Can Women have it All?
Anne-Marie Slaughter's Atlantic cover story about women's work-life balance dilemma has rekindled the longstanding debate that is resonating with women and men alike. Slaughter answers questions about the praise and criticism her article received in this interview with Katie Couric.
This talk covers the following—available in clips on the bottom of the video player:
• Tremendous Response from Men as Well as Women
• Options Instead of Opting Out
• Maternal v. Paternal Instincts
• Accommodating All Kinds of Families
• How Can We Have It All?
Festival: 2012
Can Women have it All?
Aspen Ideas Festival transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for the Aspen Institute, and the accuracy may vary. This text may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Aspen Institute programming is the video or audio.
THE ASPEN INSTITUTE
ASPEN IDEAS FESTIVAL 2012
CAN WOMEN HAVE IT ALL?
Paepcke Auditorium
1000 N, Third Street
Aspen, Colorado, 81612
Sunday, July 1, 2012
LIST OF PARTICIPANTS
KATIE COURIC
Award-Winning Journalist and TV Personality
ANNE-MARIE SLAUGHTER
Bert G. Kerstetter ’66 University Professor
of Politics and International Affairs
at Princeton University.
* * * * *
P R O C E E D I N G S
MS. MILLER: Good morning. If you could please
take your seats. We've already missed 5 minutes, and I
know we all don't want to miss anymore. My name is Jamie
Miller, I'm with the Aspen Institute and I'm thrilled to
be here this morning to tee these two wonderful women up.
Welcome to all of you who are here for the first
time this morning. If I could ask you to please turn off
your cell phones, and also we will have a Q and A period
when they're done talking and mics will be moving around
the room. So please wait to be called on and for a
microphone to get to you.
My only other role is to introduce the
moderator, which is probably one of the least necessary
roles on the planet. Katie Couric is currently a special
correspondent for ABC News, and host of the new show Katie.
(Applause)
MS. MILLER: With that, I'll turn it over to
her. Thank you both.
MS. COURIC: (Off mic) -- if you want a little
bit, Jamie, I was getting ready to have more coffee.
Everyone, first of all it's great to be here, thank you
all for coming. When I told Kitty Boone that I was
interested in participating in the Ideas Festival this
year, I asked her to please give me something topical.
(Laughter)
MS. COURIC: So I was very happy to see that she
obliged. So thank you, Kitty. I think every so often an
article is published that strikes a nerve and I think
provides a touchdown for all of us to consider the choices
we made and where we are in our lives and I think that
this article certainly fills that bill.
More than one million people have come to
Atlantic.com to read Anne-Marie Slaughter's piece
entitled "Why Women Still Can't Have It All." It is on
track, this is pretty cool, Anne-Marie, to be the most
read piece on the site. There have been 2,000 comments,
170,000 Facebook likes. I'm one of those people who is
very happy there's no official dislike on Facebook by the
way.
(Laughter)
MS. COURIC: Hundreds of Tweets and a whole slew
of articles debating the merits of the piece. Is it an
anti-feminist treatise that will set women back or a
commonsense approach to changing the culture of the
workplace to make it easier for all of us to have that
often elusive work-life balance.
Anne-Marie Slaughter was the State Department's
director of policy planning for 2 years, as many of you
know who read the article, until she decided to return to
her tenured teaching position at Princeton, she's the
classic underachiever really, feeling, "I could no longer
be the parent and the professional I wanted to be." So
I'm really excited to have a conversation and, of course,
to open it up to questions from you all because I know
there probably are a lot of questions out there.
So Anne-Marie, welcome.
MS. SLAUGHTER: Thank you.
MS. COURIC: I haven't done this for a while.
So, okay, I might be a little bit rusty. A number of
critics including Rebecca Traister of Slate, who is also
an author, have taken issue with the title of this piece
and the notion of "having it all." They sort of think
it's a hackneyed phrase that should be retired permanently
from the Lexicon of feminist rhetoric. And I guess the
question is do you have any regrets about this title and
does anybody really have it all? Isn't it a misnomer
that, I think it's fair to say, does set women up, women
in particular up, for failure?
MS. SLAUGHTER: I think if I had an absolutely
accurate title, it would be "Why working mothers need
better choices to be able to make it to the top?"
(Applause)
MS. COURIC: So don't blame it on the editor,
Anne-Marie.
MS. SLAUGHTER: No, I'm not. I'm not. That I
think is what I'm trying to say. Interestingly, I had a
focus group of women of my age and younger women, very
talented women, who read this piece, and one of them --
several of them wrote back and said, what you're saying is
you can't have it all, yet. And the reason I used "to
have it all," and I understand a lot of the negative
resonance, is that in my generation, I graduated from
college in 1980 and, you know, the women ahead of me were
really blazing trails. When I was in law school and my
male professors would say the judge, the doctor, the
lawyer, she, I jumped every time because I didn't know a
female judge or a doctor. I knew one female lawyer.
So having it all just meant having a career and
having a family. And that's why it became the mantra that
it became. I think very -- it's clear to me that many
people hear it differently now. They think it means
having everything we want. None of us have everything we
want. Men, women, and frankly, everybody in this room
have far more of what we want than 99 percent of the
people in this country.
So -- but -- so I think we should change it.
But the question then is so what replaces it. I did this
on Twitter. I said to Rebecca Traister, okay, give me the
hash tag that is not "having it all." And she came back
with "having a balance." Terry Givens came back
with "having a life." And I think that's where I'd like
to take it going forward, having a life.
Having a life where you can be a parent, you can
be a professional. That way it applies to men and women,
but the last thing I'll say, I'm not sure if I'd said why
women need better -- working mothers need better choices
to make it to the top, I'm not sure a million people
would've read it. And I wanted to start a conversation
and we've started a conversation.
(Laughter)
MS. COURIC: What has most surprised you about
the response to this piece?
MS. SLAUGHTER: The scale is just off the
charts. I mean, it's ironic because I've spent a lot of
time in the social media in the last year and I build a
Twitter following before any of this happened and I write
about how social media is transforming global politics.
Nothing prepared me for the idea that you could put
something up online on a Wednesday night, and by Friday,
you had 450,000 people who read it. All these Facebook
circles of people talking about it, that has surprised me
globally. I mean we're hearing from people in Vietnam and
Nigeria and Japan and Brazil, all over the place, and the
tremendous response from men as well as women, which I've
had a lot of as well. So those three things.
MS. COURIC: So you told me -- we had breakfast
and then you told me over coffee.
MS. SLAUGHTER: This was worth it frankly. Just
I got to have breakfast with Katie Couric.
(Laughter)
MS. COURIC: You told me that the responses have
been overwhelmingly positive.
MS. SLAUGHTER: They have. Now, obviously
there's selection bias, right? Not -- there are plenty of
people who are writing me and saying they didn't like it,
but 95 percent of the hundreds and hundreds of messages
I've gotten and the letters to The Atlantic start with
thank you and they often say, I cried when I read your
article. And these are from really high achieving women
and women in all different professions. And then they
tell their story.
The one thing that I think has happened is
because I was willing to tell my story, people feel freer
to tell theirs. And you just -- the power of these
stories of women desperately trying to hold it all
together and trying to be the professional they want to be
and the parent they want to be are very, very powerful.
And I really feel that we're on the cusp of being able to
make change and most of what I have heard has been thank
you and now let's go forward.
MS. COURIC: And we're going to talk about some
of those changes and the response you've gotten from some
of the people who are in the people to make those changes
in a minute. But you can see that you're "well aware that
the majority of American women face problems far greater
than any discussed in this article."
What you make of the criticism that these are
high class problems you're dealing with that only affect a
certain segment, as you acknowledge in the piece, of the
population, high educated affluent women, not certainly
the ones struggling every day to hold down two jobs,
single mothers who are trying to make ends meet. Should
this really, in your view, be the focus of the national
debate when so many women have it so much worse?
MS. SLAUGHTER: Well, as you say, I absolutely
knew that. Obviously, given all the privilege that I have
and the kind of job I have, I knew I was, as I said, I'm
writing for my demographic. But here's how I think about
it. There are many problems in this country and there are
many problems that I think we have to work on and the
availability of good day care, of good schools, of good
health care all of the things that would make it better
for all Americans, men and women, are hugely important
problems.
But I focused on one problems and it's same
problem Sheryl Sandberg. We have all these women coming --
we have 50 percent of women entering the workforce, more
than 50 percent of women coming out of top schools, and
yet as you go up, we have 20 percent in board rooms and as
CEOs and in government, in legislatures. Indeed the only -
- one of few places you have women and men in equal
leadership positions is academia and that's because we can
manage own time.
So if you say the problems is not enough women
at the top, then you've got a right for the women who
could make it to the top, who are by and large, except for
some unbelievably extraordinary who pulled themselves up,
the women in this room, our daughters, my students. If
that's the problem that I wanted to address, then I had to
address that audience.
MS. COURIC: And the notion that women who could
achieve a certain level of leadership positions, could
then implement the policies that would trickle down and
help the women that I just described to who are struggling
every day.
MS. SLAUGHTER: Exactly. Yes.
MS. COURIC: Let's talking about this whole
thing with Sheryl Sandberg because it's been set up, sort
of described in the media, what a shock, as a cat fight.
I'm very familiar with that.
(Laughter)
MS. COURIC: You know, a lot of times Brian
Williams and Matt Lauer I'm telling you, it is ugly. But
it never gets written about. I'm kidding.
(Laughter)
MS. COURIC: So what do you think about this
whole notion that this is -- you know, and what is your
biggest beef with Sheryl's kind of encouraging women to
not lean back or whatever her phraseology is? And if you
did have an opportunity to have a cup of coffee with her,
which I understand it may be in the works because she
reached out to you on e-mail and said we need to talk
about -- more about this and soon.
MS. SLAUGHTER: She did, right.
MS. COURIC: How do you think sort of the --
what she's telling women to do and how do you think what
you're saying could possibly dovetail?
MS. SLAUGHTER: So first place you're absolutely
right. Sheryl Sandberg and I, I think, are both role
models. We're both people who want women to go as far as
they can possibly go. We start from the proposition there
are not enough women at the top, and to the extent that
she is inspiring a lot of young women, and particularly in
the tech industry where we don't have nearly enough,
that's fabulous. And to the extent women at Barnard heard
her and I can do it and I'm going to try, that's great.
So we start from the same place. Where we
differ I think somewhat, and I think both things are
necessary, but I see lots and lots and lots of young women
who have plenty of ambition. What they don't have is
accommodation, accommodation for letting them have more
flexible space, and this goes for a lot of working fathers
as well, that would allow them to both have their careers
and have people.
So I want to say is, yes, there may be an
ambition gap. I know there are some research that shows
it. What I see is much more an accommodation gap. And we
probably need to work on both, right? I think this is a
conversation with more powerful successful women who can
participate in it and inspire others, but also inspire
change, the better. And I hope she'll rejoin the
conversation.
MS. COURIC: But you say Sheryl's advice -- I
guess your biggest complaint is Sheryl's advice
is "contains more than a note of reproach that successful
women are saying to the women and the generation behind us
what's the matter with you." In other words, I think
through the article you talk about women aren’t doing well
enough because they are not committed enough and you take
umbrage with that whole sort of observation.
MS. SLAUGHTER: Yes, I do. And I do -- I don't
think she intended a note of reproach. Let's be clear. I
don't think she meant to shake her finger and say, you
know, you're not ambitious enough. But she was saying is,
you know, lean in, don't leave before you leave. I agree
with that, but I'd say ask for what you need. You know,
ask for the accommodation you need.
I do think many of the younger women who decide,
look, I need to take a different track because I simply
can't make partner and have kids before 35 when people
tell me I should have kids, you know, are feeling like
they are letting down the side and they feel bad about
that. And what I want to say to them is it isn't just
about you, it's about the society. It's about the
economy. It's about our values. We can change those
things.
You should feel great about what you're doing
and how you're doing it because I don't think we're going
to get where we need to go if we make women feel bad. And
I don't think she wants to make women feel bad, but I
think that message, I've been told by a number of women,
that message made them think, well, if I just tried a
little harder, I should be able to do it. Women are
trying -- they are doing absolutely extraordinary things
and we need to help.
MS. COURIC: Are you worried though, Anne-Marie,
that the unintended consequences of this piece will sort
of make an increasing number of women opt out because one
of the things that you talk about in your piece is that we
need to close the leadership gap by electing a women
president, 50 women senators, ensure that women are
equally represented in the ranks of corporate executives
and judicial leaders but -- and you say only when women
wield power in sufficient numbers will we create a society
that basically works for all women.
But how do you do that if in fact it's too hard?
I mean don't we need to have some sacrificial lambs who
are out there making sacrifices in their personal lives so
they can achieve and work, work the hours they need. I
mean, you've got to work pretty hard to become president
of the United States. You can't say, oh, you know what, I
can't go to that U.N. session because I've got to go to my
daughter's recital, right?
MS. SLAUGHTER: Right.
(Laughter)
MS. SLAUGHTER: No question, and in my business,
you know, you can't sort of say to the Egyptian
government, would you please hold, I got a crisis at home.
That's not good at work although I will say, you know, I
have seen President Obama get up at 9:00 o'clock at a
White House dinner and go upstairs and make clear that he
was going up. But -- no, but there are a bunch of jobs
where you aren’t going to be able to balance it. And you
have to know that if you're taking one of those jobs, as I
did for 2 years, you're going to see a whole lot less of
your kids.
But here's the thing. I mean, obviously if I
thought that what I was writing would make women opt out,
I would never have written it. And I wrestled for a long
time, as I said at the outset, you know, my peers said to
me you don't write anything about your own struggles,
about making different choices, you will discourage
younger women.
And then I went and talked to a group of road
scholars who are accomplished as young men and women as
could be and I told them the truth and the first response
was thank God, you know you didn't give us just
another "you can have it all" talk. And that's when I
decided the women who made those sacrifices above all were
the women ahead of me who really -- right? They worked in
a completely man's world and the things that they had to
do to get there to open the doors for my generation --
MS. COURIC: And deal with.
MS. SLAUGHTER: -- and deal with were amazing.
I think my generation has made a lot of progress. Many of
us had kids late and experienced infertility issues and
lots of issues were we now tell a lot younger women, try
to have kids before 35 if you can. That leaves this
generation who feel very empowered, right.
They are raised, as somebody said, they are
raised as soccer players and told that they could anything
they want to do as little girls. And then they are
getting there and saying I'm just not sure how this is all
going to fit. You know, I want to be a top career
professional. I want to have a family. How am I going to
make this work?
And what I'm trying to say is I think the
women's movement -- I think frankly our society has gotten
to a place where we can say let's ask for what we need. I
think along the way we might end up with a more balanced
life for all of us, and that would be a good thing, but we
can ask for what we need and make it easier for, as I
said, women to stay in the pool.
And that's my ultimate goal. I want women to
still be in the pool so when you look for the managing
partner and you look for the high State Department
official -- you know, all the women in the Obama
administration, as I wrote, when we step down, men
replaces because every available women who did foreign
policy who was a democrat was recruited, everybody.
There's just not very big a pool. When men step
down, there are more men who would love to have those
jobs. We need more women in the pool, and to do that, we
got to allow women to have the family -- have families,
not stay home, have families and also pursue their career
ambitions.
MS. COURIC: Your husband Andy is here I know.
Andy, where are you? Hi, Andy. Andy is a prince. I
would like to ret you out if you're available because
seriously --
(Laughter)
MS. SLAUGHTER: Now, wait a minute. Wait a
minute.
MS. COURIC: I get it, I get it. This is
turning into a whole different discussion but an amazing
father obviously to your two sons. And you say in the
piece, Anne-Marie, you write that a partner who shares the
parenting load isn't enough because it assumes that most
women will feel as comfortable as men do about being away
from their children as long as their partner is home with
them. Do you really think the maternal versus a paternal
instinct is so strong that choosing family over career is
in fact reflexive because I know you said you're entering
treacherous territory when you wrote this? And to be
honest with you, you kind of lost me here.
MS. SLAUGHTER: Okay. So first of all I'm glad -
- Andy was -- I'm glad you called out Andy. And actually
Ezekiel Emanuel said last night he's the first dude. I
think we like that. He has been a hero through this and
he's a fabulous father and honestly both of our sons even
though is teenage sons, they buttheads a lot, would say
honestly that I think because of the way I work they have
a wonderful relationship with their fathers as well as
their mother.
That's essential, right. Having a mate who will
be an equal partner I think is absolutely essential for
women who want to be full career women just as having
women who have been able to play that role has always been
essential for men. So that is very, very important. This
was really hard. I never felt -- I always worked. Our
kids went to daycare early. I never felt the need to be
home with them, particularly when they were young.
I mean, I was always able to be there when I
wanted to be and we had lots of flexible time, but I did
not feel this material instinct that I had to be home with
them particularly when they were young. And I think women
really vary, and that's fine. I mean different women make
different choices that way and that is perfectly fine.
What I was trying to say, and I -- this is hard,
but when our son really did need frankly both parents, all
hands on deck, even with both parents very hard, and I
take my hat off to all single parents, I do not -- you
know, that is very, very hard, when I felt that he was
making life choices that were very bad life choices and
they were going to effect the rest of his life, I felt,
you know, he didn't ask to be born. I brought him into
the world, we brought him into the world, it is my
responsibility to him.
And even if I'm in a job that is affecting
possibly millions of people around the world, as I wrote,
there are lots of people who could be in that job. There
was only one person who could be a mother. And I -- based
on what I have seen of men and women, there are many men
whose kids need them, when the mom is home, I think they
feel it's a little easier to say mom is at home and I can
still do what I do. They have to do what they. They're
making an income.
For many women, I think that tug, as I said, it
didn't feel like a choice. It was in the end this was
something that I have to do. And I don't -- you know,
there are so many stereotypes here. Mostly what I would
just say is if you feel that act on it and feel good about
it. So many women are made to feel bad about those
choices.
And when I got home and told people that I'd
come back because my 2-year leave was up and also because
of my teenagers, they were fine as long as I said, well, I
would've lost my tenure, that was fine. They said that's
fine, we understand that. The minute I said but actually,
you know, the most fundamental reason that I'm home
because we have teenage sons and they really needed us
both at home, then I get this slight kind of, oh, I don't
really want to hear that. That's you're choosing your
family. That's not the sort of working women's creed.
That's not so acceptable.
And that's crazy. We should be in a society
where we say that is great. You're living up to your
responsibilities. You're investing in the next
generation. That is a wonderful choice to be emulated, to
be praised, to be valued every bit as much as the choice
to be the first women director of policy planning. And
that in the end is really the key.
(Applause)
MS. COURIC: I think what you went on to say
women often choose their families over their careers where
men choose their careers over their family.
MS. SLAUGHTER: That's too stark. That is
really too stark. And again many, many men including my
own father, which I didn't know until I wrote this
article, my father wrote me and said, you know, when I was
in a partner in a Virginia law firm, I had the choice to
move to Richmond to be a more senior partner and I decided
not to because I wanted to be more home with you and my
brother. That's certainly true. So there are countless
men who have made choices to be more home with their
families, and I would like to applaud all of them as well.
I do think, you know --
(Applause)
MS. SLAUGHTER: Yes. But again we're talking
about a pretty rare, small slice of highly ambitious
people, alpha women, alpha men, I sort of hate that term,
but we're talking about people who really are driven in
their careers. And that's where, at that level, at the
top, because we're talking about we want women to make it
to the top, what I think I see, and the numbers bare it
out, these incredibly ambitious educated talented women
are choosing at some point to say, you know, I really want
to be whatever my professional career goal is, but I also
want to be a mom, and when those conflict, I'm going to --
I'm not going to opt out or dropt out. I would like to
abandon those words. They suggest failure, come on. I
haven't opted out or dropped out. I've just taken a
different path so I can be a parent and a career women.
And I've seen more women making that choice than men again
at a pretty high level.
MS. COURIC: We should take this opportunity to
point because Anne-Marie has gotten some questions about
this, that your son Edward felt totally comfortable with
this piece because some people raise that to you, right?
MS. SLAUGHTER: Yes. So I have to say -- I
mean, the first thing is Edward, when there were all these
difficulties at one point, you know, I'm going to come
home and he looked at me and he said, "Mom, you can't come
home, you're a role model."
(Laughter)
MS. SLAUGHTER: And I was like, you know, you
could make this a little easier on all of us. You really
could. So he -- of course, I would never have published
any of this if he were not okay with it. And of course, I
showed it to him, I asked him, we debated it. He was
perfectly cool with it and I would never have done it
otherwise. And frankly, right now, every girl he knows is
facebooking this, sending it to him, calling him
rebellious teenager and "he's having great time."
MS. COURIC: He's using this as a kick magnet.
Excellent.
(Laughter)
MS. SLAUGHTER: He is -- there is no problem.
MS. COURIC: No, you outline, Anne-Marie, some
of the things you could have done to extend your time in
Washington, because as I read this piece, I kept thinking
why didn't she do this, why didn't she do that. Why
didn't Mary Matalin figure out a way to combine raising
her girls and still working in the Bush White House? You
write that you could've gotten your family to join you in
Washington, which would've been difficult for the boys I'm
sure, getting classified technology installed in your home
as a male coworker did.
MS. SLAUGHTER: Jim Steinberg.
MS. COURIC: Commuting 4 days a week instead of
5. and I kept wondering, you know, here you were, a
pretty big deal at the State Department, why didn't you
use your position to leverage circumstances that would
work better for you, because it seems to me if you want to
change overall public policy, why not start with your own -
- hi, cell phone -- with your own personal situation and
kind of work outwardly from there?
MS. SLAUGHTER: So it's an important --
MS. COURIC: I don't want to stress you out.
MS. SLAUGHTER: No, no, no, you can tell these
things. You know, they are hard choices. And we did
think about that. The first thing I have to say is when
I originally got the job, we sort of wrestled and we sat
around and talked about it and the kids were like, oh,
mom, we don't want you to leave and this is going to be
hard. And so I said, well, I said, we could all go to
Washington. And then it was, bye mom.
There was like no question. They had -- they
did not want to move to Washington. And we had moved them
to Shanghai for 9 months just a year before. So they sort
of said we've done that, thank you. But also this was
going to be hard on them. We knew, of course, it was
going to be hard on the family, there was no question.
And we decided having them in great schools
where they had a wonderful community, they had their
friends, they really were getting a lot of the things we
wanted for them even if I weren't there would be far
better than moving them. I still would rarely have seen
them because I would've still be in one of these jobs
where I was leaving at 7:00 and coming home at 10:00 or
11:00, and yet they would have been completely disoriented.
It would've meant Andy had to commute from
Washington back to Princeton. So that means then putting
that on him that he wouldn't have been there, whereas he
was able to be there. So that really wouldn't work. And
we thought about it. You know, I don't know, maybe there
was a job where it would've been so important to do. But
this one, particularly given that I'd worked, done it for
2 years, we said no.
I could've asked Secretary Clinton to let me
work from home one day a week, but this goes back to,
look, there are some jobs that -- we were serving the
country, you know. She needed a full-time hands-on
person. And she might have said, yes, but I don't think I
would've been serving her or frankly the country in the
way that we needed. And I decided instead, no, I'm going
to do this for 2 years and then I'm going to step down.
And, you know, as you say I have to shout out to
Jim Steinberg who is here, who is on the program, who did
get technology installed, who once ran a meeting from a
pediatrician's office where I was -- he was on the phone
in the pediatrician's office. I was back in the State
Department. I was totally supportive of what he was
doing. But I could hear the doctor. I could hear his
daughter. You know, he's trying desperately to do this.
He made it work as much as he could. And then he too
stepped down after a couple of years.
MS. COURIC: But I mean isn't this the problem,
Anne-Marie, that these jobs, as you said, Secretary
Clinton needed somebody full-time, that these leadership
jobs, these job positions of power, require an almost
myopic intensity and commitment that really don't lend
themselves to more flexibility in the workplace? So --
MS. SLAUGHTER: So plan for that. So that is my
point, is to say not you can't do it. It's -- it may take
you longer to do it than you thought. I mean if you
would've asked me when I was 30 or 35 and you said me,
you're going to get the job of your dreams and then you're
going to have a chance to be promoted and stay on, I
would've said, there is nothing that would stop me from
making that choice.
From where I sit now, I say to younger women,
yes, you know, you can do it and I want you to do it, but
be aware that it's going to take a huge toll and you may
well do it for 2 years, not 4, 6 or 8, which is what many
people do in political positions. Plan for it. Think
about when you are going to be able to put yourself up for
that. Think about at what point you're content having --
you know, working and having an army of care helping raise
your children. It takes a village. And then think about
the fact that when they are teenagers often it's not the
amount of time, it's when they want to talk to you and
what those conversations are. And you kind of have to be
available because, as you said, you can't tell -- you
can't stop a country from erupting because you have a
problem at home.
So it's much more about plan for it, expect it,
understand that these tradeoffs are there. And then, and
this is for all of us, when you're ready to go back in.
And this is critical. What most women say to me is I
can't go back in because there's this blank spot on my
resume of 3 or 4 years where I worked from home or I
didn't work and then I'm not eligible. And I want to say,
those 3 or 4 years, let's call those living up to your
responsibilities. Let's call those being a national
security mom and investing in the next generation, right?
We keep talking about how without education our
kids will not be able to compete in the 21st century
economy. There are any number of ways that we can value
that and then say, not that you should automatically walts
back into the job. No way. You should compete. And
somebody who's stayed on the job the whole time is going
to get higher faster. But you should still be able to
compete.
MS. COURIC: But don't you talk about the fact
that it's very hard when you're in your 40s to enter all
these arenas of power? Is that referring to people who
kind of devoted their lives to raising kids and then want
to put off time in a career?
MS. SLAUGHTER: Yes. Yes, and I don't think --
I think for the women ahead of me who had kids and then
often became judges and all these wonderful things, they
had had their kids in their 20s and their kids were
largely out of their house by their 40s. But there
weren't options in their 20s, right? There weren't
competing with the 30-something version of themselves,
their younger selves. Now, unless you're in the game
early, you can't lay the foundation. But if you lay the
foundation and if you keep your hand in various ways,
which you can do, then you should be able to come back in.
MS. COURIC: Let's talk about solutions because
I thought they were great ideas. I saw a little of myself
in some of the things that you describe in terms of a
certain career path. But before we do -- and also the
change in attitudes because I think you deal with that a
lot in the piece. I thought that -- I was really
heartened that you brought up this ACLU Foundation in
Massachusetts because I think they have the right idea,
this organization, has the right idea in providing family
friendly policies, people giving people time off to deal
with aging parents because I do think when things are too -
- seen as two working women friendly, it does create a lot
of resentment and a backlash as I think someone in the
piece said.
MS. SLAUGHTER: Yes.
MS. COURIC: Can you describe sort of those
kinds of policies and if they can be applied to other
workplaces, even demanding one, like the government?
MS. SLAUGHTER: Yes, so absolutely, the first
thing is this deems to be parent leave, you know, parent
leave rather than maternity or even paternity leave where
it's for a child being born it should be parent leave.
More generally it should be family leave to allow you to
care for a partner, to allow you to care for parents. And
many people have written me about having both parents who
need care while children are still at home.
So I think that, absolutely, this should be seen
as all of us have responsibilities to loved ones, even if
we're not married, even if we don't have children, and our
societies should accommodate that. Even more broadly this
is also about work-life balance in a world where clearly
given the responses to my article, many, many people and
many, many men are feeling like this -- that we've just
gone way too far.
We're working 24 hours on 24 hours. We don't
have the ability to be human beings in the round, you
know, work, life, volunteering, you know, whether --
sports, whatever it is. So I think there are a lot of
policies we can adopt that will first of all apply to men
and women, but then apply more broadly.
And one thing I'd say because I've heard from a
lot of single people and I think this is really important,
when you have to leave and pick up your kid, you may come
back to work later, you may work from home, but you really
need to be very mindful of the people in your workplace
who don't have children, who are staying there, who often
are picking up the slack. You know, they -- that
contribution needs to be recognized. They are making it
possible for working parents every bit as much as broader
policies and they often feel undervalued as I've heard
from many.
MS. COURIC: But shouldn't they also be
accommodated slightly in this quest for a proper work-life
balance in terms of -- you know, I've single friends and
they say, you know, we have interests, we have things we
want to do.
MS. SLAUGHTER: Yes, absolutely.
MS. COURIC: And people should be aware of that.
Our employer needs to know that just because we're single
doesn't mean we want to work 24/7 either. They want to
have a more complete life and not just because they have
kids.
MS. SLAUGHTER: Well, I've heard from a number
of CEOs already who have written me, some who have come up
to me here who've said, you know, thank you for your
article and we are reviewing schedule when we have
meetings, what sorts of things we can do, and some CEOs,
pretty big places. I would say the first thing is to have
a conversation, right? To sit down and have a
conversation in terms of both what working parents need,
and people need to ask for what they need, but equally the
non -- the single people, people without kids.
I think there -- a lot of again why this article
has had such impact is that it's striking a nerve with a
lot of people for a lot of different reasons and the first
thing you do is you have a conversation, you hear people,
you figure out where the problems are and then you think
about what change can be made. A lot of change can be
made, not for every job, not for every workplace, but for
a lot. And I think that actually -- what I'm seeing is
that I think we're actually on the cusp not of taking away
hard choices, but making them easier.
MS. COURIC: Do you think it's realistic though
in a bad economy where falling behind in terms of global
competition and there's this anxiety in the country to
suddenly be magnanimous and accommodating to all
employees. I mean, is that a little kumbaya?
(Laughter)
MS. COURIC: I mean, I'm all for it. Don't get
me wrong, but I just don't know how realistic it is given
kind of our workaholic culture which I want to talk about
face time in the minute?
MS. SLAUGHTER: Yeah. Well, in the first place
I know, you know, we're always bashing Europe and this has
nothing to do with the euro for the moment, but in terms
of actual productivity the French are just as productive
as we are. Now, I don't want us to be friends. Let's
make it clear. There are a lot of things about the way
their work place is structured that I don't like although
there's a lot of things that they do for working parents
that I do like.
But there is no evidence that giving people time
makes them less productive. There's lot of evidence on
the contrary. And that's not exactly surprising, right?
When I manage, I tell people family comes first. And what
I get are far less stressed out employees, employees that
always get their work done and employees that will work
through fire to work for me because they know I'm going to
accommodate what they need.
So I think we should try it before we decide
that it's a problem. The other thing I would say is
there's a huge amount in other economies around part time
work. The British have a law that means you cannot
discriminate against people who have part time rather than
full-time work. That actually opens up lots more jobs.
There are an awful lot of people who both an use part time
work and would take part time work.
And that's again something where you may end up
creating jobs as well as in ways that I don't think we
know. I'm not an economist, but I've heard from lost of
economists. I heard from a Goldman banker last week who
gave me all sorts of statistics on how actually this would
be good for the economy. I'm going to leave that to the
economists, but all I can say is there's an awful lot of
evidence and a lot of things we could try before we decide
that this is going to be bad for the economy.
MS. COURIC: I want to make sure I leave time
for folks to ask questions. But just a couple of points
that you raised. You talk about changing the culture of
face time. And you know, it's funny I thought that with
technology and the ability to do jobs from remote
locations, as you mentioned, that face time would be less
important in the workplace. But you say it still holds --
it has such a hold on employees still. I mean, it was a
while ago we told story, a funny story about Dick Harmon
(phonetic) putting his coat on the back of the chair and
leaving the light on, so people thought he was still there.
MS. SLAUGHTER: That culture is alive and well
in Washington, D.C.
MS. COURIC: Yeah.
(Laughter)
MS. COURIC: But do you think it's changed in
other places because of the advent and the use of
technology?
MS. SLAUGHTER: I do. I mean, I do only because
of the number of people I know who use Starbuck as their
office whenever they are traveling. When I'm in New York
for a day and I've got meetings, between meetings I just
adjourned to the nearest Starbucks and set up my laptop in
a way we go. And lots of people I mention in the article,
this woman diplomat from Britain who says, you know, when
men started working from home more than working more
flexibly, that started changing things.
So I think the culture is changing in lots of
places, maybe less Washington. But I do think it is
important to have some face time, and most people will
tell you that, right, that -- for one thing an endless email
chain can be far less efficient than actually talking
face to face. It's remarkable. And also because people
bumping into each other in workplaces is a good thing.
You know, it sparks ideas, conversations.
So I don't think we can get away from some face
time. But I would say, for instance, you can decide, and
some workplaces have, you know, you got to be here from
10:00 to 3:00. That's when we're going to be -- you know,
you got to be in the office. You got to be working longer
than that, but you got to be in the office at that period.
The rest of the time you can work from remote locations.
There's more flexibility.
So some balance between enough face time to feel
that there is a work place. And again some professions
this won't work. But an awful lot, particularly in the
knowledge professions which is again elite professions are
moving in lots of ways, I think there's a lot of room.
MS. COURIC: And you also talk about revaluing
family values in terms of I think you've kind of touched
on this, making the notion of taking care of kids as
important as taking care of aging parents. My brother-inlaw
is an architect and he said one of his colleagues left
every day at 5:00 because his wife had cancer. And so he
was dealing with that and people accommodated that, but if
it's dealing with children sort of in a daily way, I think
you bring up the observant --
MS. SLAUGHTER: Jack Lew, yes --
MS. COURIC: Yes.
MS. SLAUGHTER: -- who was the head of the
Office of Management and Budget.
MS. COURIC: Who -- people respected what he
wanted to do in terms of leaving Friday afternoon and not
working until sundown Saturday.
MS. SLAUGHTER: Absolutely. Right.
MS. COURIC: And leaving in time to get back to
New York, right, by sundown on Friday?
MS. SLAUGHTER: Absolutely.
MS. COURIC: But to make a family in a more sort
of those kinds of responsibilities as acceptable as other
considerations in people's lives, how do you do that?
MS. SLAUGHTER: I think you start by talking
about it exactly in terms of responsibility. I mean it's
really interesting that for him it's a matter of faith and
it's his obligation to his faith. And I've worked with
many others and absolutely I think we all respect that. I
would say when you have children, you know, nobody says
Jack Lew shouldn't work, right? Thank goodness he is
working, but he has his work and he has his obligations to
his faith.
If you are a parent, you have obligations to
your family, right? It is a responsibility. That is a
deep part of what parenting is. And I think we talk about
it that way, we think about it that way, we honor it that
way. You know, people say but you choose to work. Well,
yes, but again I would say he chooses to work. Many
people choose to work and still have responsibilities
elsewhere to their faith, to other things.
As I use the example the marathon runner, most
people are more willing to accommodate that kind of
discipline with family. We think about it as a
responsibility and we honor it and we try to accommodate
it. And there will be some situations where we can't.
But there are a lot we can. I'll just say one last thing.
I went back -- and I remember when President Obama gave
his inaugural address and at one point he called for a new
era of responsibility, and I thought to myself then, he
had a really good mother because there's a mother I spend
so much time trying to inculcate responsibility in my kids.
When they screw up I say to them, okay, you
screwed them, I understand that. You have to take
responsibility for it. You have to own up. I care much
less about what you did than that you take responsibility
and you accept the consequences and you go forward. So as
a mother, that's what I thought. But he was talking about
responsibility for our choices, responsibility to our
work, but to our people, to the country. And I think we
should think about this in terms of responsibility and in
terms of honoring that.
MS. COURIC: Well, let's open it up to questions
from -- I think we have like a Phil Donahue situation with
the mics if anybody remembers Phil Donahue in this crowd.
(Laughter)
MS. COURIC: So if you can just say -- well, you
don't have to say your name. You can do it pseudo
anonymously. Go ahead.
MS. BRANDLEY: Hi, that's okay. My name is
Charlotte Brandley (phonetic) and I work in a school, a
high school in California. I have a question about the
influence of this sort of change in parenting and we're
going to hear from the Tiger Mount tomorrow and a lot of
things about whether our culture of parenting and perhaps
the spoiling of our children is causing maybe a pull on
the part of these, of mothers to feel like they have to do
more in the realm of parenting. So I'd love to hear your
take on that.
MS. COURIC: We talked about that at breakfast.
MS. SLAUGHTER: Yes, we did.
MS. COURIC: Go ahead.
MS. SLAUGHTER: So I think this is really
interesting and I've had a number of people ask me about
it. I haven't thought of it because I've never felt any
pressure to kind of be a perfect mom. I'm doing the best
I can and I think I'm providing a good role model and my
husband and I are providing a good living. So I've never
experienced that pressure that, you know, other moms are
doing all this perfect stuff and that it pulls.
If that is a big part of it, we need to take
that on also. I mean, I do think that I'm raising two
boys. I'm raising them with -- we're raising them, but
from my dimension they are seeing a strong powerful woman
who is committed to her work as well as to her family and
I think that's really important.
So that's the way I don't feel guilty at all
that I don't give them all the things that other mothers
do and we joke about that in the family. And obviously,
my husband has a full-time career, and so the same thing.
So I think that's something we need to engage. It's not
something frankly that I had experienced or thought of
until people connected these two.
MS. COURIC: I can see what you're saying
because I think over-parenting exacerbates the guilt you
feel if you're a working mother and -- but I think overparenting
is gross.
(Applause)
MS. COURIC: And it's something I've been kind
of aware of and mindful of for a while when it first sort
of started being discussed completely living vicariously
through your kids and never allowing them to deal with
disappointment or set backs. I think that's really not
serving our children well. But I can see how the mother
who quit her job as an associate at a big fancy law firm
in New York who is now running the PTA like she's running
a corporate board. You know, I mean it does make you feel
like less of a mother when you witness that. So I do
think it is having an influence on people's comfort level
when it comes to being professional.
Hello Jane.
MS. SLAUGHTER: There's a man.
MS. COURIC: Oh, there's a man.
MS. HARMAN: Oh, good or no good? Hi.
MS. COURIC: We'll get to the man in a second.
But by the way can I just say Jane Harman is a great
grandmother.
MS. SLAUGHTER: Could you believe that?
MS. COURIC: Quite amazing.
MS. HARMAN: Step great grandmother. I've been
a real grandmother.
(Laughter)
(Applause)
MS. HARMAN: Yeah, thank you. Thank you both
for being such amazing role models to so many women. I
am, as you just heard, but I am the mother of four very
well educated kids, two women and two men. and my older
daughter who is a lawyer left the career in A high-powered
law firm to take a less demanding career. She doesn't
over-parent, I want to observe. But she didn't think that
there were choices and I didn't think over a long career
that there were the kind of choices that Anne-Marie so
brilliantly sets out in her article.
Here's my question, and it has to do with some
of the comments you're getting and some of the comments
around you that you're not getting, do some women feel
threatened by other women's success, either those who've
made it or those who've, what we could call, opted out?
And you know, do we say to those women? How do we kind of
coax them into understanding that a more successful
sisterhood is in every woman's interest?
MS. COURIC: I think there's -- I was just going
to --
MS. SLAUGHTER: Are you suggesting that women
are undermining women and that's why they are leaving the
workplace or --
MS. HARMAN: No, I'm saying that that goes on
around this whole subject even those who have opted out or
those who have made it by killing themselves and never
taking (off mic).
MS. COURIC: Oh, so there's a lot of resentment
from all, yeah.
MS. HARMAN: Yeah, other women who --
MS. COURIC: Like the mommy wars type of things.
MS. SLAUGHTER: Yeah. Another thing I'd like to
abandon. I would like to abolish the term "mommy wars"
and "mommy track." It's so patronizing.
MS. COURIC: Sorry. I didn't mean it that way.
MS. SLAUGHTER: No, but you're right. That is
how we talk about it. But you know, I've gotten some
really, really negative commentary from a number of
places. One is interestingly, and I sort of expected it
from feminists, the generation ahead of me. Two of those
nastiest articles have been written by women who are
professors and do have flexible time and are having it all
exactly as I predicted they can because they are
professors.
You know, I think there are these issues among
women who are working from home or not working for a while
and women who are. I think in part one of the things I've
seen is that so many of the women who have decided to take
a pause are made to feel bad by the surrounding culture.
I mean, as I said, I just couldn't believe when I got back
to Princeton and I would say I'm doing this, and I got
these negative messages. I was think, are you kidding.
You know, I'm totally committed to my career,
but I'm choosing my kids. And then people feel bad, they
lash out. That said, Andy and I both would say we never
would've made it through elementary school without this
one wonderful woman who had a Harvard business degree.
She was taking time out. She's working again now. We
were loser parents.
I mean, come on, we could not remember exactly
when you had to hand this thing in where, you know, stuff.
We're both working full-time and we were doing the best we
could. She was just a God-send. She would call us and
say I'm sure you notice that you're supposed to bring in a
dish tomorrow. I just wanted to remind you just in case.
And she would so often would kind of know that we were
stretched and that she could help and she did.
And that's the kind of thing often I've also
seen where women also do support each other in ways that
say, hey, we're proud of what you're doing. We're making
different choices, but we really can help you. And so
I've seen examples of both and I certainly think we can go
more in that direction.
MODIC: My name is Modic (phonetic). I'm from
the Sultanate of Oman in Arabia. And I think ladies, you
rock, as Arabs will say, thank you.
(Laughter)
MODIC: I have maybe not a question but an
observation and something that I've lived with in our
lives. I've got -- we have a very forward thinking
leader, the Sultan. And he's really very much pro women
and this has set example in the Arab world by itself and
we are proud to have him as a leader.
My aunt is -- well, she was with my uncle. He
was the ambassador at the UN in New York, and she's a
career women but she followed the husband and for 10 years
was there creating these name tags for the dinners and she
looked after the guests. And His Majesty, then gave her a
chance to be the ambassador to Oman to Washington. She's
in Washington D.C., Hunaina Al Mughairy, and the husband
today, my uncle, is supporting her in D.C.
So if this can be done in the Arab world --
(Applause)
MS. SLAUGHTER: Love it.
MODIC: If this can be done in the Arab world, I
think I'm surprised it's being discussed in America --
(Laughter)
MODIC: -- where everything is so kind of, you
know, equal. But I think it's an example to the ladies
and men in my country to follow the Arab models in our
country. And I think this is where we need to go and I
think we -- this -- it's a great opportunity to open the
discussions here and to give both man and woman
opportunity to work as well. Thank you.
MS. SLAUGHTER: Thank you.
(Applause)
MS. COURIC: Anyone -- yeah, whatever.
MS. SELLERS: Hi, I'm Pam Sellers from CNN.
And, Anne-Marie, congratulations, you and I spoke about
this a long time ago and we talked about -- it's really
not about why can't women have it all? It's can we really
have it all? We really can't have it all at the same time
is really what you and I discussed. My question for you
is, and I'm thrilled that Andy is here, this alpha notion,
whether we like it or not somebody is --
MS. SLAUGHTER: I didn't hear what you --
MS. SELLERS: The alpha -- somebody has to be
the alpha when you're in a partnership. And I would love
your advice, is that the way that it has to be? Does
someone have to be the person who's on the track while the
other person steps back or, you know, do you -- how --
help how?
(Laughter)
MS. COURIC: While Andy is not chopped liver by
the way.
MS. SLAUGHTER: Nobody who knows my husband
would not call him an alpha male, believe me. You know,
he is a full-time tenured professor at Harvard and then at
Princeton. He writes music reviews in addition to being a
political scientist. He's an accomplished photographer
and a fabulous cook, right. This is not -- this is -- I
don't think that that is the way we should talk about it.
And I really don't like alpha and beta.
But this is not, you know, what I think is true
is that in two career couples where both members of the
couple have, you know, want -- have really important
career aspirations, there has to be give. Both are like --
are going to make compromises. We were fortunate, we're
both academics. I knew that this was hugely important.
I just didn't know how important until I went to
Washington and discovered it otherwise. Andy has been
able to spend more time. He has certainly done fewer
things that he could have otherwise done on the career
track because he's doing that. But then again I came back
from Washington and I'm making different choices.
So I see this much more as, you know, two people
who want similar things for their family and to have the
tremendous satisfaction of a profession that you love and
you're committed to, you're just going to have to make
some compromises. And if there are still many more women
making those compromises than men, I'd like to see many
more men feeling enabled and empowered to make those
compromises. But were it's going to be the women, then I
want women to be able to come back on and still compete
even it's a little later in their careers and they would
have otherwise done.
MS. COURIC: There's a bunch down here. I don't
-- I'm this -- -- you, I don't know what --
SPEAKER: Is it on.
MS. COURIC: Yeah.
SPEAKER: First of all, again, thank you for
speaking up. Everyone's thinking the things that you're
saying. Social movements are sort of pendular. They go
to extremes. I graduated college the same year you did,
and the idea of getting married and staying home with
children was devalued, and worked hard and made the
sacrifices and now I see the next generation sort of
stopping out, not opting out.
To me, it's -- we need to change the language
completely. It's not the mommy track, it's not the
financial bottom line it's not the domestic bottom line.
It's work-life balance and it's happiness. And it is --
it applies equally to mothers and fathers, males and
females. And we really have to get rid of the constructs
that say, you know, this is the traditional male role and
we're not letting it shift in any way and here's the
traditional female role, that also won't shift. So I'm
hoping the pendulum swings somewhere in the middle and
allows for both fathers and mothers to balance work and
family time. And we need to change our vocabulary
completely.
SUSAN: But also attitudes because men who stay
at home with kids are still -- I mean, talk about being
devalued. They're really -- I mean, they're considered
sort of -- I mean, ridiculed. And so I think, how do you
change. They're so entrenched in the hunter-gatherer
stuff and blah, blah, blah. I mean, how do you change
that?
MS. SLAUGHTER: Well, I -- Susan (phonetic), I
think you're exactly right. We start by changing the
frame, right. Any social change, you change the frame,
you change the way you think about it, and you change the
vocabulary. As I said, so much of this there's a
vocabulary of failure. I read these articles about how I
dropped out and I think, well, in the first place, that
would be news to my family. But second, dropped out?
SUSAN: You're such a slacker.
MS. SLAUGHTER: I know. I don't do anything.
(Laughter)
MS. SLAUGHTER: But I mean dropped out, we use
dropout for people who don't finish school, who don't
have, you know, careers at all. So you change the
vocabulary to begin with. And you start thinking about --
that's why I keep talking about responsibility and values.
You know, there are ways to talk about this and
think about this, that's not enough. You still then got
to go to make the actual change. But absolutely, you
start by saying this -- everything is slanted toward the
idea that, you know, take one example. Why don't we talk
about working fathers? Why do we just talk about working
mothers?
That assumes mothers are in the home. And if
they're not, then they're working, and we call them
working mothers. But there are lots of men who work and
some number of them are fathers and they are working
fathers, which means they have responsibilities to their
kids and to their work in ways that people who are not
working fathers are different or working sons and working
daughters because, again, this is about our parents and
our spouses as much as our kids.
MS. COURIC: Wouldn't it be great to have a male
journalist be asked what I've been asked 20 million times,
how do you juggle it all?
MS. SLAUGHTER: Right.
MS. COURIC: I mean, men are never asked that
question.
MS. SLAUGHTER: Never asked that, exactly.
Because there's an assumption about primary
responsibilities. That has to change.
MS. COURIC: Can you yell? I think the mic is
somewhere. Here. Oh, we have a man, hold on.
(Laughter)
MS. COURIC: Oh, no, I'm sorry, it's a women. I
can't see you, sorry, go ahead.
MS. ZURKIN: I know. That's why I'm standing
up. Hi, I'm Nancy Zurkin (phonetic). And I was one of
the pioneers in the '70s. And we all struggled.
(Applause)
MS. ZURKIN: And your book or your article
really gave voice and analysis to what we've all done over
these past 40 years. But the conversation now as it was
then is very elitist. And that's something that bothered
me then. It still bothers me because, yes, we can have
policies in our work place. In my organization we have 45
in staff and it's a very friendly workplace. But the fact
is most women work because they have to.
This is a very elitist group. We are well
educated, had great choices and could do anything we
wanted within these choices and our family. And so it's
time for us in our rhetoric, in our writing, in the
policies and in the workplace for everyone of this to be
helpful. I was helpful in passing FMLA and that's been a
very important law. But there other policies that are
important.
MS. SLAUGHTER: The Family and Medical Leave Act.
MS. ZURKIN: Thank you. And thank you for being
here.
(Applause)
MS. SLAUGHTER: I just say I agree. I think --
but I think both conversations have to happen at once, but
absolutely.
MS. BRADWELL: Paula Bradwell (phonetic). I'm a
military officer turned academic. And I want to thank you
for being role models and Jane for being a role model and
so many other women in this room being trailblazers, you
included. I'd like your reflections on women's
opportunities in military. When I was born in the
early '70s, women were two percent of the Army. Now,
we're 15 percent and 15 percent across the board, as low
as 6 percent in the marines.
But with the discussion about opening up more
combat arms positions to women, there was a kind of a
similar debate in response to your article amongst rangers
and the infantry thinking we don't want to change the
standard. It's going to change the culture. I'm for one,
standard. We're not going to change the culture. We've
come a long way, baby, in the military so far.
But if there's resistance within the
institution, and I don't think you see that in so many
institutions, but definitely within the military there's
still bit of an old boy school. I'm happy to be part of
it, but would like your thoughts on how we can continue to
fight and get to the top in the military?
MS. SLAUGHTER: So I'm glad you asked that. I
actually have heard from a couple of military men in the
last week and I've immediately said, boy, I want to enlist
you in whatever we do going forward because your voices
are very, very important. And I've mentored a lot of
young women who have been in the military. And there I
think -- there maybe different ways we need to frame it in
the military in terms of being able both to obviously meet
one standard. I don't think anybody here thinks there
should be, you know, two standards.
But what I'm -- what I'm hearing is again in
terms of the tremendous stress on the force in terms of
being able to allow women to advance but also, and here
again, men to advance who have strong working wives -- I
shouldn't say strong -- stay-at-home mothers are strong as
anybody I know, so -- but have very committed career
wives, what I'm hearing is that there are men dropping out
of the military because they can't actually make that
work. And that's the way I would probably frame it in
terms of wanting to have the best military we can.
We want to both be able to have women and we
want to make sure we've got men who have the leadership
caliber we want in the military. Many of them are going
to be married to wives who are also in the -- have fulltime
careers. And we've got to allow some accommodation.
But I would welcome the conversation in every profession
about what are the specific issues, how do you frame them,
and what kinds of choices you can make. And you're going
to be part of that conversation. General -- well, General
Petraeus is a close friend and colleague and I'll make
sure -- former General Petraeus.
MS. COURIC: I think we have time for maybe
couple more. Go ahead, hi.
MR. HANNIS: My name is Mark Hannis (phonetic)
and I really liked your article. One of the main
takeaways I took from what you said is that until we have
more women in positions of power, we're not going to see
the change. And when you talk about foreign policy, I
guess I was a little confused about how much weight you
gave to correlation or causation because when I look at
foreign policy, the last four secretaries of state, three
of them were women, there were other women and senior
leaders of -- you know, you, Susan Rice, Samantha Power.
And I'm wondering is this more of a generational issue or
is it a gender issue? And how do you -- because when
we've had women in foreign policy in these key leadership
positions, how come we haven't seen this change that we
need to see if that's one of your main conclusions?
MS. SLAUGHTER: Great. Thank you for the
question. So first place there is a change that I think
can happen starting now by -- through all of us and what
we can ask for and what we can shape and what every
employer and manager can start doing, and that doesn't
need to wait on anything except our own will. Then there
is a broader change, and this goes to the point in terms
of conditions for working women across the country in
terms of daycare and social policy. And frankly, as
somebody pointed out going back to the policies we had in
World War II when only women were in the workplace, not
only, but a large number, and that is where I think we
need more women at the top.
But then to go to your question. I don't think
that just having a women president is going to make things
magically perfect for women across the board. And I don't
think that women automatically lead differently than men.
In fact, there's a lot of work on that. Some do, some
don't. I do think women have a different set of
perspectives. That's why we value diversity period. It's
the people who have different life experiences bring
different things to discussions, have different ideas,
different takes and it's very valuable.
I would say our foreign policy is changing
pretty substantially. And actually having had Madeline
Albright, Condi Rice and Hillary Clinton in those
positions what you have seen is a steadily growing
emphasis on development. Condi Rice helped double the
foreign assistance the U.S. gave. Madeline Albright did a
lot, but she did it very quietly because she was the first
women and she really had to look tough and she is tough.
Hillary Clinton, nobody doubts how tough she is. And so
she's been able to say, you know, I want development to be
an equal pillar with diplomacy in our foreign policy.
She's looking at the lives of people around the
world, they're lived experience in terms of work and
health and women's empowerment. She's seeing how many of
the foreign policy problems we face are rooted, whether
its terrorism or health pandemics or resource scarcity,
rooted in bottom-up policies. And so what you are seeing,
although nobody says it's a woman's issue, is women who
have broader perspectives --
MS. COURIC: A holistic approach.
Ms. SLAUGHTER: Exactly.
MS. COURIC: Do you think Hillary is going to
run for president by the way?
(Laughter)
MS. COURIC: What do you think?
MS. SLAUGHTER: I have no idea. I'd love her
to, but I have no idea.
MS. COURIC: Anyway, well, I think you guys have
other panels to get to Anne-Marie Slaughter. Thank you so
much.
MS. SLAUGHTER: Thank you all.
(Applause)
* * * * *
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