Women’s Leadership Takes Center Stage at 2010 Bioneers Conference
It was such an honor to speak at the 2010 Bioneers conference, where I presented my keynote address, entitled “Riding the Leadership Wave.” I also participated in two panel discussions about women and leadership, which is no surprise, since women’s leadership took center stage at this year’s conference.
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Top Left: Author and Jungian analyst Jean Shinoda Bolen, leading the charge for a 5th World Conference on Women
Top Right: Gloria and my shero Jane Goodall, legendary primatologist and anthropologist
Bottom Left: Bioneers co-founder Nina Simons, Kirwan Institute executive director John A. Powell, and Gloria–relaxing after the keynotes
Bottom Right: The illustrious Bioneers panel on Women, Gender and the Media: (left to right) Rose Aguilar, Aimee Allison, Gloria Feldt, Dori Maynard–all of us Women’s Media Center Progressive Women’s Voices alumnae
Read MoreTime to Change How We Think About Power
Check out this piece I just wrote for More.com on why it’s time for women to change how we think about power.
I want women to reach parity while I’m still alive to see it. But at the rate we’re going, that will take 70 years.
Google “women and power conference” and you’ll get over 50 million results. Google “men and power conference” and you get 49 million. But a quick scan through the top-ranked conferences tells you that the majority of the latter are actually conferences about women and power that happen to mention men.
Full disclosure: I have attended many such events, including a few years back the invitation-only Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit during my 40 years of activism for women.. I believe in celebrating successes along the bumpy path to equality, and my new book, No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power , exhorts women to embrace their power and blast through the doors now open to us. I want women to reach parity while I’m still alive to see it. But at the rate we’re going, that will take 70 years.
Women are 60 percent of college graduates, 50 percent of the workforce, and yet according to the White House Project, constitute a mere 18 percent of the top leadership roles across all sectors of business and political office. So I get a bit testy about the proliferation of conferences that exist to puff up women’s egos around how powerful we are yet have no agenda to break through the remaining barriers, advance women who are not so powerful, or even to use their positions systematically to bring other women through the doors we’ve struggled to open.
Some remaining barriers are external. For example, hiring officials often assume resumes bearing women’s names represent less competence than the same resume with a man’s name attached, and the physical appearance of women running for political office comes under greater media scrutiny than that of men. Still, in my research, I found that with legal barriers down and almost every position having seen a “first woman,” most of the barriers that remain are culturally induced, They are lodged now within ourselves and how women think about and engage with power in our own lives.
Read MoreWhat Does Power-To Look Like?
On Monday I asked you when you first realized that you had the power to . . . And I gave you a brief glimpse at my definition of what power-to looks like. Here’s another look at what power-to means:
Power-over focuses on tactics for gaining compliance, while leadership focuses on getting answers and solutions in order to be able to accomplish something for mutual good.
Power-over makes people feel powerless. Even if it isn’t force or brute power, but a manipulative power such as political dominance, the feeling that one has no control over one’s choices makes her disgruntled, angry, or passive-aggressive.
Power-to makes us feel powerfull.
Power-to supports and enhances whatever power the individual brings to a project, workplace, relationship, or civic activity. It abhors coercion. It opens up the possibility of choices; the ability to choose is what makes us human. Choosing is the basis of morality.
Power-over is amoral. Power-to is responsibility.
Power-over is oppression. Power-to is leadership.
What are your thoughts about this definition? How does it change your ideas about power and leadership? Can you give examples of the use of either definitioneof power?
Read MoreWhat Does Power-To Look Like?
On Monday I asked you when you first realized that you had the power to . . . And I gave you a brief glimpse at my definition of what power-to looks like. Here’s another look at what power-to means:
Power-over focuses on tactics for gaining compliance, while leadership focuses on getting answers and solutions in order to be able to accomplish something for mutual good.
Power-over makes people feel powerless. Even if it isn’t force or brute power, but a manipulative power such as political dominance, the feeling that one has no control over one’s choices makes her disgruntled, angry, or passive-aggressive.
Power-to makes us feel powerfull.
Power-to supports and enhances whatever power the individual brings to a project, workplace, relationship, or civic activity. It abhors coercion. It opens up the possibility of choices; the ability to choose is what makes us human. Choosing is the basis of morality.
Power-over is amoral. Power-to is responsibility.
Power-over is oppression. Power-to is leadership.
What are your thoughts about this definition? How does it change your ideas about power and leadership? Can you give examples of the use of either definitioneof power?
Read MoreWhat Does Power-To Look Like?
On Monday I asked you when you first realized that you had the power to . . . And I gave you a brief glimpse at my definition of what power-to looks like. Here’s another look at what power-to means:
Power-over focuses on tactics for gaining compliance, while leadership focuses on getting answers and solutions in order to be able to accomplish something for mutual good.
Power-over makes people feel powerless. Even if it isn’t force or brute power, but a manipulative power such as political dominance, the feeling that one has no control over one’s choices makes her disgruntled, angry, or passive-aggressive.
Power-to makes us feel powerfull.
Power-to supports and enhances whatever power the individual brings to a project, workplace, relationship, or civic activity. It abhors coercion. It opens up the possibility of choices; the ability to choose is what makes us human. Choosing is the basis of morality.
Power-over is amoral. Power-to is responsibility.
Power-over is oppression. Power-to is leadership.
What are your thoughts about this definition? How does it change your ideas about power and leadership? Can you give examples of the use of either definitioneof power?
Read MoreMills College: Oakland, California
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Mills College graduate student Mandy Benson and undergrad Yolanda Tasso have No Excuses! |
Was There a Moment When You Knew You Had the Power To?
Most high school debaters can tell you that the first person to set the terms of the debate usually wins. That’s because when we allow someone else to define the terms, we allow them to set the framework that constructs our thoughts. Just think about how power has typically been defined, as an oppressive power-over model. If we shift the definition of power to a power-to model, suddenly the discussion is about leadership, and the ability to get things done. As I say in No Excuses.
Almost anyone can employ power-over, but it takes skill to employ power-to. It takes a skill to lead others rather than to force, requires, coerce, or lord over them. Leadership power is much different from the use of force to gain acceptance of a goal.
Watch feminst icon Gloria Steinem, CODEPINK founder Jodie Evans, young feminist leader Shelby Knox, El Diario/La Prensa editor-in-chief Erica Gonzalez, and others talking about their power-to moments, both personal and interpersonal.
Was there a moment when you knew that you had the power to . . .(you fill in the blank)? What was it? And how did you feel? What did you do? If you didn’t have one moment, was there a process that led you to that awareness? What can you share with other women that might help them on their journey?
Read MoreWomen’s Leadership to the Fore at 21st Annual Bioneers Conference
I am extremely pleased to be speaking at the 2010 Bioneers Conference. If you’re unable to attend the conference in person, you can watch live webcasts of my keynote address, “Riding the Leadership Wave,” as well as the afternoon panel discussion that I am participating in, entitled “Moonrise: Women Leading from the Heart.” The webcasts will be available right here on my website, so grab a latte and enjoy the discussion!
If you’ve been following my Heartfeldt Blog or my 9 Ways Blog, you know that I’m very passionate about encouraging women to embrace their power and step into positions of leadership – now! I invite you to join the discussion by leaving a comment – and don’t forget to come back often, because the 9 Ways Blog will be featuring a different discussion topic each week.
Read MoreThe Stanton-Anthony Lecture Series
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I had the great honor of keynoting the Susan B Anthony/Elizabeth Cady Stanton Lecture at the University of Rochester’s Meliora weekend, October 15, 2010. As you can see, I got into the spirit by wearing my Susan B. Anthony outfit, black clothing with a red shawl. The 19th century women’s civil rights leader always wore black and her red shawl became her identifying trademark. |
Women, Power and the Transformation of Leadership
This was this morning published over at the Women’s Media Center.
Ever had the experience of awaking at night from a nightmare where you’re onstage to give a speech and find you’ve forgotten entirely what you had planned to say? It happened to me but I was wide awake.
Last January, I was slated to give a keynote to a packed house of activist women who had traversed winter snows to attend the SeeJaneDo Passion to Action conference in Grass Valley, California. The speaker to precede me was Bioneers co-founder Nina Simons.
I’d had a chance to meet Nina at breakfast that morning and was eager to hear her talk about the women’s leadership program she’s created within Bioneers, a diverse global coalition of environmental groups that connect to leverage their common mission, which is nothing less than saving the planet. Like so many social movements, Nina told me over hearty biscuits and country gravy, the majority of environmental volunteers doing on-the-ground work are women—but the leadership was primarily men.
Nina began her speech, and my wide-awake nightmare began to unfold. Yes, my notes were neatly tucked away in my folder, and yes, I knew exactly what I wanted to tell the women assembled. The problem? Nina was giving my speech. Almost word for word, and definitely idea for idea.
Read More