Generally speaking, we comprehend Alpha Males. They command attention and lead because they love challenges and are willing to go where angels fear to tread in order to accomplish goals. Focused and driven, the Alpha Male is a wonder to the uninspired average, and he is usually respected, if not admired, thus occupying a dominant role to the more submissive non-Alpha.
The concept of Alpha Males originated in the wild with the study of domination/submission patterns of animals during social interaction. For instance, dominant (alpha) wolves stand with their tails raised while submissive wolves lower their bodies for active or passive submission. Active submission is “kissing up” through excited approach, tail wagging, ear lowering (a lot like your dog looks when he wants a snack). Passive submission is rolling over and letting the dominant wolf sniff the groin or genitals. Anyone with two or more dogs has witnessed this unashamed public interaction, hoping it won’t happen when company comes to visit.
Civilized human beings are perhaps less physical about the domination/submission thing (though one might wonder when watching an ass kissing manipulator). In the human realm submission is often defined as conceding to the idea of another. In this way the Alpha Male would be the one with an idea - not to mention the idea that flies. But beyond the pursuasiveness of his ideas, his direction is often respected due to the Alpha Male's past accomplishments, commitment to goals, energy and intelligence.
But who are Alpha Females? Who are the Hillary Clintons of the world, and what do they inspire in their fellows? Before you guess that Alpha Females are genetically flawed, recognize that Alpha Female wolves attack right along side the Alpha Males.
We can probably agree that the human Alpha Female is noticed, usually loved or hated but rarely serves as the object of apathy. Frankly, I think the term Alpha Female is overly and incorrectly used these days. I have seen Alpha Females described as the liberated shopping queen, the girl who doesn’t care if she is a size 12 and the girl who gets the guy. No, no, no. While Alpha Females might, indeed, do all these things, this is not what defines an Alpha Female any more than an Alpha Male is defined by wearing Brooks Brothers or having hot sex.
When considering this concept I originally thought that an Alpha Female might be defined by her culture, but this concept is an intellectually incorrect assumption. Though she may terrorize a family or an organization, a Steele Magnolia who schemes behind the scenes to make a male think her idea is his choice is not, in reality, an Alpha Female. Neither is any other type of female manipulator because being an Alpha is about direction (with direct being the operative part of direction). Alpha Females, like Alpha Males, have goals they claim outloud because they are not afraid to be honest about their intentions. In this respect integrity is a characteristic of an Alpha Anyone.
Maybe my favorite Alpha Female is Katharine Jefferts-Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States. When this unapologetic feminist and pro-gay woman became the first female to head a major denomination Bishop Jefferts-Schori inherited a church already in uproar over the election of a gay bishop, but the fact that a female took over the reigns was the unspoken straw that broke the backs of the good old boys and girls. While exhibiting nothing but dignity, kindness and intellectual honesty, she has been maligned in severe ways. Like Hillary, her looks were criticized after her consecration in 2006 in some of the vilest posts I have ever seen online. A year ago in Tanzania seven conservative Anglican leaders boycotted God to criticise Bishop Jefferts-Schori by refusing to take Holy Communion with her. Yikes! Stop and think about that for a minute.....using Holy Communion to isolate a person? Unruffled, the Presiding Bishop's response was "It's not about me. This is not a table that belongs to any one province. It's God's table." In my own church I have seen a priest refuse to say her name and a pathetic, homophobic good old boy roll his eyes at mention of her name. Her predecessor, Frank Griswold, agreed with her pro-gay stand, and while he was boycotted at Communion, no one dissected his looks, refused to say his name or rolled their eyes. You will never convince me that a measure of disapproval Bishop Jefferts-Schori endures is not gender based.
Having accepted the frequency with which people dislike the power of Alpha Females, it is worth recognizing that sometimes even people who claim to like them, in the last analysis, do not. Or perhaps they like the Alpha Female in theory, but not as an individual because the focus of the Alpha Female takes something away from them. In a society plagued by narcissism, I don't doubt it.
Our language is a clue to how we regard the Alpha Female. One might admiringly say that she “has balls” or disparagingly say that she has “too much testosterone,” either way, innocently or maliciously defining her by male sexual characteristics. I suspect we use such language because we have developed no other words to describe female power (except a few I do not feel comfortable repeating here). Hidden behind the maliciousness, two themes seem to dominate when a person’s leadership skills are ignored in favor of concentrating on her genitalia - fear and envy.
Wolves don’t do this, but humans do. Even Alpha Male wolves don’t do this, but humans do. Isn’t it odd, and are we not more primitive than we can admit when we require submission patterns in the form of giddy, attention begging flattery or psychological roll-overs in human females? Packed deep in our belief systems are primitive emotions that are the equivalent of embarrassing behavior we witness it in our pets and prefer to hide from company.
So a society that thinks it degrading and silly for a woman to hide her face behind a veil still wrestles with what to do with a self-confident, competitive and opinionated woman. We debate her characteristics as saintly or unnatural. When we admire her spunk we may fail to objectively evaluate her policy positions, and when she takes something away from us, we treat her like an object of contempt and employ the greatest punishment possible - ignoring and isolating her by measuring her hormones or criticising her hair style. But where in the world do you park an Alpha Female when you either want to drive her at top speed or wreck her into a stone wall?
Thursday, February 7, 2008 at 10:54PM 
