Transcriber: Miki Sakai Reviewer: Tatjana Jevdjic
Some of you, not all of you, some of you will have read my book.
I wrote a book thirty years ago called "A Woman in Your Own Right".
And it still sells,
and this year I've completely revised and updated it.
I thought it was time after three decades.
But it was, then, about teaching women
to interact with others from the basis of personal power,
was how to do it, the nuts and bolts of it,
the skills needed.
It still is.
It still revolves around personal power,
and how this differs in profound ways
from conventional forms of power,
which we experience in hierarchical structures
within our families, organizations,
the whole of society.
Conventional power comes sometimes with parental or professional role.
It comes with resources of any kind,
which give some people power over others who don't have the resources.
It comes with expertise.
Certain skills give you power
over others when they need them.
These facets of power we live with every day of our lives,
finding ourselves constantly shifting up and down,
the different rungs on the ladder.
Conventional power is always measured over and under.
There are only two positions.
But personal power is different.
Personal power comes from an internal
not an external source.
It's not a power that is conferred by others.
It's something we grow and nurture inside ourselves.
This is the kind of power that I've addressed all my working life,
because despite any outside power, we may have,
we can still experience an internal sense of powerlessness.
Powerlessness can be felt in response to intimidation or harassment:
we can feel powerless to challenge unfair criticism or cruelty,
powerless to disagree effectively with others.
We can feel powerless when we're tongue-tied and anxious,
powerless when we feel too angry to speak,
or completely overwhelmed with feelings,
but not safe enough to express them.
We can feel powerless when pressurized to go along
with something we don't want to agree to,
but we just can't find a clear enough "no"
for the other person to take us seriously.
When women experience powerlessness like this,
it's not because we're weak –
we can be extraordinary achievers in a whole variety of ways.
And yet, we can feel powerless to handle situations when we're anxious:
when we're anxious about hurting someone,
anxious about losing control,
anxious about retaliation,
anxious about losing a job,
or damaging a relationship, or friendship.
Over many years of teaching and training,
I've noticed some of the things that damage personal power.
One is isolation.
It's very hard to muster the wear-with-all to withstand bullying,
or to speak up in a minority,
when we feel completely unsupported.
The second factor is simply ignorance of skills or techniques.
Sometimes we just don't know how to respond differently.
What other ways are there of confronting someone
without being aggressive?
This has been the substance of my work for three decades.
Participants have learned skills, which have enabled them
to speak through their anxiety,
discover what pitfalls they could avoid,
how they could prepare for a difficult conversation,
how they can hold firm in authority
without having to be bitchy into the bargain.
The third cause is denial.
Whenever we deny what's happening,
whenever we pretend we are not feeling anxious or angry,
when we deny what it is we really want or don't want,
we lose touch with our personal power.
The fourth cause of powerlessness is lack of modeling and inspiration.
If you look at a current list,
say, the hundred most powerful women in the world in 2012,
you'll find a list of women:
entrepreneurs, celebrities, politicians,
who've risen to the heights of the world's corporate, political,
media and NGO hierarchies.
I don't begrudge these women, their achievements,
or their fame or fortune,
because most of the time they worked very hard to get where they are.
What I do care about is that when we look more closely
at what to be powerful means:
It's often equated with being wealthy,
independent, successful,
and basically getting whatever you want.
If we look at some of the components about what it means
to be labeled a powerful woman,
we find always self-confidence, always articulate,
always achieving goals through whatever means,
never lost for words,
never confused, never wrong,
never vulnerable, never anxious.
Aspects of power like this fit perfectly
within the traditions of conventional power.
These have been conferred on some women
within the systemic hierarchies of the world.
This is exactly the same kind of power enjoyed by men
for a long time exclusively,
which is why when women reach the higher echelons for the first time,
it doesn't usually go without note –
we are told, the first woman to achieve this,
the first women be in this position.
But what concerns me is, what happens when they get there?
When women actually attain positions of power, and of this form,
and finally manage to inhabit the august halls
of professional, political and corporate power –
what changes?
The new beete brooms sweep down these corridors of power.
Do we see a more human approach emerging?
Do women help other women to rise?
Do they model power without oppression?
Do they model any alternatives to the norms of aggression,
self-interest, dishonesty,
or the insistence of short term gain
over long term benefits?
Do women appear as bringers of a new order
or is it simply business as usual?
I don't see much evidence of a new and enlightened model of power,
more of a continuation of the same mindset,
a perpetuation of the same structures with in-built competition,
oppression and inequality.
I see less evidence of female solidarity these days, as well,
than thirty years ago.
Individualism as a value seems to dominate,
breeding more competition than collaboration,
more detachment than loyalty,
more self-centeredness than compassion.
And there's even now a faint embarrassment about the idea
of feminism these days.
So when ordinary women believe
this it what it takes to be a powerful woman,
many remain unconvinced,
uncomfortable and discouraged,
continuing to straightjacket our own potential power
into a one size, one shape fits-all model,
following the same rules, aiming for the same rewards.
I think it's a missed opportunity.
Women's power, within the hierarchies of the world,
is quite different from what I might call woman power.
Woman power appears in many forms,
but there are certain features that you can recognize.
The first is often a concern for equality, which entails a move away
from exclusive focus on self-empowerment
to include other empowerment.
You notice a concern for others who are vulnerable,
who have less access to resources of all kinds,
and a willingness to speak for them,
and even to fight for them.
A second is the quality of integrity,
which emanates through women power.
Occasionally, this may demand a challenge to the status quo,
a willingness to put oneself on the line, to stand in the minority,
to risk ridicule and even failure, as a commitment to one's integrity,
being to true to one's self,
the experience of doing what you do,
because you have to, not for personal glory or gain.
A third quality, that can be discerned in woman power, is emotion.
Instead of dismissing emotion as irrelevant and childish,
there's a lot of passion involved.
Women who model woman power have learned to harness
their grief and anger,
and use it as fuel for their commitment.
Woman power is wise enough to know the difference between
anger and aggression.
And although the aggression is a norm today in many forms,
you notice a rejection of aggression,
and a preference for compassion.
Compassion is inclusive and extends to all human,
even non-human inhabitants of the planet.
This particular quality is rooted in the recognition
that connection to others through relationship
is more life-giving and life-sustaining
than treating people as objects,
units of labor or mere statistics.
Linked to this is the quality of the nourishment.
Whenever you're in the presence of woman power, you feel nourished:
physically, emotionally or spiritually nourished.
There have been many women who inspire me personally.
You won't find them at the top of any corporation,
but they exemplify woman power in the following ways.
Here are just a few:
Fawzia Koofi is an example.
A woman who risked everything in fighting for education,
for girls in her country,
fighting for the freedom of her own daughter,
and every Afghani mother's daughter.
There's a council of catholic nuns in the States,
who after spending their lives serving the sick, the poor,
looking after children and immigrants,
began to question church prohibitions:
on women serving as priests,
on birth control, on the acceptance of same-sex relationships.
This resulted a few months ago in a strong reproof from the Vatican,
with a threat to place them
under a strict pastoral guidance of the bishop.
A bishop.
I spoke to one of these women recently,
and she told me, "They were still," as she said, "in dialogue,
(Laughter)
but they will not back down."
That quiet determination and resolve to uphold their integrity
is for me inspiring.
Vandana Shiva,
a scientist, eco-feminist and environmental activist in India.
She spent years challenging,
virtually single-handedly,
the might of five global corporations,
who have sought to own the earth by pushing through legislation,
to make themselves owners of patents of every kind of seed.
She fights for sustainability to protect the value of biodiversity,
and her people's rights to water and food.
I've been inspired by the passion in the voice of Kate Tempest,
a woman in her twenties, a young rapper
whose words are angry and poetic
as they describe the despair of life of disadvantaged young people
in poor housing estates in the UK.
Another face of woman power for me is Julia Romp.
A single mother of an autistic son, George,
who could only communicate with the cat.
When the cat went missing, she spent months and months
in frantic efforts to find the cat,
which was eventually found in another county.
So there was a happy ending.
This speaks to me of the extraordinary power
of a devotion which refuses to give up.
This was true of Mrs. Sisulu, when I met her in Soweto,
before Apartheid ended,
when her husband Walter was still in jail with Nelson Mandela.
After six weeks there, I asked her, what on earth kept her going
in the fight against Apartheid.
Her simple answer was,
"We keep going, because we have truth on our side."
"It may not happen in my lifetime," she said,
"but it will in my granddaughter's."
In fact, change came three years later.
Witnessing woman power for me is a truly humbling
and inspiring experience,
but we can all do this in our lives.
We don't need to take on the world, start campaigns or crusades.
I've witnessed woman power emerging in workshops
and training programs, for a long time now.
Humor is another trademark.
I remember Jill, a CEO, who couldn't find a way
of dealing with her boss
who would regularly assign her the most menial of tasks,
way below her capacity.
She could say "no", of course,
but she was still left feeling powerless.
So we worked for a long time, practicing in the group
of how she could deal with it.
She discovered the best way for her was laughter.
She practiced in the group, and the next time,
he asked her to do something silly, she roared with laughter.
(Laughter)
A deep laugh from her belly.
For her, this expressed perfectly
the absurdity of the whole situation.
He thought she was crazy.
(Laughter)
She felt a whole lot better.
The power of crazy is also a part of woman power.
Choosing to respond with compassion instead of aggression
is not beyond any of us.
We inhabit a world where qualities of vulnerability
dependence, slowness and age,
in our own culture and many others,
represent all that is unwanted,
even despised by our consumer society.
How do we respond to this?
Do we personally challenge injustice and dishonesty
when we encounter it?
Can we walk away from a compromising conversation?
Can we voice disagreement with someone without getting into a fight
about who's right and wrong?
Can we model a power rooted above all in care for others?
Can we embody the fierce love of anger,
instead of hiding behind platitudes like,
"That's the way things are these days,"
or "There's nothing anyone can do about it."
Can we find the voice to say,
"No, that's enough, no more."?
I think we can.
Women in their workplaces might use their voices
whenever they do manage to rise into positions of hierarchical power.
Their own voices to take the lead, and emphasizing
the importance of relationship with colleagues of isolation,
of collaboration
rather than competition.
Taking time to treat people as human beings,
challenging the stranglehold of the audit culture,
in which nothing has relevance, unless it can be measured
as a unit and given a price tag.
I really believe it's time in fact, well, past time
when women need to express more woman power.
Not only for themselves –
for those they love and care for,
for their children,
for those men who are partners, brothers,
colleagues, friends,
some of whom may realize the disadvantages
and human cost of continuing aggression,
but are not sure of any alternative.
I believe we can show a different kind of power,
one that is needed now more than ever
in a world which has lost it's heart.
(Applause)