Read What Will It Take to Make A Woman President?: Conversations About Women, Leadership and Power for Free Online Page B

so there’s no question that if we decided, “This year we are going to have a woman president,” and we identified a candidate, got behind her, and built her campaign and made it happen and went to the polls and voted, there would be one! I just don’t look any further than ourselves to answer that question. I mean, look, there are all kinds of cultural reasons, we know all of those, but Barack Obama didn’t stop and look at it statistically or . . . he didn’t look at this historical legacy. He just said, “I’m goingto be the one.” So you need a candidate who’s willing to say, “I’m going to be the one. I’m going to break this barrier.” And then you need the women of this country to decide that it’s time, and do it.
    MS : Do you think now is the time?
    PM : I thought now is the time a long time ago! [ laughs] I do think we haven’t had the right mix of candidate, will, and timing. But timing is the least of those in my opinion. Of those three factors, you have to take into consideration the most important two are the candidate, obviously, and then women uniting behind a woman candidate. We have the candidate with Hillary, but we didn’t unite, if you remember.
    MS : Do you think men are ready to have a woman president?
    PM : Marianne, I think men have been ready longer than women have been ready in a funny way. There are enough men who have seen or experienced the leadership of women to believe that it is absolutely within our province and that women can do it just as well, if not better, than men. There’s enough evidence now. I don’t think we’re proving the case to men. I think we’re just getting behind it ourselves in a united way.
    MS : Now, in terms of the last election, we had these record numbers of twenty women in the Senate, but that’s far from parity. Considering everything you are saying, how do you explain that? Why do you think that we’re still so underrepresented?
    PM : Well, there are many explanations, and some people have the data more readily at hand than I do, but part of it is that we just don’t run as often. There simply aren’t as many women running, choosing to do this,and we know all the reasons why. It’s a really hard thing to do and it’s not a very attractive thing to do in this country, because of the way the press treats women candidates, number one. Number two, what it does to a woman’s family, and number three, the sacrifices that are required for a woman to choose a life in public service. But what I am loving now about this new number of women, particularly in the Senate, where there is enough that you can observe it in a new way . . . I mean, seeing that front page New York Times story that said that twenty women in the Senate are making a difference, and then to give case-by-case examples of women crossing the aisle, women collaborating, women cooperating, women initiating, and therefore making things happen. So that twenty women out of one hundred starts to be less of a daunting figure if the case you’re making is that women, whether they are Democrat or Republican, will unite their actions on the issues that matter to women. So . . . my hope is that we’re going to come out of this Senate, out of this congressional period, with some new evidence that, yes, in fact, women can and do create a different kind of legislative activity, a different kind of effectiveness, as a congressional body. And I’m hoping that those twenty women in the Senate, they have the real opportunity to be more than trailblazers of just being there. It’s nice that they’re there, but it won’t make any difference to the legacy and the history of women in this country unless they do something differently because they’re there. And I do believe, if what they had done when they started out is any indication, then I think we’re on our path to that number doubling. Because really what voters want, anywhere, above all, is effectiveness.
    MS : One of the things we’re