Kindling Empathy Against Toxic Tactics in Political Leadership
Which traits are acceptable in the arena of International Politics, and what does gender have to do with it? Since politics has historically been largely a cis male domain, can we assume that socialisation of cis men plays a role in sculpting that realm towards a gendered end, and can the usual behavioural norms within it can be considered those aligned with masculinity (as it is generally defined in the society where it exists)?
I am cautious in dividing emotions and behaviours into a gendered dichotomy — not even primarily because of the problem of dividing gender itself into a binary, but also assigning particular behaviours to be associated with each end can be further problematic, particularly as presumed gender norms don’t even carry across cultures in the same manner. The realm of politics, however, is still very defined by the language and notions of the binary, and of traditional Cis White Male power, which still tends to have the strongest hold on it. It is within these terms that we must situate ourselves, if we hope to break them open and build a more inclusive society.
Renowned psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen has noted in his research an idea of gendered thinking. That “men” (or those individuals brought up as such) tend to lack the empathy that “women” (or those brought up as such) have. His “Extreme Male Brain Theory” relating to the role of empathy in autism is centred around this research. This in itself has proven problematic, even at the biochemical level [https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/326264.php#1]. But, as is often the case with STEM-focused researchers, he has focused his ideas on hormone levels, and fails to take into account the role of anthropologically-based concepts of his subjects, such as presumed gender roles in socialisation, and enculturation. Children of any gender are generally influenced by the their parents’ attitudes and roles in gender.
Women, at least in the cultures which this article is addressing, are expected to be nurturing, and encouraged to be open with their communications, and to read more unspoken cues, as faults and burdens are placed upon them. In societies with heavy toxic masculinity reaching from the USA to the Balkans (as the societies I shall focus on here are the ones I have lived within and experienced personally), they bear the weight of being the ones who are expected to be more in-tune with interpersonal relationships, to soften relations, and to be the diplomats and peace-makers at all levels of society. Naturally, this is not to say the men of these societies cannot and do not have their own routes to do this, but it is often “given” that women are expected to be the ones who open up the space for talking and expressing feelings, with a stereotype of men not being open to volunteer, unprompted, what is on their mind or in their heart. This is a strong factor as to why their empathy is seen as not suitable for politics; in a world where one must keep a poker face, and hide secrets, while merely pretending to play nice with other countries’ officials, such open honesty would seem unsafe and unwise. Conversely, physical aggression and combativeness are seen as masculine traits [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4945126/], and it is in this framework which Western politics has been bred since its inception. While gender is not necessarily the source of toxic traits in relationships or political arenas, restrictive gender norms can provide a space for them.
The current political system which exists around the world has always been based on combat (either physical in battles, or in the electoral fighting rings). The women who are often considered most successful in politics are the ones who take on the masculine trait of aggression, and who dull their softer, more empathetic sides.
Hillary Clinton’s legacy of aggression and drone-bombing as Secretary of State during the Obama administration earned her the infamous nickname Killary. [https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/07/27/hillary-the-hawk-a-history-clinton-2016-military-intervention-libya-iraq-syria/]
Theresa May was notorious for her “Hostile Environment Policy”, in which she openly stated that the aim was to make the UK a hostile place for foreigners who did not meet certain income standards, and willfully traumatising refugees, among many other xenophobic cruelties.[https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/03/inhumane-three-quarters-of-home-office-asylum-appeals-fail]
Even the steadfast Angela Merkel was not immune to withholding empathy during the Greek financial crisis, forcing Greece into harsh austerity measures which sent shockwaves felt through all levels of society, leading to major psychological problems among a majority of citizens (This, although Greece had historically been one to lend Germany considerable funds after the Second World War -which they never paid back). [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/13/euro-family-angela-merkel-greek-bailout]
Perhaps this is a reaction to the age-old sexist debate which isn’t so much a hot one, as it is stale, tediously rewarmed like mayonnaise under a heat lamp on a hot day, regarding whether or not women are “too emotional” to be good leaders. Margaret Thatcher was accused of sounding “too shrill and hectoring” in Parliament (by Labour Party Communications Director Peter Mandelson), to the point where she adopted a voice and deportment coach to appear calmer, deep-voiced, and reserved in the masculine tradition. This argument is still trotted out during scenes such as when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dares to get teary-eyed speaking about the traumatic scenes of children forced apart from their parents to dwell and die in cages like animals at the border, and the predatory, racist, and otherwise horrific behaviour of the brutal ICE agents.
It is an interesting observation that women often receive that criticism for being “too emotional” when they display empathy and promote caring for other human beings which may not directly benefit them personally. When we see men in politics reacting with emotion, however, is not empathy but defensive rage which is generally the accepted norm. Too often it is a counter-attack in response to feeling they themselves are being attacked. This is not to disregard the occasions when male leaders, such as Justin Trudeau for example, show “strength of character” by displaying tears at touching moments. It is worth noting the number of times these happen are rare enough to be tabulated in the news headlines.
In the current US administration, the new norm seems to include a multitude of examples from the Buffalo-Sauce-Shitstain who is currently smearing the White House orange, the Rapist Kavanaugh, and any number of their misogynist compatriots, who, when placed under scrutiny often begin shrieking about being attacked like hysterical — Women?? — Surely not. Women in this type of leadership position are never seen to carry on in this manner. Because that is a privilege reserved for these men. (White men, that is. If a black man so much as sighs or grumbles, he is perceived with anxiety or fear as “the Angry Black Man”. While white supremacy and patriarchy are two sides of the same system of oppression, we will save that branch to be explored by people of that experience, and I will restrict this examination to my own experiences tied to my own race and gender.)
Dr. Jennifer J Freyd first identified this in 1997 as a typical reaction by abusers, and other bullies, when accused of wrongdoing, and she refined it into the acronym DARVO. This stands for Defend, Attack, and Reverse the order of Victim and the Offender. [https://dynamic.uoregon.edu/jjf/defineDARVO.html#twotypes] It is so formulaic a method that it was highlighted in an episode of the most recent 23rd season of South Park, wherein The President of the United States (Mr. Garrison, in orange face paint as a pantomime Trump) spells it out as his go-to method for dealing with any challenge.
The actual examples of Trump using this method are too numerous to list [Twitter updates, daily], but he is not the only politician to use it. If we take the current Serbian administration as a key example, Aleksandar Vučić, President of Serbia, is a big proponent of this method. [https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/07/04/dangerous-politics-of-playing-the-victim-israel-netanyahu-serbia-vucic/] Neither is he new to it. So say sources who have known him since his childhood in New Belgrade’s Block 45, when he was already a known bully with an abusive personality. This reaction in these men makes any criticism of their leadership ineffective, and also prevents any accountability.
It takes a lot more personal strength to step back, examine one’s own behaviour from an outside, previously unconsidered perspective. Even if one does not fully agree with it, it takes strength to acknowledge the criticism of one’s own role in any given situation. Too rarely is this sort of personal strength seen in politics, let alone a step further toward commitment to fix the situation, to learn from one’s mistakes, and try to do better.
Granted, not everyone can maintain this personal strength when one is a minority, surrounded by this kind of a savage norm. Vučić’s currently chosen Prime Minister, Ana Brnabić, started out at the beginning of her mandate in June of 2017 like many strong and capable women leaders. She would always acknowledge her errors, and own them. She was responsible, calm, unruffled, and unresponsive to petty jibes. By December of 2018, she had begun to take a more defensive tone, like many of those who surrounded her on all sides of the government, calling each other out in parliament, or worse - on Twitter, over the pettiest of issues instead of actually focusing on governing effectively. Perhaps it was the feedback loop of being stuck in an echo chamber where this was the norm without any new input, or perhaps she actually sought to mimic Vučić.
Although it was a process which happened over time, it was definitely notable after a certain Deutsche Welle Interview with the disagreeable Tim Sebastian that Brnabić started to become noticeably more defensive. When confronted about the massacre at Srebrenica (which happened at the time she was a college undergraduate in the United States) she never once said that it was anything other than a horrible tragedy, or signaled approval in any way. Yet when put on the spot, she had no choice but to renounce defining it using the term Genocide during that interview. Like every other diplomatic official, she is forbidden from openly speaking against her country’s policies (which in this case include the specific definition regarding Srebrenica, of which surely the slimy Sebastian was aware), the few who understood this immediately saw her discomfort at the deceit.
Brnabić’s air of open earnestness changed within a year and a half of her mandate. She became far more closed, serious, and hardened. This was different from the adoption of aggressiveness of Hillary Clinton or the impenetrable Valkyrie front of Angela Merkel.
It is common among leaders to kill off their emotional intelligence. To force oneself not to care is a natural mental defence against perceived attacks, and the constant bombardment of daily pressure. Regarding psychological effects on the individual, it is a natural survival response to be callous, and to narrow one’s vision and scope of whom and what they can care for. There is constant pressure of input and criticism, of always being told they are wrong, of the constant stream of abuse from detractors, and additionally the weight and number of the responsibilities they face along with the non-stop surveillance, and lack of private time in their lives (including time for personal contemplation or reflection).
Being openly lesbian in an infamously orthodox and homophobic regime, Brnabić has had to put up with other pressures that prior males, and even other women in her position, did not. Even within her government (of which she has been placed at the helm by the iron fist of the autocratic Vučić, many say as a figurehead in place of his actually doing something to improve gay rights) she exists surrounded by members of her own party who are openly homophobic toward her, restricting her powers, deriding her sexuality and family status in a country where they (long established within a group before her recent arrival, and with their own internal pecking order) pointedly allowed her no power to change the legal status of the LGBT+ rights.
This attacking Brnabić on all sides has naturally made her vicious and guarded, and suspicious of the motives of others. Aside from starting to display more insecurity, she began to adopt the same abusive tactics, including the DARVO method. Seeing aggression in even allies who voiced concern for her, she began following Vučić in his methods of countering with an accusation.
Selective exposure (AKA confirmation bias) is strong and easily reinforced within the environment of the political arena. Some ideas about the best way to do things about which there is a common consensus may, in fact, not actually be true. For instance, the idea that it is not only a natural response, but that a lack of empathy is seen as essential to impartial and just decision making. [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225160079_Empathy_in_Leadership_Appropriate_or_Misplaced_An_Empirical_Study_on_a_Topic_That_is_Asking_for_Attention]
Power structures understand one thing, whether seen in governments across the world in the era of late global capitalism, or as seen in Jewish collaborators in Nazi Germany [https://time.com/5710303/nazi-collaborator-trials/], as in the black overseers of Slavery-Centered social structure of the American South, or even as seen in The Aunts, or Offred herself in Margaret Atwood’s too-close-to-non-fiction-for-comfort novel, The Handmaid’s Tale [https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/handmaid/themes/page/2/]; comfort leads to complacency leads to complicity. Any singular member in the group of the most oppressed, can be lifted up above the misery of the others, by being given some kind of reward: be it more power over their peers, a nicer home, or even a few minor creature comforts.
While it is easy to condemn those who give in to the pull of this comfort for an easier life in place of fighting the system which holds them and their peers down, we cannot neglect the other factor on which complicity depends, pushing from behind, which is fear. Fear induces silence in the spaces where one could or should speak up.
This fear and this comfort are the things that we must rebel against if we hope to change the shape of governance on our planet. But what is there to convince those who are comfortably holed up in their status quo that it is worth moving? The complacency requires that dulling of empathy.
The battle against the dulling of empathy must be fought in the same manner as rape culture and racism. In spite of my reluctance to speak for African American experiences, the complicity which oppresses is one and the same. We need to understand its importance. The means we must effectively use more input from human experiences. We need to use interdisciplinary knowledge, understanding, and conversations to develop dialogues. It is not just up to those raised as women to use the experience of their socialisation of openness to reshape these systems of power away from ones of combat (and even gender binaries), and to preach empathy. It is up to all of those who have been socialised with gendered notions of communication to open themselves up to reimagining and accepting a world of wider human understanding. To understand and share where the privileges of power equate to inequality and pain elsewhere.
This does not mean idealistically or naively sticking a flower in the tip of the aggressors’ gun. It is a long term process in which we stand up against ideas of patriarchal -and white- supremacy. Individual psychology shapes social norms, which precede collective political movements and shape behaviour in the political arena. We as humans must start from the private sphere, and cultivate a norm where violence against other humans -no matter their group- is as abhorrent as it is against one’s own family. This would mean a norm where it is not only considered unacceptable to have leaders who rape women, exploit the poor, or put children in cages, but to remove such political leaders from the pedestal upon which they are placed, so that any such proof of their inhumanity would actually result in their immediate physical removal from power without further room for debate.
It may well be too late for humanity to relearn all of this, and the aggression of the patriarchy has signed our death warrant. If violence and aggression are the only languages which can coerce powerful elites currently, reshaping a society without those figures will require incentives to learn a new way. Mathematical estimates and data analysis of patterns throughout human history predict that the mounting pressure from the new wave of right wing populist leaders (and their association with climate crisis denial) within the setting of drastic climate-related disasters will likely cause a battle for survival among elites, accompanied by waves of violence within human populations. [https://theconversation.com/history-repeats-itself-thats-bad-news-for-the-2020s-127116?fbclid=IwAR1Xzcx_7fNqjQ51WO30mwr2kwlChfW1Op4rSLaiG9_RRoLketTGr7ZEf_o] Perhaps it will be an opportunity for the survivors who build the next civilisation.
