women’s leadership

Due to my obsessive Hillary fascination, I can’t help but comment on ABC’s trumped up catfight story: Pelosi v. Hillary. Since Jessica at feministing said it best, I’m just going to send you to her. What’s next? Hillary and Nancy get naked and fling mud? Jeesh.

Meanwhile, check out Reuter’s mini-survey of what some feminist thinkers think about the possibility of electing Hillary Clinton to the White House. (Stop the presses: Feminists, it turns out, aren’t interested in choosing a candidate based on his or her gender.) And note Carol Jenkin’s take on the male-dominated media’s roll in it all. After more than 20 debates, in which only six women have participated as moderators and questioners compared to more than 30 men, Carol asks, “Where is the slate of newswomen who consistently get to ask the big, important questions? How can we not think of what we’re witnessing as anything but the traditional all-boys club?” Hmm…

Finally, if you’re looking for a satisfying chuckle, do check out Ann and Jessica’s feisty letter to male politicians to please stop playing the male gender card, here. To wit: “It’s just wrong to expect men to vote for you because you smell like Aqua Velva and cigar smoke, because you own a huge ranch and the Western wear to prove it, because you think America needs a “commanding Daddy” to torture the bad guys.” Hehe.

I’ve been reading galleys for THIRTY WAYS OF LOOKING AT HILLARY: Reflections by Women Writers, edited by New Yorker editor Susan Morrison. Kirkus gives it a rave review, and I wholeheartedly agree with their take. Here tis:

An exploration of Hillary Clinton by 30 leading contemporary female essayists. Even though Hillary is one of the most dissected public figures in American life, this volume is a worthwhile addition to what Morrison calls—quoting Walter Shapiro, the Washington bureau chief for Salon—“Hillary Studies.” The editor assembles a thoughtful collection penned by writers who represent a wide range of the ideological and cultural spectrum. Among the stellar cast are Katha Pollitt, Ariel Levy, Susan Orlean, Roz Chast, Daphne Merkin, Elizabeth Kolbert, Lionel Shriver and Lorrie Moore. Much is made of Hillary’s fashion sense, as well aswhy it has become such a hot topic. Morrison smartly includes the Washington Post’s fashion critic, Robin Givhan, who caused a storm this summer when she wrote a piece examining Hillary’s rare display of cleavage on the Senate floor. Givhan defends her position by arguing that fashion reflects a public persona—even if it doesn’t reveal who a person is, it at least reveals who they would like to be. Exactly who Hillary is provides the primary focus here, along with the question of why more women aren’t celebrating a female presidential candidate, and why so many find Hillary to be such an inauthentic, calculating figure. The writers also grapple with other questions regarding gender: What does it mean if the first female president of the United States is presumed to have achieved the position largely riding on her husband’s coattails? What’s the significance of a female president in a time when so much about the role of women in American society is subject to debate? Each essay is well-written and approachable, even if they occasionally devolve into navel-gazing. A sharp, important book sure to become increasingly relevant.

The book comes out in February, so perhaps this post is a tease, because folks have to wait. But I wanted to give y’all a heads up, because this collection is just too good to keep to myself. And for the literati among you, here’s a link to one of my favorite poems, actually, Wallace Steven’s “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” after which, one presumes, the collection is named.

(Image cred: ethandraws.com)

Harvard President Drew Faust’s Oct. 12 inauguration speech is posted here. Pitter patter. Loved the bit that Broadsheet quotes, about how her presence in that position was unimaginable not so long ago, but I found this tidbit about the unimaginable particularly interesting, too:

Last week I was given a brown manila envelope that had been entrusted to the University Archives in 1951 by James B. Conant, Harvard’s 23rd president. He left instructions that it should be opened by the Harvard president at the outset of the next century “and not before.” I broke the seal on the mysterious package to find a remarkable letter from my predecessor. It was addressed to “My dear Sir.” Conant wrote with a sense of imminent danger. He feared an impending World War III that would make “the destruction of our cities including Cambridge quite possible.”…“We all wonder,” he continued, “how the free world is going to get through the next fifty years.”

And we wonder about the next fifty, starting from here. Not to get all fatalistic or anything. But, well, you know.

…to Clarence Thomas. Again. Don’t miss this.
Says Hill on the op-ed page of the New York Times, “I will not stand by silently and allow him, in his anger, to reinvent me.”

Meanwhile, check out these savvy responses on HuffPo–from Ann Friedman and Rachel Sklar–to that inane Times article about how Hillary cackles. Like a witch. Says Ann, “I’m betting that the next time a woman runs for president, her laugh won’t sound so strange.” Take that my pretty.

One more related to Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s new book, Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History. Loved Kathryn Harrison’s review of it in the NYTimes Book Review this weekend, especially this line:

Hillary Clinton, who famously refused to “bake cookies” in the background of her husband’s career, is an Amazon, destined to be as much the property of myth as of history, between which lies a vast and unfixed common ground.

(Pic is of First Ladies in 1994, left to right: Nancy Reagan, Lady Bird Johnson, Clinton, then the current First Lady, Rosalynn Carter, Betty Ford, and Barbara Bush.)

I’m on a panel with Ulrich next week – details here. Do come!

O happy day! At last, an article on Hillary that focuses on our problem, not hers. Well, actually, their problem — “them” being older, affluent, highly educated women. Younger women seem to be supporting Hillary in droves.

The October issue of More magazine has a great dialogue between veteran political analyst extraordinaire Donna Brazile and Deborah Tannen, linguistics prof and author most recently of You’re Wearing THAT? Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation. The two pundits speculate on the age gap that’s emerged among Hillary’s female supporters (hint: younger women, women with no more than a high school education, working class women, and women of color support her in droves) and ask an important question: Just what is it that ambivalent, older women — women who say they want to want Hillary but don’t — want to hear?

I remember the comment from a panelist at a political session during BlogHer — that women Hillary’s age feel lesser because Hillary “has it all.” (I repeat my reaction: with all due respect, barf.) Brazile says that the older contingent are less excited than the younger gals are about the mere fact that a woman is running. Tannen adds that we always expect more of Mom than we do of Dad. Is that why W has gotten away with what he has? But I digress. Age gap aside, Brazile and Tannen very smartly sound off on the ridiculous double standards imposed on female leaders by men and women alike. This is indeed my own answer whenever I get the question during my readings about what I’ve come to casually refer to as “Hillary Hate.” There is only one of her, and we expect her to be so much.

I’d love to hear others’ thoughts, though, about Hill and the age gap. Do tell. Why are younger women seemingly more prone to support her so far, while older affluents are hedging their bets? (And for more, check out TAP’s recent article on it all, here.)

As many know, I’m a Fellow at the Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership. An exciting announcement: Woodhull and Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty have teamed up to offer “Real Women, Real Success Stories” . Over the next 16 weeks, Woodhull faculty and fellows will be teaching modules that are taught at the leadership retreats–online. Everything officially launched today, and you can get to it all by clicking here.

Congrats, Woodhull!

I can’t decide if I want to go see Nick Salamone’s new play, Hillary Agonistes, or not. Interesting comment in Patrick Healy’s piece about it in the NYTimes: “[T]he iconography of Mrs. Clinton, like the woman herself, seems to have been around forever.” In truth, I think the iconography was around before the woman herself.

All eyes may be focused on Hill these days, but meanwhile, the number of women in political leadership seems to have once again leveled off, according to research findings cited in an article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal:

[A]lthough women hold a quarter of all seats in state legislatures, “we’ve hit a plateau,” says Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics, a public-policy institute at New Jersey’s Rutgers University.

The bottom line: While women will cast about 53% of the votes in November 2008, based on the past two presidential elections, their share of elective offices seems to have leveled off at about one in six at the federal level, and one in four in the state capitals.

The reason for the slowdown, according to the article? Simple. Women remain less likely to run for public office than men:

They first need to be recruited and assured of their qualifications, research shows. “Women tend to run because they’re concerned about an issue; they don’t wake up thinking they want to be governor the way men do,” says Jeanne Shaheen, a former three-term governor of New Hampshire who is now the director of Harvard University’s Institute of Politics.

Regardless of what we think of Hillary Clinton, it’s time to tackle the confidence gap, ladies, and take a page from Hill’s book. But wait – does this mean the external obstacles are all cleared up? Inquiring minds want to know.

(Thanks to Marco for the heads up.)

Oh, Hillary, how they love to hate you. We know by now that women leaders are held to impossible double standards–damned if they appear too “soft” or “caring” or, in the case of politics, too focused on “women’s issues,” and damned if they don’t appear to be any of these things. Ann Friedman at feministing had a smart post on Hillary coverage last week, as did Judith Warner over at Domestic Disturbances.

Looking to understand the phenomenon further? Catalyst’s latest report (released July 17) is on the issue behind this issue–stereotypes and perceptions others have of women who vie for leadership. Catalyst focuses on female CEOs, but the lessons apply in other realms too. Check out coverage of the report (“The Double-Bind Dilemma for Women in Leadership: Damned if You Do, Doomed if You Don’t“) in CNNMoney, but to get the goods, go straight to the source.

Press queries:
Susan Nierenberg
646-388-7744
snierenberg@catalyst.org