by Tracey March

Early into my family’s coronavirus self-isolation, we were surfing YouTube one night and happened upon a video of a comedian conducting on-the-street interviews. A particular interview just keeps coming back to haunt me. In it, the interviewee articulates an unspoken and often unconscious attitude that is held by too many people. Here’s how the clip goes:

Comedian: Can a woman be president?

Woman: The presidency is a man’s job.

Comedian: (Looking at clipboard as a reference) I have… women ARE qualified to be president.

Woman: No. A female has more hormones. She could start a war in ten seconds. If she has hot flashes, whatever… BOOM.

Comedian: Haven’t all wars been started by men?

Woman:  Mmm. Yes… Whenever I hear “president” I think of “man.” It’s a man’s job.  What sorta… uh maybe…

Comedian: Closed-minded?

Woman: Yeah, well, no…

Comedian: Misogynistic?

Woman: (Laughs) No

Comedian: You’re voting against your own interests?

Woman: That’s it. Thank you very much.

I think the clip has stuck with me not because of how extreme or uninformed that specific woman’s attitude is, or that she is just plain wrong. I shouldn’t have to list the names of all the amazing women leaders we have in the world to make my point.  It’s 2020. There are plenty, and there have been for a long time.

I’m unsettled because I know that attitude is out there lurking in the nooks and crannies of our world—it’s not just out in the open where we can see it clearly. It can be subtle, and in some ways, that’s just as dangerous. It affects us all, men and women, girls and boys, in ways we don’t even recognize. It will shape the opportunities and challenges presented to my twenty-year-old daughter. It already has.

This is not new information to me, so I’m not sure why I found the clip so disheartening. Perhaps it’s because the woman seems so confident in her view of women’s flaws that it must have impacted her life in significant ways. She drank the KoolAid, she’s making more, and she’s sharing it. It’s one thing when men make cracks about women being too ‘this’ or too ‘that,’ but when women buy into it, it’s just sad. It makes me feel like we have lost. How many dreams has this woman denied herself from even having in the first place because she thinks she’s innately ill-equipped? How many opportunities has she let pass her by because she doesn’t see herself as someone who can be a leader? How many women and girls in her life has she actively discouraged from doing cool stuff; but also, how many has she quietly not encouraged to do great things, because “not encouraging” makes a difference too. This is how inequity is perpetuated. It’s out in the open, but it’s also in the cracks and crevices; it’s in clear and cutting words, but also in meaning-laden silence; in blatant, exclusory actions but also in failures to act, seek out, or even consider.

This is the reason companies like CEOX are necessary. And honestly, I really wish we didn’t need them, but clearly we do. It is 2020 and we are still fighting an uphill battle to get women into corporate leadership roles. In 2019, only 33 companies on the Fortune 500 list were headed by a woman CEO—and yippety, that was a record high! 6.6% was cast as a cause for celebration when women comprise 50.8% of the population.

I’m impatient, and that’s okay. But I also have hope. In 2020, there are many well-meaning people in powerful roles who want to do good and who recognize that their actions do make a difference. These people are self-aware enough to be willing to look inside themselves and to critique their own behaviors and attitudes. They are willing to undertake a good faith and earnest examination of how their unconscious biases wheedle their ways into their attitudes, decisions, and actions on who can be a good leader and on who should be given opportunities. This is a critical moment, because if we have this information, and fail to act on it, we may as well have “the presidency is a man’s job” tattooed on our foreheads.

Tracey March is a CEOX contributor. After spending perhaps too much time in graduate school studying political science, critical legal theory, and social justice issues, Tracey left a PhD program and found her way to the University of Washington School of Law.  After graduation, she worked at a large law firm in Seattle and then as a partner in a small law firm in the Methow Valley, Washington. Later, she worked as in-house counsel to a successful internet business. Along the way she has done lots of research and writing, and served as a board member for several small non-profits. In 2011, Tracey and her family moved to Bend, Oregon where she has worked as a writer and studied education. When not geeking out on current events or the latest fascinating social science study, Tracey likes to ride her mountain and road bikes, spend time outside, read great literature (and YA too!), develop her green thumb, and travel.