Nice people need not apply

A few months ago I mentioned in a post on this blog that the first ministers of six of Canada's provinces and territories were female.  That included the four most populous provinces -- Ontario, Quebec, BC and Alberta.

That number is now down to three.  Late last year the female leader in Nunavut quit; early this year it was the turn of the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador.  And this past weekend, Alberta Premier Alison Redford stepped down, under intense pressure from her own Conservative Party caucus.  Add in a near-miss for BC Premier Christy Clark in last year's provincial election, and there seems to be a bit of a trend emerging here, especially as the female leaders in both Ontario and Quebec are facing tricky elections too.

This has led to a torrent of angst in the ultra-liberal Toronto Star.  There are two articles on the subject in today's edition alone.  Here's a link to one of them, by columnist Carol Goar.  

Not surprisingly, Ms Goar sees a pushback from the grey-haired, angry old men who have dominated politics for so long.  There may indeed be some of this at work, but I think there's a whole lot more to it than that.  Arguably,  the benefits to society of having more women rising to the top positions in the political world were grossly misrepresented in the first place.  We were told that women were more co-operative, less confrontational and so on, and that their ascension to political power would result in a kinder, gentler style of politics.

It may be true that women in the aggregate are "nicer" than men, but did anyone think that it would be the "nice" women who clawed their way to the top of the tree?  After all, it was never the nice men that succeeded.  Looking back on the Prime Ministers I've seen in action in Canada and the UK over the past half century, it's hard to pick out many that were kind and considerate and motivated by a strong sense of morality.  The closest I can come up with to a "nice" man is Joe Clark, three decades ago in Canada -- and Joe lasted less than nine months as PM, before he was cynically turfed out by the definitely-not-nice Pierre Trudeau.

To succeed in politics, you need to be ruthless and conniving, and there's no good reason to think that's any different for women.*  One of the intriguing comments when Ms Redford quit in Alberta came from a disgruntled member of her caucus, who said "She's just not a nice lady".  This prompted one Star columnist to ask, huffily, whether he would have made a similar comment about a male leader.  No, probably not: he'd more likely have said something much saltier that a family newspaper would have been unable to publish.

Look around the world and you see a similar pattern.  Margaret Thatcher sandbagged (or handbagged) Edward Heath to get the top job, and was ruthlessly dispatched herself when she'd outlived her usefulness.  Down under, Julia Gillard became Prime Minister through an intra-party coup, only to be turfed out in exactly the same way when electoral defeat loomed.  Live by the sword, die by the sword. 

Ms Goar seems close to despair at the recent turn of events, afraid that the momentum that brought so many women into positions of power has ebbed.  I don't think that's the case, but it's clear that women who take up political office can't expect to be treated any better than men -- and isn't that how it should be?   

* Might things be different if we had many more women in politics?  I wonder.  Even if every single MP were female, it's hard to imagine that the "nice" ones, as opposed to the ones with the sharp elbows, would get the top jobs.