Can a woman have too much power?
I’m thinking in this case of the immensely popular Cristina Kirchner, who was re-elected President of Argentina in October of last year in a landslide victory, capturing 54% of the popular vote.
Kirchner was diagnosed with thyroid cancer last week and underwent surgery on Wednesday. And while the initial prognosis is excellent, “Cristina” – as she is popularly known here – will need to be on leave from her duties for three weeks, during which time her vice-president will be in charge.
What’s interesting about this situation is not the popular outpouring of sympathy for Cristina it has inspired. She is a deeply appealing political figure. She’s dynamic. She’s compelling. When Kirchner’s cancer was first announced, #fuerzacristina emerged as a trending hashtag on Twitter. At 1 a.m. on the morning of her operation, supporters assembled in various plazas and squares around the country, and remained there until it was finished.
Read the rest of this article on The Washington Post’s She The People blog…
Image: CFK Bunker, Presidential Primary by CateIncPA via Flickr under a Creative Commons License
January 6, 2012, 9:39 pm
I think the answer to your first question is yes, but not because she’s a woman. A *person* can have too much power – look where popes and potentates have gotten us for millennia. Or maybe I’m just still sick from having watched “Margin Call” last night.
Women are no different than men in the basic human attributes such as envy, pride, fear, greed, etc. We’ve simply been conditioned to hide it better. So can a president of Argentina have too much power? You bet.
January 6, 2012, 9:49 pm
It’s a fair point, Lynne, and I’ve been getting a fair bit of flack for the lede on Twitter and on the Post website. As these things go, there’s a fair bit of editing that go into these posts and a lot ends up on the cutting room floor. The main point of the post – which was perhaps lost in some of the editing – was that while Cristina’s victory is to be celebrated on the woman’s rights front, it is not to be quite as celebrated on the democratic/institutional front. I hope that came through, though the lede may have obscured it a bit. Thanks for reading.