What Will It Take to Make A Woman President?: Conversations About Women, Leadership and Power (8 page)

MS
: You mentioned that women are now one-fifth of Congress, which is an important milestone and is history making, but it’s nowhere near parity. Why is that?

DB
: You know, right after women gained the vote in 1920, there were articles out like, “Why has it taken so long?” Well, first of all, women had to, like everybody else, figure out the political process. They had to register to vote, they had to join a political party, they had to begin to identify and
build political resources. Again, we’ve made terrific progress since 1920, and why has it taken so long? Because, first of all, it still takes a candidate—incumbency is still a major obstacle. If you look at the years that women have won, made some significant gains in Congress, they coincided with years following redistricting or years where we saw a lot of retirement, big election years. Those years tend to be presidential years, but there have been a lot of nonpresidential years where women have made gains, so why has it taken so long? It still takes a candidate. It still takes motivating women to run for office and then following that with supporting those women candidates so that they have a good chance of winning.

MS
: Speaking of which, I keep running into these studies saying that women have to really be actively coaxed and convinced to run for office. Why do you think that is?

DB
: Political socialization is still a factor. Most girls don’t grow up thinking that they want to be out there in the rough-and-tumble of politics. Politics is not, as they often say, for the fainthearted, but it is part of our culture to try to encourage people to seek public office in some capacity. . . . You have to go out there and encourage women. You’ve got to give women the tools they need in order to believe that they can be successful when they get there. Some women believe that it’s important to run after they’ve finished their so-called child-rearing years, if that’s still a matter of interest to them. Some women believe that they have to have a solid education and this, that, and the other. What they simply don’t know is that most men wake up in the morning or wake up in the middle of the night, and decide, Why not? They feel very passionately. When you look at the number of women who are serving today and you go back and look at the reasons why they decided to run, often they have to do with raising their kids and wanting a better education in their community, or fighting
for environmental issues. So it takes all kinds of reasons. But the good news is that I think we’ve turned the corner; we just can’t see as far as we want to see down the road.

MS
: Sometimes this is framed as almost a competition between men and women—an equality thing, as if we just want parity for parity’s sake—but why is it important? Why is this not a “women’s issue” but something that men should also support?

DB
: Because every time that women have made progress, typically it’s because some woman stepped up and stood up and said, “You know what? This has to change.” Because the progress we’ve seen in our lifetime happened because of women who dared, women of courage—women like Olympia Snowe and Pat Schroeder and others. Because they spoke up and we got Title IX, because they spoke up and they were able to change the Family Medical Leave Act, they were able to make advancements on so many other fronts—assuring that women had access to credit cards, as my home-state congresswoman Lindy Boggs did. So it’s important that women continue to see that when women run, they make a difference in our lives. They tend to be more collaborative. There was a study recently, in
The New York Times
, I believe, about the women in the United States Senate—they want to get along, they want to work across the aisle, they don’t have this macho thing that they can’t compromise or they can’t find common ground.

MS
: Regarding leadership positions, the numbers are low not just in Washington but across the board in terms of CEOs and Fortune 500 companies, as Sheryl Sandberg’s book has been highlighting. How is that connected? Do you think that the more women come into other areas of power and influence in the corporate world and in these other arenas, the more it would enhance the overall acceptance of women leaders?

DB
: I do believe that public service is one of the most visible forms of leadership in society, but there’s no question when you look at what happened a few years ago in California, with Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, that was also an important step—you had two women in the corporate world stepping out into the political world. Again, when you look at most of the men who are in office—not to give them the short end of the rope—but men have had success in business and say, “I’ve made a great living and all. Now let’s see what I can do for the country or to make the world a better place.” I think for women in the corporate world, we don’t have that many role models, we don’t have that many mentors. And I think Sheryl Sandberg is fostering this interesting conversation on that, not just about the role of ambition, but also about mentoring and the fact that we cannot just walk in the door and shut it behind us. . . . We have to find ways to keep the door open for other women to join us in the circle of power.

MS
: I interviewed Anna Deavere Smith for another series about leadership, and I remember her really stressing the fact that she thinks it’s not just enough to get the women in the door—women have to reach back and also bring up other women, especially women who are in underserved communities.

DB
: That’s an important part. I found that when I was coming up through the political ranks, it wasn’t enough to be the only woman, or sometimes the only minority, in the room; I wanted to make sure that I was not the last. So while I sat at the table, I often told my colleagues, “Look, if there’s no room at the table, we’ll just bring in folding chairs. We’ll make space for women.” The attitude is that we’ve got to start making space for each other. If we don’t, we will never see ourselves as making real progress.

MS
: What about this whole likability factor that Sheryl Sandberg talks about in her book, in terms of when you have strong, ambitious women, they’re perceived as “unlikable”? Do you think that’s improving? Because it seems to me that it’s a hard situation for women to be in—that if you’re strong and successful, you’re unlikable.

DB
: I used to tell people to embrace the inner bitch, because people will trample on you if you don’t have any self-esteem or self-respect. People will intimidate you if you’re unsure or unsteady, so embrace the inner bitch. You may want to call it the inner goddess, but whatever you call her, we’ve got it and we have it in abundance. My mother always said, “It’s not what they call you; it’s what you answer to.”

MS
: You have such a strong sense of self and such confidence. What gives you your drive and inner strength?

DB
: First of all, I had a mother and grandparents who were simply phenomenal. They were women who just seized every opportunity. And I come from a working-class background, really poverty, and my parents were my motivation, especially my mom. I saw how she worked, and she didn’t distinguish between the boys and the girls; there were nine of us, and she made us all do the same things. She made us speak up. She made us toughen up. She really gave us all what I would call the key ingredients of leadership, and because of her, I think I was so motivated, as a little girl, to go out there and do my very best.

I knew that as a black woman in the formerly segregated Deep South, I would have to pick my way and find every elevator I could, as well as a ladder, to be able to be successful . . . My grandmother, of course, made it clear to me when we were kids, “Okay, we’re former slaves and that’s it. No more picking cotton. It’s too hard to pick cotton.” And so I grew up
wanting to know how women like my grandmother and so many others survived, and what I learned was, they were blessed with determination. They were blessed with courage. They were blessed with resiliency and perseverance. They’re the ones who blessed me to have the seat at the table that I have today.

MS
: Why is there such inequality of representation and diversity in the media, and why is this important? How do those low numbers and lack of diversity affect both the political debate and consciousness?

DB
: Well, as I tell my students at Georgetown, “Visibility is viability.” If you’re not visible in society and you’re not out there, people don’t know you exist. Think about where we are today—you’ve got Dianne Feinstein now heading up Intelligence, Barbara Mikulski on Appropriations, Patty Murray on the Budget Committee, Mary Landrieu on the Small Business Committee, and there are probably more that I’m not remembering right now. But I’ll tell you this: when you look at the fact that all these women are in all these key, remarkable positions, and yet you turn on TV and you see John McCain and Lindsey Graham, you want to scream. . . . Why are there no women? Because often we don’t push ourselves to go out there. I’m serious. It’s not only because we’ve got young men who don’t know how to reach women; we also have a culture where women still don’t self-promote. You know what I do once or twice a month, because I have this attitude like, who cares? I just call CNN: “What Sunday do you need me?” I do! I will pick up the phone and say, “Which Sunday do you need me? Because I’m in D.C. all week.” And I don’t just call one person—I call four or five. And I harass them sometimes, if I’m in the mood. I go out there every week, because it’s important to go out there. I have to tell you the truth: it’s not easy to do that . . . but it’s worth it because I can get out there. I can talk about gay marriage. I can talk about immigration. I could
talk about guns. I could talk about the budget. I could talk about 2016, and those are my topics. And if they need me for the foreign policy stuff on Syria, Cypress, and all the other topics, I would have been ready for that, too. When I push, I push. You’ve got to self-promote, and I know that’s hard for some women and some of them simply don’t like to do it, but think about John McCain and Lindsey Graham—they will self-promote in a nanosecond. Joe Biden used to self-promote. Dick Durbin self-promotes. Chuck Schumer self-promotes. It’s all self-promotion. That’s all it is.

MS
: I have also seen studies saying that sometimes the reason why women aren’t self-promoting is that they don’t think they’re qualified enough. This self-doubt is so subliminal—again, probably programmed into us as girls to make us doubt what we know—that it may be holding us back. I think there was some statistic that only 3 percent of women are in the top clout positions in the media. Isn’t it also the responsibility on the part of the media to make sure that they’re reaching out to women, too?

DB
: There’s no question that it’s a two-way street. I think we have to do self-promotion, but we’ve also got to find those who are in charge of the media and stress upon them the fact that there needs to be more diversity in the newsroom. As I’ve said, I’ve been involved with CNN now for over eleven years; I’ve been with ABC for about seven years. I can tell you that based on my relationship with those producers, I go to [them], and I say, “Okay, I’m not available, so have you talked to Maria Cordona? Have you found out what Hillary Rosen thinks?” The other problem is we have some women who don’t do that, who don’t recommend other women. When I was up for a renewal, I didn’t just speak up for myself. Of course I did, but I also asked, “Well, what about Maria, what about Anna, and what about Hillary?” Just because I’m sitting at the table doesn’t mean I can’t have additional chairs for other women. That’s another problem that
we have sometimes as women: we don’t carry each other into the world, and also, when women are trying to impress the boss, they think about guys. Well, if I know John Kerry is available, Jesus Christ, you know who’s got comparable experience to John Kerry and has been serving on the Foreign Relations Committee for all these years—you should also reach out to her. The media piece is a very difficult beat. . . . It’s a tough business, even those Sunday shows. Do we watch them? Do we support them? Do we tweet about them? I mean, I try to tweet about Diane Sawyer. I try to tweet about Katie Couric. Of course I’ve written for Oprah’s magazine. We’ve got to be better supporters. That goes back to this whole notion of why there are not a lot of women, when we’re the majority of voters. We must ask that question of ourselves. What are
we
waiting for?

MS
: I know you have done so much advocacy in promoting voters’ rights and in getting young people to vote. Do you feel like that’s improving in terms of citizens, common citizens, just wanting to be a part of the process and speaking up when there’s something that they believe in?

DB
: I do believe that we need refresher courses from time to time on what it means to be a citizen in the United States of America in the twenty-first century. I think so many people lose sight of the fact that we have a system of a Republican form of government with self-representation. And not everybody needs to run for office. Some people need to be better advocates in their neighborhood. Some people need to be better advocates when it comes to fixing up schools and keeping the community thriving. Some people need to be better advocates in terms of the environment. So there are many ways to serve and many ways that we can fulfill our role as citizens of the United States of America. But we need to understand that we have the greatest power on the planet—as citizens of the United States of America—and when we fail to utilize that, that’s why we end up with the kind of government
and the kind of dysfunction [we have], because we’re not actively engaged as citizens. That’s why, for me, voting is the lifeblood of our democracy.