Survey: Women Leaders Smarter, More Honest

[Dover]

In a finding that will be bittersweet for Hillary Clinton supporters, a new Pew survey finds that when it comes to honesty, intelligence and a handful of other key traits valued in leaders, the public rates women as superior to men.

Still, a mere 6 percent say that, overall, women make better political leaders than men. The vast majority of respondents, 69 percent, ranked men and women as equally good leaders. That's according to a nationwide Pew Research Center Social and Demographic Trends survey of 2,250 American adults conducted from June 16 to July 16, 2008.

In an era apparently reaping the benefits of Title IX (a federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in educational institutions), and exulted as one in which women can nearly as easily climb to once male-only rungs of corporate and academic ladders, relatively few women actually have journeyed to the highest levels of political or corporate leadership, according to Pew analysts. (Women are just 2 percent of the CEOs of the nation's Fortune 500 companies.)

Survey respondents cited gender discrimination, resistance to change, and a self-serving "old boys club" as reasons for the relative scarcity of women at the top....>

http://www.livescience.com/culture/080825-women-politics.html

[dkf]

1. Hillary Clinton misled her supporters into thinking she had a decent chance to win

even when her chances were very slim.

She created in them a feeling that something had been taken away from them, when in reality that chance was hardly there.

She is not the honest person this poll is talking about.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. Jane Byrne - Chicago's mayor from '79-'83

Made famous by Mike Royko as Good Jane/Bad Jane.

While by Chicago standards, she was honest, but it was hard to say that people were sad to see her go.

[caraher]

3. The poll was not about any particular woman

let alone Hillary Clinton. It's about what people will say "on average" about women. Any respondent will certainly have different views when you start naming names, some more and some less favorable to a particular candidate.

[silverweb]

4. Meaningless.

They asked "the public" what they think and then portray it as significant that a majority believe the old, standard stereotypes. And this proves what, exactly?

[Igel]

5. Not entirely meaningless.

Just misleading, having people confuse perception and reality.

Quite post-modern in style.


It does say something about social attitudes, and provides an insight in how we rank values and other traits.

[Orsino]

6. Give 'em time.

Let women participate in the political process to the same extent that men have, and I am confident that they can prove as stupid and corrupt.

[semillama]

7. Case in point: Sarah Palin. n/t

[Orsino]

8. She's an amateur...

...just getting her feet wet in the sewer that is Republican politics. She can only dream, as yet, of corruption on the Cheney scale.

But I am a feminist, and support her fully in her efforts to auction off bits of her soul to the highest bidders. I applaud the GOP for giving the next generation an opportunity.

Upper-middle-class white hockey moms are the new rich old white men in today's on-the-go Republican Party!