What Will It Take to Make A Woman President?: Conversations About Women, Leadership and Power (12 page)

—J
ENNIFER
L. P
OZNER, AUTHOR, FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF
W
OMEN IN
M
EDIA &
N
EWS

If the media shows women in a degrading, demeaning way, if violence is not taken seriously, if female candidates are covered in the context of how they look and what their hair is like and how they’re dressed as opposed to how the male candidates are referred to, this has an impact on women and girls. Not always conscious, but it can’t help but make us feel somehow we don’t count as much. It’s not a cognitive thing, it’s a visceral response, I think
.

—J
ANE
F
ONDA

I would like to see more women in executive positions in the media. I mean, it still really is an old boy’s club. It’s changing, and there are increasingly more women in executive levels, but we definitely need to see more. The more women, the more minorities we have at the executive levels, the more sensitive we’ll be for women and for minorities
.

—L
ISA
L
ING

Women often don’t look like they’re presented in the magazines, even in magazines that are made for other women. The images don’t coincide with the reality of who we are. It’s such a difficult thing to endure that. How do you maintain a healthy self-esteem when you don’t have images around you that reflect you? I can’t stress enough how damaging it is
—
the constant barrage of thinness and youth and a kind of racial monochromatic idea of what beauty is. It’s really a tough thing for women. I don’t know how girls survive. Even manifestations of women’s strengths. When you talk about “girl power,” even that’s sort of a belittling thing, because they won’t call it “women’s power” because that is somehow too dangerous. . . . Girl power, that’s okay
—
that’s somehow defanged and acceptable, whereas women’s power is terrifying and emasculating. So there’s even a problem in language, there’s a problem in the media, there’s a problem in society. There are just so many things challenging girls and women in their search for power and strength, that we need to do all we can to help that along
.

—M
ARGARET
C
HO

In my view, representations of women have regressed so much one would think feminism had never happened. NBC’s show
The Playboy Club
springs to mind, as well as the many mindless cable programs featuring walking Barbie dolls like the Kardashians and the so-called “real housewives.” In these shows, women’s intelligence and social consciousness are certainly not highlighted; nor are women’s artistic, literary, civic, or political contributions featured in any way. . . . For girls growing up in this media culture, it’s a terrible message: that women are only valued for their looks, and only then if their looks conform to some ideal constructed by the corporate media purely for profit. This is all happening at a time when women still hold little political or economic power, are sorely underrepresented in fields like science and engineering, and are victims of violence in epidemic proportions
—
and these media representations aren’t helping to change any of that
.

—M. G
IGI
D
URHAM, AUTHOR AND ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF JOURNALISM AT
U
NIVERSITY OF
I
OWA

The media could do a much better job, that’s for sure
—
especially the media that targets women. . . . Their message to women is all about consumerism, looking sexy, and pleasing men in bed. And yet they have the potential to make profound changes for the better in women’s lives
.

—I
SABEL
A
LLENDE

Media are highly influential in creating and communicating societal norms about proper roles and behaviors for men and women. If more women were involved in the production of entertainment and news media, we would see more women on screen and better roles portraying women as powerful subjects instead of passive sexual objects. More images and more diverse images of women in media would lead to a revolution of identity and leadership if millions of little girls grew up thinking of themselves as fully capable, ambitious human beings instead of bodies to be worked on in order to get validation through male attention
.

—C
AROLINE
H
ELDMAN, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AT
O
CCIDENTAL
C
OLLEGE

ANA NAVARRO

“I think the reason that there are fewer women
—
that there is a gender gap in the media, there’s a gender gap in elected office, there’s a gender gap in high-level corporate America
—
it’s all the same reasons. Because, until very recently, women have been the ones that bore the brunt of family and home responsibilities. And it’s not been until recently that that has begun to change and we are now in an era where shared responsibilities have become the norm, not the exception.”

A
NA
N
AVARRO IS
a Republican political strategist with expertise on Latin American, Florida, and Hispanic issues. She is a political contributor on CNN, CNN-Español, and
CNN.com
. She is a frequent speaker and commentator on political issues and current affairs. Born in Nicaragua, she and her family immigrated to the United States and resettled in Miami in 1980.

Navarro served on Governor Jeb Bush’s transition team and served as his first Director of Immigration Policy in the Executive Office of the Governor. In 2001, she served as ambassador to the United Nation’s Human Rights Commission where she helped pass a resolution condemning the government of Cuba for human rights abuses. She was Senator John McCain’s 2008 National Hispanic Advisory Council co-chair. She has played a role in federal and state races in Florida. In 2012, she served as National Hispanic Advisory Council co-chair for Governor Jon Huntsman’s campaign.

MARIANNE SCHNALL
: Why do you think we’ve not yet had a woman president?

ANA NAVARRO
: Because we haven’t had the right candidate. And because it’s taken years, it’s taken decades, to get a deep enough stable of women elected officials to be able to have any of them turn into potential presidential candidates. I think we haven’t had a woman president because we have not had enough women elected officials, until recently, that can be groomed into becoming presidential candidates, that can grow into becoming presidential candidates.

MS
: Why do you think that is? Is it that not enough women are running, is it that there’s a kind of glass ceiling or structural obstacles? Why do you think that it has been so challenging to have women in those positions?

AN
: Well, first of all, because we got a much later start than men. We got a later start than men in having the right to vote and getting women elected. And it’s been a glass ceiling that has taken effort and time to break women into public office, because of the demands—it hasn’t been until recently when co-parenting and sharing of family’s responsibilities has become more common, that women have been able to explore many other professions usually left to the men, including running for office.

MS
: I’ve done a lot of interviews so far for this book, and I’m hearing a lot of people say that in addition to the structural obstacles, it also may be that psychologically men
and
women still have a hard time just because of cultural stereotypes—imagining a woman in the top office. And part of that is because of having to deal with things like war and the economy,
or the perception that a woman wouldn’t be tough enough to deal with a war situation. Do you think that’s also part of something that has been problematic for people seeing a woman in these top leadership positions?

AN
: I think we haven’t had the right woman. Right now we’re in the midst of reflecting over Margaret Thatcher. Margaret Thatcher was the right woman at the right time and nobody doubted her iron will and her ability to play with the boys in the toughest of situations, including facing down enemies, international enemies, and going to war. Let’s not forget it was Margaret Thatcher who told then-President George Bush, “George, don’t get wobbly about going into war in Iraq.” I just think we have not had the right woman. The first woman to become president has to be somebody who has to have a very impressive résumé. I can’t think of a woman who’s in elected office right now that would get away with what Barack Obama did, getting elected after three years in the Senate. I think there’s going to be higher scrutiny on a woman when it comes to issues like foreign policy, national security, and even economic issues, and it’s going to have to be a woman with an impressive résumé that has shown her ability to deal with these issues.

MS
: I’ve heard some people say that we would be more likely to elect a Republican conservative woman for our president. Do you think that is true? I interviewed [Democratic strategist] Celinda Lake and she said, “In some ways it’s easier for the first woman president to be a Republican than it would be for a Democrat, because the stereotypes of a Democrat and the stereotypes of a woman are the same. The stereotypes of a Republican counteract some of the stereotypes of being a woman.” It’s an interesting way to put it. Do you think it is sort of the way that a conservative woman like Margaret Thatcher became the first woman prime minister, that that is something that could be a factor?

AN
: You know, I really think it’s going to be less about the party affiliation and the ideology and more about the individual woman. I don’t think many people in America today doubt that Hillary Clinton can be a formidable presidential candidate. And I don’t think anybody sees her as terribly wishy-washy on foreign policy or national security issues. So I think it’s going to be less about ideology. When you said that I immediately thought about Sarah Palin, for example, who was a conservative woman, but I don’t think being a conservative or being a Democrat is going to be what determines the first woman getting elected. It will be what that woman has done, shown, and proved throughout her life to get her to that point and earn the trust of the American people.

MS
: You’re obviously a very knowledgeable strategist and have worked with a lot of elected officials. Do you think there are unique strategies women need to consider? What would you suggest as a strategy for a woman that would be helpful?

AN
: Well, I think a woman candidate is different. There might be more equality when it comes to public perception—it’s changing, it has changed, and it will continue changing. But today a woman candidate has to deal with issues about her appearance, for example, and her temperament, that a male candidate would not have to deal with. Nobody thinks much about John Boehner breaking into tears in public, but if a woman did that, the reaction would be different. The reaction to a man showing emotion tends to be much different than to a woman showing the same emotion.

MS
: This is such a unique conundrum for women—not just for a woman showing soft emotion—because, on the other side of the coin, women are scrutinized if they appear too ambitious or too tough . . .

AN
: Yeah, women have to walk a very thin tightrope. . . . Women have to look strong, but have to do it with grace.

MS
: I know the Republican Party is going through all sorts of changes, as are we all, but I was curious if you think there are any specific challenges to being a woman in the Republican Party right now?

AN
: Yes. I would like to see more women in leadership. I think the Republican Party needs to make a concerted effort to bring in more women to run for office, to run the Congressional offices, and there need to be more women in leadership. There are no Republican women in leadership in the U.S. Senate today. There’s one Republican woman out of the four in leadership in the House, [Cathy McMorris Rogers], and she doesn’t get enough of the spotlight. There is no reason why there should only be one woman committee chair in the House right now.

MS
: Why do you think that is? As hard as it is for women in the Democratic Party, if the numbers are lower in the Republican Party, what’s your assessment of what the challenges are there, and what will it take to change that?

AN
: I think it’s demographics, the current demographics. The biggest challenge in the Republican Party right now is the demographics. For a long time there were a lot of older white men firmly in control. And why are there more women on the Democrat side? Well, because they have more younger voters. You know, this question you’re asking me is almost what came first, the chicken or the egg? It’s hard to elect more women when you have a smaller base of women activists and voters and local elected officials. So the Republican Party has a long-term challenge . . . because we have to turn around the perception. We have to change the perception
that the Republican Party is by and for older white men, and it’s not going to happen in a day.