“We truly, desperately need women’s voices and visions, as stewards in this country and the planet, to lend our visions and ideas to address the many problems that currently are facing our country and the world.”
About This Episode
Answering the question “what will it take for women to occupy the spaces and places where we are normally silenced,” Marianne Schnall shares her insights gathered from over two decades of progressive thought leadership on feminism. During her interview, Marianne advocates for the reclamation of the term “power” and encourages women to consider how “power with” and “power to,” rather than “power over,” can be used to spark change.
About Marianne Schnall
Marianne Schnall is the founder of What Will It Take- a media, collaboration, learning, and social engagement platform that inspires, connects, educates and engages women everywhere to advance and take action in all levels of leadership. She is also a widely-published and respected journalist, whose writings and interviews have appeared in a variety of media outlets including O, The Oprah Magazine, Marie Claire, CNN.com, Forbes, Refinery29, the Women’s Media Center and The Huffington Post. She is the founder and executive director of the feminist website and non-profit organization, Feminist.com, as well as the co-founder of the environmental site, EcoMall.com. She is the author of Daring to Be Ourselves: Influential Women Share Insights on Courage, Happiness and Finding Your Own Voice and What Will it Take to Make a Woman President? Conversations About Women, Leadership, and Power. You can learn more about Marianne’s groundbreaking work at marianneschnall.com.
In her words…
“I feel like it’s the time for disruption. It’s the time for really radical transformation…I think that the old ways of doing things, our institutions and the entrenched systems that have been such a source of inequality and injustice. The ugliness, the messiness of all that, is out for all of us to see. To me, that’s an opportunity. That’s an opportunity for true transformative change.”
“I think we need thought leaders to challenge the accepted norms and catalyze these new ways of thinking and viewing the issues of the day. One of the things I always hope, when I talk about the need for more women in leadership, is not that women would get into these positions of leadership, and feel that they had to model leadership in a way that it has been modeled by men. Not to say all men think this way, but in a hierarchal way, a “power over.” There’s a new way that we can model leadership, which I think is needed right now, which is “power to,” and, “power with”. Really having the urge to use their power to uplift marginalized communities, and to the voices that don’t have a say, as well as, leaders who are looking to unify, rather than divide.”
“For many women, we’re not owning our accomplishments. We can get over our feelings of insecurity and self doubt when we are proud when we have an accomplishment, by acknowledging it and owning our successes.”
“Vulnerability is really important in our leadership…In general, it is a time where we can’t shy away from the vulnerabilities that we are all feeling, because it’s where we find our empathy for others.”
Questions Answered on this Episode
- What do you think is the role of the thought leader today?
- What has been your journey to become a thought leader?
- How do you maintain relevance with all the changes that are happening?
- What will it take for us to create an environment for women’s leadership equality?
- Were there times in your career and work that you felt silenced? How did you push through that?
Hey Ladies!
In honor of the launch of our podcast, we are doing a contest! One lucky winner will be awarded registration to our She Roars Master Class. If you aren’t already familiar with She Roars, it’s our online thought leadership training program for women in nonprofits. For 8 weeks, you will spend time with Vanessa and other agents of change in the nonprofit community, working to build YOUR thought leadership platform.
All you have to do to win:
- Subscribe to the Social Change Diaries podcast on iTunes (link above)
- Leave a review on iTunes letting us know what you thought of episode 1, or suggestions for topics for future seasons
- Take a screenshot of the review
- Email the screenshot to [email protected]
The winner be announced November 15th and enrolled in our spring 2018 Master Class program. To learn more about She Roars, click here.