Posts Tagged ‘No Excuses’
What 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, 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 MoreBusboys and Poets: Washington, DC
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The Busboys and Poets audience was fantastic! There was standing room only. I saw many old friends and made lots of new ones. Thank you DC! And is this the cutest stage ever? Love the pumpkin!
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From the Left:
Reading from No Excuses
Jenna Mellor and J. Schmitz told their stories and we discussed power tools “tell your story” and “embrace controversy.”
Jodi Jacobson, editor in chief of RH Reality Check introducing the program at Busboys and Poets. Special thanks to Tamara Kreinin and the United Nations Foundation Women and Population program. UNF, RHRC, and the Women’s Campaign Forum co-sponsored the event.
Read MoreWriting Women Back Into History
On Monday I told you the story of Sybil Luddington, a Revolutionary War hero who has been all but erased from history. We all know who has written the history books, and how that has resulted in men getting to tell their version of events. But there are two sides to every story. Part of changing our relationship with power means that it’s time for women to reclaim our history, and write ourselves back into the history books.
Shelby Knox took some time to speak with me at my book launch last week about a woman who has inspired her: suffragist Matilda Joslyn Gage. Take a look at what Shelby has to say about Gage’s contributions to women’s history.
What women from history have inspired you? Whose shoulders are you standing on? I’d love to hear your stories in the comments section.
I Myself Am The Lathe
Introductory note from Gloria: When you write a book, you never know how who will read it or what impression it might make. Imagine how moved I was to stumble across this post by someone I had never met and read her words about how No Excuses had inspired her. Elin Stebbins Waldal really takes the power tools to heart . . . read on and see.
A Twitter post has got me thinking today.
Although I have not met Gloria Feldt—I almost feel I have. After perusing her website and reading a few of her blogs—I feel it in my bones, there is a common ground that we stand on.
I happened upon her Twitter feed this morning and opened her link and read this:
“In No Excuses, I say women don’t yet know what to do with the power everyone else knows we have. That the time has come for women to embrace that power. What are your thoughts? What examples in your own life or your observations about others makes you think this is or is not women’s moment?” –Gloria Feldt
It’s quite possible that I have read Gloria’s question above about a thousand times, seriously, at least a thousand…or that is how it feels. I should state first that I have not read her book, No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power—yet.
I have however, read her 9 Power Tools, love that—power tools, makes me feel as if I have a Lathe at my disposal—or is it that I myself am the Lathe, capable of re-shaping anything beginning with the way I think about power.
Yes, I myself am the Lathe.
Read MoreThe Strand: New York, New York
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Left: Jenn Pozner, founder and executive director of Women in Media and News asks a question while journalist Jessica Wakeman and filmmaker Therese Shechter look on.
Center: Talking about No Excuses and the 9 Ways at The Strand in New York
Right: Jenn Pozner live tweets while Liz Abzug tells us how her mother Bella used her power. (Bella used to say, “We want it all but we’ll take half.”)
Read MoreShelby Knox: Live Tweeting from No Excuses Book Launch
Read MoreI was so excited to have the fabulous Shelby Knox (on the far right in the photo) agreed to live tweet from my book launch at the Barnes and Noble Lincoln Triangle on October 5th. Shelby is an itinerant feminist organizer, a writer, a speaker, and a self-described revolutionary. (And I would agree with that!) You can keep up with her on Twitter.
To see more photos from the event, be sure to check out the book tour page. And if you missed the event, here are Shelby’s tweets to give you a nutshell version of the night!
The Time Has Come For Women to Embrace Their Power
Kathryn Bigelow, the first woman to win an Academy Award for best director—for The Hurt Locker which also won best picture of 2009—stood holding her two Oscars, looking completely flustered. Seeing her under the spotlight, one coveted golden statue grasped in each fist, I was struck by how accurately she mirrored where women in the United States stand today. We’ve got the evidence of success in our hands, and everyone in the world seems to be looking on, but we don’t quite know what to do about it.
There are more ironies in this picture. Bigelow’s film is a raw, violent portrayal of the war in Iraq, with no women as major characters—hardly a chick flick, despite some interpretations that it puts a feminist lens on masculinity and the senseless violence of combat. Yet it did not go unnoticed that Bigelow herself is gorgeous, gracious, and above all says not one word about the fact that she is a woman—indeed, she seems even more flustered when the obvious is called to her attention by inquiring journalists.
That she wasn’t the first of her gender but the fourth to be nominated—the first was Lina Wertmuller in 1976—similarly speaks to both the progress women have made and the newness of our tangible triumphs. After eighty-two years of Oscars and over four hundred best director nominees, presenter Barbra Streisand was finally able to pronounce upon opening the envelope, “The time has come.” Without question, the time has come. That’s why No Excuses is foremost a book about hope and possibility. But it is also an urgent call to action.
I wrote these opening paragraphs of No Excuses in a fit of passion while watching the Academy Awards. They were actually among the last words I wrote. It took a year to crystallize the metaphor that felt exactly right.
Nick Kristof and Sheryl DuWunn say the moral imperative of the 21st Century is the empowerment of women in their book Half the Sky. Marketers know women buy 85% of all consumer goods and thus hold the reins of their success or failure. McKinsey and Co. studies find that companies that have larger numbers of women on their leadership teams have better returns on investment. The public generally trust women candidates more than men.
In No Excuses, I say women don’t yet know what to do with the power everyone else knows we have. That the time has come for women to embrace that power. What are your thoughts? What examples in your own life or your observations about others makes you think this is or is not women’s moment?
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