What Will It Take to Make A Woman President?: Conversations About Women, Leadership and Power (5 page)

MS
: You mentioned men, and I do think that is the next frontier of this conversation—what you were saying about these destructive gender stereotypes perpetuated by the media aimed at boys and men. There are unhealthy paradigms of power and leadership that affect men, as well. That’s partially why we can’t view a woman doing it, because it’s been such a hyper-masculine way of leading, but it’s also—and
Miss Representation
did a great job of showing this—how these sexualized images of women affect men and boys, what they look at and what they notice when they see a woman, what they value.

JSN
: Exactly. And that’s become normalized for them, so women are objects for the male gaze. Women can be violated and that’s okay, and
we can laugh about it and those guys who raped a woman can get off and we’ll come to their defense. I mean, it’s so skewed. I was on
The Jeff Probst Show
yesterday, down in L.A., Jeff Probst from
Survivor
. He’s raising a son and daughter, but in raising his son,
Miss Representation
totally opened up his eyes and now he sees the world in such a different way, which I love. I love hearing that, especially when men take the time to see the film. And he said, “It’s my responsibility to raise my son to—obviously sexual urges, those are natural—but to respect women as he respects his sister and to see women as so much more than just an object, than just a thing, than just something for his own gain. And to really give them the dignity and respect that they deserve.” And so to your point, we have to take into account now, more than ever, how this hyper-sexualized world, this normalized attitude toward women in our male population, so demeans and limits women and women’s potential.

MS
: There was a psychologist who talked about a study that there was a certain age at which both boys and girls say they want to be president, and then just a few years later, the girls stop saying that. Do you remember that stat?

JSN
: At the age of seven, like 30 percent across the board, boys and girls want to be president. And then at the age of thirteen, the numbers completely skew. You have one girl for every nine guys that want to be president.

MS
: So how do you explain that age drop off? What happens in those years, do you think?

JSN
: At ages ten to twelve, girls learn patriarchy. They learn their place in the world. They learn that there isn’t a seat for them at the table, that they
aren’t the natural born leaders. I mean, that’s what they’re taught. That’s not truthful, but that’s what our society has constructed, so to speak. Boys at four and five are learning patriarchy, they’re learning hierarchy, the alpha male, the top dog. If you don’t conform as a young boy, you’re increasingly pushed out of that sort of club, so to speak. And they move along, and when boys are about ten to twelve, they start to devalue and dissassociate from the feminine more and more . . . that’s oftentimes when they start to pull away from their mothers. Then you reach the later high school years . . . and by the way, so many boys are resisting and they’re so unhappy in this period, but you don’t see real depression in these boys as they enter their later high school years, because they recognize that in America—and it’s not just in America, but our country is very unique in this regard—to become a man at the age of seventeen or eighteen is to be stoic, is to be independent, is to be empowered, is to be in control; to not preserve those relationships and those friendships that literally grounded them at their childhood years. And it’s quite lonely because what we’re learning, which is so beautiful to me, is that boys have this innate, natural empathy and a need for relationships. All their play is relationship based, so they need and crave and want their male friends. Unfortunately, through what they learn about being a man, they have to push those relationships away . . . because we feminize relationships, we feminize intimacy and care and love and empathy to a certain extent.

So you start to really see a period that’s increasingly lonely and painful and isolating for young boys. And there obviously are the boys that resist it, and some resist it successfully, but oftentimes the ones that resist are made fun of and criticized and further subjected to ridicule and abuse. Having a daughter and a son and another daughter on the way, I want so badly to shift this and create a healthier culture where we just raise the boys to be true to who they really are—these authentic beautiful, emotional beings. But, gosh, we as parents and as teachers and as educators in
all forms—coaches, after-school, grandparents, whatever—we’re so stuck in what we’ve accepted as normal. This is what it is to be a man. This is what it is to be a woman. And it’s increasingly then been pushed to extremes vis à vis media, which perpetuate it, and capitalism, which is all about sell, sell, sell. It’s much easier, for them at least, to market that way. We’re creating a very painful and lonely existence for both our men and our women.

MS
: One of the things I keep hearing in my interviews about politics today is the role of money—everybody keeps bringing up how money is corrupting politics, but I also know
Miss Representation
addressed how money is also corrupting the media. Can you talk a little bit about the role that that plays?

JSN
: We now have media conglomerates whose goal and mission is 100 percent the bottom line. It’s all about eyeballs, and how do they attract eyeballs? They sexualize and they push extremes, whether they be violent extremes or verbal extremes, pitting people against each other—just any kind of tension, any kind of drama, any kind of opportunity to get people to pay attention. And it’s horrific. It’s a race to the bottom line. It’s literally a race to the lowest common denominator of what it is to be an American. So in fact, with the news media, and the entertainment media . . . it’s interesting, my husband was saying the other day, “The thing I love about MSNBC is that all of the hosts and personalities are really smart, they’re just real intellectuals.” He’s like, “The thing I don’t love is they’re so smart that they’re oftentimes really above the heads of your average American.” And he wonders if they’re losing the average American, just because they’re almost too smart [
laughs]
and too thoughtful, as compared to—obviously I’m sounding partisan here—but compared to, like, Fox, who are all about fear mongering and also sexualizing their female news
anchors and their guests. I was on [Fox News] and I had like an inch of pancake makeup and eyelashes and the whole thing, and I was just going, “Are you freaking kidding me? I look like a clown!” But that’s what they push, that’s how they think they’re going to attract eyeballs and attract viewers and ultimately up their numbers. And by saying extreme things, by saying completely crazy things, but people buy into it—people who are afraid, people who are small minded—the more they see it, the more they view, the more they buy into that belief system, and then that closes them off to the reality in the rest of the world. We’re not reporting the news anymore, right? It’s entertainment.

MS
: Part of this is about women feeling their own power and developing their own sense of being a leader or a change maker. For you, was that something that you had to purposely develop? You seem very comfortable speaking your mind. Where did that come from in you?

JSN
: I was always the girl that raised my hand first in class and I was always the team captain pushing my teammates to help us win. So I was always, I don’t know if the word “bossy” is correct, but I was always the, “Let’s go, let’s go, come on, come on,”—that girl. And I think I maybe just translated that to my role now in terms of trying to wake up people’s consciousness and speak what I see as the truth in the hopes that they’ll be able to see it through the lens that we’ve created. I was talking with Nicole Brown yesterday, and Nicole said to me, “Jennifer, I felt like when I watched
Miss Representation
that you were literally thinking my thoughts; you were in my head, because everything you said is everything I think about, all the time.” And it was really cool. I thought,
That’s awesome
. At the end of the day, I want
Miss Rep
to be not only a platform to enable other’s voices to be heard, but to amplify—I really wanted to be a champion for and a voice for and an amplification of all the voices that are out there that are saying “enough.” So I guess I do have conviction. I am fearless, although I do have thin skin. But I do feel like it’s our responsibility and I feel like I’ve been given this opportunity through making this film and then being married to my husband and having this strong conviction to keep fighting the fight. As long as I’m allowed to and enabled to, I will.

In terms of further leadership, every once in a while—because I have such admiration for Senator Feinstein and Jackie Speier and Pelosi and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand—I think to myself,
Would I ever do that?
But right now I feel like I can have the most impact where I am, and I honestly admire them so much. I think I just want to be there with them, because I’m so annoyed with the pathetic, spineless leadership that we have across the country, that is not putting our country first and not putting our citizens first and our women and our kids and our immigrants and all the people that are elderly—that those in leadership in our country aren’t thinking about our most vulnerable citizens. So there’s a part of me that thinks that right now this is the most effective way: to keep making movies and producing content and getting out there and championing what so many people feel are the causes and the way forward that is necessary. And I love getting behind women who are fearless . . . and men who have consciousness. Let’s not exclude them, because I guess my husband and I came together for a reason, and I’m so proud of him. I want more people to speak out the way he does and to use their positions and platforms to do good for the world. And so I’ll continue to champion him, as I will continue to champion women, and other men who do that. We just need more of them.

MS
: Coming back to the first question that I was going to ask—why do you think we’ve not had a woman president, and what do you think it will take to make it happen? Do you feel like we’re ready for that?

JSN
: Good question. So why have we not had a woman president? Because leadership has been masculinized. Interestingly with Hillary Clinton, I think to a certain extent she distanced herself from being a woman per some of her campaign leaders’ instincts. I think it was a disservice, because all of a sudden women looked at her and they were like, “No, no, but wait, wait—you’re one of us!” So there was that tension and conflict.

But are we ready? We are ready, and I think Hillary Clinton has to be our next president. And I’m obviously biased. I think it’s going to get ugly when people start holding her to a real double-standard when it comes to the way she looks, because she’s aging. We have a real ageism problem in our country at this time. But she’s proved herself and I think there are enough women in our country—and men, for that matter—who would like to see her as president. She’s smarter than any other potential candidates that I know of on the other side. She so deserves to be there. She’s so capable. So at the end of the day I think she could be our next president.

MS
: What advice or what message would you most want to give to young girls on valuing their voices and seeing themselves as leaders?

JSN
: If you can see it, you can be it. But you don’t even have to see it at this point. You are it. Your voice matters, most importantly. Every voice counts. Every voice matters and that voice needs to be heard. And by not using your voice, you’re doing a disservice, not only to yourself, but to the community and to the world at large. So I actually like to approach it from, “It’s your responsibility, girls. Get over your looks. Get over your insecurities. You have a responsibility to all of us. We need your help.” I think girls and women are our heroes and they need to start seeing themselves as our heroes and to come help us out of the mess that we’re in.

PAT MITCHELL

“What women don’t know enough is that when women run, they win as often as men do. In spite of the obstacles . . . when they do decide, ‘I’m going to do this because it’s important,’ they do win as often. What can we do about that? As consumers we can do one big thing: we can insist that the press cover a woman’s campaign in the same way as a man. And when they don’t . . . we can insist, ‘I’m not reading that paper anymore, I’m not going to that website, I’m not going to listen to that newscast until you give that woman candidate the same kind of fair and accurate coverage.’”

P
AT
M
ITCHELL’S DIVERSE
background in media includes work as a journalist and producer and executive. She has worked in front of the camera and behind, anchoring the news and reporting for broadcast networks, producing award winning documentaries as president of CNN Productions, becoming the first woman president and CEO of PBS, and currently is the president and CEO of the Paley Center for Media, whose mission is to convene media professionals and media consumers for programs that explore the role of media in society. Mitchell was the first woman to launch, produce, and host her own nationally syndicated program
Woman to Woman
, and continues to be active in breaking new ground for women across the media landscape, including a current series of initiatives and programs called
Women@Paley
, which includes producing
an annual TEDWomen conference in partnership with the TED organization. Her many awards include multiple Emmy Awards, five Peabodys, and two Academy Award nominations.
The Huffington Post
named Pat one of the Powerful Women over 50. She also recently was named one of the 21 Leaders for the 21st Century and
Newsweek’s
150 Women Who Shake the World. The Women’s Media Center has honored Mitchell with the Pat Mitchell Lifetime Achievement Award, an award that will be given annually in her name.