Gender versus Race

Trying to multi-task in the Spring has made me late on my blog. Sounds like the name of a song. If you live in the country and on the water there are numerous chores that fall into the “must do” category comes Spring. This morning for instance we were out cutting and raking the Spartina patens, our barrier plants that keep the waves that come over our bulkhead in the storms from taking our dirt out to sea.

Governor Spitzer’s prostitute bruha and the guys shouting ”go iron my shirt” at Hillary brought the gender issue up again. I say “again” because I got my credentials for speaking out on male-female warfare as a result of an article I wrote for the Harvard Business Review in 1977. The article, “Two Women, Three Men on a Raft,” was a sort of epiphany for me. It revealed how men consciously or unconsciously bond together to deprive women of positions of power. (There was many a man who asked me, “Schrank, do you really believe that bullshit you wrote?”)

On an Outward Bound trip down the Rogue river five of us shared the responsibility of each taking turns as helms-person. Whenever a women assumed the position the men, without ever saying a word to each other, would make sure her efforts failed. The article became an HBR Reprint record breaker and was published again 15 years later. OK, that’s my credential for speaking up again on the gender problem. When the second edition of the piece came out there were a number of comments from women insisting that “much progress had been made” since the article first appeared. I questioned that. I acknowledged progress in the lower ranks of management, but not in the top positions where the real power resides. For instance, a random check of the Business Round Table, a very prestigious management organization made up of CEO’s, has 156 members. Six are women.

In an article in the Sunday Times on March 16th, “Postfeminism and Other Fairy Tales,” Kate Zernike attempts to understand what has happened to women since the feminist movement of the sixties and seventies. The Dems primary campaign has brought the issue back to the front burner. History and politics are rarely predictable. We are confronted with a choice between a women or a Black man for President of the United States. Between the Spitzer prostitute episode, a bunch of knuckle heads yelling at Hillary “go iron my shirt”, and Obama having to make a major speech on understanding racial issues, the Dem. primary voters are clearly between a rock and a hard place. The Zernike article raises an interesting question, “Is it harder to overcome racial bias than gender bias?”

In one of the few discussions I had with Betty Friedan, I asked her why women would be different than men once they achieved power? Remember Freidan and I are both products of an earlier radical world. Betty assured me that, precisely because women were not as obsessed with power as men, they would bring about equality through social change. I believed that, whether it is women or men in leadership, the essential is a firm ideology and the ability to implement it. So far, even in present time, where women have assumed some measure of power, I have not seen much difference.

I have come around to the point of view that men are from Mars and women from Venus. I think men have too much of the Baboon male dominance gene in us to stop behaving the way we do towards women. I am reminded how different men behave in meetings when there are no women present and how the Baboon gene comes into play as soon as a female shows up. Whether in the Union or the Ford Foundation, the preening behavior is the same. And when it comes to giving women power, I was back on the Rogue river. In that article I suggested that if women thought men in high corporate positions are going to roll over and make room for them, they are whistling Dixie. Hence we are now at the “glass cealing.” Kate reminds me there are exceptions as in the case of Paul Allaire at Xerox who did focused on bringing talented women into the leadership, one of whom is now CEO. Yes, I agree, but the exception may prove the rule.

Now to our “rock and a hard place” and why I have great reservations about Hillary. The primary campaign so far has very distinctly put Obama on the defensive regarding race. How did that happen? It was Bill Clinton who injected the race question when he intimated that Jesse Jackson couldn’t win in North Carolina, inferring neither could Obama. Innocent Bill, whom I absolutely do not trust. Then came the suggestion that the poor Black man wouldn’t know what to do if the phone rang at 3AM in the White House. (Now the Obama folks could have responded to that by suggesting to the Hillary people that it might be Monica Lewinsky calling for Bill. But they didn’t.) Up until now the Obama people have been careful not to play the gender card. So here we are.

I think it may be easier to deal with race than gender simply because race is not something we have to relate to on a intimate daily basis. It also does not trigger the Baboon gene for male dominance. White folks can accept the black celebrity entertainers or sports people as the greatest. That is different than experiencing the daily intimacy that males and females deal with in every day life.

What we need to do now is to encourage our candidates to get on the issues confronting the American people. And STOP trying to undermine each other based on race or gender. This will only happen if enough of us keep raising hell about the race or gender sniping until this sad campaign is over. Footnote. Any race or gender baiting only helps elect John McCain. Don’t forget to enjoy the Spring.

Thanks Kate. N.H.W.Y.