This point came up in one of the Rest Is History podcasts on Ronald Reagan (I think it was in the subscriber only follow up). They contrasted his style with that of Margaret Thatcher.
Thatcher, apparently, always went to every meeting with aim of being the person in the room who was the best prepared. Ronald Reagan allegedly rarely bothered. They speculated that the contrasting style was due to the fact that Thatcher was usually the only woman present and more than that, most of her colleagues had distinguished war records.She simply couldn't get away with not being the best.
To an extent this is the point I was making earlier on. In order to be accepted, as a woman leader, Thatcher needed to act like the men only better. So she needed to be better prepared, but also more aggressive, more decisive, more combative etc etc. With the exception of preparedness, these are all traits typically associated with men rather than women.
And I think we have the same issue today with Sunak - Johnson could easily become leader as a white, privileged male despite being clearly useless at actually doing the job. Everyone knew he was lazy, unethical, had no interest in detail etc etc - but he had all the normal traits expected of a tory leader.
For Sunak to be acceptable as a minority ethnic leader he cannot rock the boat in too many categories - so he needs to make up for his lack of 'whiteness', by being competent and above all by looking like a tory leader in all other respects - top public school, Oxford, the City, stinking rich etc etc.
As I pointed out on the Sturgeon thread - we have a remarkable situation where five out of the seven most significant political positions in power (PM, Chancellor, Foreign Sec, Home Sec, London Mayor, FM in Scotland, FM in Wales - other opinions are available) - are from minority ethnic backgrounds. But when you look at it another way nothing seems to have changed. Five out of seven went to private school (including all the non-Labour ones) and just one is a woman.
