Andrew Sullivan: belief

Transcript context

…What are those constraints for women? You would think the constraint would be you can’t yell, you can’t harangue, you can’t be aggressive and debate without backlash — but she was all of the above. She did not make any concessions to her femininity in terms of being a politician. The House of Commons itself, just the format of the House of Commons is so gladiatorial, it’s so much a theater, that politics in Britain has to have this slightly parliamentary, theatrical element to it. I think politics has often had that kind of dramatic theatrical element to it, and that doesn’t seem to come as naturally to many women as it does to many men. And that is a problem for women’s access, even though they’ve made huge strides in Britain — already had two female prime ministers, for example — as opposed to the United States. One thing that’s interesting, also: that Thatcher and, for example, Theresa May (and also Angela Merkel) — they were not understood within their own politics in the way that Hillary Clinton was understood within American politics. It’s just not that big a gendered gap. In fact, if you look at the voting numbers, you find that there is almost no gender gap between Labour and the Tories in Britain. It’s a very American phenomenon, this idea that a woman in politics is somehow the symbol of feminism and of breaking the glass ceiling and all of that. It’s just not taken as seriously in Europe as it is here. Now, in the middle of all these conversations, we have a segment: “Overrated vs. Underrated.” I toss out a name, a place, an idea; you tell me if you think it’s overrated or underrated. When you’re ready?…

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