Being ‘the first woman’ is a unique challenge.
But it’s one that women step into and overcome every day. The first woman on a board. The first female CEO of a company. The first female Defence Minister. The first female presidential nominee (and president).
Initially, it’s a big, wonderful celebration. Finally a woman’s broken through! The glass ceiling is shattered! But it’s often not long before it becomes seen as an experiment. She becomes the subject of intense scrutiny, and is often handed the added responsibility of cleaning up a mess left by those who served in the position before her. Her directives are questioned. Her marital status and relationships are questioned. Her appearance is questioned. The amount of help she has at home is questioned, as is the matter of whether or not she can really ‘have it all’.
It’s a tough job being the first woman, of anything. But it’s a job that has to be done. Without a first, we can’t have a second or a third. Without a first, we can’t begin to hope we’ll one day live in a world where the gender of a leader is no longer a discussion point.
And simply getting to the point of being in a position to actually become a first? It can be a very long and brutal path to the top: just ask Hillary Clinton who finally, finally was officially named the Democratic nominee for the presidential election at the party’s National Convention this week.
So how do you become the first? With “grit and grace” according to Meryl Streep who addressed the Convention yesterday, letting out an extraordinary cheer as she stood at the podium.
“We got some fight left in us, don’t we?” Streep said. “What does it take to be the first female anything? It takes grit and it takes grace.
“Hillary Clinton has taken some fire over 40 years of her fight for families and children … How does she do it? That’s what I want to know. Where does she get her grit and her grace? Where do any of our female firsts, our path breakers, where do they find that strength?”
Streep finished by saying Clinton will be the first female president, but she won’t be the last. She’ll lead with more “grit and grace”.
But she’ll also need to lead with support.
For Clinton, the path to the White House only gets more brutal from here. As our first female Prime Minister Julia Gillard wrote in the New York Times yesterday, she will encounter (more) sexism — and Americans should call it out when they see it.
Because if they don’t, they may risk Clinton’s experience at the top being an anomaly, should the ambitions of young women behind her be quashed by the thought of undergoing a similar experience.
Indeed as Gillard wrote, she often encounters girls who say that having seen how she was treated, they’ve decided a career in politics is not for them. “I always try to talk them out of this position. Sometimes I succeed.”
In many cases, it takes as much “grit and grace” to become the second, as it does to become the first.