By Lisa Nuss
One day when my nephew Jackson was four, I piled him into my brother’s Chevy truck and walked around to the driver’s seat. As I started the engine, Jackson looked over at me with alarm. "That's Daddy's seat! You're sitting in Daddy's seat!" It dawned on me he had never seen anyone else drive his Dad’s truck. "It's okay,” I said, “we're just going to the store." He folded his little arms and tiny elbows, and frowned as we backed out of the driveway.
When I later saw the Annie Leibovitz photograph of Carly Fiorina sitting in the Hewlett Packard corporate jet, I flashbacked to my nephew’s alarm. And I immediately understood the "controversy" over Fiorina’s use of the corporate jet. Not long after Fiorina was named CEO of HP in 1999, the media criticized her for using the corporate jet, wearing Italian suits (“too flashy”) and “trotting all over the world” making speeches: all behaviors expected from CEOs of lesser companies. I venture that my nephew’s tantrum is comparable to those media criticisms, precisely because we aren’t used to seeing a woman sitting in the CEO position.
Fiorina famously declined to discuss the “women in power” double standards during the six years she ran HP. She explains in her new memoir, “Tough Choices,” that leading a Fortune 500 company was proof that women could make it through the glass ceiling. But in her book, Fiorina doesn’t shy away from detailing encounters with men who tried to “pigeonhole” her along her climb up the management ladder at AT&T. She finds ways of making sure higher-ups don’t exclude her from important meetings. She interrupts a man who is ranting at her. She navigates the sexual activities that businessmen have accustomed themselves to by either going along where she can (by enjoying the company of the female dinner companion a Korean client provided for her) or challenging those “customs” when the need arises.
When Fiorina assumed her position at HP, she said, "I didn't want to talk about being a woman in business. I wanted to talk about business." I don’t blame her. For six years Forbes Magazine named her the Most Powerful Woman in Business. But the inevitable questions about “how does it feel to be a woman CEO” suggest there’s something out of place about that. Men don’t get asked what it’s like to be a male CEO.
Fiorina was running with the big boys, and she had the chops to be there. She earned her way up AT&T by being very smart, courageous and decisive, hard-working and developing a flair for leadership. She graduated from the elite MIT Sloan School of Management in addition to her M.B.A. But why do I feel compelled to list her credentials?
In the Leibovitz photo, Fiorina is seated at the back of the corporate jet. You see the fine leather seats and the phone on the wall; you see Fiorina as CEO dressed in a dark suit, with a classy leather portfolio and fountain pen on the seat next to her. And she looks like she belongs there. I suspect that’s what ultimately unnerves her critics. Her expression is not apologetic; she doesn’t look like she feels out of place. She doesn’t look like a woman in a man’s world. She looks at ease – capable and very comfortable in this ultimate seat of corporate power.
As for my nephew, he pouted all the way to the store. Since I love the little guy, I gave it one more shot, "Jackson, you know I'm your Dad's sister and he trusts me very much and that's why he lets me take care of you, and drive his truck." The frown vanished - he either bought my explanation or was distracted by the candy aisle. Would that adults were swayed so easily.
10.25.06
i just discovered you, and i LOVE what you are discussing. many great points made. the patriarchal imbalance of power is never explored enough-evident in our world every day, so let's keep it going!
Posted by: BohemeMama | January 24, 2007 at 06:17 AM