What Will It Take to Make A Woman President?: Conversations About Women, Leadership and Power by Marianne Schnall
Authors: Marianne Schnall
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and they let me just yak it up. So you don’t tell girls to be quiet. Stop telling us to be quiet; we’re not going to be quiet.
MS : I wanted to ask you about the role of comedy, because I think it is not just entertainment. I do think that there is something especially important about women being funny, since we often take ourselves way too seriously. I’m friends with Kathy Najimy, and she talks about how sometimes, even talking about politics, if you add a little humor, it can feel more palatable.
JB : Well, I think that [female comedians] are powerful. I think that humor is a powerful tool to use. It’s a great talent to have, because you can disarm people. You can make your point. Ask anybody who has to give a speech—very often they’ll say, “If I start with an anecdote and get them laughing at the beginning, I own them; then they’ll listen to me.” When I first started stand-up comedy, I think part of my motivation for getting into it was that I felt powerless as a woman in this society. I was becoming invisible. I was already thirty-nine. After thirty-five you become invisible, pretty much, certainly to men. I was just becoming more and more invisible, and I was like, I have things to say. I have to do it. As hard as that was, I got up on that stage with a microphone in my hand, and I went there. Of course, no one was going to listen to me if I was just talking, so I had to make them laugh, and then they listened to me. So I think that it has a very powerful effect on people.
MS : Even in the media, women hold only about 3 percent of top positions. As a media figure—through The View and through your talk shows—what do you think of the state of media today in terms of women’s representation, both behind the scenes and as news anchors and personalities?
JB : I think there are more of us. There are a lot of women now. I was just watching MSNBC before, with S. E. Cupp and this girl Krystal Ball, and they’re terrific. And then Rachel Maddow’s on that station. You have Andrea Mitchell, you’ve got Mika Brzezinski, just on MSNBC. Then CNN has Candy Crowley, who I think is great. And, you know, Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer and Katie Couric and those kinds of newspeople on the networks all these years have been very important. I think there’s quite a few of us.
MS : I was thinking about The View , and it brought to mind this quote from an interview I did with Gloria Steinem. She said, “If we’re by ourselves, we come to feel crazy and alone. We need to make alternate families of small groups of women who support each other, talk to each other regularly, can speak their truth and their experiences and find they’re not alone in them.” I think that The View is kind of modeling that for us. How do you see the cultural significance of what takes place on The View in terms of this forum for women to talk and share their opinions?
JB : I think in the beginning they were calling us a “coffee klatch” or “a bunch of hens”; somebody said one time “yentas.” We’ve been called all sorts of things—these disparaging remarks about women sitting around a table, discussing anything they feel like talking about that day, things that are in the news. It basically is an extension of the kitchen table where we all grew up. When I grew up—I grew up in Brooklyn, in a tenement, and my grandmother lived on one floor, and my parents and I lived on another, and my aunt was on another, and we had dinners together, and we’d sit around and have dinner or coffee and just talk, play cards—we called it a neighborhood. And I think that people—because this country is so spread out—are missing that a lot. I really do believe that’s one of the biggest problems, this lack of community that’s going on. I hear constantcomplaints from people that they don’t have a community, and I do my best to bring groups together all the time in my personal life. I do believe in it. And, yeah, The View kind of
MS : I wanted to ask you about the role of comedy, because I think it is not just entertainment. I do think that there is something especially important about women being funny, since we often take ourselves way too seriously. I’m friends with Kathy Najimy, and she talks about how sometimes, even talking about politics, if you add a little humor, it can feel more palatable.
JB : Well, I think that [female comedians] are powerful. I think that humor is a powerful tool to use. It’s a great talent to have, because you can disarm people. You can make your point. Ask anybody who has to give a speech—very often they’ll say, “If I start with an anecdote and get them laughing at the beginning, I own them; then they’ll listen to me.” When I first started stand-up comedy, I think part of my motivation for getting into it was that I felt powerless as a woman in this society. I was becoming invisible. I was already thirty-nine. After thirty-five you become invisible, pretty much, certainly to men. I was just becoming more and more invisible, and I was like, I have things to say. I have to do it. As hard as that was, I got up on that stage with a microphone in my hand, and I went there. Of course, no one was going to listen to me if I was just talking, so I had to make them laugh, and then they listened to me. So I think that it has a very powerful effect on people.
MS : Even in the media, women hold only about 3 percent of top positions. As a media figure—through The View and through your talk shows—what do you think of the state of media today in terms of women’s representation, both behind the scenes and as news anchors and personalities?
JB : I think there are more of us. There are a lot of women now. I was just watching MSNBC before, with S. E. Cupp and this girl Krystal Ball, and they’re terrific. And then Rachel Maddow’s on that station. You have Andrea Mitchell, you’ve got Mika Brzezinski, just on MSNBC. Then CNN has Candy Crowley, who I think is great. And, you know, Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer and Katie Couric and those kinds of newspeople on the networks all these years have been very important. I think there’s quite a few of us.
MS : I was thinking about The View , and it brought to mind this quote from an interview I did with Gloria Steinem. She said, “If we’re by ourselves, we come to feel crazy and alone. We need to make alternate families of small groups of women who support each other, talk to each other regularly, can speak their truth and their experiences and find they’re not alone in them.” I think that The View is kind of modeling that for us. How do you see the cultural significance of what takes place on The View in terms of this forum for women to talk and share their opinions?
JB : I think in the beginning they were calling us a “coffee klatch” or “a bunch of hens”; somebody said one time “yentas.” We’ve been called all sorts of things—these disparaging remarks about women sitting around a table, discussing anything they feel like talking about that day, things that are in the news. It basically is an extension of the kitchen table where we all grew up. When I grew up—I grew up in Brooklyn, in a tenement, and my grandmother lived on one floor, and my parents and I lived on another, and my aunt was on another, and we had dinners together, and we’d sit around and have dinner or coffee and just talk, play cards—we called it a neighborhood. And I think that people—because this country is so spread out—are missing that a lot. I really do believe that’s one of the biggest problems, this lack of community that’s going on. I hear constantcomplaints from people that they don’t have a community, and I do my best to bring groups together all the time in my personal life. I do believe in it. And, yeah, The View kind of
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