Interview with Laura Liswood

WOMEN BECOMING VISIBLE

By Joanna Infeld, USA

In August 1996 Laura Liswood co-founded the Council of Women World Leaders with President Vigdis Finnbogadottir of Iceland. She is currently Secretary General of the Council, which is composed of women presidents, prime ministers and heads of government; today there are 36 members of the council. In 1997 Ms Liswood co-founded The White House Project, dedicated to electing a woman president in the United States. She has also written a book and produced a video documentary “Women World Leaders” containing interviews with women presidents and prime ministers.

Ms Liswood agreed to speak with me on the phone, offering an interview for our Templates for Change newsletter,.. Seeing that she is a lady with a mission, committed to women’s issues, researching and working with women in leadership positions, I first asked her what motivates her in her work with women world leaders.

LL: I have always been interested in making women visible, making their voices heard; it has always been a point of—I won’t call it anger, but more like fuel—that women are not heard in the same way that men are; they are not as visible. It has always been something that I have wanted to shake up, I guess. How that has emerged, however, turned out to be this Council. But I have always been interested—as a lawyer I did civil rights work and discrimination work. You used to have advertisements, ‘Female Help Wanted’ and women weren’t able to get into the highest positions just because they were female. That always seemed to be not fair.

JF: In establishing the White House Project, do you think it would make a big difference if there were a woman in the White House? And if so, what kind of difference would that make?

LL: It’s a little hard to know. If we look at the experiences of other countries, if you have one woman leader who is, let’s say, prime minister because she comes from a family, a legacy kind of situation, but there are no women in the parliament or in the cabinet, and women have not particularly good developed standards within that country, that woman as leader is not going to make much of an impact. However, if you find countries where a woman has been prime minister or president and there are a large number of women in the cabinet and there are a large number of women in the parliament or congress, then you will see some difference. One person alone is not going to be able to make that difference. Sure, she will be visible, she will be a role model, and she will demonstrate that a woman can be as confident as a man in that position. Whether she can make a difference to policy decisions, that’s a different issue. Again, it will depend on whether she has the support around her to do the kind of policy she wants. It’s a long answer, because it is not really clear. I have seen, for example, what has happened when we had a female Secretary of State, starting with Madeleine Albright, and then Condoleezza Rice and now Hilary Clinton—people’s attitudes and impressions about what a woman can do have changed dramatically, particularly around the issues of security and national defense etc. So that kind of role modeling helps, just by the very fact that she is a woman in that position.

I remember Madeleine Albright would go to a foreign country for a state visit or something and she would go with Hilary Clinton to visit the women’s domestic violence clinic or something like that. Not something you would likely see a male Secretary of State doing. So I think that’s where you might also see some difference—who they bring to the table, who they ask for information, where they go, what they are interested in, what are the issues that they put priority on. That’s where you might see some difference.

JF: Is this a trend that there seem to be more women leaders in the world? Is there a difference in those countries where women hold leadership positions and do you think it affects the morale of women around the world?

LL: There aren’t really more women leaders at any one time in terms of sitting heads of state and government. It never goes above 11, and women come and go, and that’s where we are now. But there has recently been a run on it, if you will, with the President of Argentina (Cristina Fernandezz de Kirchner), Angela Merkel (Chancellor of Germany) and Michelle Bachelet (President of Chile), the Prime Minister of the Ukraine (Yulla Tymoshenko) and the President of Liberia (Ellen Johnson Sirleaf). So we think, “Oh, is this a real trend?” But the fact is that the absolute number of sitting leaders at any one time does not get much more than 11. The accumulative number obviously gets more.

One of the things that I think happens, that is happening with these countries, is that women and other historically out of power groups represent change, the possibility of change in a way that the dominant in power group does not. Because if you are historically out of power, what is the first thing you want to do? Change things. Right?

JF: Yes.

LL: So when a country is in distress, when a country is in crisis, when a country has come out of a war etc., they know that they want change, they want to see some new things happening. So they look to those who have not traditionally been in the political powers, hoping that they will have a different perspective, hoping they will be less corrupt, hoping they will be more focused on the needs of the people. So that has a tendency to be women and other groups, who haven’t been in power before. So there is a lot more receptivity. The problem, of course, is that those women only have a chance to come into these positions when a country is in crisis. Nothing is so easy for them.

JF: We clearly are in a time of change and would you agree that it is perhaps a time when feminine leadership would be especially beneficial to the world situation?

LL: Well, we can hope so. Women will mainly have a tendency to want to solve issues, not through conflict, and we also have a tendency to be more focused on family conditions and health care and education and repairing the country and making it work and things like that. On the other hand I don’t like sweeping generalizations. For every woman who is not war-like I can give you the name of one who is. So we don’t want to go too far into that kind of stereotyping. However, I think that women do, whether it is the way they are raised or how they socialize, they do have a tendency to want to be more consensus oriented and less conflict oriented, bringing other people to the table, solving problems, getting things done. I don’t know if women are actually less corrupt than men, but maybe they have had fewer opportunities.

JF: You’ve interviewed many powerful women in your life; you’ve written a book of 15 interviews with women in power, “Women World Leaders; Fifteen Great Politicians Tell Their Story.” Would you say that there is a certain trend—is it more difficult for them, and if so, what do they need to overcome to be in those positions of power?

LL: Yes, there are some difficulties and some things that women leaders need to overcome. They have a tendency to be over-scrutinized by the press, particularly about their personal lives, their personal dress, their style, and their family. No man is asked how can he rule the country because he has children, but that happens with women. The color of the dress they are wearing or photographs of their legs or things like that, all of which I have had told me. And so that definitely does not happen with men; there is much more of a focus on a woman’s personal life and the assumption that she is going to have to prove her competency, whereas we assume that men are competent until they show that they are not competent. For a woman there is always the location, “Prove it to me that you can do this,” rather than the assumption that you can do it until you fail. So I think that’s part of it. I think there is a standard by which women are measured that is a different standard to the standard by which men are measured. It is also the kind of thing where we have different meanings for the same words. What’s an assertive man? What’s an assertive woman? An assertive man bombs small countries; an assertive woman puts you on hold on the telephone. We have very different framings and gender beliefs about certain things: who can do what, who has the capacity to do certain things, who is competent until they show they are not, who do we like to negotiate for us, who do we think, “Well, they are pretty harsh.” Those are all double biases and women have a difficult time because of how people perceive them.

There is a wonderful story the President of Iceland told me, which I repeat in the book, which is that she had been in office for sixteen years, but after eight years, she realized there were children under eight who thought that only a woman could be President of Iceland and the boys had to ask whether they could be President of Iceland. You can see the power of the mirror, of the reflection of what people can be by what they see. I think that even though there are few women in positions of leadership, at least they open up the possibility of things. Even Lady Thatcher, who wasn't exactly a friend to all women, opened up that possibility and gave people the understanding that "Hey, the impossible is quite possible." Madeleine Albright did the same thing, female Secretary of State—a major job. She opened up that possibility and opened it well and once that barrier is down it is probably down for good.

JF: When women work with men in positions of leadership, and say that partnership is a successful one, what makes that possible? Do they need to compromise; do they need to become more masculine? What do you think allows them to work well in that situation?

LL: Here’s one of those double biases. All the words that we use for masculine: assertive, dominant, forthright, all of those kinds of words are both words that are masculine and also words with which we give attribute to leadership. It’s a double mindset. If a woman leader acts feminine, then she is not going to be as well respected. If she acts masculine, that is taking on what we interpret as a leadership skill set, she will be considered masculine. So where do they go? For men, all they have to do is act masculine and everybody says, “Ah, leadership attributes.” For women those leadership attributes, which are defined as both masculine and leadership, don’t fit. So women have learned to develop a certain style—a forthright style, but one that is probably toned down at the edges. Very few women can adapt fully their style to a man’s style because they will get what sociologists call cognitive dissonance. People will say, “Wow, she is not acting like we expected her to act. She is not acting like a woman!” It is a pretty tough place for a woman to walk. And we don’t really attribute the skill sets of consensus and conciliation and empathy and things like that—those are words that we will attribute to women, but those are not words that really we see as forceful leadership words. It’s a very different definition of leadership. It is a definition that does not include feminine words, but includes masculine words.

JF: But maybe they will one day.

LL: That’s what we hope. Obviously the world is in a certain situation and I don’t know if it is cause or effect, but certainly only 50% of the world has really been running it. We can’t go wrong by including the other 50%.

JF: Absolutely, I totally agree with that. Would you say that the qualities that you mentioned that go with leadership but also go with the idea of masculine, such as assertiveness, dominant and forthright—would those be the qualities that would allow a woman to become a good leader or would you add some other qualities to the list?

LL: I think the best leaders are the leaders that flex their leadership style. At times it is necessary to have that kind of command, control style, but at times it is equally necessary to have a consensus style. So to me the best leaders are the ones that incorporate what we have historically come to know as masculine and feminine traits. Because if you just keep only the traits of command and control, you are not going to be completely successful; if you take and use only the traits of consensus, you are also not going to be completely successful, because leadership is in very many ways situational. You have to respond to the situation. So for me the best leaders are those who embrace both of those styles.

JF: That’s a great answer. We work with women in several countries around the world helping them build confidence and become the best they can be, have a long view and learn to think in new ways. What would you say are the main needs that women face to generally progress in the world, more to do with self-leadership but also into leadership positions, because I do believe that one would follow the other?

LL: Sure. I think that women have to understand and embrace this notion that they are entitled to lead, that they have a rightful position in leadership, just as men have a rightful position in leadership and that they need to speak their voice, they need to have ideas that they put forward and have those ideas be challenged, that they can bring other people along with them, with their ideas. I think they need to have a practical perspective; the ability to speak in public is essential—that just requires practice—you just have to practice standing up and stating your ideas.Lincoln gave 2,000 speeches in his life so he kept getting better and better at it, so you need to practice. Volunteer for things, when an opportunity comes up to take a leadership role, volunteer for it and get that practice. Learn from your mistakes. You are likely to have a lot of mistakes in your career, learn from them, they aren't bad.

There is some risk to it—there is always the risk that you will be ridiculed or your ideas will be criticized or whatever, but that’s the way it goes. If one wants to take on leadership and the responsibilities of leadership and the privileges of leadership… you can’t just sort of wander through the world. You have to practice those skills and feel that you are entitled. It is so interesting that a man just feels that he is entitled to these skills—it is an amazing feature of men. They have this positive illusion that they can do anything. They could tomorrow run for the president. Women are going, “I can’t run for school board. I don’t have the experience, I don’t have the expertise, I don’t have the background, I can’t take that appointment,” when men go, “Sure, I’ll take it, I’ll figure it out.” And having that kind of attitude I think is really important. Claim your own authority, your own personal authority to have a voice.

JF: I think you yourself are a role model in that you have taken on positions of leadership in your life. Do you think you would make a good president?

LL: (laughs) I am enjoying doing what I am doing.

JF: You do it very well.

LL: I would want to see a number of women stand up and run for the presidency because it shouldn’t only be men who have the notion that they can be leader of this country.

JF: How have you been influenced by your association with so many women world leaders?

LL: Well, I think I have learned to be more clear and declarative about how I go about what I am interested in. I have learned that my voice is important. I have learned that perseverance is an important element when you are trying to do something. You can't always just look at something and say "Oh my gosh, I couldn't possibly do something like that." The fact being, you have to be willing to take the kind of risks it takes to do that.

JF: And finally, with new women leaders emerging in the world, are you interviewing them and are you planning a new book?

LL: No, I am doing a ten-year update of the book that I did—I have interviewed leaders who have come since my first book was published. I have updated to some extent my video documentary (Women World Leaders). You know, I am going to leave that for somebody else. These new women leaders are all members of the Council. Once they are freely elected heads of government, they become members of the Council. So that now is more the legacy I am leaving in terms of a structure.

JF: So how many members have you got?

LL: 35.

JF: And I hope that number grows.

LL: It’s going to have to. That’s correct. It’s the fate of the world.

JF: Exactly. I think we are in changing times and the world needs that feminine influence and I think women need to learn to handle being in positions of leadership.

LL: That is exactly correct and a good way to put it. They need to handle it, they need to feel entitled to it and in order to feel entitled to it they need to take on the difficulties of it. You know, leadership is not easy. But it gives you power, power to change things, power to make things better. That’s what power is.

JF: Which is exactly what we need. Thank you so much.

LL: You are welcome.

JF: I wish you all the success in the world; it’s wonderful work that you are doing. Thank you on behalf of all the women of the world.

LL: Thank you for putting it out in the press.