How to be likable: a guide for women in politics

[GrinitchSpinach]

Now that Elizabeth Warren is getting the "unlikable" treatment in the press after her presidential candidacy announcement, Alexandra Petri has written this helpful guide to being likable:

How to tell if you need to be more likable? Well, if people sometimes, out of nowhere, tell you to smile, that is a sign you are insufficiently likable. Or if they attempt to offer you less pay than someone else performing the same work, that might be another indication. Or if they repeat to you with no apparent irony what you have just said to them. If you more closely resemble the person in the commercial cleaning up a mess with a paper towel and sighing lovingly than the person who makes the mess — the worst sign yet!

...

Be funny, but never hysterical. Be cool, but not icy. Be mature, but not dowdy.

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/01/04/how-be-likable/?utm_term=.13d67d3bdd73

The whole thing is great and worth a read.

Good article thanks Grinitch

You must try, but not visibly, and not too hard. You must be effortlessly natural but also meticulously and faultlessly prepared. You must be warm, but not too warm — like a cardigan, never a pantsuit.

You must not float when placed in water. You must not be too familiar with cats. You should not spend too much time with your books, muttering their words. You may have no more than one (1) wart, and its position must remain fixed. You must not be seen exiting a clearing if the crops or the economy or the election fails.

It wasn’t till I got to this bit that I was sure it was satire! Good grief what does that say about what we’re used to putting up with

I think Elizabeth Warren might be more likeable if she had not been claiming to be a member of the most disadvantaged racial group in the USA.

The DNA test apparently shows there is “strong evidence” for a Native American ancestor roughly six to 10 generations ago. She has never experienced anything like the disadvantages, deprivation and prejudices which Native Americans have.

No party in the (UK) has lost a general election when led by a woman. Neither have ever to my knowledge been accused of being “likable”.

Marguerita:

1. Warren mentioned family stories. Everybody has family stories. Hers included a Native American ancestor.

2. she never claimed membership in a tribe, never tried to use the ancestor for affirmative action, or anything else. She just had a family story.

3. Agent Orange in the White House and then his minions mocked the story endlessly.

4. So she had a DNA test which showed the family story had truth to it.

THAT IS ALL.

Native Americans themselves support her:
www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/elizabeth-warren-dna-test-native-american_us_5c19550fe4b0432554c512bb

Except

for one person who for some reason is the one the media jumped on with all six feet and can't stop talking about in another exercise of "But her emailzzzz!"

tl:dr; the whole tempest isn't even in a teapot. It's in a thimble. Don't fall for it. Given the past, I wouldn't even be surprised if it was Putin pushing this stupid narrative.

From Wiki Warren has said that as a child she was told by older family members that she hadNative Americanancestry, and that "being Native American has been part of my story, I guess, since the day I was born".Warren was criticized in 2012 for having listed herself as a minority in a directory forHarvard Law Schoolin the 1980s

The use of DNA to determine Native American heritage has been criticized by theCherokee Nationas "inappropriate and wrong"

She very clearly is not part of a minority group. The DNA test showed there probably was an ancestor several generations back. It is a huge leap from that to claim "being Native American" and listing herself as a minority. I doubt Putin had access to Harvard Law School records.

quixote9 has it right.

The Boston Globe published this piece in September after an exhaustive investigation:

"Ethnicity not a factor in Elizabeth Warren’s rise in law"
www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2018/09/01/did-claiming-native-american-heritage-actually-help-elizabeth-warren-get-ahead-but-complicated/wUZZcrKKEOUv5Spnb7IO0K/story.html

From that story:
"IN WHAT WOULD be her final year at the University of Texas, Warren made a decision that would come to haunt her: She listed herself in the Association of American Law Schools annual directory as a minority law professor...
...It is a move that, especially for her critics, raises the question: If Warren didn’t make the change to get ahead professionally, then why do it at all?
...“When I get to Penn and Harvard, I look around and think this is not a club that I’m likely to be able to join,” said Warren, who noted she was a woman, a mother, and from a humble background and from Oklahoma. “I had different heritage than most of the people there. . . . You can try to keep your head down or say: This is who I am. Different from the rest of you, but this is who I am.”

Basically she saw this as part of her family story and wanted to encourage others from non-coastal, non-wealthy and more ethnically diverse backgrounds to see that it was possible to break into elite academia. She has since apologized as she now understands that many viewed it as appropriation, but as the Globe investigation makes clear, the committees that hired her for each successive position saw her as white. She gained no advantage from the directory listings.

Anyway, this thread is not actually about Elizabeth Warren. I only mentioned her when I posted because she is but the latest in a long line of American women politicians in to whom all of these impossible double standards have been applied. I thought the piece was trenchant satire.

I agree that things are different for British women politicians and would be interested to know why you think that is. I think part of it is the parliamentary nature of government/much stronger role of political parties in the UK.

I love Elizabeth Warren, and I'm so glad that she is going to run

You must not float when placed in water. You must not be too familiar with cats. You should not spend too much time with your books, muttering their words. You may have no more than one (1) wart, and its position must remain fixed. You must not be seen exiting a clearing if the crops or the economy or the election fails

Thats the funniest thing ive read all day.
Thanks