I'm Glad a Man Won

"I'm glad a man won. Women are just too emotional to be President." Overheard when Trump defeated Clinton in 2016. Uttered by a woman. She wasn't taking Hilary down, merely expressing an ingrained opinion that running a country simply isn't women's work. I grew up in a time and place where the vestiges of the 1950s tradwife still clung to every yellowing skirting board. Stay-at-home Mums, housewives, never leave the house without full make up and for goodness sake shave those legs mentality. Appearance was everything.

My first job was in a bookshop, my happy place, surrounded by words and pictures, selling alternate lifestyles and imaginary worlds to a steady flow of interchangeable customers. My supervisor, Anna, was a breath of fresh air, although at first I thought she was just odd. She thrummed into the car park on an old Triumph motorbike, removing a helmet that revealed hair cropped short, taking off her jacket and lifting an arm that revealed thick black hair nestling in the pit. She quoted Simone de Beauvoir and Anais Nin, refused to eat meat or even go into the butcher's shop next door and I thought she was amazing.

We went to the peace camp at Greenham Common airbase, taking a box of reading materials for the women and children who had been living there protesting against the cruise missiles that were stashed in the American enclave. It was a world away from Mum's Tupperware parties and the first time in my life that I realised women genuinely could have political opinions (I was 16). Anna only stayed a year, then she moved on, but I have never forgotten the mark she left on my life.

I joined the Young Socialists, but even there it was mainly boys spouting obscure Russian poetry and misguided political observations. I was one of only two females who attended the meetings. In the heart of the English countryside, socialism wasn't really a thing. I gave up after a few months. It was my one and only foray into politics, so maybe I also came to the conclusion that it's not a space for women.

But I am not glad a man won in 2016, because that man is still winning, despite his many flaws and his lack of emotional intelligence. Maybe she isn't perfect, but Clinton might, just might, have done a better job and left fewer gaping holes in the fabric of a once 'great' country. Good leaders need emotional intelligence in order to connect with the people they serve. To be able to genuinely understand the problems endemic in the communities they govern, leaders must have empathy. They cannot be self-serving sociopaths. Women growing into leadership roles have to be allowed to use their emotions for good, not push them down and behave like men or like men are told they should behave. My hope for the world is that new leaders, raised by mothers who allow their emotions to have full reign, will emerge to secure a safer, kinder future for all.