Chicks in suits

The discussion of taking women seriously has spread to multiple fronts by now, and it would be futile to try to summarize all of them, so let's just get to the basic point: are women taken less seriously than men, and why? Relatedly, why does blogging about shoes detract from perceptions of a woman's seriousness, and is that bad?

I think it makes sense to make a distinction here between the seriousness with which the public takes an authority of some sort (of either gender)--writer, journalist, politician, academic, scientist--and the seriousness with which people take a blogger. Blogging lends itself to a sort of work-in-progress, jeans-and-sneakers ethic. Few people can be consistently brilliant five times a day (or, um, twice a week, in my case), and there is more casualness and give and take. So let's bracket serious blogging for now, and just focus on perceptions of women's seriousness in general.

Perhaps we can work backwards from examples. Some women who, based on my knowledge of them, exhibit(ed) gravitas: Hannah Arendt, Condoleezza Rice, Elizabeth I, Eleanor Roosevelt(?), Jane Addams, Hanna Gray, some other professors I've had whom no one has heard of. (Feel free to offer more examples.) Some women who should have it, or almost do, but ultimately fall short: Martha Nussbaum, Hillary Clinton, some other professors I've had who aren't the ones that do have it. Some women who can never have it: Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Julia Allison...you get the idea.

We might say the first two groups have competence and intelligence in common (put aside your ideas about HRC's political abilities for a second and just imagine that she probably would've been a fine lawyer), but that this is somehow insufficient to move the second group into the first. Even Julia Allison might be an ok writer, but who knows or cares at this point? What the first group has that the second doesn't is a firm habit of keeping their private lives out of their public work. What has happened to the second group is that the scandals of their personal lives have become widespread public knowledge, either by their own doing or someone else's, or they are publicly vain. What the third group does is live outrageous personal lives for the public's gratification

The case of Elizabeth I might seem like the weirdest here, but it's actually the clearest example of these boundaries. In a monarchy, there is no private sphere for a monarch, and in fact, Elizabeth I lived up to that exacting standard by having almost no private life. In our situation, such extremes are unnecessary, but you might want to avoid the obvious personal pitfalls that will inevitably become public (and sometimes they're not your fault but you're still screwed) as well as publicizing your personal pitfalls. Dignity is fussy word, but it pretty much encapsulates the standard here--would announcing this about yourself be dignified? If not, then tell it to your friends and keep it out of your work. The less you reveal about your personal life, the less that your future detractors will have to use against you, and they might actually have to settle for taking on your arguments instead of your reputation.

There might be certain pitfalls to this approach; HRC, for example, seems to have tried it on occasion and been criticized as too "cold" or unfeminine. Well, let me point out that making herself sexually unavailable to men seem to enhance a woman's gravitas pretty reliably. One of the above examplars of gravitas was a lesbian, one was possibly a lesbian but almost certainly not having sex with her husband, two were never married. But there are options. Hannah Arendt, as far as I know, had a pretty exciting heterosexual love life without much cost to her dignity.

Finally, as far as the idea that femininity is incompatible with seriousness is concerned, let us take as our points of comparison Ally McBeal and The Wire's Rhonda Pearlman. Ally McBeal is a ditzy, neurotic idiot. This is supposed to be amusingly but sympathetically feminine, in the same vein as Grace on Will and Grace, or pretty much all the women on Friends. Rhonda Pearlman is competent, smart, and effective--in sum, serious--and also completely sympathetic. Whereas Ally McBeal was having breakdowns in the office, The Wire kept Rhonda Pearlman's private life out of her public work, and allowed the viewer to glimpse both. Granted, The Wire did not aim for laughs, where it was this bleeding of life into work that made Ally McBeal funny (to some people; I was 14 and utterly confused by it), but the point stands.

It is worth pointing out that this standard applies no less to men. Confidence, modesty, circumspection, and not sleeping with other people's spouses help male public intellectuals stay in business too. Do we cut men more slack in this regard though? I think Amber is probably right that women feel compelled to acquire more credentials in order to project confidence, although it's unclear if that's a result of social expectations or their own insecurities. And according to our standards of modesty, many unbearably pompous, self-absorbed men remain highly regarded while equally vain women are called out for it. But that doesn't mean we should be easier on vain or unqualified women; only that we should be harder on pompous and unqualified men.

So then, how do we account for these situations? As far as I can tell, Megan McArdle is no less serious a blogger (insofar as one can be a serious blogger) than, say, Ezra Klein, who blogs on many of the same topics. But most people do not speculate about what size his pants are and whether he can get a date in his comments section. I think it's fair to say that these are examples of men behaving badly. But given that women blogging about economics and health care might face a stiffer acceptance curve, there are some things she should probably avoid, like ever discussing her love life, her clothes, her kitchen. Basically, anything required for survival--food, clothes, shelter--and anything of the home should stay there. Also, she shouldn't respond to her commenters personally. There's nothing wrong with being aloof when your blog gets 100 comments a day.

Finally, shoe-blogging. Why is it bad, and why do men get away with being as irrationally obsessed with sports as women are with shoes? The obvious problem is that, if you want to be taken seriously, you should not speak publicly about frivolous things. Shoes fall into this category. (Professional sports do too.) But if you do insist on blogging about shoes, there is also an explanation for why you will be dismissed or belittled more quickly than men who blog about sports (except by the shoe and sports communities, respectively). Fashion is closely tied to bodies and love lives, and all the other subjects that are inappropriate for public discussion. Blogging about fashion usually means blogging about your fashion--it indirectly reveals things about your body, your income, your friends--in sum, your private life. And when the snipers come out, it makes some sense that they'll take aim not at the shoes, but at you, since you have armed them with all the relevant information and personal insults hurt more. Sports is more removed from personal scrutiny; calling a player a good pitcher doesn't implicate your own pitching ability or lack thereof. That said, as Cheryl points out, Virginia Postrel writes about style in such an impersonal, broad, and relevant way that it never undermines her seriousness. So it can be done.

And yes, I am aware that I take none of my own advice. I have had a blog since I was sixteen, when I spent all my time slandering people I disliked. It's hard to develop seriousness out of such inauspicious beginnings. But at least I have stopped incorporating errant instances of the word "like" into my writing. Maybe someday, I'll stop saying it too.

In conclusion, the secret for women to being taken seriously is to imitate Hannah Arendt, and wear suits as often as possible. I always take women in suits seriously.