Hey Women! Stop Trying to Define How Women Leaders Should Act

“You can and should set your own limits and clearly articulate them. This takes courage, but it is also liberating and empowering, and often earns you new respect” ~ Rosalind Brewer

I have always loved Peggy Noonan’s writing. I love clever use of words and whether you agree with her or not, she is a master at being clever with words. 

Noonan, as everyone knows, is a former speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, himself known for his clever oratory. However, I’d have to say that even Peggy Noonan has a limit on how clever one can be with words. I believe Noonan failed recently when she tried to shoe-horn Kamala Harris into a predetermined box of what a woman, qualified to be Vice President of the United States, should look like or act like. 

It’s not the first time that Noonan’s eloquence has annoyed me. It probably won’t be the last either, because even with her statements about Vice Presidential nominee Harris, I can’t promise you that I’ll stop reading her offerings. People who have a love hate relationship with Noonan’s words will tell you that her willingness to jump to strange conclusions sometimes undermines her analysis, no matter how beautifully she expresses her opinions. 

One known example is her detailed op ed on why Mitt Romney was going to win the Presidential election and deny Barack Obama a second term. Noonan surmised that Romney would win based on the number of “Romney” lawn signs she had personally counted in her movements around the state of Florida. Well, we all know how the Romney - Obama matchup turned out. So, if you were a fan of Senator Harris’ you might have hoped that Noonan would be wrong here too. 

My focus was not on the politics, but instead on the personal words that a Noonan used to describe Senator Harris. Noonan described Harris this way: “She’s the younger candidate going for the younger vote, and she’s going for a Happy Warrior vibe, but she’s coming across as insubstantial, frivolous.” 

The outrage was immediate. Nancy Skinner (@ClimateTalker) in response to Noonan was: “You summed up our American dilemma. Women leaders around the world from Angela Merkel to Golda Meir, somehow don't have to play these games. Peggy Noonan just pissed off more women to stand in 10 hour lines. Thanks Peg!” 

In my opinion, Noonan did two things very wrong with her commentary.

First, she cast Harris as the “younger candidate going after the younger vote.” Really? Harris, had just turned 56 years old. Leave her there at 56 with all of her penchant for life and her willingness to dance in the rain. Only young people dance in the rain? Noonan, I believe, seemed to be suggesting that Harris was wearing her Chuck Taylor sneaks to play to the young voters. By this it seemed not only that Noonan was undervaluing Harris’ background and experience, but that Harris herself was not being genuinely herself, but was “playing” to and for younger voters. I was annoyed that Noonan might have been using Harris’ penchant for Chuck Taylor’s to undermine Harris’ qualifications. What did her age even have to do with it? I have to tell Noonan, that women, like VP candidate Harris can do more than one thing and be more than one thing. They can be the leader they have demonstrated themselves to be AND wear Chuck Taylor’s AND dance in the rain all at the same time, if they so choose.  

To Peggy and others trying to shoe-horn women leaders into boxes, I say this: You don’t have to understand the actions of women leaders because it is what it is and their actions might not be yours. More importantly, VP candidate Kamala Harris did not need to campaign the way Peggy Noonan would do it. If Peggy or Sharon or Paulette or Makeba are not comfortable in Chucks, dancing in the rain to Mary J. Blige on a college campus, but Kamala is, then by all means - let Kamala be Kamala. Don’t hate her game because you wouldn’t do that.

My second issue with Noonan’s approach was - What, in your estimation do women have to do, particularly Black women, to not appear “insubstantial” or “frivolous”?  

Noonan knows full well that Kamala Harris was formerly the Attorney General for the State of California before becoming Senator Harris. Neither of those two roles were insubstantial nor frivolous. Yet Noonan had the burning need to discard Harris’ background and say it. Noonan herself, should know the hurdles and the barriers women face in the workplace since she herself was a trailblazer in political media.

My question to Peggy would be - ‘Did you do your career your way, or did you curb your own enthusiasm, for fear you would not be taken seriously?” Whatever the answer, that’s your experience, your path, your time. I wouldn’t judge you for it.

As women, we have to let other women be who they are and want to be when they step up to leadership.

Are we so used to men setting the tone that we can’t even allow women to be themselves and carve their own path? Leadership doesn’t have to look the same way it always has. It won’t. That’s part of the inclusion message that we really have to digest. We must let people be who they want to be in their moments.

No need to tear Kamala down with vitriol, no matter how well you say it.