Caroline ’s Reviews > Off With Her Head: Three Thousand Years of Demonizing Women in Power > Status Update

"Online harassment [of women] is a form of public gender-role enforcement, rather like dragging a loud-mouthed woman to the stocks in the town square, clamping a scold's bridle on her mouth, and throwing rotten vegetables at her. [...] In November 2019, several of the eighteen female members of Parliament who announced that they would not seek reelection the following month reported that the [MORE BELOW]

"Catherine the Great so transgressed the boundaries set by the Patriarchy that it retaliated by creating the infamous lie that she had died at the age of sixty-seven while trying to have sex with a horse . . . "

I want to laugh, but I can't. If this sounds hilariously ludicrous, it's merely one of many sexual-depravity accusations leveled at countless female leaders throughout history and continuing into modern day.

The last few chapters look at how sexism poisons the public's regard of women in politics. Every last thing about their appearance is critiqued, as well as certain vocal characteristics (e.g., "She sounds like a scolding teacher"), lifestyle choices (e.g., "Why isn't she married?"), and everyday comportment. Meanwhile, without any effort, we're oddly blind to the same features in male leaders; such things are...

"It's rare for men to be called unlikable. And it probably really wouldn't matter if they were. The Barbara Lee Family Foundation discovered that voters are more comfortable voting for men they don't like—Donald Trump being a prime example. Many of his most ardent supporters really couldn't stand the guy personally—they hated his nasty tweets and unending boasting and spewing of lies—but [BELOW]

"By 1970, when American women had had the vote for fifty years, Congresswoman Patsy Mink of Hawaii believed that the day was soon coming when a woman could become president of the US. When Mink expressed her view to Dr. Edgar Berman, a member of the Democratic Party's Committee on National Priorities, he replied in no uncertain terms that women suffered "raging hormonal imbalances" that rendered them [BELOW]