Michelle Bachelet's liderazgo femenino (feminine leadership)

Do women possess the requisite personal qualities and characteristics of political leadership needed by a president, characteristics that male politicians are often assumed to have? In Chile's historic 2005/6 presidential campaign, the responses of Michelle Bachelet and her male opponents to this question became an explicit area of debate. Drawing on participant observation, interviews and analysis of campaign materials, I argue that the three candidates, Bachelet, Joaquin Lavin and Sebastian Pinera, drew upon specific, if different, gendered definitions of political leadership to both present themselves as the person best qualified to lead Chile and to question their opponents' capabilities. Lavin and Pinera strategically deployed beliefs about accepted connections between men, masculinity and politics to promote their leadership capabilities and to attack Bachelet's abilities to be president. Bachelet explicitly framed her leadership style as more feminine and linked her style of leadership to her abilities to promote greater inclusion and participation in Chilean democracy. Bachelet countered her opponents' attacks on her leadership abilities by claiming that these attacks revealed the continuing resistance to women's inclusion as political leaders.