MLK Inspires Our Power-To
Inspiration is balm for the soul and a powerful kick in the resolve to take action.
Last year, to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr on his birthday, I posted this call to share his quotes that have most inspired you. I hope you’ll go read them, for I know you’ll be inspired to use your “power to” to take action.
Upon rereading the quotes, I was struck by what King said about power: “I am not interested in power for power’s sake, but I’m interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good.” In words far more eloquent than mine, King tells us to define power on our terms. To reject the oppressive power-over model; to use the power to, in order to do good.
Read MoreMLK Inspires Our Power-to
Inspiration is balm for the soul and a powerful kick in the resolve to take action.
Last year, to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr on his birthday, I posted this call to share his quotes that have most inspired you. I hope you’ll go read them, for I know you’ll be inspired to use your “power to” to take action.
Upon rereading the quotes, I was struck by what King said
Read MoreWomen, Power, Media and Political Leadership at American University
My speaking engagement at American University on January 13, 2011 featured a powerhouse panel of women: Journalist, Amanda Hess; Political Strategist, Karen Finney; Women & Politics Institute Director, Jennifer L. Lawless; and Congresswoman Terri Sewell joined me in a discussion about women, power, the media, and political leadership. A full transcript of the event, including the question and answer session, is available at Sociable Susan Magazine. Photo credits: Susan Majek.
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| Introducing the panel and providing a context for our discussion. | Congresswoman Terri Sewell as Jennifer Lawless tells her story. |
Giffords Tragedy: What’s the Message to Young Women?
I wrote this article as an exclusive to the Women’s Media Center, and reprint it here with permission. It can’t begin to describe the pain in my heart for those killed or injured, their families and extended networks of friends.
When an angry young man aimed his semiautomatic handgun at Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in a Tucson Safeway store on Saturday, he didn’t just critically wound her and kill or wound 19 others. He fired a shot through the heart of American democracy.
It will fall to rising leaders like Giffords—and girls like nine-year-old Christina Green, killed by the assailant’s gunfire just days after she was elected to her school’s student council—to transform our political community to one where differences can be debated safely and policies decided without fear for anything but re-election prospects.
I feel a deeply personal connection to those horrendous events that occurred during the latest “Congress on Your Corner” public meeting the third-term Democratic congresswoman has held routinely in her district. Though I was witnessing them from New York, I’m a resident of Scottsdale, 120 miles north of Tucson, and from 1978 to 1996 was CEO of Planned Parenthood in Arizona. I know the state’s wild-west politics quite well. And I’m so familiar with violent extremist attacks upon reproductive health providers that my first reaction was to swing reflexively into “how can I keep colleagues safe and courageous” mode.
Ironically, a moment before the carnage, I was urging Arizona Democratic party activists via Facebook to stop arguing about arcane party rules and get on with fixing the state: to stand firm against roiling bigotry toward immigrants, slashing public education funds while advancing legislation to allow guns in schools, and other retrograde policies that threaten to make the state an object of derision throughout the country.
Almost immediately after the shootings, I received messages inviting me to a candlelight vigil at the state Capitol. It’s important for people to come together to share their grief while they are absorbing the reality of an unspeakable crime.
But as important as a candlelight vigil might be to heal the rips in our individual souls, healing the social fabric requires infinitely stronger threads.
Read MoreDali Time Happy New Year
There’s a wonderful exhibit of surrealist Salvador Dali paintings and sculptures in New York’s Time Warner Center. They’re so alluring, they’re even upstaging the huge Botero Adam and Eve sculptures that attract much photo-snapping of people grinning slyly at Adam’s eye-level penis.
I am mesmerized by Dali’s clock sculptures. They drip time, melt time, warp time. Juxtapose fast and slow passage of time, or rather tease us for thinking such mundane distinctions exist. Apparently Dali agreed with Albert Einstein that time exists only so that everything doesn’t happen at once.
Read MoreYour New Year Power Tune-Up: a Resolution You’ll Keep
The problem with many New Year’s resolutions is that they reinforce the very problems that keep us unhappy and unhealthy. They’re aimed at reshaping our bodies and ourselves to please others rather than fulfilling our own passions or aspirations. That’s why so often resolutions are quickly abandoned. And then we feel like failures.
My No Excuses Power Tune-Up and Journal is a set of questions you can ask yourself based on the 9 Ways power tools and practical tips I created in No Excuses. They apply to work, politics, and personal life. The questions can be used as a journal to jot down reactions and answers over the next year. Or, just to zero in on one problem and find a new insight or strategy for solving it.
I’m excited to report the Tune-Up has been written up
Read MoreYour New Year Power Tune-Up: a Resolution You'll Keep
The problem with many New Year’s resolutions is that they reinforce the very problems that keep us unhappy and unhealthy. They’re aimed at reshaping our bodies and ourselves to please others rather than fulfilling our own passions or aspirations. That’s why so often resolutions are quickly abandoned. And then we feel like failures.
My No Excuses Power Tune-Up and Journal is a set of questions you can ask yourself based on the 9 Ways power tools and practical tips I created in No Excuses. They apply to work, politics, and personal life. The questions can be used as a journal to jot down reactions and answers over the next year. Or, just to zero in on one problem and find a new insight or strategy for solving it.
I’m excited to report the Tune-Up has been written up.
Read MoreThe Women’s Eye Sees the 9 Ways
Interview by Pamela Burke of The Woman’s Eye Blog: Gloria Feldt On 9 Ways To Embrace Your Power
29 DecGloria Feldt has a passion for bettering women’s lives. She’s a renowned activist, commentator, teacher, and author. In her early years as a mother of three living in west Texas, she called herself a “desperate housewife.” Yet she rose to find her voice as President and CEO of Planned Parenthood from 1996-2005.
“It’s up to us to develop a more positive relationship with power, to define power on our terms and embrace it…” Gloria Feldt
Her most recent book “No Excuses–9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power” has been received with widespread praise. It’s been called “groundbreaking” and “attitude-changing,” and “the most daring.”
I’ve known Gloria for several years now and have attended her inspiring lectures. She’s certainly embraced her own power as her book is climbing best-seller lists. I am delighted I had the opportunity to ask Gloria how she finally found her own identity and to get her advice for others we begin 2011…
EYE: You’ve wrestled with finding your own voice throughout your life. Do you think the struggle is finally over?
Read MoreThe Women’s Eye Sees the 9 Ways
Interview by Pamela Burke of The Woman’s Eye Blog: Gloria Feldt On 9 Ways To Embrace Your Power
29 DecGloria Feldt has a passion for bettering women’s lives. She’s a renowned activist, commentator, teacher, and author. In her early years as a mother of three living in west Texas, she called herself a “desperate housewife.” Yet she rose to find her voice as President and CEO of Planned Parenthood from 1996-2005.
“It’s up to us to develop a more positive relationship with power, to define power on our terms and embrace it…” Gloria Feldt
Her most recent book “No Excuses–9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power” has been received with widespread praise. It’s been called “groundbreaking” and “attitude-changing,” and “the most daring.”
I’ve known Gloria for several years now and have attended her inspiring lectures. She’s certainly embraced her own power as her book is climbing best-seller lists. I am delighted I had the opportunity to ask Gloria how she finally found her own identity and to get her advice for others we begin 2011…
EYE: You’ve wrestled with finding your own voice throughout your life. Do you think the struggle is finally over?
Read MoreStories Heal, Stories Connect, Stories Matter
Your heartfelt responses to Amy Ferris’s extraordinary post “I Matter” tell me I’m not alone in being moved by it. Amy’s plunge into the coldest, deepest wells of pain–her courage to swim around in those emotionally drenching experiences, then emerge to share them– and at the same time to share her liberation from the most debilitating parts of her story.
All compelling stories require an antagonist as well as a protagonist, it’s tempting to see Amy’s mother as the villain of the piece. But I’ve also been thinking about something my friend Angela (not her real name, pending permission) said to me one day last February, as we were power walking along the canal near my Scottsdale home. Basking in the desert’s relative winter warmth, I was delighted that Angela had found two days to pop over for a visit after a board meeting in California. Her distinguished career includes having led important nonprofit and governmental organizations in two countries; now she serves on 10 prestigious international boards.
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