2024 Special Election Series

Visit the special What Will It Take 2024 Election page that uplifts valuable stories, crucial resources, and conversations with our time’s most inspiring thought leaders on the theme of electing our first woman president and paving the way for more women and diversity in leadership.

Interviewees

• Ana Navarro, political strategist and commentator
• Anita Hill, attorney and academic
• Don McPherson, NFL veteran, social activist
• Donna Brazile, author, academic, political analyst, and Vice Chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee
• Eleanor Holmes Norton, Delegate to the United States Congress representing the District of Columbia
• Elizabeth Lesser, author and co-founder of Omega Institute
• Gavin Newsom, Lieutenant Governor of California
• Gloria Steinem, journalist and feminist activist
• Governor Mary Fallin, governor of Oklahoma and former US Representative
• Jennifer Siebel Newsom, actor and documentary filmmaker
• Jessica Valenti, feminist writer and founder of Feministing.com
• Joy Behar, comedian, writer, actor, and former co-host of ABC’s The View
• Kathy Najimy, actor, writer, activist
• Kay Bailey Hutchison, former US Senator from Texas
• Kirsten Gillibrand, US Senator from New York

• Marianne Williamson, New York Times best-selling author
• Marie Wilson, author and founder of The White House Project
• Maya Angelou, author and poet
• Melissa Etheridge, singer-songwriter and activist
• Melissa Harris-Perry, author, television host, and political commentator
• Michael Kimmel, sociologist and academic
• Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader of the House of Representatives and former Speaker of the House
• Nicholas Kristof, journalist, author, and Pulitzer Prize winner
• Olympia Snowe, former US Senator from Maine
• Pat Mitchell, president and CEO of the Paley Center for Media
• Senator Barbara Lee, US Representative for California's 13th congressional district
• Senator Claire McCaskill, US Senator from Missouri
• Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook and author of Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead
• Soledad O'Brien, broadcast journalist

Excerpts

The word "female," when inserted in front of something, is always with a note of surprise—female COO, female pilot, female surgeon—as if the gender implies surprise, which it does. I am a female leader. One day there won't be female leaders. There will just be leaders.
—Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook and author of Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

I think the most important message for women is that they can do it. . . . And my call to action is very comprehensive: do whatever you can do. It's a question of, Are you voting? Are you being heard? Are there issues that you care about that you could advocate for and let your representatives know how important they are to you? Would you ever consider running for office? Really making that request of women's participation across the board.
—Kirsten Gillibrand, US Senator from New York (D)

I think the reason that there are fewer women—that there is a gender gap in the media, there's a gender gap in elected office, there's a gender gap in high level corporate America—it's all the same reasons. Because, until very recently, women have been the ones that bore the brunt of family and home responsibilities. And it's not been until recently that that has begun to change and we are now in an era where shared responsibilities have become the norm, not the exception.
—Ana Navarro, political strategist and commentator

There are multiple levels of leadership. Your leadership in your own family, your community, how you lead your life, how you present yourself in the world as one who is willing to use what you have to give to others. That to me is the defining meaning of what it takes to be a leader.
—Oprah Winfrey, media icon and philanthropist

If we really think that the majority of women in the world are also always in the kitchen and in the kindergarten and in the places just to look after the young and men, then we do ourselves and everybody a disservice. Because women offer so much more than it would seem we offer. It would seem we offer kindness and the chance to be cared for and nursed in more ways than just medical. And I think that the whole country needs to know that women are much smarter—we're more than that.
—Maya Angelou, author and poet

I think the biggest challenge facing our nation, as far as more women getting involved in politics, is just the fact of women stepping up and being willing to run for office--to put everything on the line, to do the hard work, to go through the process itself, to risk winning or losing, and to step up to any kind of office, whether it's president or heading up a major corporation.
—Mary Fallin, governor of Oklahoma and former US Representative (R)

Society is what it is. It's probable that walking around female for twenty years, or fifty years, in this culture has given someone a set of experiences that men don't necessarily have—in the same way that walking around as a black person or a Hispanic person or a gay person gives people a different set of experiences than a white, heterosexual person. Experience is everything. Somebody who has experienced something is more expert at it than the experts. We need politicians who look like the country.
—Gloria Steinem, journalist and feminist activist

Why is it that men can't be recognized for being outstanding advocates for women? You don't need to be gay to be a great advocate for the LGBT community. In every aspect of life, you can maintain your empathy and your advocacy. . . . I think people are realizing that we're not two separate tribes, we're all in this together, and that men have a responsibility to be advocates for women, women advocates for men and boys.
—Gavin Newsom, Lieutenant Governor of California (D)

We were raised in this country to believe that we were the best. That this was the country that was going to save the world. We were the leader of the free. We were the world's leader. And now we look around and we're kind of like, "Wait a minute. We've got some problems here."
—Melissa Etheridge, singer-songwriter and activist

It's about equality, but it's not just about equality. And the reason it's necessary to have more voices is because that strengthens the debate and it strengthens the decisions. It isn't that women coming in are better than men; they're different from men. And I always say the beauty is in the mix. To have diversity of opinion in the debate strengthens the outcome and you get a better result.
— Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader of the House of Representatives and former Speaker of the House (D)

I think that if we don't have gender diversity at the top of American politics and in corporate boards, then we're just going to get weaker decisions, and I think that's what we've been stuck with. And so I think that the great strength that women bring when they move into senior levels of politics is not that they're more nurturing, caring, maternal figures, but that they will bring a certain level of different perspective, a different way of thinking, and that is just really valuable for all of us. This is not something that is going to benefit the women of America; it's something that's going to benefit all of America.
—Nicholas Kristof, journalist, author, and Pulitzer Prize winner

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