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You can’t leave out half the world’s experience and expect to address all the problems. Women communicate differently and process information differently, which leads them to resolve conflicts differently.
That’s not to say that women’s priorities are better than men’s. Rather, when women are empowered, when they can speak from the experience of their own lives, they often address different, previously neglected issues. And families and whole communities benefit.
Many differences are rooted in biology and reinforced through culture, so it’s important to acknowledge that. Because if you say men and women are the same and if male behaviour is the norm, and women are always expected to act like men, we will never be as good at being men as men are.
As women slowly gain power, their values and priorities are reshaping the agenda. A multitude of studies show that when women control the family funds, they generally spend more on health, nutrition, and education – and less on alcohol and cigarettes.
While eschewing emotion – and its companion, vulnerability – Obama should be careful not to sacrifice empathy, the ‘I feel your pain’ connection that sustained Clinton. This connection is the shorthand people use to measure their leaders’ intentions. If people believe you’re on their side, they will trust your decisions.
If people believe you’re on their side, they will trust your decisions.
My job is to be a spokesman – the spokesman, I suppose – for the President, for the White House, to do the daily briefings, to manage the press corps in terms of travel, day-to-day needs, access, interviews, all those issues.
A lot of people over time have had this kind of pattern in their relationship with Bill Clinton. You first meet him and you’re overwhelmed by his talent. He’s so energetic and articulate and full of ideas and he calls himself a congenital optimist and that optimism is contagious.
Women have a lot of power in private life. There are many men who would say, ‘Hey, women already rule my life.’ But with women, more is more. The more there are, the more the world gets used to seeing them. We change the culture. We begin to expand options and lead and manage.
Almost all first ladies have had tremendous power on personnel issues, whether the public realized it or not, whether it was Barbara Bush or Nancy Reagan or whoever.