Nicola Sturgeon: Mimicking men led to personality free zone
She said she was the youngest candidate across the UK, which attracted media attention.
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She wrote: 'Since I was too young to really know who I was, I presented to the world an image of what I thought a politician should look and sound like.'
She said she began to 'mimic' people around her, who were mainly middle-aged men.
(Image: PA)
As a result, she said: 'I developed a very serious and austere persona. It was said that I never smiled. I opted for dark plain clothes, usually trouser suits.'
She said she was portrayed as being 'dour, frumpy, unattractive'.
Alternatively, had she decided on a 'highly feminine pose' she said she'd be 'criticised as unserious' and was therefore in a 'no-win situation'.
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In her book Frankly, Sturgeon states: 'This, then, is how Nicola the soundbite, facsimile politician was born. I came across as a personality-free zone.'
She said had she not stood in 1992, she may have had more time to develop as a person first but would have missed out on the experience she gained
She said it took her more than a decade to 'feel even remotely comfortable in my own skin'.
In that first foray into an election, she said she was Alex Salmond's choice to be the candidate.
Sturgeon said it provoked 'suspicion' that she was being promoted above her ability and even generated 'whispers, off and on, that we must be having an affair'.
Sturgeon lost heavily to Labour's David Marshall by 21,665 to 6831 and graduated with a law degree soon after.
The election, however, had cemented her desire to pursue politics as a career rather than law.
She gained a traineeship in Glasgow with legal firm McLure Naismith Anderson Gardner. But she said, 'I was miserable there.'
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