Sometimes when men sabotage leading role females it's deliberate;; sometimes it's merely naive and intuitive. Females have to decide when it is deliberate and when it is "innocent." (Of course experts in role-playing cannot participate in this behavior at all, because they cannot pretend they don't understand it. They do understand it. The only role they can have in a role of consultant or advisor to those who must deal with this problem. Experts, professionals, and scholars role in this is to provide information.)
Leading role women who have leading role men who are perceived as greater than them usually find not the same problem. Most of the type of men who do not know how to relate to leading role women seem not to have a problem when they have a greater role, and when society acknoqledges this greater role. They are leading role women, but their men are perceived as yet greater and so mostly these leading role women don't experience the same problems and the men seem to accept their leading role, because these men are perceived as yet greater than them.
Example: Let's say you're a leading role actress, but your man is an actor considered as having a yet greater leading role than yourself. Generally such men appear content. Let the actress achieve a greater lead, then with such men we have a problem. We have many many examples of this.
Some leading role women find themselves maintaining their independence, even when they connect to men, as an Oprah for example, who continues, even though with Stedman, who appears to know how to relate to this leading role female, and to maintain a certain discipline and supportiveness. Privately we don't know what the deal is, but publically she maintains her status. Or appears to do so. And he appears to know how to relate intelligently to a leading role female. We assume that in his areas of expertise, he is also a leading role man, although it is not a role that puts him necessarily in competition with Oprah. They do not appear to be in competitive mode. If he were also a talk show host, in competitive mode, then we would have to notice if he "behaves himself." Or if she "behaves herself."
Ivana Trump, for example, got into competitive mode with the Donald. Or vice versa. It would be good if we could have "power couples" in the same area who do not get into competition with each other and who could work as equals and not into this competitive role-playing, where the female or the male has to be "less." It would be good if leading role men and leading role females could connect as power couples, exchanging leading and supporting roles where required, but maintaining their power as a couple.
Donald Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, is a leading role female, it appears, but because she's his daughter she is not necessarily in competitive mode with her father. It's "no competition." Most leading role female daughters, and we have many examples of these, don't appear to have to same problem.
Even though many don't necessarily like Bill and Hillary Clinton and/or their politics, however, they appear to be professionals at doing this. Experts on masculine and feminine role-playing as it involves leading roles and supporting roles might find them, despite the politics, good examples.
This doesn't mean the men are wrong necessarily or the women are wrong necessarily. Both are responding to their civilizations and their histories, whether it's a patriarch or a matriarch history. Even in our quest for freedom and equality, we still must negotiate with a civilization. Even when most people achieve what might be called "freedom," many are still slaves to their civilizations, the values, principles, mores, folkways, rules, guidelines that help to sustain their civilizations. Many people try to be honorable within those guidelines. But most of our civilizations are the "masters." Only outsiders can critique civilizations. That's why the West can critique the East and the East the West. Men critique women and women men. We might not all accept these critiques, but we should listen to them. To sustain our civilizations, East or West, masculine or feminine we often reject these critiques, nevertheless we need to hear them and to listen.
We have discussed presidents and leading roles.
Should America have a first female president, we have proposed how many men are qualified to accept her in the leading role, how many men are going to approach this woman and make it clear that she must defer to them and they must have leadership over this female. We must also ask whether females, used to playing supporting roles, are going to accept a female as leading role figure. Many women like men sabotage leading role females. This is not just something that men do. Their motives can be similar or different. Some want the role for themselves; some simply do not feel that these women are qualified for the leading roles.
