A Conversation With Naomi Wolf
Flair, Holiday 1999

Since 1991, when her best-selling book, The Beauty Myth, rocked the complacent world off "post-feminism," Naomi Wolf has found ways to take the most abstract feminist ideals and bring them to life--to incredibly everyday life. She writes about Anita Hill, the woman who almost derailed Clarence Thomas's appointment to the Supreme Court; but she also discusses Oprah and Catwoman. She states, flat out, that what woman need--right now--is to know how to take their power and use it, so they can be successful without sacrificing their pleasure in being female. (In her second book, Fire with Fire, she writes, "Woman deserve to feel that the qualities of stars and queens, of sensuality and beauty, can be theirs.") She's taking charge and feeling good--and she wants you to do the same.

Wolf has put her money and time where her mouth is, as co-founder (with San Francisco radio producer and businesswoman Margot Magowan) of the Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership, a facility in upstate New York where young women can learn the skills they need to succeed, and where they can build up enough faith in themselves to take on the world. In one week. Woodhull's objective: to help create a new generation of women leaders. Its method: to teach women how to negotiate, how to understand money, how to speak up (even in public). And to do this all ethically--without trashing everyone in their way.

flair's editors spent an afternoon talking with Wolf on women and power, and how we can use it in the century to come. The answers may surprise you...we hope they'll energize you. Take her ideas to the office. And then, take over!

Leadership Can Be Learned

flair: What do young women get out of going to Woodhull? How do you learn how to be an ethical leader?

Wolf: We've made a place where young women can go to learn basic professional skill, the kind you usually only get from a very successful parent or a mentor in the workplace. We teach things like how to handle money. How to invest. How to negotiate for themselves. How to give a speech or run for office. We also expose women to both speakers and role models who can show them more appealing images of leadership than the ones they're used to.

Many people, not just women, feel cynical about the people at the top. And young women are especially ambivalent about becoming leaders because they see so many people stepping on others, using them, oppressing or exploiting them. Women need to meet people who are leaders, who are service-oriented, compassionate and caring but are also realistic enough to get out into the world and achieve their goals.

Sometimes, You've Got to Take a Flying Leap

flair: What are some of the differences between men and women when they enter the world of work?

Wolf: One thing young women often lack--which their male peers often have--is a psychology of risk-taking in which it's okay to take a jump and fail, then dust yourself off and start over. If you look back on the things that taught you the most, it's often the situations that don't go perfectly that allow you to learn how to pick yourself up and achieve.

Boys have the chance to get used to that. For instance, it's typically boys who ask girls out. They may get rejected many times, but they come back and ask another girl out. And they laugh about it in the locker room. Which brings up another way boys are trained to deal with failure--team sport. Girls' sport are getting better, but they're not where boys' sport are. Boys have had more experience with both losing and winning, so they're not as humiliated by losing.

flair: Does that experience free men from the need to be perfect? So many women struggle with that.

Wolf: Women are often so terrified of being imperfect. They don't want to be laughed at. And it holds them back. Young men are taught to take criticism in a kind of impersonal way. Psychologists have documented that women believe that approval is like oxygen, which can make it too painful to be a risk-taker or leader because you're too visible and the criticism hurts so much. So one of the things women in the next millennium need is more inner strength when it comes to criticism and conflict and challenge.

One way to do that is to have high expectations. Young women should present themselves as if they're running for President. But women have been raised not to step up to the plate. They're supposed to think it's cute to say, "Oh, I can't do it. Oh God, I can't believe this." That's considered feminine, but it's really a lot of whining. At Woodhull, we won't tolerate it. We expect women to feel fear and anxiety, and talk about it--and then get over it. What's fascinating is that a lot of our graduates say that the best thing about their Woodhull experience is that we have higher expectations of them than the real world does, and that they didn't want to go back to their ordinary lives, where expectations were so low.

Excuse Me, What Did You Say?

flair: One of the things you want women to obtain is a powerful speaking voice. Why is this so important?

Wolf: During my speaking trips across the country, I found many women who were extraordinarily talented and creative, but couldn't make themselves heard. Literally! I mean, most of them couldn't even stand up in an auditorium full of people and ask a question with a strong, authoritative voice. How are we going to have a woman President if she can't speak up? How can women run Fortune 500 companies if they don't know how to use their voices and get people to listen?

This is something we need to change. Often, young women speak with voices full of questions marks, saying things like, "I wanna go to London? You know, the School of Economics? And study...capitalism?" That women may be the smartest person in the world, but no one's going to give her a grant or staff or a budget or professional status, because she has no authority in her voice. But after five days [at Woodhull] the question marks are gone because we work on that intensively.

When Bad Things Happen to Good Women

flair: Sexual harassment is still alive in the workplace. How do you teach women to deal with this?

Wolf: What women need to learn in a situation like this--or in any toxic situation--is a combination of discernment and self-protection. You know, when it gets to the point where a situation is just bad for you, hopefully you get out. Which is a lot to ask of young women. Overwhelmingly, they err on the side of putting up with intolerable situations.

One woman, for example, had an employer who put his hands on her regularly, physically got too close to her and was clearly getting a thrill out of it. And she was a beautiful young woman with this tiny little voice. In a role-playing situation, we saw she would say "no," but gently push away his hand in a way that he would probably interpret as an invitation, because it wasn't backed up by the words she used or her tone.

She needed to learn to say, "You know, this is not comfortable for me. I would prefer if you didn't do that." And she should say it in an authoritative way which lets him know that what he was doing was inappropriate and, if he took it any further, illegal. And that she was willing to protect herself.

If she gets that, the dynamic should shift when she goes back to that office. And I hope that if her situation continues--even after she's defended herself--she will have the courage to take the next step and report him, or that she'll leave. Whichever she judges is best for her.

Show Us the Money

flair: One of the credos you hear a lot is "Do what you love, and the money will follow." But that's not always true--and it's so passive. You've got to make the money come to you. How can women learn how to do this?

Wolf: When you talk to personnel directors, they say that young men know, for example, that a number attached to a job is the beginning point of a negotiation. Young women think that's what the job pays. Men negotiate benefits and expense accounts; women are afraid to.

Women need to learn how to deal with their psychological fears and inhibitions about money. You have to think about who held the purse strings in your family, for instance, and about what happened when your parents discussed money. Did your mom make decisions about the family budget? Did she have money of her own? Once you identify diminishing messages, you can get past them. Then you can go into a salary negotiation and say, "I'm worth more," as if you mean it. Because you do. And you can back it up.

It's so encouraging to get e-mails from young women who say, "I just got a raise, and you'll be glad to know I negotiated $1,000 more than they were offering. To my surprise, they gave it to me."