IT makes as much sense for a woman to head General Motors as it does for a man to head the League of Women Voters. In other words, it makes no sense. Automotive engineering and manufacturing have always been a man’s world — and always will be. I am sure Mary Barra, who has been named CEO of General Motors, is a talented and smart woman. Indeed, she may be a brilliant CEO, but it’s still an outrage to have a woman in charge of a man’s world. It’s an outrage against male authority and against female dignity. Women have many more important things to do than manage giant companies and market cars. The corporate world loves the dynamic dualism of the woman executive. Her vitalistic androgyny inspires the sort of denial of reality that makes people want to spend more than they have. But whenever I see a woman CEO, I think of the barren home life she must lead. Fancy vacations and big houses do so little to cover up a soulless home. You have to have a soul, by the way, in order to identify a soulless home. A female executive doesn’t have time to take care of a single houseplant (it would wither under her lack of nurturance), let alone nurture and bring to life a family and a real home.

By the way, how can you take seriously an executive who wears such lurid nail polish? I realize I’m mind-blowingly old-fashioned, but the truth is the woman executive just can’t stop herself. She compensates for her masculine ambition and competitiveness, things which stifle her femininity at its core, by being aggressively feminine in dress, with low-cut blouses, tight skirts and the sort of nail fashion once reserved for tarts. Barra just had to offset her Maoist pantsuit with something suggestive of a brothel.

— Comments —

Diana writes:

“…. but it’s still an outrage to have a woman in charge of a man’s world. It’s an outrage against male authority and against female dignity.”

 That’s the point.

Laura writes:

Exactly.

Adam writes:

On the subject of promoting women in male dominated fields, did you notice that on Dec. 9 the Google “Doodle” (animation on the search engine’s homepage) was in honor of a female computer scientist and military woman named Grace Hopper? Her picture on her Wikipedia page is certainly not very flattering.

Laura writes:

Even a very old man can look distinguished in uniform.

A very old woman cannot.

Henry McCulloch writes:

I agree with you that it’s inherently strange to have a woman running a Detroit car company such as General Motors.  The auto business does seem quintessentially to be a man’s world.  But is the promotion of Mary Barra to be CEO of GM any more odd than some of the other appointments the Obama Administration has made, among them promoting to four-star rank in the Air Force a woman who is not even a pilot?  I say “other” advisedly, for I think this is an Obama Administration appointment.  It was only yesterday, according to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, that the U.S. government sold the last of its shares in General Motors, which it had bailed out at our expense.

I think this feminist appointment is the Obama Administration’s parting shot, dictated to departing chairman and CEO Dan Akerson to create another Liberating Social Change! here in post-America – take that, you mean old Glass Ceiling, you! – and a signal that goverment intends to retain a say in who runs big companies that have had government ownership.

It is only fair to note that Barra may be well qualified for the job.  She has been with GM since she was 19 years old, and has been involved in the real business of the company.  Then again, just how well has GM done over the last 32 years?…

Michael S. writes:

and the sort of nail fashion once reserved for tarts.”

That’s a subtle distinction, in my opinion. I think all nail color looks sluttish to one degree or another. I have never understood why so many women use it, or why so many men find it attractive. Yuck.

J.P. Straley writes:

A positive and salient fact in the discussion of Mary Barra is that she is married and has two children.

 Laura writes:

She may have a very happy family, but that does not change my basic points at all.

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