The White House Project

Like many of you, I listened to Senator Obama’s tremendous speech last Tuesday with equal measures of pride and awe: pride at this relatively young man’s attempt to bring race from the neglected sidelines of life to the center of our attention, and awe at his bravery in doing it. Facing history head-on is no easy task, but with this speech Obama did just that — and asked the rest of America to join him in opening up a conversation on race in America that is long overdue. It was a monumental moment in our nation’s history.

Being a mother myself, I couldn’t help thinking, as I watched Obama speak, of his own, amazing mother, the woman who was written about so movingly in the New York Times recently, and whose courage and commitment to him is largely responsible for that speech. Which in turn made me think of the many women throughout history who have supported and nurtured men into power, but who rarely have been recognized for their role in shaping our nation.

Women like Abigail Adams, who is poignantly portrayed as the brains behind the brawn in HBO’s new mini-series about founding father John Adams. Abigail’s rendering in this portrait offers a rare reminder us of how much women have contributed to this great Republic, and yet how little attention is given to what we have done — and how little we have been rewarded for it through advancing us into leadership alongside men.

And women like Eleanor Roosevelt. The creation of the New Deal is often credited to Franklin Roosevelt alone, but the truth is more complex. According to biographer Blanche Wiesen Cook, in the aftermath of learning that her husband was having an extramarital affair, “Eleanor Roosevelt delivered herself from unreal loyalties.” She became, for the first time, loyal to her own life and talents. As a result, she began to travel and speak and document what was happening to the people of this country, from the poverty of the white coal miners to the struggles of blacks in every sphere of life. And from that work grew the very policies upon which so much of the legislation of the New Deal was forged.

In short, by creating a new deal for herself — a deal whereby she would use her voice to create a new vision — Eleanor was ultimately instrumental in creating a New Deal for America.

“Remember the ladies” Abigail Adams wrote to John, back when this new nation was taking shape. It was her plea that the new American Congress not leave women out as they proclaimed freedom for others. But in the end, women were left out — though it didn’t stop them from leading from the sidelines, helping to create monumental advances both before and after they were able to flex their power publicly, as the examples of both Abigail and Eleanor make clear.

Centuries have passed, but Abigail’s plea resonates today, when women continue to struggle to ascend to the positions of leadership they deserve.

People are loathe to believe this is true, but here are the facts: the U.S. ranks an astonishing 71st in the world when it comes to women’s political representation – behind such stalwarts of democracy as Iraq (33rd), Sudan (65th), and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (57th). There are only nine women governors, less than three percent of Fortune 500 companies are led by women, only one woman leads a Fortune 50 company and we are stuck at approximately 22% of state legislators nationwide.

As Deborah Rhode of Stanford says, America likes to think of itself as a fair country, and to believe that women are represented fairly in every sector– but that sentiment is a far cry from reality.

Just as America needed the Roosevelts’ New Deal back in the 1930s, today, America’s women are in need of their own new deal — and a new conversation about gender in America. Because whatever we may try to convince ourselves, parity has not been achieved on the gender front. When, in the first installment of John Adams, Abigail told her husband to “Send a woman to the Congress,” because “she might knock some sense into them,” I thought about how sadly familiar her struggle feels even in this 21st Century environment.

All these years later, we are still struggling to get women into the Congress and all the other halls of power in equal numbers to their male peers — but today we have an opportunity to make new progress, and to commit ourselves to approaching the trappings of gender just as holistically as Senator Obama has asked us to approach the ills of racial prejudice.

“These are difficult issues,” Senator Clinton said last week in response to Senator Obama’s speech. “Race and gender are difficult issues. And we need to have more discussion about them.”

I couldn’t agree with her more. Clinton’s allusion to gender serves as the important reminder we need that in issues of gender, as in issues of race, we have miles to go before we sleep. True, in this election, we have a woman frontrunner and increased visibility for women as leaders across sectors.

But we’re not there yet. “Remember the ladies,” was Abigail’s demand. It must continue to be ours, too.

I’ve traveled from Minnesota to New York, Georgia to Colorado, helping my team at The White House Project inspire, inform, and equip a diverse array of women to take the political lead. Of the nearly 1,500 women we have trained thus far, many invariably ask the above question, and it seems to me a particular injustice that they have to consider it. These women are passionate and intelligent; they have the brains and the brawn to make real change in their communities and our world. But they are cautious – they don’t want to sell their soul in the process.

What a week to consider the premise. Eliot Spitzer’s unfortunate and unfettered fall from grace has certainly brought issues of integrity to the foreground–but his story is, by some measure, the easier one to dismiss when it comes to the challenge of keeping our political house in order. The issue that has me more concerned, frankly, relates to some presidential campaign tactics of late and what they say to the leaders of the future about what a life in politics might mean.

As much as it has in any election to date, integrity matters this time around. At its core, political integrity is about touting policies and practices not because they are politically expedient, but because of the inherent good such policies visit upon the communities they touch. And when it comes to this question of integrity, women candidates have a particular tightrope to walk: as pollster Celinda Lake has shown us, because the traits of integrity and honesty generally have been allied with women candidates, a male opponent can almost always gain ground against a female opponent by showing a crack in her armor of so-called “goodness.”

In the current race for the presidency, for instance, the criticism of Clinton for her votes, particularly on the war in Iraq, is a continual stab at her integrity. And those hits have hurt. But in this race, it’s not just Clinton who is susceptible to chinks in her integrity armor. With Obama cast as the “woman” candidate he, too, runs the risk that fissures in his perceived goodness, his integrity, will impact him in ways other male candidates (those not cast as female in quite the same way) would not face.

That fact is one that will be picked up on in the general election without a doubt. But when, in this week’s Newsweek, Eleanor Clift spoke so openly and eloquently about her admiration for Clinton alongside worries about her recent campaign tactics vis a vis Obama, it stirred up for me some worries of my own. Because while I believe that it is Clinton’s competence and courage that account for her resurrection, I also fear that the campaign’s attacks on Obama’s armor are working to Clinton’s benefit in a way that those of us who care about the integrity of our political system should not be thrilled about.

In the disloyal act of writing that, I hear seasoned political women’s voices laughing at my “good girl,” politically-disabled mentality. What are you thinking? Did you think she could win without doing these things? Have you studied this for a decade and still are this naïve? I also realize that these concerns are not about policy or about rights – they involve strategy and tactics, and as my friends remind me, we can all disagree on the latter. And, just like Eleanor Clift, I, too, am afraid I am being too hard on her, and that “what makes her a viable contender is her ability to play hardball.”

But that’s when I remember the young, disillusioned woman from Chicago, polled in our study “Pipeline to the Future” who lamented, “If you have values or morals, you’re not going very far in politics.” I hear our aspiring women leaders across the country, inquiring again about the abandonment of integrity for political gain. And I hear the diverse, talented and seasoned women politicians who answer them with candor at our trainings about how they do it. It’s obvious that they compromise, but they choose how and when, just as I find is needed in any field, if not as publicly.

To be clear, this is not about holding Clinton to a higher standard than her male competitor – and frankly, given the varied and sometimes viciously misogynistic attacks Clinton has suffered through her campaign (remember those “Iron My Shirt” posters? the Hillary nutcrackers being sold in airports across the country? the inflammatory images all over the internet that depict our first viable female candidate being violated by a donkey?), the tactics being employed by the campaign right now look rather mild. Rather, it is about my wish, on behalf of young women and men alike, that at some point things will be different–that there will be models for them, of whatever gender and whatever party, who will offer resounding encouragement through their example that politics can be a fair and upright foray into changing the world for the better.

Politics – it’s a tough business. There will always be leaders who profess the moral highroad and navigate, if on occasion or with regularity, the pathways which lurk beneath. More often, I hope, there will be those who will learn the art of compromise without losing their authenticity and integrity. I think of the firsts, like Senator Clinton, who will have to be tougher than even I realized to get in. I think of the pipeline of women across the country who are eager to ascend to leadership. And I hope that enough women will run for office, to change the process and well as the product, so that we can sell this business of politics to our daughters.

I’ve written a great deal about how this historic election season has led to a number of political firsts, but I’ve never seen it expressed quite this way: in a recent column for Newsweek, Martin Linsky wrote, “This campaign will always be remembered for the emergence of the first serious woman candidate for president: Barack Obama.” It’s a loaded statement that got me thinking beyond Linsky’s particular charge to a larger summation: that this political moment has by and large been the result of feminism.

Everyone knows that Clinton’s rise — from her law degree at Yale to her Senate seat — would not have been possible without the groundwork laid by feminists. March is Women’s History Month, and as we acknowledge her historic ascent, it does us good to remember the years of struggle that launched it: the suffrage movement of the early 20th century, the demands for equal pay and equal rights (sans amendment) of the second stage, and the spirited work of the third wave to ensure that the 21st century will be the time for parity. Indeed, the possibility we now have for a woman to command the highest office in our country rests on the labors of the women and supportive men that have come before, and on those who continue to toil for gender justice.

Yet Linsky’s comment begs us to probe further — for what is rarely acknowledged is what feminism has done for men. How else could we arrive at such a moment when the male democratic frontrunner for the presidency is likened to a woman — and is celebrated for it? Feminism has not only made inroads for women into the worlds of business and politics; it has challenged long-standing assumptions regarding masculinity, significantly expanding the box in which men and boys experience and display their maleness.

More and more men are taking an active part in the raising of their children — and loving it — thanks to both the policy shifts and cultural shifts brought by feminism. Workplaces are more family-friendly, gender roles are more flexible, and even the most masculine of institutions — the armed forces — boasts beneficial changes because women have entered the ranks. These transformations are palpable and positive, and have led me to wish for a major ad campaign spanning television screens, radio waves, and the sides of buses nationwide depicting how greatly men have benefited from the women’s movement. Its caveat would read: “This Opportunity Has Been Brought to You by Feminism.”

Of course, these changes have been very good for Senator Obama. Feminism has made it possible for him to do what Clinton, and many other women leaders, feel that they can’t: actually own those leadership traits that are seen as feminine (a claim which brain research has shown to exist). Feminism has made it possible for men to be more inclusive — soft even — without being diminished. On the contrary, men who add these traits to their manly ways are in great demand, from your house to the White House.

Our country certainly needs to incorporate feminine styles of leadership — cowboy diplomacy has left us in quite the dire domestic and global state — and so I applaud our nation’s approval of Obama’s feminine approach. Yet this endorsement is a product of hard-fought feminist fights, many of which are far from won. And so as we honor this new era that we find ourselves in, and as we celebrate Women’s History Month, I hope that the disparate and unfair situation in which women leaders often find themselves in is acknowledged and rejected as well. I hope Obama’s rise is accompanied by a new movement on the part of male leaders to ameliorate their leadership — and that we can learn, as a nation, to truly accept women leading alongside them.