Power
Stories 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…
Read MoreSHE Should Talk At TED: 5 Ways to Get Started
I get so excited I can hardly stand it when I see women embracing their “power-to” leadership and using the 9 Ways power tools I share in No Excuses.
When it comes to defining our own terms and creating a movement to take action for TEDparity, my “heartfeldt” belief is that women are beyond merely offering an opinion that TED should be more inclusive. We are the majority of population, voters, people with college degrees, and purchasers of consumer goods. We don’t need to be supplicants. And for sure there are plenty among us who have big and exciting ideas. Please share yours here and on twitter @SheTalkTed and the She Should Talk at Ted Facebook page.
If you’re in NY, there’s still time today to register for and attend the TEDWomen/TEDx636_11thAve follow up round table this evening, sponsored by the New York Women Social Entrepreneurs, to discuss action steps with panelists
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 MoreWomen, 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 MoreKim’s Story: I’m Still a Feminist Dammit!
PunditMom Joanne Bamberger hosted a very fun get together for DC area bloggers last week. I had a chance to tell them about No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power and to ask for their publicity suggestions and their support in getting the word out. This guest post appeared Friday, September 17, 2010 Friday, September 17, 2010, on I’m Not the Nanny, a blog written by Thien-Kim aka Kim. I was so touched by it that I asked Kim if I could re-post her comments here on Heartfeldt. She kindly let me share her post with you.
In the midst of diapers and runny noses, sometimes I forget that a world outside of mothering exists. I have gone days without reading or watching the news. (Thank goodness Twitter keeps me in the loop.) Some days I don’t even try leaving my apartment. It doesn’t seem worth the fight to get the kids dressed and the snacks packed to go on a outing.
Those days I forget that I am more than a mother.
I forget about me.
Read MoreCountdown to Publication: Defining My Terms
My second in the “Countdown to Publication” series I’m writing for SheWrites.com. Any writers here? Tell me what you think below, but also please consider going to SheWrites.com and commenting on my post there. Join SheWrites.com while you’re at it!
Hi SheWriters-
I’m embarrassed to ask, but did you ever forget what’s in your own book between when you finished writing it and your first launch event?
I found I needed to reread No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How we Think About Power stem to stern before my first in-person media interview about it yesterday. I literally couldn’t remember the chapter titles, let alone the 9 Ways.
Last week I shared my website predicament. The central element of my marketing campaign was six weeks behind schedule, delaying my newsletter and much more. Quick update: as Deborah suggested, I employed power tool #3: use what you’ve got. I’m framing my first newsletter as a sneak preview, being honest that I don’t have it all together yet–but grateful for supportive friends and my passion for helping women lead unlimited lives. It’ll go out September 13. Meanwhile I’m using social media daily to build interest in the book.
It’s also time to focus on short lead media. By last Friday, my eyeballs felt like they were about to fall out from reviewing and adding to spreadsheets my publicist had sent. It hit me that pitching highest leverage media intensively and knowing deep in my bones what core messages I want to communicate to them will be infinitely more fruitful than trying to list and do everything that possibly could be done.
So what I want to share with you this week is the most important of all the 9 Ways: Power tool #2: Define your own terms—first, before others define you. This has profound implications for women and our relationship with power. Because whoever defines the terms usually wins the debate and determines what’s considered important in our personal lives, at work, and in the civic arena.
Read MoreA Brief History of Women Becoming Powerful
Women’s Equality Day–celebrating the anniversary of women’s suffrage–is coming up next month, August 26 to be exact. Lynne Shapiro found this well-done historical retrospective video and posted it on Facebook. It’s prompting me to think about what I might want to write for the upcoming little-heralded day.
Maybe you’ll be inspired to use the power of your voice, pen, mouse, or video camera to increase public awareness of major milestones in women’s advancement, too, on August 26?
Read MoreToo Cute for Words–Just Watch This Powered Girl
The adorable Jessica and her affirmations are making her way around the web, but i couldn’t resist sharing the video here. Also check out this link to Jessica’s Monday Affirmations on Feministing.com where they have the transcript–just in case you don’t catch every upbeat word she is saying. Enjoy!
Read MoreDon’t Think Like an Elephant
Recently I was at the SeeJaneDo conference where I heard this story. I was so moved by it that I immediately had to include it in my forthcoming book about women’s relationship with power–No Excuses, to be published in October–despite having already having turned in what were supposed to be the last changes.
Read MoreIt’s said that when a baby elephant is being trained, she is tied to a post almost immediately after birth. During the first few weeks of life, she attempts to break free of her restraints, but she’s not strong enough. So she comes to believe she can’t get away from what is holding her back even after she has grown large and plenty powerful to uproot the post entirely. As a consequence, even as an adult, she remains tied to the post due to an internally motivated behavior that is no longer rooted in external reality.
Is Nancy Pelosi the Most Powerful Woman in American History?
That’s the question of the day and I hope you’ll share your answer to it.
Diane Sawyer asked Pelosi herself whether she agrees with that perception in her March 22 interview, the day after the health reform bill passed the House of Representatives. Pelosi seemed a little taken aback, as she often does, and demurely replied that she takes the idea as a compliment to all women.
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