What Will It Take to Make A Woman President?: Conversations About Women, Leadership and Power (72 page)

I think there is no question that if you look at the policies that are introduced that deal with women and families, they’re overwhelmingly introduced by women, I mean just from the state legislatures. So we are way, way, way behind in family policy in this country. If we want to move ahead on family policy, we need more women. Now, again, I don’t know that one woman will ultimately make the difference. You have to have more than one. You have to have a critical mass. I believe if we had a third of our states run by women governors—and these governors are very much catalysts for policy change—much of the policy innovation in the next decade is going to come out of the states. Think about this—having women governors come up with Democratic and Republican solutions is a good way for us to start to see real advances in family policy in this country. And we’re way behind. And we are seeing a dramatic demographic shift in our country. So in 1980, 18 percent of all births were to single women. Today 41 percent of all births are to single women, and of births of women under thirty, 50 percent are to single women. We haven’t got a workplace in America ready for half of their moms to be single moms, including my polling firm. So we have some unbelievable demographic changes that are occurring in this country, and I think women’s leadership would be more innovative and more likely to grapple with it. And these are changes that are happening already. Prioritization of education: although
every president talks about education, certainly women governors have had more of a priority in education and healthcare. But, again, I think it’s less that the agenda of women is so different—although I do think they bring a different perspective in terms of children, in terms of family policies—but it’s more that you cannot waste half of your talent and get ahead.

MS
: When I first decided to do this book, Gloria Steinem said I would be a good person to do it because I know it’s not just about biology, it’s about the issues. For example, the way they just put Sarah Palin on the ticket. For many women, it’s not the idea of voting for
any
woman just because she’s a woman. But on the flip side, I do know that groups like the Women’s Media Center try to speak up just as much when there are sexist attacks on Republican women, as well as Democratic. What is your sense of how we deal with the situation that women tend to support Democratic women candidates, and yet we also do need Republican women, as you’re saying? I remember you said in your book that this shouldn’t be left or right, but right now our country is so divided that way. It is really important that this be a bipartisan issue, and yet, oftentimes it’s very partisan, and I know it’s often hard for Democratic women to find a way to show support for Republican women candidates when they may not be promoting issues that are seen as progressive issues for women.

CL
: Well, it is about gender and agenda, so it is about both for sure. And I guess there are several premises to your question. So if one of our points is that we—and not everybody agrees with me on this—but if one of our points is we shouldn’t waste half our talent, then we would still want half the Tea Partiers to be women, too. Because even if you don’t agree with them on anything, you would still want women to be represented. If part of our point is the role model for women and girls, then you would want leadership for women, from women in every realm, including the
right-wing realm. There are some things—if you look at the legislative analysis that the Center for American Women in Politics does—even the right-wing women will introduce more children and family legislation. Obviously, Democrats introduce a lot more of that than either men or women, but within each branch women introduce more of that. We did a very interesting study in Arizona where we compared—this was a long time ago now—but we interviewed women on the right, identified as home schoolers—so they didn’t even believe in a public role for education—and women on the left. And if you’re left in Arizona, you’re pretty left. And we found that there was a very strong common agenda around fighting child abuse. Even the women who didn’t believe in a government role in education believed that you should have a government role in child abuse prevention. So there are common agendas. And the last thing you said—which I think is really important and I strongly believed this for a long time, from my days of working at the Women’s Campaign Fund, but again, in Washington right now this is a hard sell—I firmly believe that the thing we need is more progressive, moderate Republican women. If we really want to get our issues through, we need that branch of the Republican Party. Now the problem is they can’t survive. When you have an Olympia Snowe having to resign, when you have a Connie Morella having to move her agenda to the right to survive, then it’s muted, but we need to have moderate Republican women. But it is a problem, because agenda as well as gender matters. But on many of these issues, again, half of our talent, the equality for girls, if you’re a born-again Christian youth activist, you ought to have a woman that you can see as your leader, not just men. Just as if you’re in a Youth Communist League, you should have a woman that you can see as leader, not just men.

MS
: I’ve interviewed Nancy Pelosi before and I’m going to interview her for this project, as well. I know that you have worked very closely with
her. I’m just interested, because she is another high-profile woman leader, like Hillary Clinton, that can be used as a case study. She has so many times come under attack for various reasons and yet she’s really held her own as a leader. I’m just interested in what reflections or observations you would make about her role as Leader, and working with her?

CL
: Well, I think she’s clearly demonstrated the exceptional talents of women’s leadership, in a kind of hybrid executive–legislative role. I mean, bringing people together, keeping the right wing of the party in the room. She’s advanced the women’s agenda strongly. And that’s the other thing—if somebody says something about birth control or Planned Parenthood, we’ve got plenty of men in the Democratic Party who will respond swiftly on that, but I think that there’s just clarity . . . I think women are responding on it even faster. I mean, I know that when Todd Akin first did his redefinition of rape, a lot of men that I work with rolled their eyes and thought it was bad—they definitely thought it was bad, but thought it was kind of stupid bad. And it’s like, no, wait a minute—it’s not stupid bad, it’s horribly bad. It’s rape for God’s sake. It’s rape! This is not just a misstep. And so I think that immediacy is there, and I just think no matter how good you are ideologically, when you have experience and when you know what it’s like—I mean, I know what it’s like to walk home at midnight and be afraid of being raped. I personally know what that’s like. And that’s just different. That’s going to bring an immediacy to your reaction. So we can’t waste half of the talent, we can’t waste half of the experience and claim to represent everybody.

MS
: I know for younger women it can seem pretty unappealing to want to run for office right now, not only because Washington is so dysfunctional, but because the process of running is so unpleasant, all the mudslinging and everything that you go through . . .

CL
: Right, and the implications for your family.

MS
: Yes, so what would you say to that young woman who maybe thinks she has something to contribute, but just looks at it and says maybe not? What encouragement or words of advice would you have?

CL
: Voters don’t like it either, so run and change it. Run and pass Campaign Finance Reform. You don’t like raising the money? Voters don’t like the way the money’s being raised either. Run and change it. You don’t like the personal attacks on your family? Say from the get-go, “No personal attacks: I will not tolerate anyone attacking my opponent personally. We’re going to have a fight on the issues where there are big differences, but my family and his family are off-limits.” Then change it! Voters don’t like to see this either. Change it. Run and change it. You can’t change it from the sidelines.

JULIE ZEILINGER

“From the point of view of my generation, I think visibility is so important in inspiring future generations of leaders. . . . We can’t be what we can’t see, essentially. If we don’t see female politicians out there, and we don’t see them in equal numbers to men, then going into politics, or leadership in general, doesn’t seem like a viable option for us.”

J
ULIE
Z
EILINGER IS
the founder and editor of The FBomb, a feminist blog and community for young adults. The FBomb is based on submissions and posts articles written by teenage and college-aged feminists from all over the world about anything from pop culture and self-image to politics and social justice. Zeilinger and The FBomb have been featured in media outlets such as
Newsweek
and
The Daily Beast, Forbes, More Magazine
, and
Women’s Day
. She is a member of the Barnard College class of 2015, and her book about the next generation of feminism, titled
A Little F’d Up: Why Feminism Is Not a Dirty Word
, was published in May 2012 by Seal Press.

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

JULIE ZEILINGER
: I think it’s a combination of factors. I want to couch everything I say with the fact that I’m still pretty young and figuring it out, but from what I can tell, women’s equality, or relative equality, is still a pretty recent phenomenon. And I think taking that into consideration, how many decades have we really had where it would have been viable in any way for a woman to run? If women got the vote in 1920, our ability to run for president is still pretty recent. But I think more than that, I always point to the treatment of especially Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin and their attempts to run in 2008. The way the media treated their political endeavors should not be overlooked. I think it’s reflective of the way societies view women trying to vie for power. The way that they were just constantly torn down and considered only in terms of their appearance and other really superficial aspects of how they presented themselves represents more broadly the way society still sees women and fails to take us seriously, especially politically.

MS
: Do you think our consciousness is ready for a woman president? Would you expect to see a woman president in your lifetime?

JZ
: You know, I really hope Hillary Clinton runs because I think if anyone can do it, it would be her because of the political roles she’s had thus far. I think that she’s really proven herself and probably had to put a lot more effort into proving herself than any male counterpart ever had to. But, again, I think that she is a specific case. I don’t think that any other woman could run for president and be taken seriously. I think that there is still a double standard that makes it a lot harder for women to run and to be taken seriously as political candidates.

MS
: How would you describe that double standard?

JZ
: I think people just view women as nurturers and as sensitive in a way that would prohibit them from making tough decisions—for example, that they might be swayed emotionally. I think those stereotypes are very much still around, even though there have been a ton of studies done recently, at least especially in terms of the financial crisis, proving that women are really great at making hard decisions and are able to be rational actually in a way that men often aren’t. But I think there’s still the stereotype that we’re very emotional and wouldn’t be able to make these tough decisions.

MS
: On the flip side of things, and this is a conundrum that I think comes up a lot, if women are perceived as trying to be leaders, or too strong or too tough or too “bossy,” then they’re penalized the other way.

JZ
: Absolutely, and it’s interesting because we’ve seen that with Hillary Clinton as well. I think there has been a complete turning point in her public image. I was a little too young to be aware of it, but from what I understand, early on in her career she was considered a “bitch” in some terms, especially in her political decisions, and people were constantly criticizing her for that, when really she was just doing what she had to do to get the job done.

MS
: I know this is hard to talk about without making generalizations, but there have been a couple of articles recently that say that even with just twenty women in the Senate, it’s making a tangible difference. There was a front-page article in
The New York Times
a couple of weeks ago, as well as an article recently on NPR, where even some of the male Republican senators were saying that having more women in Washington has changed the tone and that they think that women’s participation leads to greater consensus. Do you think that is true? If we had more women in Washington, what change would you expect that we would see? Why is it important?