Ms. O’Grady couldn’t resist the internal emotional pressure; couldn’t compartmentalize her thinking and her emotions, and ended up emoting instead of thinking.
This fail mode has real ramifications in an entire range of social considerations about the role of women; all the way from thinking about allowing women into combat roles down to everyday considerations about women in positions of corporate or government leadership.
The best research informs us that an elemental difference between women and men is cognitive: that men are able to both live through, and later recall, experiences apart from feeling the emotion of those events, but women — not so much; they feel the emotions in parallel with the events, both at the time and upon later recall. “In the heat of the moment” men readily sideline emotions and think their way through things, whereas women are likely — though not necessarily — to find that their emotions are intruding upon their logic processes in real time introducing greater difficulty into the task of thinking through the situation. Now, on the positive side, those women who demonstrate success at this juncture ought to command great respect from men since the difficulty factor for women is substantively higher. Furthermore, it must be acknowledged that this cognitive difference IS NOT A DISQUALIFIER, but it ought to be something to profile on a case-by-case basis among women seeking to lead or take on high-risk, high-pressure roles.
Still, disqualifier or not, we must ask, “Where and when might this cognitive difference matter?”
One may well do a bit of extrapolation as to how this difference in the ability to compartmentalize emotions and logical thought might evidence itself in high-pressure, high-risk circumstances; say on the front line of a military conflict, in a street riot, or an assassination attempt. More broadly, one might well wonder how this difference might play out in arenas as seemingly benign as a corporate boardroom, a legislative chamber, or even The Oval Office.
I strongly note that this cognitive difference is not necessarily a factor that cripples a woman’s capacity for leadership; Golda Meir, and Britain’s own Lady Margaret Thatcher are two quite notable examples of strong women whose leadership gave evidence of their ability to intentionally sideline emotion in the face of necessarily logical, well-considered decision making. After all, can anyone in command of the faculties of reason credibly feature Lady Thatcher in an emotional melt-down?
By way of contrast I would pose the same question concerning Barbara Boxer. And Nancy Pelosi. Elizabeth Warren. Hillary. Maxine Waters.
So, now to this present case with Ms. O’Grady.
The saving grace must be this: that she has demonstrated NOW — apart from dire circumstance — the crippling degree to which she is personally unable to compartmentalize her thoughts and emotions. Certainly we would NOT have preferred that Ms. O’Grady’s personal inability to box out her emotions remain hidden until a fateful moment of decision.
Let us be thankful that we found out apart from any need.