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What a month it’s been.
First it was an historic, stockholders meeting for Xerox. CEO Anne Mulcahy officially confirmed she will be retiring July 1st and introduced her personally selected and groomed successor, Ursula Burns. Not only will Burns be the first Black woman to head a Fortune 500 company, she and Mulcahy have also charted the path of another milestone: the first woman-to-woman CEO handoff in Fortune 500 history.
Then, my Time Magazine arrived with Michelle Obama’s strong and focused face on the cover. The featured article, entitled The Meaning of Michelle, probed the significance of the journey our national psyche has made as we’ve watched a trailblazing First Lady evolve from “the caricatured Angry Black Woman of last spring to her exalted status as a New American Icon . . . “
And when Judge Sonia Sotomayor was introduced as President Obama's nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, we witnessed another subtle shift of our leadership paradigm. Regardless of the gender bashing that Sotomayor is now enduring, this legal heavyweight, who was raised by a single mother working two jobs yet went on to graduate Summa Cum Laude from Princeton and edit the Yale Law Review, is modeling another national brand of fresh possibilities.
Three sterling examples. Each in the stratosphere of influential public arenas: global business,the political spotlight and the judiciary. They are fresh, sparkling evidence of why I am convinced that our nation of women Achievers is moving into an unprecedented era of women Leaders.
What does it all mean? It means women are on the move again.
Several years ago, I was discouraged about our progress. For all of our individual accomplishments, we seemed to be idling in place -- stalled just below all those nearly impenetrable glass ceilings in every arena. There was even growing evidence that women were slipping.
Now, I sense the wind is changing. And it feels so good.
I believe the next phase of women’s evolution in the U.S. is about power. Not individual power, but collective power. Throughout all of history there have always been stunningly brilliant, courageous women who slipped their gender chains, bucked cultural pressure and pushed the edges of feminine possibility. Cleopatra, Madame Curie, Golda Meir, Sojouner Truth, Eleanor Roosevelt, Coretta Scott King, Hillary Rodham Clinton. The list goes on and on. But cultural change requires collective power.
That’s what is still missing for women: a broad understanding that every woman for herself is a losing strategy. It’s time to cultivate Sisterhood, with a capital S. It's time for women to begin actively reaching across racial, cultural, economic and generational lines to lift and lead one another into leadership positions – in big numbers. I'm tired of tokens and trailblazers. It's time for women's leadership -- in numbers appropriate for 51% of the population and the most educated, skilled and savvy critical mass of women in the history of the world.
And there's one other piece that's essential for humanity to make the next significant leap forward. It’s the mindset of men. I’ve been disgusted by the depths to which some male commentators have sunk recently in their drive to derail Judge Sotomayor’s nomination. For example, national radio talk show host G. Gordon Liddy recently opined to his listeners, “Let’s hope that they key conferences aren’t when she’s menstruating or something, or just before she’s going to menstruate. That would be really bad. Lord knows what we would get then.”
How pathetic!
Men who are threatened by the ascent of women are making a critical mistake. For centuries, women and minority men have had to learn to play the games invented and controlled by white men. While everyone else was adjusting and hustling to make the grade according to white, male standards, those born to that homo-social group had little adjusting to do. Yet the rules of the game are changing and the players rapidly diversifying. There are some uncomfortable days ahead for the likes of G. Gordon Liddy. Fantastic, evolved men, who are eager to shed their own gender chains, understand that we will all rise together. Dan Mulhern, Michigan's "First Gentlemen" and husband of our Governor, Jennifer Granholm, just wrote a terrific piece on this topic called, Father Leaders. His insight is more evidence of how the winds are changing.
What does it all mean? It means our culture is on the rise again. And it feels so good.
