Holbrooke was "successful," in Vietnam with the pacification program that, as Scheer writes, "herded peasants off their land into barbed-wire encampments" while the U.S. Empire bombed surrounding areas. He was "successful," indeed, "infamous" as an operator with the CIA Phoenix program, also in Vietnam before the Obama regime sent him off to do his thing in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Once he was near death he muttered to physicians that the U.S. needs to end the war in Afghanistan.
This Holbrooke, for Slaughter saved lives, period! But she has a problem with this "ethical framework"--not Holbrooke's so-called "leadership." Slaughter asks: "Why should we want leaders who fall short on personal responsibilities?" Yeah!
"Workers who put their careers first are typically rewarded; workers who choose their families are overlooked, disbelieved, or accused of unprofessionalism." Would it have something to do with giving the U.S. Empire 110% in the task of saving lives, bring democracy and freedom to the world by way of the IMF, UN troops, Monsanto, Exxon Oil, and an assortment of high-tech weapons and air craft? Let us not go there; Slaughter does not, cannot. The material reality of a capitalist economic regime must not enter this narrative!
Moving on: It's possible if you sequence it right! That is, have the marriage and babies when you should, when you can devote all your time to the business of Empire as did "Madeleine Albright, Hilary Clinton, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sandra Day O'Connor, Patricia Wald, Nannerl Keohane" who got those babies born and in the hands of nannies while Empire's women "leaders" were still in their 20s and early 30s.. With babies all grown and on their way, these women were able to take advance of the "freedoms and opportunities" that came their way. Today, you are too old at 40 to jump aboard the Empire's train and you are at ripe age in your 30s, but now you have these little ones at home. How are your weekdays, starting at "4:20am on Monday" and ending "late on Friday," weekdays "crammed with meetings" and "a never-ending stream of memos, reports, and comments on other people's drafts," to include children?
Woe to us trying to be women leaders!
"I would hope to see commencement speeches that finger America's social and business policies, rather than women's level of ambition, in explaining the dearth of women at the top," writes Slaughter. And what is up there in these high-powered positions? Power! There is an entire structuring of social relations based on this power. Hierarchal, to be sure! Every rung on the ladder consist of people to conquer, conflicts and wars to promote for the good of "democracy," of course. Slaughter implies what an Alter Net article seems to spell out--that the Democrats are good, saving-lives-people unlike those Republicans, conservatives, right-wingers, who, for example, employ the highly educated, privileged law graduates "to expand on their scholarship as private consultants," (see the June 18, 2012, Alter Ne t), which suggests that only Republicans, conservatives, right-wingers "develop pro-corporate strategies in papers and are far better paid than their liberal counterparts." Obama, the constitutional lawyer has done his share of contributing to the development of banking institutions and corporations, has he not? Slaughter's immediate boss Clinton and their Commander-In-Chief, Obama, expanded the drone program. Under his regime, there has been more suffering in this country and around the world, yet Slaughter wants to see more women at the top, more women, preferably Democratic women, at the top, wielding power--just tweak whatever might be "America's social and business policies."
[T]he responses heard from my peers and associates prompted me to write this article. Women of my generation have clung to the feminist credo we are raised with, even as our ranks have been steadily thinned by irresolvable tensions between family and career, because we are determined not to drop the flag for the next generation.
She does not want to "drop the flag." The race to the top is not over! Slaughter feels guilty for lecturing young women, not all women--just those ambitious young women--that "if they cannot manage to rise up the ladder as fast as men," and have families and "be thin and beautiful to boot," then they are to blame! ("Why Women").
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