♪♪
amna: From our bookshelf
tonight, a revealing look at
women in leadership and how they
view
and use their power differently
compared to their male
counterparts.
It's the focus of the latest
collaboration from journalists
katty Kay and Claire shipman.
I recently sat down with katty
to discuss their new book, "The
power code: More joy, less ego,
maximum impact for women and
everyone else."
Katty Kay, welcome back to the
newshour.
Thanks for being here.
Katty: I want to thank you for
having me.
Amna: So let's talk about power.
You write, men and women don't
even define it the same way.
What do you mean?
How how do people see it
differently?
Katty: So we wrote this book
because we looked at the
numbers.
Only 10% of CEOs are women.
Something like 27 of the world's
odd 200 countries have female
leaders.
And we just thought this is not
enough.
But we came across a piece of
research from Harvard a few
years ago which which sort of
turned it all on its head.
And that showed that actually
maybe women don't want power.
Amna: Don't even want it.
Katty: Don't even want it.
So many women have more life
values than men do.
We have more things we want to
do with our lives, community,
family, parents, children, all
of those things.
And the costs of getting power
are too high.
But there is something about
power itself that we don't
define it the same way as men
do.
Traditionally, power is seen as
power over.
I have power over resources, or
I have power over people.
It's a competitive thing.
It's a zero sum game.
More power for you, amna, is
less for me.
That's the kind of traditional
definition of power.
Women don't see it that way.
We're much more focused on the
end result.
Amna: You and your coauthor,
Claire, also write after your
speaking to several subjects and
academics and leaders, you also
write this line that struck me.
You wrote quote, from your own
lived experience.
You're writing from that
perspective, as well as two
white women with decades of work
experience who've benefited from
considerable access to
traditional power structures.
Why was that important to point
out?
Katty: White women have a much
higher access to power, to
promotions at a higher rate than
particularly black women.
I think it's something like
twice the rate of promotions of
black women.
And when you start looking at
women of color, they tend to be
lumped in these diversity
programs into one group.
Latina women are much more often
asked, where do you come from?
Asian American women are much
more often expected to be nice D and quiet.
There are stereotypes around
different groups of women.
And I think it's important that
we acknowledge that no one woman
is like any other woman.
But women get lumped into these
groups and then sort of
stereotyped in those groups and
the biases against them and the
barriers to them getting access
to power become even higher.
Amna: You document the barriers
that apply to women only in many
of these industries from office
temperatures being set to a
man's average temperature.
I feel that every day.
Personal protective gear.
I never thought of this being
designed largely around a man's
body.
Things that are flawed by
design.
Katty: Podiums.
Amna: Podiums.
Katty: When did you ever stand
on a podium that was the right
height for a woman?
Amna: You also talk about this
thing called the perfect woman
peril.
What is that?
Katty: So I think women in our
book on confidence, we have
documented the degree to which
women tend to be more
perfectionist than men.
But actually that comes from an
expectation of perfection.
Just we are expected when women
are often promoted on the basis
of performance men on the basis
of promise.
So that already sets the
barrier.
We have to have done those
things already.
We have to have, you know, run
an m&a department, have had a
posting abroad, been a manager.
Men are promoted often just
because they have the promise to
do those things.
When we expect women to be
perfect, of course, with
stackingnghe odds against their
chances of having power.
Amna: And this is something
backed up by the data as well.
Katty: This it's all it's all
data, it's all research.
'S all science.
Amna: You dig into the home life
as well.
And you focus.
Katty: We didn't expect to go
there.
Amna: Well, mostly on
heterosexual couples, because
that's where many of the issues
seem to be most acute.
But this part also fascinated
me.
You wrote that the problem is
sometimes also husbands, quote,
you write, women who make it to
the top tend to do so in spite
of having husbands with jobs of
their own.
What did you find there?
Katty: Yeah, we found one
researcher who said to us, the
biggest drawback for women is
often not their bosses, it's
their husbands.
Marriages in the United States
look a bit like the 1950s
between men and women.
Women are still doing the vast
majority of the childcare, the
housework, the planning of the
housework, the emotional labor,
the cognitive labor, all of the
research around housework.
A man who doesn'have a job in
the United States does less
housework than a woman with a
full time job.
The number of states.
Amna: Say that, again.
A man without a job in the
United States does less
housework than a woman with a
full time job.
Katty: Yeah, I mean, stunning,
right?
The number of stay at home dads,
I know you have a partner who
stays at home, looks after your
children.
He's sort of a unicorn.
The number of stay at home dads
just hasn't grown very much.
And women are very good at many
things.
But we have not figured out how
to put 36 hours into a 24 hour
day.
And until we have partners at
home who are doing as much as we
need them to do, we can't get
power outside of the home, but
also we flip it.
Men are a sort of being deprived
of all of the opportunities that
come from being fully engaged in
caregiving and in their
communities.
Women in many ways have more
options at the moment.
We can be stay at home mothers,
we can be full time workers, we
can be part time workers.
All of those are socially
acceptable.
But in our research, what we've
found is that men are really
still expected to be the
breadwinner.
And when they're not, it's very
difficult.
It causes complications.
And we want to change that
paradigm.
We want to give men the
opportunities women have and
invite them into all of the
richness that can come from
being part of that caregiving
society we're speaking.
Amna: It's such an interesting
time to now at the end of this
pandemic, and we know millions
of women were forced out of the
workforce.
Right.
But also on this, we're marking
one year after roe V wade was
overturned.
And I'm curious, as you've been
looking into all these issues,
having these conversations, when
you step back holistically, how
do you look at women and access
to power right now?
Katty: I think this is a great
moment for this for what we're
writing about.
We've come out of the metoo
movement.
We've come out of black lives
matter, we've come out of covid,
which has completely upended the
way we work.
We've come out of the
overturning of roe V. Wade, and
there is a moment of chaos where
things are up for grabs and
everybody is reexamining what
works.
I look around the world at the
moment and the current model we
have of power.
I don't know about you, but it
doesn't look to me like it's
working so well.
So why not redefine it?
Why not take a look at what it
takes to lead really well?
And our conclusion is we don't
need to remake women.
We need to remake power.
Amna: The book is the power
code.
The authors are Claire shipman
and katty Kay.
Katty, thank you for being here.
Katty: Amna, thank you.