What Will It Take to Make A Woman President?: Conversations About Women, Leadership and Power (53 page)

MS
: I can tell from the work that you do that you have such a love for women. What special qualities do women have? What is it about women that you admire?

DVF
: Strength. That’s really it.

MS
: I know you work closely with international organizations such as Vital Voices. We have our own struggles here in the United States, but sometimes we forget the situation for women around the world. What’s your insight into women from a global perspective?

DVF
: I am amazed by the strength of women. And the more they are being put down, the stronger they are. Women’s strength just never ceases to amaze me and to inspire me.

CAROL GILLIGAN

“The rule of older white men is patriarchal
—
it’s not democratic. This election the key, and why the Republicans didn’t anticipate the outcome is, they didn’t see women, people of color, young people
—
these are all the categories that are disempowered in a patriarchal view. That’s what the fight is about. It goes to the core of what I see as feminism, which is the movement to free democracy from patriarchy. And when we do that, then of course women can be leaders, people of color can be leaders.”

C
AROL
G
ILLIGAN
, P
H
D, named one of the twenty-five most influential Americans in 1996 by
Time
magazine, has shown how the inclusion of women’s and girls’ voices changes the paradigm of psychology, opening up new ways of thinking about education and mental health. Her books include
In a Different Voice; Meeting at the Crossroads; Between Voice and Silence; The Deepening Darkness: Patriarchy, Resistance, and Democracy’s Future;
and
The Birth of Pleasure
. She recently released her first work of fiction, a novel, titled
Kyra
, and her play,
The Scarlet Letter
, has become the libretto for the opera
Pearl
. Her latest book is
Joining the Resistance
. Together with her students, Gilligan founded the Harvard Project on Women’s Psychology and Girls’ Development, and in 1997, she was appointed to Harvard’s first professorship in gender studies. Gilligan is currently a university professor at New York University.

MARIANNE SCHNALL
: Why do you think it is that we’ve not yet had a woman president? Or what would you have said to an eight-year-old girl who asked you that question?

CAROL GILLIGAN
: I think it’s because in this country we still associate leadership with men. Even the term of the president, and the name of the president as commander in chief, evokes an image for people that is militaristic, that is male. And that was the big question about Hillary Clinton: Could she be the commander in chief? Could she be like a man? And if you’re asking could a woman be like a man, then you might as well, in some ways, really have a man [
laughs]
.

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

CG
: Well, I think we need to rethink what we mean by
president
, what we mean by
leader
. And there’s a simple equity question, which is, women should have the same right to be anything that men are—in terms of women can be plumbers and women can be astronauts and women can be lawyers and doctors and women should be able to be president. I think the much more interesting question to me is, would it make a difference to have a woman president? I mean, I think it has made a real difference to have an African American as president. It has really spoken to the heart of a prejudice in this country that assumed that black people were inferior, that they were incapable of leadership. I think it’s very interesting to say . . . the last two Democratic presidents have been children of single mothers, which
completely contradicts all the myths about if you don’t have a father, a man can’t emerge as a strong leader, because what could be more strong than the president of the United States? So I think we have a lot of prejudices floating around about who men are and who women are that are very misleading. And I think to have a woman president, particularly if she brought qualities that in this culture are still gendered feminine—like the discussion that came up with Sonia Sotomayor, where she mentioned empathy; it’s a human quality, but it’s gendered feminine—as opposed to qualities in humans that are gendered masculine, more rational, [it would make a difference].

I think there are a whole lot of very misleading prejudices that lead to the belief that to be a president, you have to be not only a male but a certain kind of a man. And I think that having a woman president, depending on who the woman was—I mean, if you had Margaret Thatcher or Catherine the Great, it really doesn’t make a lot of difference, except for opening up possibilities to girls—but if you had a woman who brought human strengths that we think of as feminine, like a capacity for mutual understanding and empathy and cooperation, that would be terrific. And I think in some ways Obama brings those qualities, so his manhood has been questioned.

MS
: I think that’s really true in the sense that he talks about how important family is or shows his emotions, so maybe that all helps.

CG
: Well, not only that, but the way he says, basically, “We’ll talk to anybody.” [He stresses] the importance of listening and talking and really responding to people. But I must say that I’m not someone who thinks it would be so great to have Sarah Palin as president. I don’t think the question is really the right question. Or Michele Bachmann. I think those would be a disaster. I’d much rather have Obama than Sarah Palin.

MS
: With this book, a woman president is a symbol, but it’s more this overall idea of just having more women in positions of power at the table. Aside from its being an equality thing or a fairness thing, do you think there are special qualities that women would bring to leadership that the United States or the world needs? Why are women’s voices—or, more to the point, why is diversity—important?

CG
: I think the question with women is more to the point, because very important human strengths that, it seems to me, are absolutely essential to probable survival at this point in history are gendered feminine in this culture. The value on relationships, the value on integrating thought with emotion, a kind of sense that there’s more than one story, the search for mutual understanding—these are all traits that in a patriarchy are gendered feminine. Caring about people—think about the healthcare debate. The idea was, the government shouldn’t do healthcare, which meant basically women should be doing it, because that’s who does it if the government doesn’t do it.

MS
: It’s interesting what you were saying about these values not necessarily being embodied in any woman, per se, but as a psychologist, do you think that women more naturally carry these “feminine traits”?

CG
: No, I think patriarchal cultures divide human qualities into masculine and feminine. Now . . . it’s found that being around young children affects both men and women on a hormonal level and increases their levels of prolactin, which is associated with nurturing. So, for good reasons, partly having to do with biology, women are more likely to be involved in these activities of caring, and that certainly encourages and develops those human qualities. But these are basic human qualities; these are not
feminine qualities. It’s just that certain kinds of masculinity mean that boys have to distance themselves from feelings and emotions and relationships and act as if they are self-sufficient. Nobody is.

MS
: Do you think that some of those stereotypes and pressures are more pronounced in our government and in positions of political leadership than in other sectors? I sometimes wonder if there’s this unspoken fear about having a woman as president—that maybe she won’t be tough enough to go to war, or she’ll be too moody or hormonal—these kind of misconceptions or stereotypes that maybe prevent women and men from seeing a woman in that position.

CG
: There’s no question that there are those stereotypes. But how do we feel about George Bush? He was a man taking us into two wars, unjustified wars.

MS
: How do you think Hillary’s candidacy affected how we perceive women leaders? Did anything interesting emerge to you out of her run?

CG
: Sure . . . I mean, she almost won the Democratic nomination. And I think she has continued to grow in stature. I think that a woman president now seems much closer than it did before she ran. I think that was historic.

MS
: At the same time, it was interesting to see some of the vitriol she faced as well. She always seemed to be in this catch-22. Sheryl Sandberg’s book talks a lot about this likability factor—that success and confidence are negatively correlated for women, but for men they’re positively correlated. So it was interesting just seeing all that “Hillary nutcracker” stuff and the jokes that were made about her.

CG
: Yeah, the sexism that that campaign brought out was tremendous. I mean, people who called her—what did they call her?—a witch, hellish something; [the comments] that when she speaks, men hear, “Take out the garbage.” I mean, it really brought out [the sexism] . . . just as Obama’s presidency brought out the racism. And George Bush’s presidency brought out stereotypes of masculinity when he said, “I’m the decider.” But also, I think people are much more attuned right now to these stereotypes and the fact that they are stereotypes. So, in a sense, both Obama and Hillary had to establish that they were “like real men,” that Hillary would go to war and that Obama was a real man and not too empathic. I mean, I think it really is this division of human qualities into masculine and feminine—a gendered binary—that’s patriarchy. So both women and men are divided from parts of their humanity, and men are not supposed to cry and women are not supposed to be assertive.

MS
: That’s the other end of the spectrum, because obviously we talk a lot about the stereotypes of women, but I remember when I interviewed Gloria Steinem, she was talking about how it is equally important to redefine gender roles for men and boys. Why is that so important to this conversation?

CG
: Because the two are inseparable from each other. I mean, if men and boys are seen as rational and self-sufficient and emotionally stoic, and women then are seen as the opposite—irrational, too emotional and dependent—the fact is, we’re all interdependent. It’s of a piece. Until we do show that the stereotypes of men are misleading, it’s a whole system that pulls this division of people into either men or women, as though those are two opposites.

MS
: You’ve been working on this a long time. Are you seeing signs of hope and progress, or do you feel like we’re in some ways stuck?

CG
: Oh no, I think there’s huge progress, and I think that’s why there’s such a fight over these issues.

MS
: So are you seeing signs of backlash right now?

CG
: You know, if you think historically, this is really about the move from patriarchy to democracy, because in patriarchy it’s all about gender, and in democracy gender is irrelevant—it’s really about human qualities. So we’re moving from patriarchy to democracy, and of course there’s a fight. You see it from all the patriarchal institutions, the churches, and in all the fights about gay marriage and abortion. The attempt in the last election by the group of older white men trying to legislate control over women’s sexuality . . . that’s strictly patriarchy.

MS
: It’s been pretty amazing to watch all of that. And yet I’m heartened by, first of all, the results of the last election, but also by the uprising, the enormous pushback of people—whether it’s been on the Internet or just in general—against that.

CG
: I think what was implicit in the so-called culture wars is now explicit. It’s been named: it’s a war between patriarchy and democracy. And it’s much more explicit on both sides what the fight is about. And I think it’s a really important fight; I think survival probably hinges on the balance.

MS
: I did feel like the last election, in terms of both turnout and just the way the diversity is showing up in our elected leaders, is a hopeful sign, so that the government is starting to look more like America and people are realizing their power.