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.

Last year I served as the
Student Government Association President,

and I'm pretty proud of that

because I worked really hard
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 -

(Laughter)

and I was making
these silly faces and I loved it

because I thought it made me
look really approachable, fun-loving,

like someone you might
want to have dinner with.

And since I am always a little bit nervous
that people think I'm uptight,

this was the perfect poster for me.

So I put it up in Proctor, and I left it

hoping that everyone would enjoy 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'll do it a couple of times
over the next 20 minutes -

please brace yourself
if you find that offensive.

(Laughter)

And so I didn't really worry about
this picture, but someone saw it

and they thought to themselves,
you know, "I am inspired!"

(Laughter)

And they drew a penis in my mouth.

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

(Laughter)

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

I grumbled at 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,

like 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 am 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, and it's not OK.

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 -

(Laughter)

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 he was running into
was that he was a preteen,

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.

Her brother Ptolemy
doesn't like this and exiles her.

She sits in exile, trying to figure out
how she's going to get back on the throne,

and so she pays Caesar a visit.

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 Ptolemy'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 heir 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 romantic,
a little 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.

You're maybe thinking to yourself: "I feel
like she's missing part of this story,

like the part where Cleopatra
goes and visits Caesar

rapped in a rug, and then she pops
out of the rug, and she's so hot."

You know that part?

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

Another part you might think I'm missing

is Shakespeare's version
of the death of Cleopatra,

that she dies in a sort of like
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 [André] Rixens;
it depicts the death of Cleopatra.

You'll notice that she is naked.
So, that's something!

She is completely naked, completely inert,

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

She is 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 Elizabeth Taylor?

A little old, but you may want to watch it
for the sake of, you know, fun.

And she is kind of exposed
for a lot of the movie.

Taylor plays Cleopatra
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 your midriff
and your legs, worn stiletto heels.

And I'm not saying that baring you body

is fundamentally, or unequivocally
disempowering.

There's definitely
an empowering way to do it,

but when all 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 dressed up as Elizabeth I for Halloween.

My mother made me this costume,
out of a table cloth.

I think 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.

Because 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".

(Laughter)

What ? What does that mean?

(Laughter)

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 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 woman,

as somebody awaiting marriage.

This is a painting,
an early portrait of her.

She's not even the focus
of this painting, am I right?

The focus is on these 3 goddesses:
Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite.

Hera, the goddess of marriage,

thrusts her arm into the sky,
drawing your eye.

And the naked body of Aphrodite --
it's hard to look away from that!

The focus of this painting is the allegories
that 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 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.

(Laughter)

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?

(Laughter)

Even with the Bushes, we rely on context

to figure out which Bush
we're talking about, right?

So I hope that we can do
the same for this talk.

This talk is about women in 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.

(Laughter)

All right, so that'll be fun.

Hilary Clinton is currently wondering,

she's living in the question of whether
or not she's going to run for president.

Actually, 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 headband!

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 we're concerned
with how old Hilary Clinton looks

because she has served
3 1/2 decades in public life:

from different first ladies,
and she was a lawyer,

she's been a senator,
and the 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 women
should be running the country.

We have a certain propensity to criticize
Hilary Clinton for her pantsuits,

and if you know me,
you've already heard the shtick,

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'll grant that,
that's fine, that's a variation.

This is just one of those linguistical
representations of sexism

that actually makes me crazy.

You might just see me levitating
while I'm talking to you right now.

And I think the reason we do this,

is that we are a little worried about
women taking on symbols of power,

of which suits are one, right?

We're a little worried
about Hilary Clinton

stepping out 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 Kirsten 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 senators were
commenting on her body,

that she'd been losing and gaining weight,

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 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 nominated for Vice President,

a lot was made of the fact
that she had won this beauty contest.

We all sort of wondered:

"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 a lot
about the 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% of Congress overall.

And it's only one more
than the last election that we had,

and of all women only 32 of the women
in the House are women of color,

and there's only one woman
of color in Senate, one.

So, whether we are talking
about Hilary Clinton's pantsuits,

or commenting
on Senator Gillibrand's body,

or discussing Sarah Palin's beauty,

we are chipping away at their authority.

We are rendering them sexual objects,

instead of the powerful,
pluripotential people 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
your leadership capacity

based on the depth of your voice
or the breadth of your shoulders,

you're being subjected to this exact,
same kind of treatment.

So I have a challenge for us today.

I'm hoping that we can start
to really recognize our prejudices,

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 even have expected it,
but you definitely don't deserve it.

Nobody deserves it."

Thank you.

(Applause)