What Will It Take to Make A Woman President?: Conversations About Women, Leadership and Power (61 page)

MARIANNE SCHNALL
: Why do you think we have not yet had a woman president? And what do you think it will take to make that happen?

MARY MATALIN
: Running for president is an exceptionally complicated business requiring multiple skill sets and deep political and philosophical experience and backing. The country is not opposed to a female president; there just hasn’t been one, other than Elizabeth Dole, who has possessed the requisite combination of qualities to pass the presidential-material threshold. As more women come through the political and policy leadership pipeline, the probability of a female present in our generation is not far-fetched.

MS
: Why do you think it is important that we have more women’s voices represented both in politics and in other forms of leadership positions today?

MM
: Repeated polls suggest women inspire more trust in public office and are considered more honest, especially on fiscal issues. Women tend to be consensus builders and multitaskers in their management styles and more in tune with kitchen-table issues, since women do over 80 percent of the family budgeting, health care, education, et cetera.

MS
: What did the results of this last election tell us about the way our electorate and the face of our government is changing? What trends interested you? Do you see a shifting of paradigms happening?

MM
: We are going through a succession of
un
-elections. The public has thrown out Republican majorities and Democratic majorities in turn. While there may be a paradigmatic tactical shift in campaigns, the Democratic mantra on demography is “Destiny is not rooted in unsustainable fact.” They have been very able at turning out nonhabitual voters in presidential years but have significant drop-off in off-year elections, so the partisan gridlock will continue until the public sees their consistently cited number-one issue: fiscal responsibility. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Obama did not “win women”; he won liberal women and younger women, but lost married [women], mothers, et cetera.

MS
: We have low numbers across the board in leadership positions, not only in Washington but also in corporate America—only twenty-one of the Fortune 500 CEOs are women, and women hold about 14 percent of
executive-officer positions. How is it connected? And how do you think we can help women move up the ladders of leadership?

MM
: Among the fastest-growing sectors of the private economy, even in this anemic recovery, are women-owned small businesses. In order to have some semblance of control and order in their multitasking lives, women are opting out of inflexible working environments like large corporations and other areas that preclude either a personal and/or family life. Also, women are natural entrepreneurs. Women are discovering the male model of economic success doesn’t comport with their concept of a well-rounded life. I see this as a very promising trend.

MS
: What do you think are the greatest obstacles facing women entering and advancing through the political pipeline?

MM
: The political process is the most egalitarian and merit-based employment opportunity available. When I first got into politics, there were no women in senior positions; women now comprise, at least in the last GOP White House, more than 60 percent of the senior staff. Women have been excelling because of their competence and management talents.

MS
: Do you think there are psychological obstacles that can hold women back from pursuing leadership positions or advancing in the workplace due to gender stereotypes or cultural conditioning?

MM
: Possibly, but not prolifically; the impediments of yore, institutionalized discrimination, are aggressively thwarted. Women now outnumber males in graduate and professional degrees and are increasingly expanding into leadership roles. Women prioritize their families and lifestyle and are choosing not to participate in male-centric employment.

MS
: The numbers of women in leadership positions in Congress are even lower in the Republican Party. Why do you think that is, and what can we do to change that?

MM
: Again, the numbers and percentages of women at the local, state, and federal levels continue to increase. One doesn’t have to be an office holder to have real impact, but GOP women enjoy more statewide office dominance than Democrats.

MS
: It is well known that your husband is James Carville, a political commentator and passionate member of the Democratic Party. Having that useful perspective and experience from your own relationship, what advice or wisdom can you offer on getting along and finding consensus with people who share different views or parties, an important skill that certainly they are having trouble with in Washington right now?

MM
: Know what you believe and, more importantly, why you believe what you do. Stay informed and articulate and confident in your philosophical grounding and policy preferences. Compromising your principles doesn’t advance your argument and is a long-term losing lifestyle. I am a big fan of patience and prudence and empirical data.

MS
: You are a political consultant. What would your advice or strategy be for a woman running for office?

MM
: The same as it would be for men.

MS
: What change, if any, would you expect to see in Washington if more women were represented?

MM
: The Founders devised a constitutional system of checks and balances to be slow moving and prudent, to preclude tyranny of the majority and impetuousness of fleeting trends. The corrosive elements of our contemporaneous problems have nothing to do with gender and everything to do with resistance to ongoing reform on structural debt and unsustainable, counterproductive entitlement programs.

MS
: Do you think women who reach positions of power and influence have a responsibility to use it to uplift other women? To reach back?

MM
: They do it automatically in most cases, if they are competent and secure.

MS
: What can we as a society do to encourage girls to have expansive and powerful goals and to know their worth?

MM
: We should make girls and young women more aware of and confident in their operating principles, [and teach them] to focus less on impressing or competing with boys and men and more on their own achievements. Also, to not be lured into a false bravado of cavalier sex and relationships.

MS
: Many women look at the current political system—in terms of both the challenges of running a successful campaign and some of the dysfunction they see once they get there—and it doesn’t seem appealing. What advice or encouragement would you offer to a young woman to encourage her to pursue this path?

MM
: Focus on issues you care about, and know you can make a change. Don’t listen to naysayers or victim-mongers.

MS
: What do you think makes a good leader, male or female?

MM
: Fairness, consistency, honesty, prudence, long view, and fearlessness.

MS
: How can men be a part of this movement toward fostering greater numbers of women in leadership?

MM
: Hire and promote on merit.

MS
: We always see these lists of “the top fifty most powerful women,” et cetera. What do you think makes a powerful woman, and how do you think the way we view and use power needs to change?

MM
: The metric for “powerful women” is what defines a powerful man. Their norms don’t have to be ours. [We should] blaze our own trails.

MS
: What advice would you have for young women and girls in terms of valuing their voices and believing that they have what it takes to be leaders?

MM
: Define your own success; be true to yourself; do what makes you happy and engages you. Leave time for reflection, rest, and fun. Appreciate beauty and kindness. Keep an open heart and unshuttered mind.

JODY WILLIAMS

“I think people think that if they can’t wave their magic wand and change the whole world for the better overnight, there’s no point. I want people to understand that it’s all of the work that all of us do in different areas of trying to confront our challenges that makes the world a better place. No one person, no one issue, is the key to changing everything. And if we all contribute in our own way, even a couple of hours a month of volunteering meaningfully, how awesome would the world be?”

J
ODY
W
ILLIAMS RECEIVED
the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for her work as founding coordinator of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which shared the Peace Prize with her that year. At that time, she became the tenth woman in its almost 100-year history to receive the prize.

Like others who’ve seen the ravages of war, she’s an outspoken peace activist who struggles to reclaim the real meaning of peace—a concept which goes far beyond the absence of armed conflict and is defined by
human
security, not national security. Williams believes that working for peace is not for the faint of heart. It requires dogged persistence and a commitment to sustainable peace, built on environmental justice and meeting the basic needs of the majority of people on our planet.

Since January of 2006, Williams has worked toward those ends through the Nobel Women’s Initiative, which she chairs. Along with
Nobel Laureate Dr. Shirin Ebadi of Iran, she took the lead in establishing the Nobel Women’s Initiative. They were joined at that time by Nobel Laureates Wangari Maathai (Kenya), Rigoberta Menchú Tum (Guatemala), and Betty Williams and Mairead Maguire (Northern Ireland). The Initiative uses the prestige of the Nobel Peace Prize and the influence and access of the women Nobel Laureates themselves to support and amplify the efforts of women around the world working for sustainable peace with justice and equality. In May 2012, the Nobel Women’s Initiative launched the International Campaign to Stop Rape & Gender Violence in Conflict, which Williams co-chairs.

Her new memoir on life as a grassroots activist,
My Name is Jody Williams: A Vermont Girl’s Winding Path to the Nobel Peace Prize
, was released by the University of California Press in early 2013.

MARIANNE SCHNALL
: Why do you think we have not yet had a woman president?

JODY WILLIAMS
: Sexism [
laughs]
. It’s an easy answer. I think that it’s still sexism. I think still the framework of power is male-based. And I think that even though it is changing, that many people still can’t imagine a non–white male as president, even though we have Obama.

MS
: What do you think it will take?

JW
: I think we’re already almost there. Do you disagree?

MS
: No, I absolutely agree.

JW
: I think, for me, the bigger question is not can a woman be elected president, so much as can a woman who doesn’t totally accept the male-dominated framework of power and militarism and the macho need to show that you can be female and still be a “leader” in the military sense . . . can we ever elect someone who doesn’t fit that model? In many ways, I’m more interested in that, although I suppose we’ll have to have the other kind of woman first—maybe, first, second, and third, before we can have the possibility of moving to a less male-dominated way of thinking, political system.