What Will It Take to Make A Woman President?: Conversations About Women, Leadership and Power (33 page)

MS
: It’s interesting, because I interviewed Sheryl Sandberg, and she was talking about this problem of the likability factor. She said that as a woman gets more successful, she’s less liked by people of both genders—men and women—whereas as a man gets more successful, he doesn’t take a likability hit. What can we do about this conundrum? It’s a little bit of a catch-22.

ME
: We have to like you, and you have to be able to kill someone [
laughs]
. Why would we like somebody who can actually do that? It says more about our own conundrum of how we’re going to perceive who we are as a society, as people. And it’s all changing so fast. Our children comprehend things on a level that took us our whole lifetime to get. So I actually look into the future and think, I can’t even comprehend what’s coming.

MS
: It does feel like there’s some kind of a shift happening, even in this last election, which was decided by a much more diverse electorate and the collective power of minority groups, including women. And of course we
have reelected our first African American president. What will this mean for our country and our government to look more like America, which is, I guess, where we’re headed?

ME
: Right. It’s the funny joke on America that we want to be perceived as one thing, and what we really are, and have always been, is this amazing diversity. This idea, this dream, that there’s a land where anyone can come and become anything they dream. How do we hold the American dream? When you realize it’s for everyone and it doesn’t matter if someone else dreams it, you’re still going to have enough. I don’t care where you live now, there’s a huge diversity of people. New York, L.A., the big cities—it’s such a melting pot. It’s happening everywhere. I go back to my hometown, [and] there are people looking for a life, and they’re of all different colors and shapes and sizes and persuasions. And when we finally go, “Okay, I’m not going to be afraid of a person that’s different from me, I’m not going to be afraid,” we will become so amazingly powerful that we’ll go, “Why didn’t we do this before?”

MS
: That’s part of it—that this isn’t necessarily about just equality. What are the benefits, do you think? Why is it important, for example, to have more women in leadership? Aside from a fairness thing, what does that mean?

ME
: Because it’s about balance. If you study history, look into history, or even are interested in history, you understand our ancient history and how before two thousand years ago we were a feminine-based culture. This idea that there’s balance between male and female—we
have
to come to that. Not all the way, to where women rule and that’s it, but understanding in each of us the male and female. These ideas that the woman can only do this and the man can only do that—constantly, every day, that’s turned upside down on its head. So we can’t play these roles anymore.

MS
: Obviously society and the political process have a lot of obstacles, but the other piece of it is self-imposed obstacles from women themselves, because we are so indoctrinated by all of the forces that are out there, telling us to be like everybody else and not value our own voice or obsess about how we look, or whatever it is.

ME
: Yeah, it’s okay to want to be pretty. It’s okay to wear a skirt and like your legs. I like the way women’s legs look—it’s fine. (Or not! I definitely always feel more comfortable in pants.) But one way is not right and the other wrong. I was that woman in the eighties who finally, I was in my twenties and, “Here I am, I’m a feminist!” and then it all went away—you know, Susan Faludi’s
Backlash
. I remember reading that and saying, “Holy cow, this is exactly what’s happening.” There was a lot of that, “Well, they’re just afraid of lesbians.” They called them all lesbians, because, yes, there were lesbians who were leaders in women’s rights. And yet it just tore the thing apart because they were afraid of their own. The straight women were like, “No, we can’t.” Then they had to be against lesbianism, and then all of a sudden you’re screwed, you’re the house divided. And it just fell apart. We’re more afraid of being powerful than not having the power.

MS
: What can we do to help women and girls to see themselves as change agents in the world? Or even you personally—where did you get the courage to find your authentic voice and your inner leader, to so boldly speak out and be your true self?

ME
: You have to find it. The beautiful thing was, it was probably my relationship with my father that helped me the most. I find that a lot of our leaders have strong relationships with their fathers. The women who have that understand that “I can be strong and powerful, and I will still be supported by a male.” When you have that, you feel that it’s okay to be a
woman
and
have that drive. And my father was a high school basketball coach, he was a teacher, he was a leader in the National Educational Association. He and my mother both were. He was a Republican and she was a Democrat. So I got both sides of politics, from both of them. And my mother worked, and she made more money than my father! She ran the finances, so I always had this really balanced feel in my home. So when you come from that and it’s inside you, then you just are that. I remember when my first record was coming out and my record company said, “Well, what are you going to do about the ‘gay’ thing?” A guy at my record company finally said, “I don’t want you to present yourself as something you’re not”; then he said, “We don’t need to be flag waving.” That’s what he said. And then a few years later, I did flag-wave. Yet everyone looked at me and thought,
There’s no way she’s going to, like, you know, show up with a guy and pretend like he’s her boyfriend or something
. It’s about walking in your truth. So as we raise our children, our young girls, show them by being an example. Show them that we can be balanced, that this is how it can be. And then their belief in it will be so strong that there will be no pushing it back, because they believe it that deeply. That’s what brings about the change.

MS
: I feel that having an African American president will help lead the way for a woman president, but I also think this rise of awareness and rights for LGBT issues, and the fact that we just elected Tammy Baldwin, who is the first openly gay politician to be elected to the United States Senate, as well as the first Wisconsin woman elected to the United States Senate, is not all in isolation. How do you see this as connected, as a general shift of all the paradigms?

ME
: It’s about the big balance. You can look at it as matriarchal and patriarchal. You can call it good and bad, light and dark. It’s not only do we need the good to rise up, but we also need the “bad,” the dark, the patriarchal.
It’s not about going all one way. And once those who fear that comprehend that, and that fear fades, then all of these paradigms, from female president to not only what our government looks like, but what are the issues and how do we solve them—the solving, the answers, are going to be so amazingly different, because all the trouble goes away with a new understanding. Roe v. Wade, the right to an abortion, is going to become obsolete because women are going to understand their own reproductive power.

MS
: Again, this has never been about women making better leaders than men—but in general, what do you think are the ingredients to successful leadership that the country, and the world, most need now, whether it’s a woman or a man?

ME
: Whether it’s a woman or a man, it’s understanding. It’s a belief in oneself. In the last one hundred years, I believe it became a profession [to be] a politician. This was a profession you got into, and because of our capitalist society, it became something that you could make money at, which instantly corrupts it, right? Instantly. Because then our government becomes a corporation and a corporation’s sole job is to just make more money. And . . . I think we see it starting to crumble. It’s been crumbling. Our government—which is “of the people,” which is representative of the people—is amazing. Our democracy and our whole Constitution is so incredible. To uphold it is an honor. We were raised in this country to believe that we were the best. That this was the country that was going to save the world. We were the leader of the free. And now we look around and we’re kind of like, “Wait a minute [
laughs]
. We’ve got some problems here.” And we understand that where that came from was the concept of freedom for everyone and a level playing field, and equality. So leadership in the future, whether it’s male or female, I believe will start to come from the idea of this great experiment called democracy—that was based on
Native American principles [and on] the Greek, the ancient principles—and to do that, we have to have it inside ourselves to know not to fear any diversity, but to be able to coexist with everything and anything, and that’s where power and strength for communities and our country comes from. The end.

MS
: Even though you speak so well on all of these political and social themes, you are also an artist. How do you, as an artist and a musician, particularly a female musician, perceive the role and potential of art and music in terms of creating a culture and the messages we send our boys and girls and our men and women?

ME
: That’s always been its job. That’s what it’s always been doing. I’m so honored to be a musician, to be one of the artists of my time. I take it as a great responsibility. I take it as a chance to leave behind my legacy, and in the future, I hope these things come true that I believed in so dearly. I hope that I come from a long line of these artists who mirrored society and its changes, from John Lennon to Bob Dylan to Woody Guthrie. It goes all the way back to Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith and all these artists that . . . it wasn’t about the money, it was about speaking the truth of what they saw around them. And that’s the way that we have been able to capture historically; this is the way we saw it. I know the books say one thing, but there are recordings in the sixties that gave us that other side of the wars and civil rights and everything that we were going through. I’m honored to be a part of it.

MS
: You’ve been a role model, because it’s important for a girl to see an artist who has been able to be herself and speak her truth about it and not get herself all decked out in the high heels and makeup and sexy clothes. To me, there aren’t enough female artists like you out there, especially when it comes to what girls see in terms of that culture.

ME
: Well, every young girl or young woman I see at my shows, I’m just so grateful. It’s my favorite thing when they come up and say, “You just really changed my life. You’ve given me a role model.” I do take it as a great responsibility.

MS
: You said that you foresee that we will see a woman president in your lifetime. What about . . . do you foresee a day when we will have a gay president?

ME
: Yes, I do. I think that, again, once the duality, the polarities of black and white and “You’re gay” or “You’re straight,” that’s also going to become more in the mix . . . as I see in this younger generation. I think, you’re in your twenties, you get your choices, and if you like this, too, that just widens your choice. It’s doubled my choices [
laughs]
, but I’m not going to draw my lines yet. There are always those who are one way or another, as I was and am. It’s that beautiful middle that will change the world. It’s like, yes, my life partner whom I chose is of the same sex, but it’s again not something that defines me or puts me in a box. I am a woman, and that’s just part of the wonderful, gorgeous makeup of me, one of many, many ingredients that go in. It’s those definitions that we’re [using to try] to keep everyone in these boxes, so we can all be safe, and it’s like, “You know what? It’s all out, and the diversity is there.”

MS
: So you feel hopeful?

ME
: Oh yes, absolutely.

NICHOLAS KRISTOF

“I think that if we don’t have gender diversity at the top of American politics and in corporate boards, then we’re just going to get weaker decisions, and I think that’s what we’ve been stuck with. And so I think that the great strength that women bring when they move into senior levels of politics is not that they’re more nurturing, caring, maternal figures, but that they will bring a certain level of different perspective, a different way of thinking, and that is just really valuable for all of us. This is not something that is going to benefit the women of America; it’s something that’s going to benefit all of America.”

N
ICHOLAS
K
RISTOF, A
columnist for
The New York Times
since November 2001, is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner who writes op-ed columns that appear twice a week. After graduating from Harvard College, he won a Rhodes Scholarship in 1981 to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he read law with first-class honors.

After joining
The New York Times
in 1984, initially covering economics, Kristof served as a correspondent in Los Angeles and as bureau chief in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Tokyo. In 2000, he covered the presidential campaign and authored the chapter on George W. Bush in the reference book
The Presidents
. Kristof also served as associate managing editor of
The New York Times
, responsible for Sunday editions. In 1990, Kristof and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, became the first married couple to win a
Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of China’s Tiananmen Square democracy movement. They are also coauthors of
Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide
, a
New York Times
best-selling book about the challenges facing women around the globe. Kristof won a second Pulitzer in 2006, for what the judges called “his graphic, deeply reported columns that, at personal risk, focused attention on genocide in Darfur and that gave voice to the voiceless in other parts of the world.” Kristof has taken a special interest in web journalism and was the first blogger on the
New York Times
website.