Sex, politics, and power | Rachel Liddell | TEDxMiddlebury

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Intertwining the personal experience of running for student body president with anecdotes of particularly important women from history, Rachel discusses society's penchant for undermining the authority of powerful women.

Rachel Liddell belongs to the class of 2015 and majors in Literary Studies at Middlebury College. She hails from Seattle, where she learned the importance of singing in the rain. Additionally she enjoys outdoor exploration, waxing poetic, and breakfast meetings.

About TEDx, x = independently organized event In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

as the student government
association president,

and I'm pretty proud of that
because I worked really heard

to get that position.

I spent weeks planning
and executing a campaign,

handing out flyers, canvassing the
student body, and putting up posters.

It was all around pretty ruthless
self-promotion.

There was one poster in particular
that I really loved.

It featured a series of pictures of me
making funny faces,

you can laugh...that's the point of it

and I was making these silly faces
and I loved it

because I thought it made me
really approachable,

fun-loving, like someone
you might wanna have dinner with.

And since I'm always a bit nervous

that people think I'm a little uptight,

this was the perfect poster for me.

So I put it up in Proctor and I left it

hoping that everyone would like it
just as much as I did.

But when I came back the next day,

I noticed something different:

Someone had made
an addition to this poster.

You see that picture
at the bottom, in the center,

where my mouth is open?

So I didn't really think that much
of this picture, because

like, I open my mouth all the time

I'm gonna do it a couple of times
in the course of the next 20 minutes.

Please brace yourself
if you find that offensive...

And so I didn't really
worry about this picture,

but someone saw it

and they thought to themselves,
you know, :"I'm inspired!"

And they drew a penis in my mouth ...

I'm glad that you think it's funny...

I took down the poster, I put it in
my backpack, I went home,

I grumbled, saw all my friends,

and I called my dad.
And I remember telling him, :

"I should have expected this,

I should have anticipated it. This
was bound to happen,

I deserve this, I'm putting so much
information about myself

out into the world, I'm bound to get
some negative feedback."

And at the same time I felt
so personally attacked,

this this 'dickish' doodler
actually hated me.

He hated my guts...or she, I guess.

And I felt like this was about me
as an individual,

but over time, after serving
for a full year

as a student government
association president,

and after paying a little bit more
attention

to our national political atmosphere,
I've noticed that there's a pattern here:

I'm not alone, my situation
isn't unique or even special.

We have this tendency to sexualize women,

to turn them into sexual objects,
and we do it especially,

or maybe incredibly, to powerful women,

to women in positions of power.

And this phenomenon isn't new,
it's not fair, it's not okay.

Cleopatra is often called
the 'Queen of Kings',

which I think is kind of
a fabulous title...

I'm hoping to have some business cards
made that say that ...

And she was a pretty cool lady,

she was one of the most powerful women

in the ancient world,

and she was pharaoh in Egypt.

But the beginning of her
political career

started off a little bit rocky.

you know...take hope if you're suffering
from a similar situation...

She was married to this guy

who wasn't doing a very good job
ruling Egypt.

He was also her brother, which was normal
at the time.

Part of the problem that
he was running into

was that he was a pre-teen,

and he just wasn't doing
a very good job ruling.

Egypt was facing a lot of trouble
during this era:

famine, drought, political unrest,

the rise of the Roman Empire.

So Cleopatra takes charge.

she puts her face on the coins
instead of his,

you know, the gist.

And her brother Ptolomy doesn't like this

and he exiles her.

and she's sitting and exile,

trying to figure out how she's going
to get back on the throne,

so she's pays Caesar a visit.

Now, Caesar is the head
of the Roman Empire

and they form an alliance.

It's part political, part romantic.

She gives him some ships and some grain
and a son named Caesarion,

and in turn he helps her
regain her throne.

He defeats Ptolomy's armies

and, suspiciously, her brother drowns,

she becomes the pharaoh of Egypt.

So this works out
really well for a while,

but as you probably know,

Caesar was assassinated.

So it's kind of a short-lived victory,

and Cleopatra has to figure out
what she's going to do next.

She chooses not to align herself

with the legal era of the Roman Empire,

hoping that at some point,

her son will sit on the throne of that
Empire.

So she decides to form an alliance
with Mark Antony.

Again, it's a little bit romantic,
a little bit political,

but Mark Antony is on the losing
side of history;

he loses battle after battle,

and eventually retreats all the way
back up to Alexandria.

Cleopatra and Mark Antony reunite,

and at the end of the day,

they are both dead by their own hands.

Now, you're maybe thinking
to yourself:

"I think she's missing part of this story,

like the part where Cleopatra
goes and visits Caesar

rapped in a rug

and where she pops out of the rug

and she's so hot."

You know that part ?

Well, a lot of historians
don't thinks that's true.

Another part you might
think that I'm missing

is Shakespeare's version of the death
of Cleopatra,

that she dies in a sort of

Romeo and Juliet Part Two version

of the suicide pact.

She dies by a snake bite, an asp,
on her breast.

And some historians do think

that a snake bite is
what killed Cleopatra,

but it was probably on her arm.

The idea of a snake on her breast,

I think, is just really dramatic.

It's definitely sexual,

it definitely recalls the idea
of the fall, of sin,

you know, it's kind of poetic,

and it doesn't do her any favors.

A lot of artists have picked up
on this theme.

This is a painting by Jean Jacques Rixens.

It depicts the death of Cleopatra.

You'll notice that she is naked.

So, that's something!

She's completely naked,

completely inert,

she's just a body for us to look at
and ogle,

she's no longer the powerful woman

who she was historically.

She's merely an object for our gaze.

And don't go thinking that you are
above this,

because you're not.

We do this all the time;

we talk about Cleopatra as this
hot vixen.

Remember this movie
with Elisabeth Taylor?

It's a little bit old for us,

but you may want to watch it

for the sake of...fun,

and she is kind of exposed

for a lot of the movie.

Taylor plays Cleopatra

as in a very sensual way.

And even today, maybe last week,

if you wanted to dress up as Cleopatra
for Halloween,

you could have picked this costume.

You know, bared you midriff

and you legs, worn stiletto heels,

and I'm not sayng that baring you body

is fundamentally, or unequivocally
disempowering,

there's definitely an empowering way
to do it,

but when all of the images

of powerful women from history

look like this,

it's hard to kind of come up

with other permutations.

Cleopatra is not the only person

to be a favorite subject for
Halloween,

Halloween costumes.

This is me, as a 10-year-old,

I think, around there,

I dressed up as Elisabeth I for Halloween.

My mother made me this costume,

out of a table cloth.

I think that she imbued this specific
costume

with a lot of her power and ambition,

and intelligence,

I'm choking up..

and intelligence, because I felt

so cool in this costume.

I felt like a million bucks,

like the Queen of England.

'cause I was, obviously!

But as I grew older, I started to notice

some other kinds of narratives
about Elizabeth I,

maybe you've noticed them too.

I read this book :

"The Virgin's Lover" !

What ? What does that mean?

I don't know!

It's picking up on this concept

that Elizabeth I was the virgin queen,

the mother of the realm,

but we don't really believe her, do we?

We assume that she wasn't that,

that there's some sexiness

that's a part of her,

and we like reading that onto her.

And in fact, as a young woman,

when she was newly queen,

she was seen that way,

not exactly as sexy, you know,

This is Elizabethan England,

but definitely as an available young
women,

as somebody awaiting marriage.

This is a painting,
or early portrait of her,

and she's not even
the focus of this painting,

am I right ?

The focus on these 3 goddesses:

Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite.

Hera's arm,

Hera, by the way, is
the goddess of marriage,

she thrusts her arm into the sky,

drawing your eye,

and then the naked body of Aphrodite,

it's hard to look away from that!

the focus of this painting

is the allegories the these goddesses
represent,

not Elizabeth as an individual.

But Elizabeth doesn't want to be

this kind of queen.

She doesn't want to be a partner in rule,

she wants to rule.

So she starts to portray herself

as the virgin queen,

the mother of the realm,

and her portraiture changes during
this period.

you'll see in this portrait,

she is the focus, shes takes up space,

these broad shoulders of her dress,

her bodice almost functions like armor.

She has a crown on her head

and one behind her

emphasizing her role as a ruler.

This is a powerful woman, an individual.

And in order to obtain this identity,

she had to desexualize herself.

That was the way

that she saw out of marriage

and towards solo rule.

All right, thank you for bearing with me

through my little history lesson here,

I first of all really like history,

and I also think that looking back

at women from long ago,

we can be a little more critical

about how we understand people.

They are not so politically charged.

Now it is the moment

you have all been waiting for
and anticipating:

Hilary Clinton.

All right, Hilary Clinton.

So before I begin, I've noticed

that we have this tendency to call

Hilary Clinton 'Hilary',

I do it a lot too, so please forgive me,

but it's strange because

we don't call Obama 'Barack'

We would never call Reagan 'Ronald'.

Can you imagine ?

Even with the Bushes,

we rely on context to figure out

which Bush we're talking about, right?

So I'm hoping that we can do
the same thing

in this talk. This talk is about

women and power, so assume that

when I say Clinton,

I'm talking about Hilary Clinton.

To make things a little bit clearer,

if I'm going to refer

to the former president of the country,

I'll call him Bill. [laughs]

All right, so we'll all be fine.

Hilary Clinton is currently wondering,

she's living in the question

of whether or not she's going

to run for president.

Actualy, I think she's probably decided,

but we're all still wondering.

Because of this, there's been a lot
of talk

about what kind of candidate

she would be,

what her experiences are,

her skill sets, what she's good at,

what she's bad at, her experiences,

and these are all really important things
to talk about.

Please, let's vet the person who's going

to hold the highest station in the land,

please.

But I think sometimes our conversations

really devolve, and we start talking

about things like her outfits,

what color her lipstick is,

how she's wearing her hair,

is her hair pulled back?

is she wearing a head band?

Oh, my goodness! Not a head band!

She looks so old, or wrinkly,

or tired, or just insert any word

that means "not fit for the job".

I think it's really funny that we're

concerned with how old
Hilary Clinton looks,

because she has served

for 3 and a half decades in public life

from different first ladies

and she was a lawyer,

she's been a senator,

and a secretary of state,

and she kind of should be tired,

we maybe should address her agedness

as a sign of wisdom, but we put so much

capital on the idea of youth and women,

but let me tell you, no young woman

should be running the country.

We also have a certain propensity

to criticize Hilary Clinton
for her pantsuits,

and if you know me, you've already

heard the shtik,

but I hate the phrase 'pantsuits'.

When a man wears slacks and a blazer,

it's a suit, right?

But if I were wearing a blazer with slacks,

it would be a pantsuit.

what?

if anything, when a woman wears

a skirt and a blazer,

it should be a skirtsuit,

I will grant that, that it's fine,

that's a variation.

This is just one of those linguistical

representations of sexism

that actually makes me crazy,

you might be able to see me levitating

a little bit while I'm
talking to you right now,

and I think the reason we do this,

is we are a little worried

about women taking on symbols
of power,

of which suits are one, right?

And we're a little worried

about Hilary Clinton stepping out

of her prescribed role

and what we consider feminine,

and moving out into a different,

uncharted territory that is traditionally
masculine.

Now, Hilary Clinton isn't the only
subject

for sexism in our political atmosphere.

Senator Kristen Gillibrand

recently came out to say that she's been

the survivor of harassment
in her workplace,

and by workplace I mean Congress,

and some congressmen were

commenting on her body, the fact

that she's been losing and gaining weight

and whether or not they were attracted

to this new body shape that
she was holding.

Also, if you google Senator Gillibrand,

one of the suggested tags for your

google search will be : "Hottest senator".

Like by popular demand, right?

Sarah Palin, I know,

everybody has a different political

opinion about Sarah Palin,

but it's hard to deny that we have talked

a lot about her body. When she was first

the Vice President, or the nominated

for Vice President, a lot was made

of the fact that she has won this beauty

contest. We were all sort of wondering:

how is she going to look walking down

the runway in her skirtsuit?

How is she going to look if she looked

so great in a swimsuit
all those years ago?

We're a little bit obsessed with that.

Everyone recently has been talking about

their most recent election,

that there are 100 women in Congress

for the very first time.

That's really exciting, and it's less

than 20% for Congress overall.

And it's only one more than the last

election that we had, and of all

those women only 32 of the women

in the House are women of color

and there's 1 woman of color in Senate.

One.

So, whether we are talking about

Hilary Clinton's pantsuits, or commenting

on Senator Gillibrands body,

or discussing Sarah Palin's beauty,

we are chipping away at their authority.

We are rendering them sexual object,

instead of the powerful, pluripotential

people who they are.

And I'm not really sure why we do this,

but I'm pretty sure it's because

we're afraid. We're afraid

of pushing boundaries,

of challenging the status quo,

of standing up to gender norms

and societal norms.

And I can tell you
from first-hand experience,

that this phenomenon is hurtful.

It makes me want to pack up my power-suit

and go home. It makes me want

to give up.

And this isn't about politics or women

or me. It's about all of us.

you know, you are all incredibly

powerful people. It's what brought you

to Middlebury and
it's going to propel you

out of here as soon as you leave.

Many of you will be leaders in your fields

and men, this is about you too!

Anytime somebody judges

you leadership capacity based on

the depth of you voice

or the breadth of your shoulders, you're

being subjected to the same kind

of treatment.

So I have a challenge for us today.

I'm hoping that we can start

to really recognize our prejudices

and deconstruct them and leave them

at home when we go to vote,

leave them at home when we

decide to read the newspaper or at least

try to do our best to set them aside.

Because if we don't, we're going to

prevent the encouragement of

an entire generation of leaders.

We are going to prevent the election

of many powerful effective people.

And we're going to prevent progress.

When I called my dad

to tell him about the poster,

he told me, "you know Rachel,

you might have anticipated this,

you might have expected it,

but you definitely don't deserve it.

Nobody deserves it."

Thank you.

So last year I served