What Will It Take to Make A Woman President?: Conversations About Women, Leadership and Power by Marianne Schnall Read Free Book Online Page A

that. She’s ballsy. She’s too tough. She’s too . . . all these “too” things that, as you say, if they had been applied to a man, would have been all compliments. But what I like about Leader Pelosi is that she just didn’t let any of that deter her. She understood that was part of the trade-off. Now I would love to find a day when she doesn’t have to accept it as part of a trade-off, because enough of us who were reading thatand seeing that and hearing that are objecting to it. That the reporters who are reporting it that way would stop and think, Oh, wait a minute. Right now, is that really what I think? and examine the basis on which they are reporting that observation. I don’t think it happens voluntarily, though. I don’t think it happens immediately, but I do think it happens through a kind of process, and we have a role in that process. We can’t just say it’s up to the editors, especially not now when we are making the decisions really on an individual basis, what we are consuming.
    MS : Now, you have the distinction of being a lot of firsts. You were the first female president of PBS and you’ve had a lot of high-level positions like that, where you’ve been a pioneer in so many ways. What is your perspective on being a first, and also being a female leader in an industry where there hasn’t already been a female at the top?
    PM : I don’t believe I ever walked into an office or a job and thought, Hmm, now how am I going to do this as a woman? What about this am I going to get to do differently, as a woman? I don’t remember having that conscious thought on a daily basis, but I had it as a subconscious thought . . . because the one thing you do know if you’re the first, in particular, is that you’re modeling something. Whatever you do or don’t do, it is the way women lead in that particular moment, so there would be times when I would think to myself, Well, they’re going to look at me and go, “Well, of course . . . she’s doing that because she’s a woman.” I decided a long, long time ago when I was one of the first women in television, that while in the beginning I went along with that—avoiding at all costs anything that brought attention to the fact that I was a woman—very quickly I learned that didn’t feel good to me, and also I thought it was really letting myself down. The other way to go on that was to just make a point: “No, this is what I want to do, as a woman.” So as a woman leader, you can’t makeevery decision from that point of view, but my experience is as a mother, as a grandmother, a wife, a sister, a daughter, all those things. I tried to keep them in mind, because I know they’re a part of me, so if I’m not bringing them to the table as the CEO or the executive producer or the host or whatever it may be, then I’m denying part of who I am and that means I’m not going to be as good as I could be. I’ve been challenged on it, though, at PBS, in particular. I was challenged by the board after my first five or six hires were all women. I was challenged by a board member who said, “Looks to me like you’re running an affirmative-action program for women,” and I remember thinking, Oh, my gosh, is he right? Have I been? Fortunately I was able to say back, “I think I’m running an affirmative-action program for the very best candidates, but I’ll keep that in mind,” because you don’t want to ignore it completely. But here’s the thing that I did differently. It was probably the first time that a CEO of PBS had ever said to a search executive, “Don’t bring me any list unless there are women and minorities on that list.” That’s the difference. In fact, the search executive said to me, “Are you serious?” And I said, “I’m dead serious. I don’t care what the job is, I want to interview the very best women and minorities you can find.” So if you start there, then it’s quite likely that you’re going to end up with more