Perhaps the best lesson I ever learned in retail work came when I moved to New York and began working side by side with experienced, professional saleswomen.
It was from these women that I learned, most of all, to be "professionally nice."
Call it "soft sell" or "turn on the charm" (you can make a regionalist case for calling it "the Southern Way", though there's a Northern, less syrup-y version as well)... but to succeed in retail, especially in goods like clothes and food and beauty, it pays to be as nice and "friendly" as you can be. And to know exactly how and when to turn that on. And off.
This sense of a friendly, professional cheerfulness, I think, goes a long way to describing a part of the "women and gay men" bond that exists, especially in the service professions, that then drifts over into our social lives. That loose network of shopgirls, hairdressers, small retail business on strip malls... I could on, but it's a digression. My main point is... the common thread, often, is a service-industry training to be nice in public, in a way that seems sincere, and unflappable.
In all the discussions of "why women won" yesterday - from Blanche Lincoln's comeback in Arkansas, to Nikki Haley's phoenix-'like rise to South Carolina leader, to Meg Whitman's solid win in California - I think many "experts", and I mean mainly men, miss the quality that make women candidates successful. And in ways both good and bad, I think "professionally nice" is giving many women a competitive advantage that's hard to beat. And yes, as a feminist, I too am thrilled to see it work. But at the same time... I think this may be a "be careful what you wish for" moment; not every instance of success for "professionally nice" is necessarily a good thing.
But let's go back for a minute and talk about Mary Landrieu. And Hillary Clinton.
If anyone shows how "professionally nice" can overcome many obstacles, it's Landrieu, who has shown, repeatedly, that she is consistently underestimated as a candidate. Too conservative for many Democrats, too beholden to her party's interests to the conservative right, Landrieu has been subjected to brutal tacitics and rhetoric in her various election and reelection efforts. Yet, though it all, she's been a calm, pleasant presence on the political scene, seemingly unaffected by the ugliness thrown at her and focused, in spite of it, on doing what her constituents need.
And, time and again, she's shown that the combination of doing the work and coming off as basically nice wins elections.
Hillary Clinton's trajectory, similarly, shows the payoff of being professionally nice. Both in her elections as Senator, and her run for President, Clinton found her success when she did the work of connecting with voters, rather than relying on more (male driven) consultant approaches built around advertising and focus group messaging. When Hillary Clinton managed - in New York in the famous debate confrontation with Rick Lazio, or in New Hampshire when her passion and humanity shined through - to connect with people, and cut through manufactured negative impressions of her, she was able to rise above the attacks and make her case.
Where "professionally nice" seems to run into trouble, I think, is within the traidtional Democratic coalition, when women, especially white women, run against someone other than a white man. But here, too, I don't think the fact that, say, Barack Obama prevailed over Hillary Clinton for the nomination shows that "professionally nice" is beatable; indeed, to this day, I don't think anyone on the Obama side has provided a clear, workable sense of how to repeat anything like what Obama pulled off (in part because, in the end, Obama didn't so much prevail as negotiate a complex truce). And until someone actually manages to "pick the lock" on defeating "professionally nice" in a comprehensive way... women will continue to use that quality with considerable success.
That's one reason why, of all races, the real test of who can ride "professionally nice to victory may be in the California Senate campaign pitting Barbara Boxer now against Carly Fiorina - though even there, I think Boxer's about as adroit as anyone can be at using professionally nice, while Fiorina, thus far, has seemed less fluid with it. The feel for "professionally nice" is why, along with her millions, I won't entirely discount the notion that Meg (Meg!) Whitman can prevail over Jerry Brown. And sure, it will be easy to say that problem is, say all the baggage Brown brings from his years and years in California government; but it will be interesting to see if Brown's team can do what few white men have managed to do against a woman - undercut Whitman's appeal without seeming mean or anti-woman while doing it. Or in other words... not nice.
Of course "professionally nice" isn't the only story here - I think Blanche Lincoln's win is about a number of factors, including the failure of the "Progressive Blogosphere" to make a coherent case against her that worked in Bill Halter's favor. And Nikki Haley, clearly, benefitted from a lot of ugly tactics thrown at her which were beyond the pale (that's assuming, of course, that there's little more to the "infidelity" case that was made). And seeming nice probably won't, I think, be enough for Sharron Angle to beat Harry Reid (though I suspect, except for her "chickens" gaffe, Sue Lowden's selling point was that she seemed nicer). But the point remains: for the forseeable future, women candidates who master "professionally nice" will continue to be hard to beat, and more women, I think, are figuring out how to do this successfully.
And that's great... mostly; and a great lesson on how to increase diversity in government. But the problem lies in the fact that "professionally nice" is, in the end, a bit of an act, a way of pretending that all is well when it's not, that it's selling a notion of interest and concern mainly as a way to... well, sell us something. The success of "professionally nice" is a reminder to me, as a seller, that people are gullible, that people don't look past surface impressions, and can be easily fooled. Those are not good things. And I'd feel better about the success women have relying on it without having to think about why it works... and how hard it is to undo.
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