Ditching the Pants: Helping Women in Power Find and Unleash Their Voice

 

Remember this photo? It’s an old one. I sought it out this week after listening to a podcast about women and power. At first glance, it’s a photo of two famous people who epitomize the topic. On the left, Angela Merkel, Germany’s Chancellor since 2005 — essentially, the de facto leader of Europe. On the right, Hillary Clinton. At the time, she was Obama’s Secretary of State. But her bid for President of the United States of America would come soon enough.

The more poignant observation? These women are dressed exactly alike. Strong-shouldered blue blazers. No-nonsense black slacks. Sensible kitten heels. Even matching conservative, blonde “helmet hair.” It’s almost as if they’re abiding by a political uniform.

The Uniform of Power

Bingo! It’s the uniform of power. And it’s decidedly masculine. Perhaps women needed a few decades of exercising our masculine muscles (no matter how unrefined) — getting shit done, accomplishing, proving, dressing the “part” — to ultimately unleash the more inspired, intuitive muscles we are well known for, but have hidden for many years. We have been contorting ourselves since forever, and it’s only just starting to change — as recently as within the handful of years since the photo was taken.

So why can’t women in power appear — and, more importantly, act — like women of power, rather than like men?

The answer is that they (we!) can, and need to.

The challenge is that women need time and space to discover their voice. And this begins at an early age. They’ve never been encouraged or groomed or placed in a safe space that allows them to discover who they are and what they stand for, so they’ve stayed silent — both literally speaking, and sartorially, and in pretty much any situation that might put them in a position of vulnerability.
If more women were following and trusting their intuition and what inspires them (and felt they could openly express these things), would we feel the need to act or even dress in such masculine ways? With such force and uniformity?

It’s something the English scholar, classicist and feminist Mary Beard spoke to last week on the Goop podcast and writes about at length in her book Women & Power. For as long as humans have been telling stories, Beard says, those stories have been told by men, who in turn tell women to keep quiet. She famously cites a scene in The Odyssey in which a teenaged Telemachus, the son of Odysseus and Penelope, basically tells his mom to buzz off, justifying that “speech is man’s business.”

“The act of silencing women,” Beard tells Goop’s host, “is part of the patriarchy’s defense of itself.” In other words, power falls to those who wears the pants — which justifies the matching pantsuits at the top of the page. The problem with this rule is that it implies that women are simply playing a part, rather than living it honestly. “At some level,” she says, “it’s not just that [Merkel and Clinton] are looking as close to men as they can be. They’re sort of acting. They’re playing the role of the politician.”

So how can women regain — and retain — power without playing a part? By discovering who they are. And knowing that power doesn’t have to be the traditional look and feel we know, or see displayed on our screens. It’s deeper. It’s about gaining access to confidence, which gives way to so much more.

That “access” doesn’t necessarily come easily — at least not at first. Like anything else, it takes practice. For Beard, confidence came when she began speaking up more in front of male counterparts. She says that just the practice of listening to her own voice, to hear how she sounded when speaking authoritatively, helped.

It makes me wonder how Hillary and Angela approach confidence. While they (and their clothing style) don’t necessarily represent all women, their embracement of the masculine “hold” is symbolic. And it could use a little softening.

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Molly Rudberg, MSC, ACC, is a Chicago-based ontological life and executive coach focused on developing extraordinary leaders and teams committed to realizing an impossible future. She facilitates workshops and speaks to organizations and groups about creating intentional, purposeful, passion-filled work, and is the co-author of “From the Yoga Mat to the Corner Office: A Mindful Approach to Business Success” (Highpoint Executive Publishing, 2014).