Indira Gandhi was often described as strong-willed and the only man in her cabinet. Margaret Thatcher was dubbed Iron lady.  Hillary Clinton is running for American president, selling her strength and stamina as pre requisites of the job.

It’s a curious fact that despite strength being considered a masculine trait, men in powerful positions are rarely defined by their strength or have high tensile metals as descriptors before their names. Bill Clinton continues to be called charismatic, Barack Obama is inspirational; Justin Trudeau, passionate and Manmohan Singh, dignified. (Admittedly, our current Prime Minister, aka lohpurush or Iron Man, is an anomaly in that regard.) By and large, men, it seems, are assumed strong by default, and once that is out of the way, they can be many other, more complex beings. They can be interesting, brilliant, brave, manipulative, conflicted and sometimes like Hillary’s rival, Donald Trump, even vain.

‘Strong’, well-meaning as it may be, lacks nuance. It’s a claustrophobic term that perpetuates stereotypes of powerful women as emotionless ice queens, a la Miranda Priestly in The Devil wears Prada, tough monsters in power suits. Pop culture has helped perpetuate this notion. Game of Thrones’s Daenerys Targaryen, descended from dragons, is powerful because she takes what is hers by fire and blood. She does not cry over lost love or hurt when betrayed. Princess Fiona of Shrek is a kung fu expert and that proves that she is strong. There is, of course, no requirement on the part of the many princes in fairy tales to provide any evidence of their strength.

It does not help that media coverage of powerful woman is hugely reductionist and damaging, revolving as it does around clothes, appearance, voice quality and weight, rather than policy, intelligence and competence. The red pantsuit worn by Clinton at the debate could never be a little something she just slipped on. It has been described variously – as covered in her enemies’ blood and looking like a red blood cell, which proved to be a compliment by her supporters and a metaphor for blood on her hands, by her detractors. Whatever a woman does, however she dresses, she can never get it right.

Many women leaders in the West use the suit as sartorial strategy – a device that makes the visual point that to succeed in a man’s world, one must look like the men in power. Angela Merkel of Germany, Dilma Roussef of Brazil and Chile’s Michelle Bachelet have all embraced the power suit. But emulation isn’t enough: it should be business- like, but feminine enough not to be seen as too emasculating to men or threatening to other women. In Indian politics, where the political uniform is the khadi kurta for men, women politicians who seek to garner power in the folds of their saris, have to do it in a carefully calibrated manner. Both Smriti Irani and Sushma Swaraj, the two most powerful women in the cabinet, have crafted their personas of chaste Indian women complete with khadi saris, prominent mangalsutras and blazing sindoor.

Jolie’s power comes from her many roles as UN ambassador, film director, from her unusual motherhood and medical decisions, and yet her clothing choices continue to be tabloid material. That she wears mass-market black dresses as opposed to couture is a statement – a deliberate degalmourisation of her self to be seen as intelligent and committed to larger issues. Heaven forbid a woman be both intelligent and fashion-conscious.

For some reason, short hair is deemed to denote power. Indira Gandhi, Indira Nooyi, Angela Merkel and Barkha Dutt are just a few examples of bob-shaped strength. Hillary Clinton’s hairstyle has become progressively shorter from her flowing locks as a student at Wellesley to the conservative hairdo she now sports as a candidate. Bernie Sanders could of course get away with his famously uncombed look, and Trump’s hair/ wig can be a butt of jokes, but a woman’s hair needs to be snipped off and carefully coiffured. It is as if women’s hair is an irritant, and once out of the way she can dwell on other irritants of which she is likely to encounter many.

She should smile, but not too much, lest she be accused of being at her grandchild’s party, not a debate, as Clinton was. That she was grinning and bearing an idiot’s diatribes (like many women are forced to) did not matter to her detractors. A woman cannot cry in public for that would denote she is emotional, hormonal, or worse, using her tears to get what she wants. For a man to shed some tears – as icons like Obama, Modi and Shah Rukh Khan have – is to be sensitive and human. Anger in a man is a positive, but when it comes to women, it’s too much of a statement of strength and makes her unacceptable. She better be likeable – a regular criticism of Hillary Clinton, who is constantly criticized for appearing like a “robot”. Imagine just how skewed the balance is when faced with someone as obnoxious as Trump, she’s asked to appear more likeable.

With the amount of adjectives attributed to a woman’s voice (abrasive, shrill, grating), it is  as if she does not even have the right to speak, and this quibbling over her tone is meant to silence her. In spite of this the strong ones speak up anyway, sometimes modulating their voices, as Priyanka Chopra has done to suit her new milieu or shouting louder than the men around them to be heard, as many of our women politicians do.

Angelina Jolie’s marital life is under international scrutiny and with a divorce she initiated, she is hailed as woman capable of strong decisions. Hillary Clinton stayed in her marriage with the full glare of the media on her. Neither choice is easy. It is hard to stay, hard to let go. Clinton lives with her choice, labeled an ‘enabler’ and bearing the brunt of indiscretions that are not hers. And in a man’s world, many like Trump, with indiscretions of their own, get away with placing the burden of morality on women.

The characterization of half the world’s population with the condescending adjective ‘strong’ leaves little room for a woman to be herself. Constantly being told to ‘man up’ or ‘grow a pair’, she has to conform and sacrifice real emotion and pain at the altar of her ambitions. In what seems like a version of the Stockholm Syndrome, women are at the moment working with the assumption that power lies in being as man-like as possible, at least superficially.

Let’s hope the little girls of today, who will have no experience of a glass ceiling, will be more than just strong.  These are girls who have grown up on The Hunger Games, whose heroine Katniss’s courage comes as much from her bow as her intelligence and her feminine side, in her ability to find strength in other women and support them in return. Girls with role models like Lady Gaga, a meat wearing, bisexual provocateur, singing songs of empowerment and not shying away from her feelings – these will be girls difficult to oppress or silence. These girls will not be sassy, tough, over educated, over prepared, career obsessed, as strong women today are compelled to be. They will dare to give into their vulnerabilities, physical and emotional. They will ask for help when they need it and build consensus, not conflict. And having redefined what the word means, they will still be strong.