What Will It Take to Make A Woman President?: Conversations About Women, Leadership and Power (26 page)
Authors: Marianne Schnall
So, yes, I used to always say, “I am a man in recovery,” because you are constantly trying to unlearn behaviors and attitudes and feelings that were nurtured into you your entire life. Not only were they nurtured into you, but you were told that they mattered and that they made you important, they made you strong. And I said that even as a black person, nothing was more damaging to my life than masculinity. . . . And I go back to Obama: his race didn’t hold him back. He’s president of the United States! And yet it is my gender as a man that has made me less functional in relationships. It has made me less functional in my own health. It has given me a very narrow lens on the world. Again, because I’m a man in a patriarchal society, I never had to address that.
I don’t know if you saw the news today, but there was a case of a basketball coach at Rutgers University who was recently fired for being extremely abusive—standing two feet away from one of his players and hitting him very hard with a basketball and using homophobic slurs, and it was a horrible, horrible display of humanity. My friend at
CNN.com
asked me if I would write something on this, and I started to write about how there’s this creed in sports—and this is very much again a part of that masculinity zero-sum game, living in a meritocracy—“I win, you lose.” And that’s very much this narrow masculinity; we’re not going to have a broad conversation around feelings and respect of others and all that. It’s
“I win, you lose.” So I’m writing this article and I started to put the quote that’s most often attributed to Vince Lombardi that says, “Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.” As a player, that’s the “I win, you lose,” but as a human being, stepping off of that field—as a father, as a brother, as a husband, as a son, as an employer, as an employee—if I live my life by that same mentality, then I’m a bully. I’m an abuser. But that’s the other part of that creed of masculinity: you’re supposed to be in charge. So boys learn this at a very early age.
MS
: I think that’s so interesting. It does seem like there needs to be more of a forum for men to talk about these things. I think one of the few positive things that have been coming out of, for example, the Steubenville rape case, is that it does seem like men speaking out about violence against women has been a specific way for men to begin to have these conversations. Because, as you’ve often said, violence against women isn’t a “women’s issue.” Do you think getting involved in the effort to stop violence against women has provided a way for men to begin to have this conversation?
DM
: I’ve said this for a long time, and I believe it’s from my first introduction to this work, that what is necessary for a lot of reasons—and primarily just from the perspective of working to end men’s violence against women, but for a whole host of other reasons—is that men need to have this conversation
without
women, and not driven by women. What needs to happen is that needs to be a conversation led by men about men, and we have to move away from even the discussion about this is about preventing violence against women. In other words, we agree that, okay, rape is wrong. Okay all these other things are bad—pornography is bad, strip clubs are bad—but when do we get to the stuff about who we are, as men? When do we get to the conversation not about masculinity, but about masculinities, that we accept our gay brothers as our brothers; that we
accept all forms of masculinity; that we allow all men their masculinity as they define it? And we’re not even close to that. It’s like I always say, when do men have these conversations? When do men have the conversation around violence against women? It’s after there’s been violence against women. So there are a couple of problems with that. One is that all men in that subsequent conversation represent the perpetrator, so men are defensive. And then our conversation is around addressing that issue, so even in the room, knowing that we’re here because of Steubenville, and so we have to work on preventing Steubenvilles. We have to address narrow masculinity and violent masculinity, but we don’t necessarily address vulnerable masculinity. We don’t necessarily address loving masculinity. We don’t address the wholeness of masculinity. I think that is ultimately the problem that we have right now in the conversation.
MS
: Are you optimistic? What is the consciousness of the world that we’re aiming for, in having this conversation, in terms of having men and women reach their human potential? What is the grand vision that you think we are looking to achieve?
DM
: The grand vision . . . without being too over the top, right? Because you have to get there; you don’t stop short. It’s utopia. It’s a loving society. And I say that, not as a religious person, but isn’t that the question? Why are we here, so to speak? What’s it all about? I think that’s the great question. And that’s why in all the issues—I started doing work on drunk driving when I first started as an activist and speaker on different social issues with kids, back when I was in college—and that’s why that whole conversation on gender to me was like the final frontier, because it answered so many of the other ills that we inflict on one another. Because if I choose to take a drug, it’s me, it’s my hand that lifts the glass up to my lips or puts the needle in my arm or brings that joint to my mouth, or whatever it
is—it’s my hand that does that. So if I am violent toward someone, it’s my hand on someone else. Violence works because violence controls what we cannot control. We can’t control nature, so we have to be violent to it. But nature’s more powerful than that; nature comes through. And so violence is typically used to suppress those things that we cannot control. So I do believe that when you start looking at a different form of masculinity, that no longer defines control by oppression, or suppression, then you are looking at a world that is going to be less violent. And a world that is less violent is more of a world that is peaceful and loving . . . and isn’t that utopia?
STEP UP TO POSITIONS OF LEADERSHIP
As leaders, we must also encourage other women to step up to positions of leadership and fight to elect more women to public office. Women who understand the glass ceiling that still exists for us in the workplace and in every aspect of our lives and who are committed to helping us shatter that ceiling once and for all. Consider an eye-opening statistic: In the entire history of the United States, only 296 women have ever served in Congress. Compare that with the number of men who’ve been elected
—
more than 12,000. Ladies, we have some serious catching up to do!
But I know that taking that first step can be tough. As women, we face more obstacles than most. We face skepticism and doubt from others and from ourselves. It’s no secret that throughout life, people will always try to sell you on shortcuts and the easy way out, and as women, they will tell you what you cannot do. It was true for me, and it was true for all the women who came before me: There will always be naysayers. There will always be people telling you that the timing just isn’t quite right, that the work just isn’t important, and that the world just isn’t ready. You know what we have to do? Prove them wrong! Because what we really need are more women opening doors in every aspect of our society
—
more women practicing law, more women researching cures for cancer, more women in information technology, and more women in public office!
—R
EPRESENTATIVE
D
EBBIE
W
ASSERMAN
S
CHULTZ
(D)
I think it’s really what Sheryl Sandberg says to women, you know, “Don’t leave before you leave.” Stay engaged. If you are going to take time off to have children, that’s great, but don’t leave until that happens. And stay engaged at whatever level
—
it doesn’t have to be elected office. There are many ways to be a leader
.
—A
RIANNA
H
UFFINGTON, PRESIDENT AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF& THE
H
UFFINGTON
P
OST
M
EDIA
G
ROUP
If you don’t strive for a seat at the table, you can’t complain about what is decided there
.
—T
INA
B
ROWN, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF
T
HE
D
AILY
B
EAST
AND FOUNDER OF
W
OMEN IN THE
W
ORLD
There are multiple levels of leadership. Your leadership in your own family, your community, how you lead your life, how you present yourself in the world as one who is willing to use what you have to give to others. That to me [is] the defining meaning of what it takes to be a leader
.
—O
PRAH
W
INFREY
Lord knows it’s scary to step out in this culture, isn’t it? It’s scary to take the road less travelled. It’s scary to upend your life, and flip up your life, or walk into a room and say, “I’d like to be the leader of this.” This is a scary, scary, thing. Who you are, and how you think and how you feel and how you remember and how you process does come from the brain. And women’s and men’s brains are different. Who you decide you are and want to be comes from your experiences and how you process them and how you believe your life should go. I think that’s all really important. It’s really hard to go and lead if you don’t know who you are
.
—M
ARIA
S
HRIVER
We need women to speak up. Women are the creators and, in my opinion, the leadership qualities that are needed to really propel things forward are feminine, and both men and women need to draw on these attributes because the times are calling for it. You know, I’ve always had a thing for “C” words. Create. Connect. Collaborate. Communicate. Change. Compassion. Community. These are the words I’ve leaned on in my own experience as a leader, and when I really look at these words I see how how they are all about feminine leadership
.
—D
ONNA
K
ARAN
I believe that the world needs leaders
—
either men or women
—
who have done the internal work to understand what it means to be alive. They should have
a degree of success or expertise in their field, but within that they need to have done the work to connect to themselves. We need leaders who spend an equal amount of time striving to understand their own humanness while also striving to achieve their professional goals
.
—S
ALLY
F
IELD
“I look at my daughter, who, as little as she is, has a sense that women can do anything. In her lifetime
—
since she’s been old enough to pay attention
—
she’s only known a black president and a woman who was very close to being president. I think that has changed her perspective on what is possible. . . . I think that her sense of expectation is an incredible, powerful thing, because she walks into a room with, ‘Of course I can do this!’ So I think you have a generation that thinks that way, as opposed to one person who feels that way. I think that’s very powerful.”
S
OLEDAD
O’B
RIEN IS
an award winning journalist, documentarian, news anchor, and producer. She was previously a special correspondent for CNN and the anchor of CNN’s
Starting Point
. O’Brien was the originator of the highly successful documentary series
Black in America
and
Latino in America
. In June 2013 she launched Starfish Media Group, a multi-platform media production and distribution company dedicated to uncovering and producing empowering stories that take a challenging look at the often divisive issues of race, class, wealth, and poverty. Also through Starfish Media Group, O’Brien will contribute short-form segments for the upcoming Al Jazeera America news program
America Tonight
. She is also a regular contributor to
Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel
.
