In my role, I’m fortunate to meet so many inspiring women. Part of the purpose of this blog is to share those experiences with a larger audience so that you can be a part of the conversations I’m having with other women leaders. One such woman is Lynn Yeakel, the Director of Drexel University College of Medicine’s Institute for Women’s Health and Leadership, and the founder and president of Vision 2020, a national, non-partisan women’s equality initiative with a particular focus on the year 2020, the 100th anniversary of women’s right to vote. Lynn has had an incredible career; she was a founder of Women’s Way, the first and largest women’s fundraising coalition in the nation, and served as its CEO from 1980 until 1992, when she ran for the U.S. Senate, drawing national attention, winning the primary and nearly unseating the longtime incumbent, Arlen Specter. In 1994, she was appointed by President Clinton to the position of Mid-Atlantic Regional Director for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She’s a published author and has been recognized with numerous honors and awards for leadership and humanitarian contributions.

I recently had the pleasure of listening to Lynn speak at an event for Women’s History Month, and knew I had to hear more from her. She was gracious enough to share her thoughts with me and my daughter-in-law, Kaitlin,  on the state of gender equality and women’s leadership.

MB:

Something I heard you say really caught my attention: “We need to think and act like the majority that we are.” Can you expand on that and offer some practical advice for women on how they can go about thinking and acting like the majority?

LY:

You know, I say that all the time, and you’re the only person to ever ask me this. After my loss in the national elections in 1992, I was speaking in Scranton trying to cheer people up, and I said, we really need to think and act like the majority we are – there are MORE of us. I heard from so many women during that race that told me they’d never registered to vote, never bothered to vote because they’d never seen a candidate that represents their point of view. I really learned that if we can stand together as women, we can change things.

In that statement there are two verbs – THINKING and ACTING. Thinking really means claiming our equality and power. I think it’s important that we identify by our gender first, then by race or religion. By aligning together as women, we are so much more powerful. If I had one goal in life, it would be this – helping women unite together around our common values, goals and concerns. This was a huge challenge in the women’s suffrage movement, and still is today.

The acting part refers to helping each other as women. I remember interviewing a woman once who had been out of the workforce for many years, staying home and raising her children. She was talking herself down, saying things like, “well, I’ve just been staying home with my kids, I haven’t had any work experience in a long time.” I immediately recognized the leadership skills it takes to be the CEO of your household, and knew they were transferable to the job. Women in the position to hire other women will see this – I’m not sure if men would.  We need to help each other when we’re in the position to do so.

Another key element to acting like the majority we are is being civically engaged. One in three women didn’t vote in the 2016 election. Many aren’t even registered (in fact, that’s one of our biggest goals of the Vision 2020 initiative). It’s so important that women be informed about politics AND that they support women who are running – write checks! So many women struggle with embracing our worth, and women candidates in particular tend to have more trouble asking for money – we need to fund the women we believe in.

MB:

Have you noticed any generational difference when it comes to thinking and acting like the majority? Given that you interact with so many young women at Drexel, what do they say to you when you make that statement?

LY:

When we launched Vision 2020 in 2010, we asked students in Drexel’s College of Media Arts & Design to interview women and men on the streets of Philadelphia and ask if they thought men and women were equal. There was a video clip of one young woman in her late 20’s, who thought for a minute and said, “yes, until they have children.”

My daughter is a lawyer and she decided to work part-time from home after having two, and then three, children. It never really hit her what I was talking about all these years, until she experienced motherhood. I think there are still so many structural challenges women face after they become caregivers that keep discrimination and gender inequality present in our culture. When I was growing up, it never occurred to me that there was gender discrimination, until I started searching for a job. I had been surrounded by strong women and discovering that was one of the most frustrating and humiliating things I’ve ever dealt with. I think in general, times are better for women, but these issues still exist.

MB:

I know you’ve run for elected office in both Senate and Gubernatorial races; what’s your reaction to the change in Congress in the 2018 midterm election? What did running for elected office teach you, if anything, about the way people react to a woman advocating for herself to hold a leadership position?

LY:

I think it’s fantastic that we have so many more women in Congress now. I want to see these women be able to DO things. Changing things takes time, and the guardians of the status quo will always be there – people who have power and don’t want to share it. I’m glad that Nancy Pelosi is showing great leadership to the newer generation.

I have observed that women and men often have different motivations for running for office. Often, men want to be in control and have power. Women for the most part, have a mission, something they want to change or do. In fact, I saw running as a huge personal sacrifice. It was so hard on my family and I was treated totally differently than my male opponent by the media – when they covered me, they described my clothes, jewelry or haircut. Interestingly, I was also often defined by the men in my life. There was something in my father’s voting record that ended up hurting me, my husband’s membership in a golf club that lacked diversity, and a sermon my church pastor gave about his experience in Israel – things that had nothing to do with me or my campaign were used to define me in negative ways. How often do we see male candidates get defined by the actions or activities of their sisters, wives or mothers?

Bill Bradley from New Jersey was in the Senate at the time – he campaigned with me a number of times and talked about the fact that he had been a basketball player before he ran for the Senate and got elected. He didn’t know why he was accepted, while my experience, having run a non-profit organization, somehow wasn’t relevant to hold office. Politics is always nasty, but especially so at that time for women candidates.

MB:

You’ve had an incredibly long and successful track record in advocating on behalf of women and fighting for increasing the number of women in leadership roles across all aspects of American life – where do you think we are still falling short, and how can we continue to address it?

LY:

I actually loved a comment you made when I heard you speak, Madeline, citing the statistic that even though women make up the vast majority of healthcare employees, only 3% of healthcare CEOs are women. I use that in talks all the time now, because I think it illuminates one of our biggest challenges. We need more women in policy making and decision-making roles. I think a great example of what happens when women are in charge is the “Take 2” initiative from Mary Barra, Chairman and CEO of General Motors. It’s a job re-entry program, addressing the issue of “experienced female STEM talent – particularly women – who have taken extended leaves of absence from employment to care for children, aging/disabled parents or other personal needs and are now ready, but uncertain, how to successfully return to the workforce.” That’s why women’s leadership matters and is a great example of a woman in leadership actually doing something to help other women.

MB:

Your first book, A Will and a Way, is described as presenting “insights into the key issues of women’s independence based on your own experience and lessons from history.” What do you see as the biggest challenges to women’s independence today, and in what ways do you think women still give up their independence that are detrimental to their power, happiness and self-advancement?

This is totally still a problem. I mostly see it in terms of economics, and sadly so many women in newer generations have fallen into the trap of so many women of my generation. You have to have your own checking account! I’m so grateful that my parents taught me the importance of having my own economic independence – and to keep it and sustain it. They made me take a typing class when I was young, emphasizing that I needed a skill to be able to get a job. I really give them huge credit – that was so far ahead of their time to teach their daughter that. I firmly believe that a man is not a financial plan – it wasn’t then, and it isn’t now.

MB:

What are you most optimistic about right now? What are you most concerned about?

LY:

I’m really optimistic about all the women stepping forward to lead, both in politics and business, and the efforts I see among women to help each other get on boards and other leadership positions. I also feel that civic engagement is increasing. I want to see these women do concrete things that clearly contribute to women’s opportunities for success.

What worries me most is that when it comes to the matter of gender equality, our history has always been two steps forward, three steps back. There has always been a backlash when women make progress, and I don’t want the newer generation of women to take it for granted that things are going to be fine because more women are getting into leadership roles. We can’t back down or slow down.

MB:

What key pieces of advice could you leave our readers with – women from all walks of life who care about advancing women in the workplace, based on your lifelong experience in leadership positions?

LY:

I love the line in Thelma and Louise – “you get what you settle for.” Don’t settle for less than you deserve. That means whether it’s a job, a relationship, anything that doesn’t satisfy you. You’re entitled to your own life and far too often women settle. Also, let’s pay attention to how we’re raising our future generations of women. Gender pay inequity starts so young – little boys mow the lawn, walk the dogs and other paid work. Girls do laundry, wash the dishes, and other types of unpaid domestic labor. We need to teach girls to value their worth early on.

Finally, and this is really important to me – I care deeply about men being a part of the solution. My father was my role model, I’ve been married many years, and I have a son who I’m very proud of and I have four grandsons. For shared leadership to work, men have to be involved and see it as a benefit. I believe we are women and men by chance, we’re sisters and brothers by choice. Thank you to Lynn for her time. Be sure to check out Vision 2020 for information and ways to get involved in Women 100: A Celebration of American Women, Vision 2020’s year-long commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.