Vote for Women
President Clinton, we're
told, is reckless. He was reckless with Gennifer Flowers (in a bathroom during
a party), with Kathleen Willey (just off the Oval Office), and with Monica
Lewinsky (ditto, ditto, ditto). Heedless of the consequences, Clinton again and
again has followed, as Joseph Campbell used to say, his bliss.
All this
may be true. But if it is, how do we reconcile it with Clinton's behavior in
the political realm? There he has carried risk aversion to rarely reached
heights. He will pay almost any price, in terms of policy, to marginally reduce
the chances of losing an election.
To pick up some superfluous Slavic-American votes, Clinton
decided to expand NATO, something virtually no policy analyst anywhere near him
on the ideological spectrum considered a good idea. To pick up some superfluous
Cuban-American votes, he signed the Helms-Burton law, which predictably enraged
America's key allies and trading partners. Meanwhile, over in domestic policy,
Clinton's lodestar has been the focus group.
How can it
be that these two identities--bold, reckless pursuer of bliss and timid,
desperate pursuer of office--exist in the same man?
There are to resolve this paradox. One is to
remember that the pursuit of office can lead to bliss. Maybe Clinton's fondness
for the Gennifers and Monicas who are the perks of a job like governor or
president keeps him from taking policy risks that might deprive him of the job.
Maybe his emulation of John F. Kennedy's lifestyle is what keeps him from
abiding by Profiles in Courage .
Come to
think of it, Kennedy himself, though nominally the author of that book, didn't
glaringly exemplify its message of principle above politics. Hence, a general
theory: Men who obsessively convert power into sex are less willing to risk
power for principle.
We can test this theory by using as our control group
Richard Nixon. For all we know Nixon had a tryst or two--but he can't hold a
candle to the legends of Kennedy or Clinton. Try picturing him cavorting in the
White House pool with nude staff nymphs or confidently steering a beautiful
woman's hand southward.
So does our theory hold? Did
Nixon's presumed freedom from sex addiction leave him free from addiction to
office? Um, no. That Nixon had more than a casual attraction to power is a fact
to which various convicted felons on his staff can attest. If we want
principled leaders, electing more men like Nixon and fewer like Clinton
wouldn't seem to be the ticket.
On the
other hand, it might make sense to elect fewer men generally. The point here
isn't just the well-known claim that men by nature are more blindly libidinous
than women. It is the Darwinian corollary of that claim: Men by nature pursue
power more desperately than women do.
During evolution, the whole Darwinian
point of male power--lots of sex, lots of offspring--didn't compute for
females. For women, lots of sex didn't mean lots of offspring. Power, to be
sure, brought other benefits to a female's genetic legacy, so women naturally
like having power. They just don't like it as much as men do.
Chimpanzees, our nearest relatives, are political animals. As the primatologist
Frans de Waal has observed, male chimps "seem to live in a hierarchical world
with replaceable coalition partners and a single permanent goal: power." For
females, on the other hand, "coalitions withstand time." Thus a male
chimp--call him Bill--might be making nice to his liberal internationalist
friends one day and signing simian bills sponsored by Jesse Helms the next. In
contrast, a female chimp--call her Pat Schroeder--would hew truer to her core
constituency.
So the Bill Clinton paradox--his reckless pursuit of sex
and his timid clinging to office--is indeed no paradox. The former does
seem to explain the latter. But only in a broad, species-wide sense. The reason
men to put power above principle is because during human evolution, power led
to sex. This evolution-bred hunger for power is built into men generally,
including those (such as Nixon) for whom translating power into sex is not a
high personal priority.
The
solution is obvious: If you want elected officials who put principle ahead of
power, voting for women gives you better odds.
But do keep in mind that gender differences,
even fairly firm ones, are only aggregate differences. The average woman
will surrender less principle for power than the average man. And women
who become heads of state are not average. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher,
certainly, was no stereotypical female. (Britain's war with Argentina over a
few barren islands, which Thatcher prosecuted with the zeal of a Churchill, has
been compared to two bald men fighting over a comb.)
Still, though Thatcher may
have been more ambitious than the typical woman, she was a paragon of
ideological fidelity compared with Clinton (or Ronald Reagan). Just as female
politicians are more power-hungry than the average female, so also are male
politicians (even) more power-hungry than the average male. While admitting
that Clinton is representative of my gender, I must add, on behalf of men
everywhere, that he's an especially egregious example.
Clinton's
detractors have argued that his alleged treatment of Lewinsky and Willey is a
betrayal of the feminist values he professes. Maybe. But in another sense his
feminist credentials look better than ever. He has provided--indeed, he has
become--a potent argument for bringing more women into public office.
If you
missed our links in the story, click to read Wright's evolutionary take on 1)
how Clinton can be and 2) why .
