“She seems to be smart, impressive and honest — and in her willingness to suppress so much of her mind for the sake of her career, kind of disturbing.” So wrote New York Times op-ed columnist David Brooks about President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan.
Kagan is a tough nut for the media to crack. Three days after the President named her as his nominee, there is still no “wise latina” controversy to feed on. Yes her sexual orientation has been questioned and her appearance has been criticized, but that’s about as deep as it gets. And wise Americans know it’s also irrelevant. Neither the left nor the moderate right can confidently claim her as their own because Kagan has not left much of a paper trail in the course of her distinguished career. Aside from a memo about late term abortions – more strategic than opinionated, Kagan has managed a stellar, and mostly neutral career. And so, we criticize her for that. Critics are saying Kagan is a careerist.
Careerists don’t make the best friends. They’ll blow off drinks for a deadline. They usually don’t make the best spouses or the best parents. But if they have savvy and brains, they do make it to the top of their chosen careers. And someone needs to get there.
Career and political ambition isn’t always considered a bad thing. When someone makes a plan to reach the top of their profession and then achieves that goal we often note they have focus or they were groomed for the job. But in Elena Kagan this trait is “disturbing.”
To be fair, David Brooks never actually calls Kagan a careerist. But he is clearly bothered by her drive. Is Brooks a sexist?
Maybe not. Brooks likens Kagan to the “Organization Kids” at elite colleges. He writes, “These were bright students who had been formed by the meritocratic system placed in front of them. They had great grades, perfect teacher recommendations, broad extracurricular interests, admirable self-confidence and winning personalities.” And he notes, “There’s about to be a backlash against the Ivy League lock on the court.” If Kagan is confirmed, all of the Supreme Court Justices will be Harvard or Yale Law graduates. And that could be what’s bothering Brooks.
But Brooks is a smart man. His own career has been spent working at what could be considered the elite publications: The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, Newsweek, The Atlantic Monthly, and now The New York Times. Surely he sees that the” Organization Kids” are running rampant in Washington. So when he decides to call one out, one who happens to be a woman nominated for the Supreme Court, he’s got to realize his timing is “kind of disturbing.”
Perhaps even more disturbing than Brooks’ column, was the follow on piece by Andrew Sullivan in The Atlantic. Sullivan writes, “David Brooks’ column today really helped crystallize for me my qualms about Elena Kagan. Her life, so far as one can tell, is her career, and her career has been built by avoiding any tough or difficult political or moral positions, eschewing any rigorous intellectual debate in which she takes a clear stand one way or the other, pleasing every single authority figure she has encountered, and reveling in the approval of the First Class Car Acela Corridor Elite.”
That sounds like much of Washington to me. And much of Wall Street, and the Fortune 100, and the big, non-profits run by privileged Ivy Leaguers too. So what’s the problem? Sullivan laments the fact Kagan’s life lacks any personal struggle. “Not a single anecdote in her life-story would be out of place in a Rhodes Scholar application – and I mean that as damning.”
Pity Brooks and Sullivan can’t grasp any real understanding of what the climb to the top might actually be like for a woman like Kagan. I’ve conducted many interviews with women executives and based on those discussions, here’s what a woman’s career might entail – there’s plenty of personal struggle.
She would need to have a perfect academic record to compete with the men. Studies show the system would be stacked against her getting hired and getting promoted. She would have to have a perfect work record; she couldn’t afford any red flags in her personnel file. She would need to ask for plum assignments without being labeled as too aggressive. She would have to seek out her own mentors; most likely they wouldn’t come calling for her. She could never appear weak; she’d learn to walk the fine line between assertive and “bitch.” She better not be too pretty; but being just pretty enough could be an asset. She would have to check parts of her personality at the door; lest she get labeled emotional. And she’d be in constant danger of getting placed on the mommy track. Then again, she might get dinged for not choosing motherhood.
And her reward for all of that would be more than just making it to the top. It would be her opportunity to use her power for good when she got there. It takes power and influence to affect change. And it takes being “prudential, deliberate and cautious,” as Brooks describes Kagan, to make it into a power position.
Will Kagan use her power for good not evil? None of us can know for sure. And I think that’s what really bothers Brooks and Sullivan. We can only hope. All we know for certain is Kagan is driven. And last I checked, there was nothing wrong with that.
