2017.05.04

The meeting centered on how easily a woman’s words can be dismissed as histrionic, despite her being rational, astute and prepared.  The silencing of Elizabeth Warren on the Senate floor when reading Coretta Scott King’s letter (eventually read in full by Bernie Sanders), and the recent interactions between Kamala Harris and Jeff Sessions served as ample inspiration.

Discussion started by calling attention to the different descriptors with negative connotations that are used for strong, smart women compared to those used for men, and how culture expectations of how women are supposed to act clash with leadership.

We contrasted some of the systems in place in Norway, with those in the U.S., e.g, ongoing affirmative action, and 1 year paid maternity leave – commenting that some of the social safety nets in place in Norway help promote equality by valuing work done work in and out of the workplace as important contributions. We also noted that the hyper-competitive nature and lack of redundancy in the U.S. work environments in the U.S. can hinder implementing such policies. Here we cited medical residency programs as a key example.

We then moved to focus on solutions to help a woman’s voice be heard:

 - The Mediator Role: One group member challenged the table to come up with a leadership style that is more effective for women than adopting the mediator role.  The mediator role was detailed as a dedicated focus on active listening, and promoting discussion to achieve collaboration and consensus. The pros of this style were clear to most, and liked for leveraging some classically feminine qualities of emotional IQ and empathy. The cons presented were 1) that classically feminine qualities need to be leveraged to avoid ruffling feathers, and 2) perhaps more importantly, in medicine and science, the right thing to do often comes from knowledge, rather than consensus.  In sum, we positioned this as an effective but provisional style to adopt for certain circumstances.  The group remained up for the challenge of defining a new model.

- Enormous Creativity: The second concept discussed was using enormous creativity to fill in gaps where other have not yet ventured. The example given was Hilllary Clinton’s work on healthcare, and how the data she compiled and analyzed to propose her healthcare reform package in 1993 has served as the foundation for Romneycare, and Obamacare. Here we discussed the double edged sword for Hillary knowing the let her work go to let it succeed, and allowing focus to be on the objective rather than who gets credit.  We also acknowledged that enormous creativity takes enormous effort.

We touched upon the success of efforts born from other women’s groups, namely Emily’s list. We also addressed practicalities, e.g., need for jobs among the group.

To close, we noted:

1. We learn from another, and serve as role models for one another in these meetings.

2. Viewing roles like the mediator as tools to use to move forward, rather than as inherent functions of personality is helpful.

We'd like to learn more. 

2017.06.30

The overarching theme that emerged from our first meeting was that we each are challenged by having our voices heard in a way that is commensurate with our talent and skill.  Going forward, we plan to explore this concept on a few different levels:

—   Use of the meeting as a fun and safe space to discuss themes or issues that we encounter and sharing potential solutions

—   Writing about the issues we explore.  Several group members write and it may be meaningful to put our thoughts to paper.

—   Publishing. There is terrific intellectual capital among us and we can draft a letter to a senator or publishing a perspective piece in in journal, etc as suits the issue.