Skip to content
quotesby

Today, more than ever, women are occupying positions of influence. However, in the past they have been the exceptions to the rule and were usually obliged to hold on to their power by deforming themselves into honorary men or into magnified archetypes of the female who manipulated men. It still is not clear that women can successfully become part of the established structures without accepting these deformations.

John Ralston Saul#10

PowerLeadershipGender

About this quote

What does it mean?
Women in power often must deform themselves into honorary men to fit established structures.
In plain terms
Women leaders adapt to male norms.
What can you take from it?
Women must often compromise identity for power.

Where it applies

  • leadership analysis
  • gender studies
  • political critique

Putting it to work

  • analyze gendered leadership
  • challenge institutional norms

Questions to consider

  • Must women become men to lead?
  • Are structures inherently male?

Another view

Many women succeed without changing themselves.

More from John Ralston Saul

  1. This breakdown of social order - rules of dress, sexual controls, speech patterns, family structures - has been seen as a great victory for the individual. On …

    Permalink to quote #9
  2. The pinning on of stars reaches its full cynical significance when sanctified valour and bereaved families are used to lend dignity to wars stupidly fought. Th…

    Permalink to quote #11
  3. A man who uses power to do evil is in theory judged to have been conscious of his acts and to be as fit for punishment as a perpetrator of premeditated murder.…

    Permalink to quote #8

Related quotes

  1. I will have one mistress here, and no master! No man shall rule over me

    Elizabeth I of EnglandElizabeth I of England quote #19
  2. I think that maybe if women and children were in charge we would get somewhere.

    James ThurberJames Thurber quote #68
  3. Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men -- the other 999 follow women.

    Groucho MarxGroucho Marx quote #126