WHEN WOMEN RULE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When Women Rule
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF(NYT)
While no woman has been president of the United States — yet — the world does have several thousand years’ worth of experience with female leaders. And I have to acknowledge it: Their historical record puts men’s to shame.
A notable share of the great leaders in history have been women: Queen Hatshepsut and Cleopatra of Egypt, Empress Wu Zetian of China, Isabella of Castile, Queen Elizabeth I of England, Catherine the Great of Russia, and Maria Theresa of Austria. Granted, I’m neglecting the likes of Bloody Mary, but it’s still true that those women who climbed to power in monarchies had an astonishingly high success rate.
Research by political psychologists points to possible explanations. Scholars find that women, compared with men, tend to excel in consensus-building and certain other skills useful in leadership. If so, why have female political leaders been so much less impressive in the democratic era? Margaret Thatcher was a transformative figure, but women have been mediocre prime ministers or presidents in countries like Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Philippines and Indonesia. Often, they haven’t even addressed the urgent needs of women in those countries.
I have a pet theory about what’s going on.
In monarchies, women who rose to the top dealt mostly with a narrow elite, so they could prove themselves and get on with governing. But in democracies in the television age, female leaders also have to navigate public prejudices — and these make democratic politics far more challenging for a woman than for a man.
In one common experiment, the “Goldberg paradigm,” people are asked to evaluate a particular article or speech, supposedly by a man. Others are asked to evaluate the identical presentation, but from a woman. Typically, in countries all over the world, the very same words are rated higher coming from a man.
In particular, one lesson from this research is that promoting their own successes is a helpful strategy for ambitious men. But experiments have demonstrated that when women highlight their accomplishments, that’s a turn-off. And women seem even more offended by self-promoting females than men are.
This creates a huge challenge for ambitious women in politics or business: If they’re self-effacing, people find them unimpressive, but if they talk up their accomplishments, they come across as pushy braggarts.
The broader conundrum is that for women, but not for men, there is a tradeoff in qualities associated with top leadership. A woman can be perceived as competent or as likable, but not both.
“It’s an uphill struggle, to be judged both a good woman and a good leader,” said Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a Harvard Business School professor who is an expert on women in leadership. Professor Kanter added that a pioneer in a man’s world, like Hillary Rodham Clinton, also faces scrutiny on many more dimensions than a man — witness the public debate about Mrs. Clinton’s allegedly “thick ankles,” or the headlines last year about cleavage.
Clothing and appearance generally matter more for women than for men, research shows. Surprisingly, several studies have found that it’s actually a disadvantage for a woman to be physically attractive when applying for a managerial job. Beautiful applicants received lower ratings, apparently because they were subconsciously pegged as stereotypically female and therefore unsuited for a job as a boss.
Female leaders face these impossible judgments all over the world. An M.I.T. economist, Esther Duflo, looked at India, which has required female leaders in one-third of village councils since the mid-1990s. Professor Duflo and her colleagues found that by objective standards, the women ran the villages better than men. For example, women constructed and maintained wells better, and took fewer bribes.
Yet ordinary villagers themselves judged the women as having done a worse job, and so most women were not re-elected. That seemed to result from simple prejudice. Professor Duflo asked villagers to listen to a speech, identical except that it was given by a man in some cases and by a woman in others. Villagers gave the speech much lower marks when it was given by a woman.
Such prejudices can be overridden after voters actually see female leaders in action. While the first ones received dismal evaluations, the second round of female leaders in the villages were rated the same as men. “Exposure reduces prejudice,” Professor Duflo suggested.
Women have often quipped that they have to be twice as good as men to get anywhere — but that, fortunately, is not difficult. In fact, it appears that it may be difficult after all. Modern democracies may empower deep prejudices and thus constrain female leaders in ways that ancient monarchies did not.

Pakistan....ON EDGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Pakistan On edge
Jan 31st 2008 | LAHORE From The Economist print editionIf he rigs, he may have to rig big
Get article background
THE army is battling a Taliban insurgency in the tribal areas of the Afghan border, in which hundreds have been killed in recent weeks. In the cities, activists shouting “Go, Musharraf, Go!” are up in arms about alleged pre-election rigging of the vote due on February 18th. Yet Pakistan's increasingly edgy president, Pervez Musharraf, went on a ten-day European jaunt to tell the West why he is still Pakistan's best bet in the “transition to democracy” and the “war against terror”.
In London he berated a respected Pakistani journalist who dared question his government's efficacy and sincerity in combating extremism. Later he said Pakistanis should thrash such journalists if necessary for being “unpatriotic”, triggering a spate of angry comments.
Mr Musharraf's war is not going well. The “Pakistani Taliban” have merged under Baitullah Mehsud, a warlord accused by the government of ordering the murder in December of Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister. The Pakistani authorities signed a controversial peace deal with Mr Mehsud in 2005. But he used the lull to expand his army of Taliban and suicide-bombers in the tribal area of South Waziristan. Late last year an allied Taliban faction tried to seize large tracts of the Swat valley in the North-West Frontier Province. Mr Musharraf sent the army into Swat and bombed Mr Mehsud's hideouts in Waziristan. Mr Mehsud's followers retaliated by seizing a small town, and cutting off the road to Waziristan. The army is now fighting “miscreants” all over the tribal areas.
Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, the former home minister, admits that the government failed to take “swift and decisive action” against the Taliban. He says the Taliban are well-financed, organised and motivated, and stopping their rise needs the backing of “political parties, civil society, [and] religious leaders”.
This is just what Mr Musharraf does not have. He is hugely unpopular and all the opposition parties want him out. Most Pakistanis also see this as America's war. This has made it hard to yield to American pressure to put its own boots on the ground in Waziristan against the Taliban. The Americans are providing aerial intelligence, counter-insurgency training and weaponry. Only rarely do the Pakistanis ask for missile attacks from American drones on targets in the border regions.
Meanwhile, it is still not certain that the elections postponed to February 18th will be held. The government has warned political leaders that they are on extremist hit lists. So security worries are curbing campaigning. Most politicians are relying on the electronic media. But the channels are shackled by new gagging laws and cannot give proper coverage to opposition rallies and protests. The air is also thick with allegations of pre-election rigging. Mr Musharraf has refused to nominate a neutral election commission or suspend the progovernment local mayors, who wield enormous influence.
Indeed, with various polls showing the popularity of his party plummeting, everyone believes that Mr Musharraf will have to rig the elections in a big way. His nemeses are the slain Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, at the head of her party, which is riding a wave of sympathy, and Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister he overthrew in 1999. Last month Mr Musharraf told Pakistani newspaper editors that he foresaw a greater crisis after the elections—if the opposition parties did not accept the results, or ganged up on him in the new parliament. But unless he strikes a deal soon with one of his foes, one of these outcomes seems hard to avoid.
Copyright © 2008 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.
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Pakistan On edge
Jan 31st 2008 | LAHORE From The Economist print editionIf he rigs, he may have to rig big
Get article background
THE army is battling a Taliban insurgency in the tribal areas of the Afghan border, in which hundreds have been killed in recent weeks. In the cities, activists shouting “Go, Musharraf, Go!” are up in arms about alleged pre-election rigging of the vote due on February 18th. Yet Pakistan's increasingly edgy president, Pervez Musharraf, went on a ten-day European jaunt to tell the West why he is still Pakistan's best bet in the “transition to democracy” and the “war against terror”.
In London he berated a respected Pakistani journalist who dared question his government's efficacy and sincerity in combating extremism. Later he said Pakistanis should thrash such journalists if necessary for being “unpatriotic”, triggering a spate of angry comments.
Mr Musharraf's war is not going well. The “Pakistani Taliban” have merged under Baitullah Mehsud, a warlord accused by the government of ordering the murder in December of Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister. The Pakistani authorities signed a controversial peace deal with Mr Mehsud in 2005. But he used the lull to expand his army of Taliban and suicide-bombers in the tribal area of South Waziristan. Late last year an allied Taliban faction tried to seize large tracts of the Swat valley in the North-West Frontier Province. Mr Musharraf sent the army into Swat and bombed Mr Mehsud's hideouts in Waziristan. Mr Mehsud's followers retaliated by seizing a small town, and cutting off the road to Waziristan. The army is now fighting “miscreants” all over the tribal areas.
Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, the former home minister, admits that the government failed to take “swift and decisive action” against the Taliban. He says the Taliban are well-financed, organised and motivated, and stopping their rise needs the backing of “political parties, civil society, [and] religious leaders”.
This is just what Mr Musharraf does not have. He is hugely unpopular and all the opposition parties want him out. Most Pakistanis also see this as America's war. This has made it hard to yield to American pressure to put its own boots on the ground in Waziristan against the Taliban. The Americans are providing aerial intelligence, counter-insurgency training and weaponry. Only rarely do the Pakistanis ask for missile attacks from American drones on targets in the border regions.
Meanwhile, it is still not certain that the elections postponed to February 18th will be held. The government has warned political leaders that they are on extremist hit lists. So security worries are curbing campaigning. Most politicians are relying on the electronic media. But the channels are shackled by new gagging laws and cannot give proper coverage to opposition rallies and protests. The air is also thick with allegations of pre-election rigging. Mr Musharraf has refused to nominate a neutral election commission or suspend the progovernment local mayors, who wield enormous influence.
Indeed, with various polls showing the popularity of his party plummeting, everyone believes that Mr Musharraf will have to rig the elections in a big way. His nemeses are the slain Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, at the head of her party, which is riding a wave of sympathy, and Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister he overthrew in 1999. Last month Mr Musharraf told Pakistani newspaper editors that he foresaw a greater crisis after the elections—if the opposition parties did not accept the results, or ganged up on him in the new parliament. But unless he strikes a deal soon with one of his foes, one of these outcomes seems hard to avoid.