Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer shoves another boulder on women's path towards leadership

Since this issue felt so personal to me, I've chosen to write in the form of a letter to Marissa Mayer.

 

Dear Marissa:

Whether you pay attention to it or not, being only 1 of 21 woman CEOs of a Fortune 500 company puts you in a position of great responsibility in more ways than one—you hold the authority to shape people’s perceptions of women in leadership. Sadly, your choice to strike an alluring pose in the September 2013 Vogue has the effect of adding to the distorted perspective many already have of women in leadership.

 

I’m not naive. I understand that public relations is about drawing attention to the company and selling an image. I can guess why you’d want to present an image of yourself and Yahoo! as edgy, non-traditional, and unconventional.

The problem is that this sexualized image of you does not help pave the way for other women in leadership. It shoves giant boulders on their paths—one that is already strewn with many other obstacles.

While I choose to assume that your knowledge of technology and your business savvy are what landed you your spot at Yahoo!, many others will not be so generous. These comments in response to a Business Insider piece about your Vogue pose are just one example of the pervasive attitudes about women in leadership:

• TOTALLY INAPPROPRIATE MAYER on Sep 11, 6:02 PM said:  MAYER IS SCREWING YAHOO UP SPEND THAT ALIBABA MONEY MAYER

• amt on Sep 12, 8:14 AM said:  Obviously she's too wrapped up in herself and her ego to put that aside and focus on running a company. Terrible idea to make her a CEO.

• Sportsguy on Sep 12, 8:55 AM said:  Maybe she should concentrate on fixing the Yahoo Sports site which is now an unusable mess.

To be fair, everyone’s not so clueless, as evidenced by a slightly more enlightened commenter:

• Laser Guided Loogie on Sep 13, 5:40 AM said:  Marissa Mayer is a good looking lady. I don't see why some people think that is at odds with the fact that she also smart and competent. So go ahead and pose Marissa. If you can give Google some competition in the search market again, maybe you can even put out a bikini calendar. Give them out with your stock offerings and I'll buy both. -Ken

Here are just a few of the obstacles girls and women who aspire to leadership face today.

Young girls and women face an even more hypersexualized image of themselves in media than ever before (and young men face a hypermasculinized image of themselves). If you doubt these facts, view these documentaries, each of which is full of data from scholars who study these issues: Jean Kilbourne’s Killing Us Softly 4 (2010), Jackson Katz’s Tough Guise (1999), and Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s MissRepresentation (2011). (The last is available to stream on Netflix as of the date of this post—September 17, 2013).

If you think the images of women in media are too trivial to worry about, consider this estimate that American teenagers spend 10 hours and 45 minutes a day consuming media images and messages. That’s a lot of time to absorb ideas, especially when they are far more focused on women as the sexual object of men’s desires than they were even just 20 years ago.

If you think that doesn’t influence adult’s perceptions of women in leadership, consider the woefully poor representation of women in leadership in the U.S. In education, women are only 14% of college presidents at doctoral-granting institutions, and 29% at two-year colleges. In politics, women are only 20% of the U.S. Senate and 18.3% of the U.S. Congress. In business, women are only 4% of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.

I’m sure you’re aware of the low numbers of women in technology at all levels. If you think these images don’t contribute to that problem, I point you to the 50 years of data from the Draw-a-Scientist-Test (DAST) showing the remarkable persistence of stereotypes about who belongs in science and technology. Researchers have now tested many populations including elementary students, college students, and teachers of math and science in the U.S. and internationally with woefully consistent results. DAST participants have repeatedly imaged “a scientist as a middle-aged or older man wearing glasses and a white coat and working alone in a lab.” Unless they’ve been shownotherwise, most just can’t even imagine a women scientist or technologist. For more, see my essay Nerds, Geeks and Barbies: A Social Systems Perspective onthe Impact of Stereotypes in Computer Science Education.
 



Apple CEO Tim Cook on a chaise

There’s nothing wrong with you celebrating being an attractive woman. What I find problematic is that you flaunted that attractiveness to market your company.

Can you picture Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, or Larry Page wearing tight pants and uncomfortable shoes, striking an uncomfortable and submissive pose upside down on a chaise, while holding an image of their pouty lips on an I-pad? Neither can I.

They would never pose that way because they don’t have to. Like most men, they’ve learned that their worth is primarily measured by their achievements. Most women still learn that their worth is primarily measured by their physical appearance.

The problem is that most U.S. American women are not model-thin and stunningly beautiful. That doesn’t stop many women from wasting their time and their financial resources trying to meet an unachievable standard in an effort to feel “worthy.” I point to the massive earnings of the fashion and beauty industries (supported by Vogue), and the exponential growth in cosmetic surgery in the U.S.

Meanwhile, we still live in a country where 1 in 4 women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetimes. And, many will still be erroneously accused of “asking for it” because they were busy trying to meet this oppressive standard of female beauty by dressing in alluring ways.

Forty percent of those rapes will be perpetrated by men who knew the woman they raped. There is a connection between these hypersexualized images of women (focused on being the submissive object of men’s desires) and hypermasculinized images of men (focused on being the active subject who holds power over others), and the fact that too many men still think it is acceptable to commit this type of violence against women.

How did I get from an “innocent” photo on a chaise to rape? It wasn't hard because yours isn’t the only hypersexualized image of a woman in mass media. They are everywhere and they have power.

If a young girl has a family that teaches her to value herself in different ways, these images may have little impact on her. But, if she does not, these constant messages about the “real” measure of a woman’s worth can be crippling. If a young boy has a family that teaches him to have compassion towards others, then he’s less likely to turn women into objects. But, if he does not, the constant messages about women as objects of men’s desires, and men as the actors upon those objects, can be consuming.

Your actions demonstrate why it’s not enough to just have women in leadership. We need women in leadership who understand the ways in which gender socialization still negatively influences women’s and men’s perceptions of themselves and others. We need women who are aware of the ways in which their actions powerfully influence the future for other women—by creating possibilities or making things less possible.

Your photo is like a giant boulder for the next woman to climb over on her path to leadership. It represents the ways in which you just made it harder for her to be taken seriously as a leader—and to take herself seriously—especially if she is not as physically attractive as you are.

The Butler, the Patriot, and the Patriot’s Daughter: A Tale of Three Servants



Eugene Allen with the Reagans
(Family photo)

Yesterday, I went to see Lee Daniels’ The Butler—a film inspired by Wil Haygood's Washington Post article titled “A Butler Well Served by This Election.” Haygood’s article highlighted the 34-year long career of White House butler EugeneAllen in the context of a brief history of African-Americans in the White House.

In fact, it’s only thanks to Haygood (who once played a butler during his short-lived acting career) that any of us have ever heard of Eugene Allen's courageous journey against hatred. Prior to President Obama’s first election, Haygood went in search of someone who had lived inside the White House when “the very idea of a black man in the Oval Office seemed impossible.” Just a few days prior to President Obama’s historic election, he found Eugene and Helene Allen. Sadly, unlike in the film, Helene never got to cast her vote for the first African-American president. She died on November 6, 2007, the night before the election.

Since the film was only “inspired” by Allen’s life, much of the story was altered for dramatic effect, but some of the more touching moments were true. Allen was actually devastated by President Kennedy’s death. His only son Charles shared that that day was the first time he’d ever seen his father cry. Nancy Reagan did invite Allen and his wife, Helene, to a state dinner for German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Allen’s character and ethic of impeccable service really was as depicted. And, Allen was actually invited to attend President Obama’s inauguration ceremony.
 

Although screenplay writer Danny Strong and director Lee Daniels took liberties with the facts, the spirit of the story remains true. It is a story of incredible courage in the face of nearly unbearable hatred that is sadly rooted in our nation's history, and still bears fruit today. Many families really were torn apart by the generational differences between parents and children over the burgeoning modern Civil Rights movement, both African-American and white families.

As I sat watching this retelling of these often horrifying events (some played by the film’s actors and some actual news footage), I grew increasingly uncomfortable with a painful reality. Although I lived through most of these events, my whiteness allowed me and my family to avoid and/or be largely unaffected by this dramatic history unfolding around us.

I was two months old when teenager Emmett Till was murdered for whistling at a white woman in Mississippi, and barely 6 months old when civil rights activist Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Only a year before, the Supreme Court had opened the way for desegregation by striking down the long-standing “separate but equal” doctrine in Brown v. Board of Education. And, these were just a few early events of what was to become the modern Civil Rights movement.

As the white, blue-eyed, blond-haired last child of four born to a middle class family, I have only vague remembrances of most these events, such as the day I saw black and white images on our home television of African-Americans being beaten by police while cities burned, and heard one of my parents commenting on the looting of stores with "there's no excuse for that."

What is most notable about these remembrances is the absence of thoughtful conversation about what was unfolding before our eyes on TV (but not in our neighborhood) because I spent many hours in conversation with my dad about other things. I can only assume that this was another manifestation of white privilege. It wasn't discussed because it wasn't considered part of our world.

As a Baptist minister’s oldest son, my dad grew up with a profound ethic of service. But, he also grew up with many unanswered questions about the meaning of life. When he left home for college, he began studying other religions and philosophies, and that quest for understanding continued until his last breath. I can't know if he ever found his answers, but I can look at the way he lived. Like Eugene Allen he lived a life of service, albeit a very different kind of service due to race privilege.

He started out in ROTC at Virginia Tech, and was later admitted to the U.S. Naval Academy. He graduated in 1941 and his first duty was Pearl Harbor, Hawaii where he was asleep on a destroyer the morning of December 7^th when the first Japanese bombs flew. He ended the war as a fighter pilot on the USS Essex from which he flew a sortie over the USS Missouri on September 2, 1945 as the Japanese signed surrender documents. I only learned of these experiences a few years before he died, when a historian gathering oral histories from Pearl Harbor survivors interviewed my father.

Dad resigned from the Navy a couple of years before I was born, but he continued to work for the government—indirectly via defense contractors as an aerospace engineer and directly in several government positions. For most of my life, I knew very little about my father’s work except that it caused us to move more than I liked.
 



Dad and me after tennis, 1979

One sunny Saturday afternoon in the late 1980s, I was sitting on the back porch of my parent’s home talking with dad about life as we frequently did. I said, “Dad, I have this story that I tell people when they ask why we moved so much and what my father did. But, how would you describe your career?” Dad paused for a moment to puff on his thick Bering cigar, and then quietly said “I was a patriot.”

That simple, but profound, reply said it all. My dad, the son of a Baptist minister, had found his call to service, but it was service to the ideal of the United States of America. His every professional choice was in service to this country. But, he was also wise enough to question some of those choices when merited.

I remember him sitting and weeping when the secret cables leading up to World War II were finally released under the Freedom of Information Act. He was heartbroken to discover that President Roosevelt knew the Japanese planned to bomb Pearl Harbor and had let it happen.

I remember another time when after reading a history of events leading up to the war in Vietnam (where he served as Science Advisor to General Abrams) he sorrowfully said “we never should have been there.” He also found it shameful that a disproportionate number of young African-American men died in that war because they were unable to get the draft deferments that many whites received.

These two stories demonstrate how my dad was always willing to reconsider his previous understanding when given new evidence. And, that’s why I’m surprised that we never talked about the Civil Rights (or women’s) movement that was unfolding right before our eyes. No one alive at that time could have avoided knowing about the dramatic changes that were happening for people of color in the United States. The only explanation for not discussing it is that it wasn't considered "relevant."

In fact, the only time I remember discussing these events was in 1971 shortly after we returned to the United States after two years in Southeast Asia. For me, living as a blonde-haired, blue-eyed US American in Southeast Asia, gave me a glimpse of the experience of being the “other.” I began to understand (admittedly, only as much as any young white woman could) what it was like to be judged by the “color of your skin rather than the content of your character.”

When I returned to the United States, I attended Newton High School which included mostly white students from the middle class suburb where we lived, and a few African-American students who were bussed to school from Roxbury—a working class neighborhood in Boston. During this period, I became close friends with an African-American student, volunteered for the Shirley Chisholm for President campaign, and began reading books about the Civil Rights movement. That was when I had the only conversation I remember with my dad about race in America, and it was just some questions about why I was reading these books.

Looking back, I understand that my experience of otherness while living as an American in Southeast Asia had created a natural empathy for the African-American experience in the US. I say this knowing full well that I can never really understand the brutality of racism in a lifetime where I have transited the world as a white person. However, my activism was short-lived as I struggled to readjust after living overseas so my dad could participate in what had become a very unpopular war.

Ultimately, my adolescent angst and need to belong trumped my quest to understand what African-Americans were fighting for. And, that’s the hallmark of race privilege, I had the luxury of making that choice to quit paying attention and to stop contributing to constructive change. My African-American friend did not.

Almost 20 more years would pass before I would pay attention to these issues again. Those years were marked by the actions of many courageous men and women who stood up to oppression and made a real difference—they changed laws, but more importantly, they changed our hearts and minds as a nation. My interest was reawakened when I returned to school to finish my bachelor’s degree, and that was quickly followed by a master’s and doctorate that focused on social justice.

Today, with more experience and more knowledge, I can say without equivocation that there are no black and white answers (pun intended) to the question of how so much hate can still survive in this country that serves as the model of democracy for so many in the world. The history of race privilege and oppression in the United States is a long and complex one, and it will take more than my lifetime to unravel those twisted threads.

However, amidst the persistent hatred, there are those who choose a different path and their bright spirits light the way for us all. Although they worked in very different social spheres in large part due to what race oppression and race privilege made possible for them, the lives of Eugene the butler and John the patriot are woven together by a shared thread—their lived commitment to service. Each served with quiet dignity. Each served with courage. Each positively transformed the lives of those who knew them. And, each, without ever knowing it, has demonstrated the profound difference that one life can make.

Both of their lives have taught me that whatever path unfolds before us, if it is lived with care, empathy, and respect, one life can help tilt the social scale away from hate and toward respect.




Me with Cheryl Espinoza
2009

As for me, the patriot's daughter, my service has taken a different form. As a teacher, I strive to create a beloved learning community within which each student's innate capacity for care, empathy, and respect is reawakened. I hope that by teaching them some of this history, I am applying my white privilege toward a greater good.

I view teaching and learning as a never ending spiral. And, my journey of service has led me to believe that we are all in service (or, at least, we should be)—to each other.

PLEASE COMMENT: This piece began as an effort to honor the real butler Eugene Allen while discussing white privilege—a concept that is difficult for many whites to understand. When I started writing, it took on its own life and this is what was born. I especially welcome comments from folks of color since I worry that it may come across as white-woman-why-can't-we-all-just-get-along pandering, which was not my intent.

Dancing on the Razor's Edge: Judge Sotomayor, Sexism, Racism, and the Confirmation Hearings

I've just sent my fourth email to a U.S. Senator today--all in response to what I've heard at Judge Sotomayor's confirmation hearings. While most of my day has been spent writing my upcoming book on teaching and spirituality, I watched part of the hearings over coffee this morning and more over a late lunch this afternoon. Those brief exposures to the questioning sent me straight to my email (and now, this blog).

Politics is hard for me. It's not good for my blood pressure. I know that things are often said "for show" because there's another agenda that these comments will support, but I find it troubling nonetheless. Distortions disturb me.

My first email was to Senator Jeff Sessions regarding his questioning of Judge Sotomayor's "wise Latina woman" comments in a speech. What disturbed me most about Senator Sessions' line of questioning is that he either refused to hear or really just didn't understand Judge Sotomayor's explanation of her comments. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume the latter.

I believe that the difference between Senator Sessions' poor understanding of Judge Sotomayor's comments and her (to me, very clear) explanation of them lies in an unamed core assumption about the belief in pure objectivity, which underlies most of our knowledge tradition in many fields of thought. However, as a feminist science studies scholar, I know that this assumption has been challenged by many. Notable among them is philosopher of science Dr. Sandra Harding who argues that our subjective experience must be considered in our judgments if we are ever to even approach objectivity.

Our experiences shape our perspectives, attitudes and beliefs in many ways, and lead us to form (often hidden, but deeply held) assumptions about many things. Without illuminating and naming the ways in which our hidden assumptions (based on past experiences) may influence our current perceptions, we are even less likely to make truly objective decisions.

It is not enough to merely assert that one is unbiased and is making objective judgments. In fact, to determinedly ignore the ways in which our subjective experience may influence our judgments leaves us even more prone to biased judgment. For example, for Senator Sessions not to name the ways in which growing up as a white male in a rural town of then racially-segregated Alabama may influence his perception of race and gender is to leave himself open to precisely the type of determined misperception and misinterpreation of Judge Sotomayor's comments that he has engaged in.

This is the very thing that most who operate from a position of race, gender, and/or class privilege miss in these types of conversations. Pretending that racism and sexism don't exist will not end them. The fact that we live in a hierarchically structured society that still institutionalizes difference influences how we all move through our world. If we don't honestly examine those differing influences and bring them to the light, we may never really eradicate racism, sexism, classism, and all of the other members of what Gloria Yamato calls "the ism family."

My next two emails were to my Minnesota Senators Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken. I hoped that sharing this language and way of thinking about this discussion of Judge Sotomayor's comments might help them make a better case in her favor.

My most recent email was to Senator Lindsey Graham. I found his seemingly warm and friendly questioning even more offensive in content than that of Senator Sessions. I was actually physically pained by the contradiction in his thinking regarding the focus of his questions.

On one hand, he implied that Judge Sotomayor may be biased regarding race and/or gender based on comments from speeches, not on her record (in my experience, actions speak louder than words). On the other hand, he demonstrated condescendingly sexist bias himself in instructing Judge Sotomayor to "tone down" her personality in her court. This "advice" was inspired by evaluations of her as a judge by New York attorneys that referred to her as "tough" and a "bully."

Sadly, this so-called data may offer a classic example of a sexist (or racist) double bind. In our hierarchical dominator society, we've defined leadership largely in terms of characteristics that almost directly correlate with how we define "maleness"--assertive, strong, task-oriented, etc. However, women in leadership must dance on the razor's edge--attempting to be assertive may get you labeled as arrogant, attempting to be strong may get you labeled a bully, and attempting to be task-oriented may get you labeled uncaring. It is far more likely that an assertive, strong, task-oriented woman will be criticized than any of her male colleagues who display the same behavior.

It is also not trivial to report that 17 of Judge Sotomayor's other 20 colleagues on the Second Circuit Court are male. Clearly, attorneys rarely have to come before a woman judge. When they do, they are far more likely to be critical of her behavior. If she doesn't walk the razor's edge carefully enough, she'll bleed.

We will never have more women and people of color in positions of power in this nation, until those who are already in leadership positions take the time to really educate themselves about how we keep inviting the dysfunctional "ism" family to the dinner table. We must engage in ongoing learning about the insidious ways in which we all participate in keeping this flawed social hierarchy in place.

Just saying "I'm not sexist or I'm not racist" is not enough. We each have to daily scrutinize our own behavior. If you want to understand more, I recommend Allan Johnson's wonderful little book Power, Privilege and Difference or bell hooks' Feminism is for Everybody.

The Bristol and Sarah Palin Story: Can We Talk?

The Republican Party's nominee for Vice President, Sarah Palin, is a woman with five children, whose unmarried 17-year old daughter, Bristol, is pregnant. If this isn't an opportunity to have a real conversation about so-called "women's issues," I don't know what is. So, can we talk?

Although many refer to the U.S. as the world's greatest democracy, it remains a political system in which women are not really free. Without control over when (and if) a woman chooses to have children, she does not have control over her life. Reproductive choice is inextricably linked with women's freedom--personally, socially, economically, and politically.

Unfortunately, as evidenced during the past few days, we don't seem to know how to have a real conversation about reproductive freedom. The Bristol and Sarah Palin story has offered us the opportunity for a complex conversation about all of the components of reproductive choice--one that gets beyond simplistic, either/or arguments and moves towards complex, both/and solutions.

A real conversation about reproductive choice would include honest information about human sexuality for girls and boys, for men and women, and would ask why boys/men aren't taught to be just as responsible for birth control as girls/women are. While the Republican Party has pushed for abstinence only education, teen pregnancy rates have grown in the U.S. Further, many adult men still don't consider it their responsibility to be concerned with birth control--that's a woman's job.

A real conversation about reproductive choice would explore why the U.S. has the highest teenage pregnancy rate of any industrialized nation. While the Republican Party has pushed for legislation that seriously limits access to affordable birth control, many young girls lives are increasingly defined by, and confined by, becoming mothers.

A real conversation about reproductive choice would ask us to consider what happens to the life path of a teenage mother who has no option other than to give birth to a child. How does she get the education that will move her beyond hourly wage work? The Republican Party does not want to allow girls/women unlimited choice about when (and if) they have children, but also doesn't want to use government resources to support them if they do. What's wrong with this picture?

A real conversation would ask us to struggle with the "other" side of adoption. Abortion critics never want to discuss the emotional and physical drawbacks of some adoptees experiences--a lifetime spent wondering why you were "given away," or struggling to define a sense of identity, or seeking largely unanswerable questions about your medical history. Certainly, many adoptees are happy with their adoptive families, but there are just as many who are not. It's not an either/or issue, which is why it should be every woman's choice.

The political problem is this. All teenage mothers aren't as lucky as Bristol Palin. All teenage mothers don't have the supportive family that Bristol Palin apparently does. All teenage mothers don't have schools and churches that won't shame them for attending even when they're pregnant. All teenage mothers don't have well-educated families who will ensure that they get the education to develop professionally and economically. All teenage mothers don't have the familial and financial support to help them parent their children when they are still growing themselves. The result of policies supported by the Republican Party that define "family values" solely in terms of a traditional nuclear family is that we continue to make individual women responsible for childcare with little to no network of support.

What about Sarah Palin's story? Is Todd Palin a stay-at-home dad? If he's not, then the "family values" folks have some explaining to do. It's not easy for children to grow up under the public eye and even harder if there isn't a parent available on a consistent basis to help them navigate this minefield. It certainly doesn't have to be a woman, but it has to be someone in the family since the Republican Party doesn't support government-funded childcare.

A real conversation would include uncovering our hidden assumptions about who should be responsible for childcare. It would force us to struggle with the difficult questions about how children are cared for when both parents work outside the home, because the truth is that most Americans don't have a choice. In most American families, both parents must work outside the home.

A real conversation would include an examination of the lives that are decimated by lack of care. We lose so many Americans, so early in their lives, to the hopelessness that leads them to drugs, alcohol, crime, and too often to the prison system. Counted among the losses are the $billions spent in the prison system, but far more important is the loss of human potential. If every American child had reliable emotional and financial support and an equal education, what might our nation look like today?

We won't ever have the answer to that question as long as our policies reflect the assumption of a traditional nuclear family. Further, the model of a stay-at-home mom and a work-outside-the-home-60-hours-per-week-and-rarely-be-available dad is not a guaranteed prescription for a happy family. Unfortunately, that's the model of the "family values" folks, though notably not the model of the Palin family.

In the end, a real conversation about so-called women's issues would help us see why these issues matter to us all--not just to women. Do we want a society, laws, and systems of government, in which only the fortunate few can thrive? Or, do we want a society where it is not only possible, but likely, that we all thrive? If our political leaders had the courage to lead a real conversation, we might actually build a true democracy. So far, we've missed the opportunity for this real conversation. And without it, we may never manifest the democracy that we so often claim we already are--with liberty and justice for all.

Coffee and Revelation: Thanks to C-SPAN and Madeleine Albright

As a teacher, I am sometimes surprised at what students say they actually learn from me—some of the most significant things have to do with me just being me. So, it was with Madeleine Albright and I. One morning while she was just being herself, she taught me some very important lessons about women and leadership.

It began one day when I was watching C-SPAN over my morning coffee. Madeleine Albright on was testifying before a Congressional committee on how we should proceed regarding the U.S. involvement Iraq war. After her testimony, she answered questions from many Congresspeople who almost unanimously opened their questioning with comments of great praise and respect for Albright.

I thought about how I’ve allowed myself to believe that being an intelligent, strong-willed, determined woman will often mean that I am not heard and not respected. And, yes, gender sometimes plays some part in that. But, it’s also true that if you work hard enough and long enough at something, eventually some people will understand your mission and purpose. And, even those that don’t agree with your ideas, may at least respect your commitment to them. I saw that in the respect Albright had earned from her colleagues.However, my real awakening was yet to come.

A Republican Congressman (whose name I’ve conveniently blotted out of my memory) opened his remarks with a scathing set of accusations implying that it was Albright’s fault that we were facing the situation in Iraq. I watched with amazement as she listened to his tirade without becoming visibly upset. His remarks made it apparent that he had been in office long enough to have dealt with her while she was Secretary of State, and that there was “no love lost” between them.

I was stunned to hear someone speak to a professional colleague in such a childish tone, especially in a public forum, and my anticipation of her response became even more heightened the longer he talked. Since I have been in these types of situations many times, I wanted to see how Albright would handle this one. And, she showed me something that I hadn’t seen before. Honesty.

Albright opened her response to his “questions” with an obviously sarcastic comment about “what a pleasure it was for her to continue their always ‘collegial’ relationship” or some such thing—basically, she said “I know you’ve never liked me and I’ve never liked you either.” But, it was how she continued that impressed me even more. She basically said, “But, that doesn’t mean that we can’t solve problems together” and then went on to explain her response to his questions in the most honest, non-political language that I’d heard in a long time.

There was one more very significant moment in her testimony for me. She was trying to make the point that we must use diplomacy, not just military might, to resolve the issues in Iraq (and Iran)—that they will not be resolved with military force alone. She had already made it clear that in her view, the greatest mistake the Bush Administration made was to end bi-lateral talks with Iraq and Iran. Bush has been determined to lump countries together into multi-lateral talks with the U.S. instead of honoring their individual sovereignty and unique national concerns.
Albright described other international negotiations that she’d engaged in and made this point: you don’t have to like someone to sit down at the table with them. She also explained that nothing gets resolved if you don’t stay at the table and work through your differences. She added that even when you see no common ground, and you despise everything the other group stands for, you have to continue to talk.

Lastly, she made it clear that she did not feel it was necessary to “pretend” to like policies with which you do not agree or people whose behavior you don’t like—making it clear that one could be honest and still get things done. I made the connection between that idea and the angry Congressman who had questioned her earlier. I saw that there was no “love lost” between them, but I also saw that they were both still at the table trying to work on the issues in spite of it.

One of the lessons for me was this. I’ve thought that one of the reasons that my visions for how to solve problems are not heard is because of my “style” of delivery—that is, because people perceive me as too strong and determined and this is inappropriate gender behavior. In other words, I’ve believed that the primary reason that I wasn’t heard in so many professional situations was that in a patriarchal society no one can hear a strong, intelligent, determined woman. She’ll always be ignored and discounted as an “angry bitch” with “the tone” (an accusation that was frequently lodged at me, especially early in my professional life). This false belief had caused me to keep a low-profile, and continue to be a worker bee in the trenches instead of moving into larger leadership roles.

What Albright showed me was that some people will always view me negatively, but that even though sexism does exist it does not need to stop me. There will also be more wise individuals who can learn to respect my honesty, my strength, my courage, my determination, and my commitment to the things that I hold dear.

Another lesson that Albright taught me is that unlike Blanche DuBois, I do not need to be dependent on the “kindness of strangers.” She reminded me of the lesson that I am still learning—my sense of identity must come from within, must be guided by my own vision of who I am, of what my strengths are, of what I have to offer in this life, not by the good (or bad) opinion of others. I must continue to engage in the lifelong struggle to undo an internalized negative self image.

Albright also reminded me that I must never waver in my determination to seek role models and mentors who are women. I don’t mean to say that men have nothing to show me about leadership. But, listening to Albright that day reminded me about the ways in which my experiences as a woman in a patriarchy have a profound influence on how I perceive my life and how others perceive me. Given the facts of our gendered society, if I seek to create a model for what my own vision of leadership, I’m more likely to have profound insights about how that might work by understanding how other women leaders have been successful.

So, thank you to C-SPAN and to Madeleine Albright, who while just being herself one day mentored an unknown woman thousands of miles away. I hope that readers of this “thank you note” are also reminded of the biggest lesson of them all—how important it is for each of us to simply be ourselves. Do not follow someone else’s script for your life. Write your own!