leadership

I was at a conference in Washington D.C. this past weekend, doing a presentation about leadership with two women I work with at our university. We started with talking about stereotypes of leadership, then moved into discussion about famous leaders. We asked people to yell names out, and we got the usual subjects. "FDR!" "Nelson Mandela!" "Malcolm X!" "George W. Bush!" Last one aside, I can understand why the people mentioned came to mind-they're great, inspiring, inspirational men . I eventually said to the group, "I'm a little upset about the gender slant we have here-aren't there any female leaders anyone can think of?" And the responses included Oprah, Evita Peron (isn't it really Eva? I thought the Madonna movie made it 'Evita'), Mother Theresa. And that was all. And I couldn't help but think that I am failing, that feminism is failing, that our educational system is failing women.

I just got back on Friday from the NCCJ Anytown Youth Leadership Institute. It was an amazing experience, and I’ve been trying to formulate my thoughts and feelings into words in an effort to share this with you.

I am a very politically active person, and very against any injustice. And I say this because Anytown does not deal mainly with feminism. It was not in the week’s curriculum. But the Anytown Institute dealt with discrimination, stereotypes, and prejudice: all things that we as feminists come head on with in our daily lives.

When I got to the designated “pick up spot” for the delegates attending this year, you could see the segregation. People from the same schools stood together, and those were also segregated by ethnicity. Everyone was wary of everyone else. Some people did not want to be there, some were forced, some wholeheartedly willing, some even tried to fake being sick to get out of going. No one wanted to talk. One person was going around to other people, introducing themselves, and dragging the new people around to meet the other new arrivals. So some of us were acquainted when we got on the bus. But barely. The people coming from the same schools new each other, of course, but the rest of us barely talked. The delegates from the same area talked amongst themselves, and we talked hesitantly to them as well. But it was a little uneasy, the beginning of the hour-long bus ride to the middle of nowhere. (Keep in mind I live in the cultural armpit of the universe)

http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm?aid=2790

"I would be really disappointed if Hillary Clinton were the first woman president," said Medea Benjamin, a self-described feminist and founder of Code Pink, a women-initiated antiwar group based in Venice, Calif.

Molly Ivins, the Texan who routinely blasts President Bush, declared that she would not back Clinton for president in a January column published by The Free Press, a nonprofit organization sponsored by the Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism in Ohio. "Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation," she wrote. "Enough clever straddling. Enough not offending anyone."