What Will It Take to Make A Woman President?: Conversations About Women, Leadership and Power (27 page)

O’Brien has reported on breaking news from around the globe. She won an Emmy for her coverage of the earthquake in Haiti and a George
Foster Peabody award for her coverage of Hurricane Katrina. O’Brien was named journalist of the year by the National Association of Black Journalists and one of
Newsweek’s
“10 People who Make America Great.” O’Brien and her husband run the Soledad O’Brien & Brad Raymond Foundation, which sends young women to and through college.

MARIANNE SCHNALL
: This book is about a woman president as a symbol, but much more generally just about the need to encourage women and girls into leadership positions and the changing paradigms in politics and in our culture at large. It actually came to be through a question from my then eight-year-old daughter. It was right after Obama was elected president and we were talking, as a family, about how amazing it was that we had an African American president and my daughter, Lotus, looked at me and said, “Why haven’t we ever had a woman president?” And it seemed like this very simple, obvious question, and yet I found it somewhat difficult to answer. So I always like to start by saying, how would you explain it? Why do you think we’ve never had a woman president?

SOLEDAD O’BRIEN
: I had a very similar conversation with my daughter, Cecilia, in 2008. She was six years old at the time. She almost couldn’t believe me. She kept saying, “So he’s the
first
black president?” And I said, “Yeah!” She said, “But the
first?”
“Yeah, it’s the first!” As if I had been lying to her all these years. And then she said, “Well, how many girls have we had?” And I’m like, “No girls. There have been no girls.” She never went on to ask the why, but of course, the question of the why not is inherent. And you know, I think that some of it is opportunities for women. And . . . I guess it’s sort of both sides of the coin, right? Some of it is external—people have to be ready for that, the electorate has to be ready
for that. And then, women have to be ready to assume the mantle to lead. I think we’ve made a good amount of progress on that; we see women in leadership positions across the board. And I think we also made a lot of progress on people being ready for women to be in leadership positions in a very visible place. So I think we’re very close to that.

MS
: What factors or conditions do you think need to be in place to make a woman president? And do you think, in terms of our consciousness, we’re ready for that?

SO
: Yeah, again, I think that the very fact that a six-year-old girl, who’s now a ten-year-old, is saying, “Well, how many girls?” because she’s used to girls doing everything. And some of that is just the accepted norms of her life. I think it’s a generational issue, more than anything else.

MS
: Yes, that reminds me of sometimes this notion that girls, or younger women, can be complacent just because they haven’t known as much about the struggles women have faced. Do you think that can have a negative impact in terms of being complacent or not being as activist, because they’re not as aware that these kinds of barriers exist?

SO
: I actually think there’s a certain amount of activism in this sense of expectation. I think there’s a tremendous amount of power when there’s a sense of expectation that you are in line to run a company. It is possible for you to be president. So I think there is a real power in that. I don’t know that it’s all about marching, shouting activism. I think some of it is that, but there’s a certain amount of making people ready to lead. 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.

MS
: That’s very true.

SO
: I think that has changed her perspective on what is possible. She’s only known high-level executives who are women. My husband is an investment banker. She knows lots of women who run things in investment banking and who are her teachers and who are people who are at high levels in every field, mostly because I run around and interview them. So 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.

MS
: I know that part of this whole conversation about encouraging women into leadership positions is also about getting men on board for this and reframing it not as a “women’s issue,” but about the benefits to everyone of having equality and balance in leadership positions. I know sometimes it’s hard to answer these questions without making generalizations, but what special qualities do you think a woman president, or women in positions of influence in general, would bring to the table that the world most needs now?

SO
: You know, I think there’s been a lot of research into how men and women lead differently, and you certainly can pull all that. But what I have found in the documentaries I’ve done, which focus on people who are sort of outsiders to the process—whether it was the documentary that we did about the women at Ground Zero, women who worked as rescue workers during 9/11—they were outsiders who brought a different perspective. [In the documentaries]
Black in America, Latino in America
—it’s often we talk about the outsiders trying to figure out how to navigate sort of the bigger inside. So I think that the bulk of your answer is in the research
that tells you women do this and they’re more collaborative, and I’ve read a bunch of that. But what I think is more powerful is you come from this outsider perspective, so when you take your seat at the table you don’t necessarily ask all the same questions that other people would. You don’t necessarily bring with you all the same people that other people would. You bring a different perspective, you bring a different background.

I remember having a male colleague who would look at pregnant women and sort of roll his eyes, like “Ugh, it’s going to be such a drag.” He was a super nice guy; it wasn’t that he was a bad person. I think he treated everybody very fairly, but I think our take on what that symbolized was very different. I know that pregnant women, once they have the baby, they get much more done. I remember being like that when I had a young child. I would have been happy to surround myself with women. In fact, most of my friends are women with small children. We’re all in the same boat. We are very efficient. I think you just bring a different mindset to the table than other people, and certainly in my business, that expands the storytelling that you are able to do.

MS
: The lack of women in leadership roles extends beyond Washington, where women are only 18 percent of Congress. Women hold just 14 percent of executive officer positions, 16 percent of corporate board seats and are only in 3 percent of clout positions in the media. How do you think the lack of women in leadership positions in other arenas is connected to the lack of women in Washington?

SO
: I think it’s connected in very tangible ways when it comes to money and support. The problem of the pipeline issue is a genuine and important one: in order to be able to run stuff, you have to have run stuff, right? You need to be on boards in order to have credibility. And you need to be on corporate boards, because those are people who are powerful and make a
lot of money. Those are important, high level, networking kinds of people who are important to your support, whatever you’re going to do in your career, whether it’s going to be in the corporate environment or you’re going to be in Washington, D.C. So it’s not just that it would be nice but irrelevant. It’s not irrelevant. I think there is absolute correlation—it’s a certain amassing of power in a corporate level that we all know then translates very handily to Washington, D.C.

MS
: Do you think that, in terms of being a milestone for women and the world, having a woman in the Oval Office would have the same impact that electing Barack Obama had for African American people? How symbolic do you think it would be to have a woman as president?

SO
: I think it would be huge. I just think it’s huge in the sense of, back to my six-year-old, where ultimately it’s the optics of this is what’s possible. This is the kind of thing that’s possible. We know it’s always tough being the first, but once you’ve gotten to the first, then you’re really in a position to move the needle.

MS
: In this last election there was obviously increased diversity, not just for women but in general. What did the results of this last election tell us about the way our electorate and the face of our government is changing? Were there particular trends that interest you that you thought were hopeful?

SO
: Yeah, I think that there are two big takeaways and they almost are a mirror reflection of each other. Number one, the nation is very divided. We’re really very, very partisan. And number two, the nation is becoming more diverse, and I think the GOP has clearly recognized that if it can’t figure out how to appeal to that more diverse nation, they’re going to have some big problems. If you look at the turnout, it was higher than
what anybody expected. Where the models were off was that the models predicted that fewer people would turn out—fewer black people, fewer Latinos. The economy is down, fewer would turn out. And that was just not the case. So if you can’t figure out how to break through that model, you’re not going to win.

MS
: So what do you credit that to? Do you feel like people are awakening to a sense of their own responsibility and the importance of being an active part of our democracy and realizing our power as citizens?

SO
: I think certain things resonated with people, and I think people felt like they were fighting social issues that had already been decided. Contraception was one, the idea that all these comments about rape . . . I think they were very hurtful to the GOP, that even if you had these outliers who were not necessarily espousing a position that was held by the particular party, they wouldn’t come out against them either. Ultimately it was very damaging to them, that we were sort of re-discussing what was really rape, and should women really have access to contraception? Those were kind of these crazy conversations we were having on our morning show. So I think whenever you get knee-deep in social issues, you really do motivate people. I think immigration was a big, big emotional debate for people that spurred them to the polls.

MS
: I know you have your own foundation that provides scholarships to women. The mission statement at your site is, “We provide young women with a bridge between obstacles and opportunity by giving them the resources to overcome barriers and reach their highest potential.” What inspired you to found that organization, and what is the role of education in terms of this conversation, about grooming future women leaders?

SO
: Well, you absolutely cannot move anywhere without education. Education is that bridge. We really focus on education because I can’t think of a better way to help women. Most of our girls are in poverty situations or situations where they just cannot afford their college education. The best possible way to help them move from one category into the next, out of struggling and into solid opportunity, is through education. So that’s why that was the focus for our foundation. And then with that, of course, along came the tuition payments and things like that, but also wraparound services—they need mentoring, they need ways to see women being successful. Our biggest challenge was that these girls aim very low and they just don’t see what’s possible because they really haven’t had that opportunity to know what’s possible.

MS
: That was one thing that I wanted to ask you, because you’ve done some amazing work to bring up issues surrounding race through
Black In America
and other work that you do. As hard as it is for women generally to reach leadership positions, obviously minority groups face additional challenges. What is the situation, in particular for African American women and women of other minority groups? What specific challenges do they face and what support do they need?

SO
: I think it’s the same—I think women just need to have somebody to guide them. A group called the XX Project asked me to speak yesterday. It’s a new group of women who are basically having speakers talk about the challenges for women in business. And so we had this exact conversation yesterday. We talked a little bit about my foundation and then we were talking about women in business. Everybody needs some kind of mentor to figure out how to navigate what they’re trying to get to. People like to hire who they look like—whether you’re talking gender or race—and breaking through that can be very, very challenging. Figuring
out how you juggle all that and juggle a personal life, as well, and a healthy family—I think that’s really very hard and it requires a lot of mentoring. Being great at your job is not enough.