Women and Leadership

While at Ethics Bowl I was able to have a discussion about women and leadership. I was the only male student in the room and a question regarding women leadership was posed to me. "Do I find it hard to work under leaders who are women?" This question comes about in the context of whether women ought to be leaders.

At first I didn't know and then I thought. In the moment I concluded that it is harder for me to work under women leaders. There are three reasons. First is how I have been brought up. I am supposed to treat women with respect, the "don't hit a girl idea." Second, don't you have to be more polite to a woman who's a leader? You can't just joke around them like you would a guy leader. Lastly, you can't really get close to a leader who is a woman like you can a guy. You can't have your "guy time."

After further reflection, I find these reasons I put forward to be poor. The main reason is that I didn't think carefully about how in general I interact with leaders. Every employer, superintendent or superior I work under is different, and so my relationship will obviously be different depending on the leader. I can't really say that it is "harder" to work under a woman who is a leader rather then a man since everyone is unique. The more I have thought about it, to say that it is harder for me to work under women who are leaders is absurd. How I interact with different leaders will change from leader to leader, not gender to gender.

In conclusion, I think that to say women should not be leaders because it would be harder for men to be under them for various reasons (see above) is hard to argue for since all leaders differ in their methods. Also, women are inherently leaders since many of them lead their children every day in the most important leadership position one can possibly have.