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“I have had wonderful opportunities
to learn.”
Unitarian Universalist Church: Women in Leadership
Eugene, Oregon April 13, 2008 Thank you for inviting me here today to spend a few moments
with you to talk about being a woman in a leadership position. We each bring our experiences into leadership. I grew up in a time when women’s options were more
limited but I had parents who wanted and expected me to
go to college, just in case I needed to work. It was not
so much a career path as a parachute in case of an accident.
My parents’ main goal for me was to be nice and to
get married. As a young woman, I always felt compressed in a box of
expectations for women. And my mother never adjusted to
the move to Ohio from a small southern town. So I did not
have a happy role model for my growing up years. I grew up when the world was changing: the civil rights
movement, the war in Vietnam, the women’s movement,
and the expansion of our world horizons beyond our country. I was in one of the very early Peace Corps groups serving
in Ethiopia. It is a reflection of my family that I would
have thought to join the Peace Corps. My family was of
southern heritage, slave owners and signers of the Declaration
of Independence: a lot to celebrate and a lot to make up
for. I remember in my senior year in high school when we moved
to Michigan. My parents were confronted with a division
in their church over civil rights. The minister called
the congregation to action to stand up for equal rights.
Half the congregation left. My parents stayed. The Peace Corps was scary and yet pretty well protected.
I learned there to be my own person without my family and
I learned to value other cultures as much as my own: a
big gift that has lasted a lifetime. I taught high school
English, a drawing class, a poetry class and I had a library
in my home. I worked at a sanitarium on weekends with those
who suffered from TB and leprosy. I went on medical safaris
into the jungle. I came home really not wanting to just go back to a teaching
job. I hopped a bus to New Orleans where I could get a
teaching job easily if I was willing to teach poor minorities
and I was. It was a year of watching how prejudice and
inequality really worked. I went home to Michigan and taught there for a year and
then headed to Berkeley in the heat of the anti war movement.
My brother was involved in the Peace Movement there. I
learned much and marched and protested and taught in a
West Oakland parochial school and studied Political Science. Passion for justice and changing the world were intertwined
with a strong yen for adventure for me, all the while being
a very, very shy girl. I was not going to do the same things that the generation
before me had done. I met a guy and we got married. It
has been a lucky star in my life to have a partner who
has supported everything I have undertaken and urged me
to live up to my potential. A year later I gave birth to our son, one of the most
profound relationships I have ever felt. David and I and our young son went to live on a small
island in the Pacific, Saipan, part of the Marianas Chain
that Guam is in. It seemed WWII just left yesterday. There
were rusted guns in the cliffs and tanks on the beaches
and ships sunk in the surrounding reef. We adopted a baby who had been severely malnourished and
left at the hospital. Then we moved to Eugene. I tell you all this because each piece forms me and my
view of the world, our country, and what’s really
important. In Eugene I taught young children and we adopted our daughter
who had suffered child abuse. I signed up a booth regarding women’s reproductive
rights. I gradually said yes to enough requests that I
became a local and state organization President. This was
of course one of the most controversial issues in the country
then and for decades to come. I learned to debate and discuss
while still being respectful and reasonable. I learned
to be tenacious and to ask much from others and myself
and to get it. I learned to believe in the grace of every
human being and to know their foibles. In the early 1990’s I was asked to run for the legislature,
certainly nothing I had ever considered. I was enjoying
teaching school, those wonderful classroom opportunities
to excite a child about learning. I enjoyed working with
parents and supporting them in their crucial work. After long thought, I decided to jump off the cliff and
run for the state legislature. It was like a call to service
to work for improvements for our children and for the human
and civil rights of all. I won and served three terms,
one as House Democratic Leader. I learned a lot and much
was painful. I learned that everyone wanted to take me as their colleague
regarding children and women’s issues. They were
comfortable with that. But when my women colleagues asked
me to run for leadership, all kinds of things happened.
I was patted on the head and told, “that’s
nice but you cannot win” because some of my male
colleagues had a plan for who was to ascend to leadership
and I was not in the plan. I ran for leadership and won, and the eruption was fierce.
One fellow left the party. One dropped out of running for
re-election after the primary and one wrote nasty letters
to the Salem paper. It was surprising and harsh and hard
to live through. At the end of session, they told me how
much they appreciated my leadership but the price I had
paid was really very, very high. So, I enjoyed working as Public Affairs Director for Planned
Parenthood after I was termed out of the Legislature. I
was among friends working on good things for our kids to
be sure they had the information they needed to make healthy
decisions. I worked to ensure women’s rights were
protected. I helped change state policy and the way we
are addressing health care. It was very satisfying. Then I was asked to run for Mayor. Again, this was not
in my game plan but I decided to step up to it. I ran and
won. I have actually loved this job. It is close to home
and very close to the public. I have the opportunity to
learn so much about our community, and to work on things
that are important at the local level and important at
the state and national level. That is especially true now
when we are faced with climate change, finite resources
and a struggling national economy. It is especially true
now when we are evolving from a small town to a more urban
environment. It is especially true now when we are in a
rapidly changing world and need to be sure our children
are prepared for the future and our community is prepared
for success. I learned a lot as a mother of three, two with special
needs, about the challenges people face. I learned a lot
as I taught school and helped children find ways to get
their needs met without fighting. I learned a lot from
my grassroots activism for women’s rights about the
power of people working together. I learned a lot from
living in so many places in the world about the value of
each of us and how we act in the world. I have had wonderful
opportunities to learn. I am for the moment in this place of leadership where
I try to apply all I have learned on behalf of our community.
It is my joy to do so. I have brought people together to
solve problems and meet challenges, from potholes to downtown
pits, from strikes to homelessness. I have worked to position our community for the future
in green jobs and practices. Like mothers and women have
always done, I have sought to find the opportunities in
the challenges. If we face climate change and finite resources,
then let’s create jobs that respond to those needs.
Let’s be in front of solutions in alternative fuel
and energy, alternative transportation, natural foods and
products, green building and conservation. Actually that
is the absolute fun of leadership. I must admit I have been sometimes amazed that some folks
label human and civil rights, more sustainable living on
this planet, and peace as “feel good” or “soft
and fuzzy” issues, not the work of a Mayor or our
local government. I see these as the largest work of all: how we live on
this planet and how we live together on this planet. It
is the work of each of us wherever we are: in our homes,
in our workplaces, and in our civic life. It is the essence
of community.
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