What It Means to Have A Female Boss
The Madam Secretary staff holding up their NPR names (Take the first letter of your middle name and insert it anywhere you'd like in your first name. And then your last name is the smallest foreign town you've ever visited). I’m top left (Alexandrad Sinop). Barbara Hall (aka E. Barbara Tintagel) middle front.
How long into your career did it take to find a female authority figure role model?
In the first 20 years of my professional life as a TV writer, I had precisely three female bosses. Of those, only one was a woman of color.
I didn't think about it too hard at the time, but I was absolutely subject to stereotypes of women in power (ironically spread via the very medium I was working in) Which archetype to believe?
Female leaders are crazy; ruled by emotion and hormones?
Or...Female leaders are supportive, diplomatic, kind?
Though I was paid to imagine creative scenarios, I could rarely effectively pitch a world where women had agency, power, and status. I had to go with what the leadership believed. And based on the feedback I'd get when I pitched those ideas, the leadership - which was 99% male - did not share my vision. Sound familiar?
So, when I finally found my way to the Madam Secretary writer's room run by a female creator (the absurdly talented Barbara Hall) centered on a female Secretary of State (Tea Leoni), I felt like a camel taking its first pull of water after an absurdly long desert odyssey.
I had to wait until my 30s to feel the relief & perspective that comes from sharing an identity and experiences with decision-makers.
Too many people who hold underrepresented identities are denied that peace, all the while still working hard to get into a position where they can be that oasis for someone else.
Of course things are changing and now more than ever the concept of "female leadership" is becoming less and less theoretical. However, the scars of growing up without role models makes it all the more necessary to both understand how the women who came ahead of us were conditioned and the effect we have on the women behind us.
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