever the problemo was. This stuff didn't happen often, as we all knew who we worked with and talked jobs out in the beginning. Talking can improve power issues unless you've got two hardasses facing each other.


One more thought - if the crew and the boss, whatever field, get satisfaction from their jobs well done, things go better.

I worked for DOD for 32 years stationed at NSA, was loaned out to State, the Pentagon and CIA. The culture at those 3 agencies differed. Obviously the Pentagon was crawling with flag officers, State and CIA seem to be oblivious to military structure and discipline. NSA was somewhat of a hybrid, when I started working the majority of the workforce were military personnel. But we still had a draft, access to a constant supply of manpower and the Military does a fantastic job of training people to the work NSA needs to do.

Back then, the only military women working were officers assigned to act as special aides to a General, nurses or secretaries. There were no military women working as linguists, cryptographers, traffic analysts, in HUMINT, SIGINT, FISINT, SIGINT or any other INT'S. Of course, over the years the role of women in the military has become more fluid and during the last 10 years before I retired I managed many Air Force and Army women. They and their male counterparts were very talented, but I never worked for a woman officer. I don't recall even seeing women beyond Major or Captian rank. To be fair Officers don't have the same sway as Civilian Executives, and very few senior positions are held by Officers.

I have worked for some power happy women and power happy men. They can make your life miserable. Some people simply are not suited to be managers. My view was if your workforce felt respected and valued, they will work their butts off. However, it's imperative to honestly be loyal and supportive of them.

I don't think disliking a person who is a lousy boss is the same thing as misogyny. I've worked for some despicable men and although I really didn't like or respect them, I don't hate men.

Compared to Bernie Sanders (who is Jewish and Socialist), Hillary has a built in advantage. Hillary doesn't even have it as difficult as Mitch Romney (who is a Mormon) had it. In addition to Carly Fiorina, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are Hispanic, and Mike Huckabee is an Evangelical Christian... all of these are troubling to some small part of the American electorate.

Hillary, a well-connected White wealthy woman with a Yale law degree. She has big corporate donors, near universal name recognition, incredible political connections, access to media personalities and foreign leaders, congressional leaders running interference...

Hillary is about as privileged as a person can possibly get. The idea that she is disadvantaged is nothing but shameless marketing.