What are the questions we should be asking about women?

What Are the Questions We Should Be Asking About Women?

John, Mark, and David each hold more corporate board seats than all female corporate directors combined. Not all three of them together. Each one of them, individually. Let that sit.

This is the season two Women's History Month episode, and we are not here to celebrate what women have survived. We are here to interrogate the systems that made survival necessary in the first place.

Dr. Patti Fletcher, Lynne Cuppernull, and Dan Ward ask the questions that the glossy Women's History Month content skips: Who wrote the rules women are still following and who are those rules actually serving? Why do we keep treating women as the variable that needs to be solved for instead of asking what kind of world we are trying to build together? What does it cost an organization when women hold real power without formal authority, and does anyone even see it? What happens to AI, the technology that has become our electricity, when women are not in the room coding it? And what would change if they were?

Also on the table: coactive versus coercive power, why soft power needs a rebrand, what men risk by showing up as feminists at work, and the French press calling Catherine Wright "the third Wright brother" and almost, almost getting it right.

This episode was sponsored by the long game. Played by women everywhere, often when they cannot see the scoreboard.

Resources we mention in this episode:

• "Disrupters: Success Strategies From Women Who Break The Mold" by Dr. Patti Fletcher
• Put a Woman In Charge, song by Keb’ Mo’  
• UN Report on AI & Gender Equality 
• “LIFT: Innovation Lessons From Flying Machines That ALMOST Worked and The People Who NEARLY Flew Them” by Dan Ward 
• Why Women over 50 are the Future of Work in the Age of AI by Laetitia Vitaud, Fast Company
  
  

Listening for the Questions drops every other Tuesday wherever you listen to podcasts. Subscribe, leave a review, and bring a question.

Listening for the Questions is where curiosity is our compass.

Transcript

Lynne 0:14

Hello, and welcome back to Listening for the Questions. I'm Lynn Cuppernal. I'm a leadership coach and a healthcare consultant. I'm also a woman. And as always, I'm joined by my friends Dan and Patty, and we have got some great questions today.

Dan 0:31

Hey everybody, Dan Ward here. I'm an engineer and military technologist. I'm also an author and a juggler and a punk. And I'm not a woman. I'm also pretty sure today's topic is something we have mentioned on every single episode of this podcast so far. I love it. And no, the topic is not AI.

Patti 0:48

And I'm Dr. Patty Fletcher, a recovering C-suite executive from big tech, a leadership futurist working at the intersection of people, business, technology, and data, a best-selling author. And as you guys do not know, um listening, but my co-hosts do, I just sit here giggling through every intro. I'm so happy I know everyone's gender. Um, Dan, you know, I think you're right. We talk about today's topic a lot. Mostly you bring it up. Um, and I'm glad we're dedicating a whole episode to it in a month that's been dedicated to our topic. So let's get started. What are the questions, people, that we should be asking about you guessed it, women?

Dan 1:30

All right. So is it weird if I go first? And that's actually my first question. As a man, is it weird if I asked the first question in today's episode?

Patti 1:39

So I've read this a few times and like from our show notes, you guys, and it still makes me laugh. So it's such a good one. So, Dan, look, my reaction when I read the notes, and my reaction right now is only you would make your first question about whether you, as a man, are allowed to ask a question about women, and I love it. And no, I don't think it's weird because I know you're not going to mansplain being a woman to me. I think it is just you being aware.

Lynne 2:08

Well, whether it's weird or not, it sounds like maybe it feels weird to you. So I want us to ask why it feels weird to you, Dan. Is it because you're a man asking about women, or because you're afraid of maybe getting it wrong? Or because you think you should be chivalrous and let the women go first, or because maybe it feels like this topic belongs to us and not you.

Patti 2:35

Ooh, good questions, Lynn. You know, that also makes me wonder what it says about how society frames conversations about women in the first place. I mean, if men like Dan, who are paying attention and doing the work, if those types of men feel like they need to ask for permission to engage with this topic, what does that say about this topic? And what does that say about us as a culture and as a people? And have we made the conversation smaller by creating the impression that women's topics are exclusively for women? And anyone who knows me knows I have a very strong opinion on gender topics. So, and if you know if you don't know me, you probably know that. So they may be a little bit surprised by this next question I have, which is why shouldn't Dan ask the first question today?

Lynne 3:28

Yes. And if it feels even slightly weird for Dan to go first, which let me point out, he totally now is not doing because we've asked like 8,000 questions already. But if it does feel slightly weird for Dan to ask to go first, what does that tell us about what we expect from men when women are the subject of conversation? Are we expecting them to follow, stay quiet? What? What are we expecting?

Dan 3:57

These are great questions. I love all of them. And I do want to sort of sit with the irony for a moment that today's topic is women. And we've asked a lot of questions about men so far. And like, is that okay too? Right? You know, I think when we talk about women, maybe one of the questions we need to ask is like how men can be part of the conversation without taking it over, without centering men. And I'm definitely not asking either of you to answer any of those questions.

Patti 4:24

So, right before we pressed record on this episode, I was sharing with my co-hosts about how I can't not start singing if I even hear one word. I hear the word irony, Dan, and I think about isn't it ironic from Alanis Morissette? I shall sing when we stop the recording. You're welcome. Um, but in all seriousness, you know, Dan, and here's where I want to go with this. In my research for disruptors, my book about women who break the mold, one of the things I found out is that women who broke that mold didn't do it by waiting for men to figure out how we as women can be part of the conversation and the solution. They did it by redefining what the conversation was about in the first place. So maybe the question isn't how do men join the conversation about women or when are they allowed to do that? But maybe the question is why do we keep having a conversation about women as if women are the variable that needs to be solved for, instead of asking, what kind of world are we trying to build together?

Lynne 5:31

Patty, I love the concept of building the world together. Though I wonder if the question isn't so much solving for women as it is building intentional inclusion. And so then with that in mind, taking a business pivot, how might organizations look different if they'd been designed with women from the beginning?

Patti 5:57

Now that's the gazillion-dollar question we don't have enough zeros for. You know, when we talk about that, Lynn, and just thinking about what you and Dan are bringing up, when we talk about the intersection of women and work, we do need to acknowledge that the rules in pretty much every workplace were written well before women were in the room, right? So I want women to ask ourselves, which rules are we following? And who actually wrote them? And who are they serving, right? We seem to go back to these same questions regardless of the pod topic. And, you know, are those rules designed to bring us in or are they designed to keep us out?

Lynne 6:39

And that got me thinking about a related question about stories. Whose stories have we been telling? I mean, we're it's March. It's Women's History Month. We have been telling a lot of stories about women. Whose stories are we telling and whose stories are we not telling? Who are we leaving out? You know, and related to that, I guess this is related. I maybe I just want to ask this question. Um, who are the specific women who shaped your life and work? How do we tell their stories? I feel like the stories we tell during Women's History Month are a God love them, about the same few women, right? I love you, Rosa Parks. I love you, Harriet Tubman, I love you, Susan B. Anthony. Um what about the women who shaped our lives and work? And how do we tell their stories? How did they help us write new rules and set new standards that we benefit from? I mean, I certainly know my mother and her friends did. And then finally, maybe we ask, what were they carrying that we've never thought to ask them about?

Dan 7:44

Ooh, Lynn, I love that last question in particular. Asking not just what stories are being told and not told, but really understanding those stories and what were some of these women carrying that we didn't hear about before. And so as we think about listening to stories, that made me think of listening to music, which made me think of a blues musician named Kev Moe, who has a terrific song called Put a Woman in Charge. Uh, we'll put a link in the show notes. Uh the song basically says things in the world would be better for everyone if women were in charge. And like, amen, brother, yes. But to put it in the form of a question though, what if Kev Moe is right? What if building a more equitable world where more women are in leadership positions? What if that made things better for everyone? And then how can we take steps now to help build that kind of a world? Let's pause on that assumption for a moment.

Lynne 8:35

How do women lead differently than men? And by the way, there I just read a kick-ass article in Fast Company today about why women over 50 specifically are kick-ass leaders. I am paraphrasing what the title was, um, and why more companies should be hiring them? And there's like nine amazing reasons, including we live longer, so you should put us in positions of leadership and power because we're going to be around longer. Um, but just getting back to this concept of how do women lead differently than men, like what makes it better? Is it better? Is vulnerability rewarded differently for men than women in the workplace? And if it is, and I think it is, how does that affect how we lead? So, Patty, what questions along these lines came up for you when you were writing Disruptors?

Patti 9:31

Lynn, first of all, um, I don't care what anyone says, you come up with really good titles for blogs and stuff. And if it wasn't the title, it should have been. Um, because yeah, it would go viral. Um, so thank you for asking, by the way. I I do appreciate that. And I do, I not only am I a woman over 50, I've been studying women over 50 for over 25 years, and I really loved it. And that article, definitely check it out. We'll put it in the show notes. Because even for me, there are a few things in there that were either reframed or a bit new, and I love, love, love that. So, look, lots of questions came up, and I'm just gonna rattle off some of them if it's okay with you guys, right? So the and these are by the way, um, evergreen um questions. So not only they come through in the book Disruptors, which was published in 2018, they've been coming through since way before I started on this work. They came through when I first did, and they're still relevant today. So a few that come to mind if women um often hold real power without formal power, right? They're given the responsibility, but not the authority. What does that cost them? And what does it cost the organizations that don't see it? Let that sit with you for a minute. The next ones are transformational leadership. So transformational leadership and transactional leadership. There are multiple types of leadership forms, but transactional is very kind of quig pro crow, right? I pay you money, you give me something. So the first one's like kind of power and control. The other one is like we all build this together. There's a vision, looks totally different, right? That's when we start hearing people in the knowledge economy really start to be like, I'm gonna work for this brand because it aligns with the things that I want to do and how I want to do them in the change. So transformational leaders are there, they take folks from where they are to something they could not even believe they could achieve, and they achieve it together. So, in transformational leadership, very human-oriented, um, it is the form that is most conducive to people with female leadership traits, the kind that enables people to change themselves rather than compete, compelling them to comply. It produces better outcomes, right? It's all the tech companies, it produces better outcomes. But yet we women, although we're the best at this, we're still seen as soft, right? Orlyn, like you say, vulnerable. And you know, what structural incentives keep that transactional leadership, often associated with male leadership traits, dominant even when the evidence points to the need elsewhere? Why do they still exist? And then I'll throw one last concept out there for you. Women who've been told to act more like a man, and we've seen that written in popular press by men and women, including Cheryl Sandberg and Lean Inn, and we'll, you know, don't need to talk about that today, but we can, because that's pretty much the message. Um, we haven't closed the gap because of right that with that topic. We just haven't act more like a man, assimilate, right, to those constructs that were defined by men and for them. So, what exactly is the cost of demanding women to assimilate, right? And who's paying it?

Lynne 12:44

Oh, Patty, I think we know who's paying it. I know we're not answering questions. You know, before we go on, I have one go back. You rattled off a lot of really good questions that came up as you were writing disruptors. Um I I do want to ask this one, and I think you can answer. If women hold real power without formal power, can you just say more about that? What does that look like?

Patti 13:08

So there's multiple ways to answer this, right? So, first, women have a lot of power. We are 90% of all consumer buying decisions, where our family goes on vacation, the products we buy, what doctors we see, right? All of those things. We have a lot of power in terms of the number of degrees that we have, right? All of that. But we also have that power with transformational leadership inherently, and we've talked about this in other episodes, we are relational in our decision making. So when we make a decision around, like if we're in the boardroom and it's a decision about, you know, mergers and acquisitions, or it's a decision around where we invest or divest, or it's a hiring decision as a middle manager, we tend to make the best decisions because we're looking at them in a very circular way. What would be the biggest impact on this stakeholder or this program or whatever? That's how we're wired. It's called relational decision making. Put that over to what does that mean in a formal setting? So, what we see forever is that women are being held accountable for fixing things in a company without the formal title to go with it, head of CEO, whatever. We women have understood, and it could be by necessity, but how we are is we do not believe in power of the position. We've worked with plenty of people who are put into positions of power, not earning positions of leadership, right? Because leaders are only leaders when followers enable them to be. And that is what women know. So we believe in the power of the platform. Here is a problem I care deeply about, and I want to solve it, and that's becoming part of the purpose of the work that I am doing here, and we use that to attract other people who believe in solving that problem or at least part of it. That's what that means. Great question.

Dan 14:58

So, way back in the early 2000s, Tom Peters rather famously said, women have all the money and make all the decisions. And he was talking in terms of like consumer decisions and consumer spending, and he was really poking at marketers for ignoring women and not including them at not just as targets, but at the table to make some of these marketing decisions and marketing messages. And so, Pappy, that lines up uh really well with what you were saying. Uh, and then, you know, I think this idea of real power versus formal power, uh, soft power and influence beyond someone's title, their rank, their official authority, the uh terms coactive power versus coercive power uh come to mind. Uh coactive power is what we have, you know, sort of power with, as opposed to coercive power, which is power over or power to. And that coactive power uh, frankly, is way more effective and also tends to be gendered and aligned with sort of a feminine approach to leadership. And uh despite that gendering, it's my favorite way to get stuff done is power with, not power over, coactive versus coercive, so collaborative instead of directive.

Lynne 16:08

I am 100% down with renaming soft power to coactive power, right? Let's just get rid of soft power. What the hell does that mean anyway? Um, I'm here for it. Coactive power. I wanted to go back to this idea of the the women whose stories we're not telling. I've just been thinking about that uh this month, my mother, my grandmother. Um, and that made me think also about what questions have women historically not been allowed to ask? And what are the questions women are still afraid to ask out loud? Patty, I'd love for you to answer that last one.

Patti 16:51

What are the questions we're afraid to ask out loud? I think the questions that the more vulnerable the question, um, the more likely we're not going to ask them, especially if it's a question that relates to a family matter or right, all of those kinds of like more personal that bridge from a workplace that bridge to that because we gotta ask ourselves why. Is it because we know that there is a belief, not an understanding, not whatever, but an actual belief that we cannot do more than one thing at a time. We can't be moms and go sit in a boardroom, right? I think that's really an important one. The next question, I'm just gonna say it, even in the executive ranks, is there is so much pressure on women to already know what they're doing, right? So we're hired for our expertise and experience, not for our potential, that we're afraid to ask for help when we don't know something. We are afraid to double down on questions. I will say the higher up you go, the less likely you give a crap. But that's not okay, right? And so why are we afraid to ask those questions that might put us in a place of um, I don't know what I'm doing, versus a place of I'm really curious. I'll figure this out, but I'm really curious about what you meant by X, Y, and Z. We take, we take the blame for questions um that try to help us close gaps. And I those are the ones that come to mind.

Lynne 18:20

Yes. I have one slight correction. I think when we are in the car, particularly with a man, we are not afraid to ask for help to get somewhere. We are the ones who will ask for the directions. Just putting that out there.

Dan 18:33

And I'll jump in and say I always appreciate it when somebody in the car asks, like, should you be turning left here? Phew. Probably I should be turning left ear. So thank you. And I do want to give a shout out to uh Mary Parker Follett uh was Teddy Roosevelt's management consultant back in the early 1900s. She was the one who coined the term coactive power versus coercive power. I had to Google her real quick and get her name correct. I was thinking of an author uh who has a different last name. But anyway, Mary Parker Follett, shout out to her. Man, I wish I had come across her writing earlier in my career. I'm kind of uh pissed that she didn't show up in my management education, and the uh the stuff that she wrote is still remarkably readable, insightful, impression, way ahead of her time. Anyway, Mary Parker Follett, check her out. We'll put a link to her in the show notes too.

Patti 19:17

I love it. Okay, guys, so look, as much as I want to stay on this topic, I want to do a little switch. You won't be shocked. And yes, it's my two favorite letters. One guess. One guess, you guys. What do you think it is? EQ?

Dan 19:30

Hmm. I got nothing. I can't think of anything.

Patti 19:37

You know what can help you with that, Dan and Lynn? AI. Is it AI? What? So look, we know AI is largely being built without women at the lead, right? Without women in the room. Um, and you can name the CEOs of all the big AI companies. They're all going to be men. You can look at every panel, they're all going to be men. Unless Dan is on the panel, then it will be all women in Dan. And Google's AI overview says, by the way, women are significantly underrepresented in the AI workforce, and they hold only 10% to 16% of AI-related C-suite and technical leadership positions. Hmm. So what happens to a technology like AI that is our electricity? It already has crossed over, right? It is our electricity as a human race. It's what connects all of us, it's how we work, it's all that fun stuff, and now how we think. What happens when that kind of technology is developed without input from women? It is killing me not to answer this and be really sarcastic.

Dan 20:46

And Patty, I love that question. It's such an important question. And I think there is a historical precedent. So I'll keep going with this historical theme here, because I wrote about a similar situation in my book, Lyft. Lyft is about aviation inventors in the late 1800s, the people who tried to build flying machines before the Wrights came along and had their first successful flight in 1903. Big surprise, it's a lot of dudes doing this work. But the one thing I thought was so interesting about the history of that era is the men who made the most progress on inventing airplanes were the ones who worked the most closely with women. Like the Wright brothers had a sister. Her name was Catherine. Orville even said, when the world speaks of the rights, it must include our sister. And would you believe, and Patty, I know this will not come as a shock to you, but would you believe the French press referred to Catherine Wright as the third right brother? Doggone it. They are so close. Like they're they're almost there. They at least acknowledged her, which so many others didn't do. Calling her the third right brother, what a miss. Um my question is why have we not learned this already? Like the historical record of progress is actually super clear, whether we're talking about progress in tech or social movements or or any kind of progress. Excluding women makes things worse. Including women makes things better. You can see that in the 1800s. It was true then. You can see it today. Why are we choosing not to learn that?

Lynne 22:08

Dan, that was such a good question. I'm gonna repeat it. Why are we choosing not to learn that? And I just have to say, calling her the right brother wasn't exactly almost getting it right. Had to go there for a second. So back to your question, Dan, why are we choosing not to learn that? I wonder if it's because some men fear losing something when women are included. So I want to know what does it cost a man to show up as a feminist at work? Dan, I do want you to answer that question.

Dan 22:47

Uh well, thank you for this question. And I'm ha ha, Patty, I get to answer one.

Patti 22:52

Stop showing off, Dan.

Dan 22:56

All right. Well, I do, I think this is an interesting question. When I saw it on the show notes, I had to stop and think because I'm kind of tempted to say there was no cost for me, uh, at least no cost that wasn't outweighed by the benefits. Like for me, in my experience, I think being a feminist is a net game. You know, supporting the women around me makes my life better, makes my work better. And not just for me, but for everybody in that space. So I don't know that I can point to like a specific cost that I paid, like personally. Having said that, I understand in this current political environment with a push against DEI, I think the calculation is probably changing for some people in some places. But I do think even right now, the cost of being a feminist is overstated. And that does make me wonder like, uh, not just what do men lose, but what do some men think they would lose if they begin treating women like equals? And whatever they think they might lose, is that something they really want to keep in the first place?

Patti 23:52

Love it, Dan. It goes back to you know what you were just talking about with the the two different forms. What was it?

Dan 23:59

It was co what were the two coactive versus coercive. So power with versus power over.

Patti 24:06

Yeah, yeah. So the first one, right, the power with is leadership, the other one is control. And so, you know, I think those are questions we should always insert. And I I will say, you know, Dan, when I think about you, um, because not only do you say the right things and act the right way, you do the right things and you consistently do. And it is, what are you gaining? Right. And so when I look at that and I look, what are you gaining? And then what do the women around you and the other men around you gain? Because you are not a silo. And it has been fascinating to watch you, right? And I've watched you over the years and in lots of only female rooms because you're always supporting me. And what I see is the ability for the women to not maybe treat you as one of the girls, but kind of treat you as one of the girls, right? We don't have our guards up around you. We are able to speak freely. We are freely exchanging ideas. We're not wondering what your ulterior motive is. And look, the bear versus the guy in the forest is a real freaking deal. And yes, when we think about women have to be protected, every woman is gonna say, yeah, against men. So if there are no men, we don't need protection. So, like, Dan, really, I love that question. It really gets me to think, because I'm a transformational leader, because I'm relational, what do the other people get, not just you? And I I I love, love, love that. So um let's let's kind of go back to AI. I know we need to wrap up soon, right? But you know, connecting all of these amazing questions with AI, like what would then change, right? If we had more Dan's in the room, if we had more women in decision rooms when it comes to AI. And, you know, if more women were hard coding, not vibe coding, right? I can do vibe coding for crying out loud, but if more women were doing vibe coding, what would it do about this electricity? We know the big thing about AI is it's a mirror, right? That's all it is. It's a mirror, it's learning. So, how do we change the image that we see in the mirror if women are not in the room? And Lynn, to answer your question, there's a reason women aren't in the room. We already know the answer, right? This is a solvable problem that has not been solved, and we know it's coercive. We understand that. So, you know, I just um I want us to think about that question. What would be different if women were hard coding right now?

Lynne 26:28

Patty, I hope that's one of the questions that women applying AI is looking at answering. I know it, I'm sure it is among many of the other questions we've asked today. And I will just note one more shout out to our show notes. Uh, they're chock full today. Uh, the UN report on AI and gender equality has some really interesting data on that question around women in AI. Um, so the link is in the show notes. And I love that one of the sections is framed as a question. It asks, how can AI governance help accelerate progress towards gender equality?

Dan 27:07

And I love that they have that question in there because it's framing the question as AI helping to accelerate gender equality and not expecting that we have to get gender equality fixed first and then AI will sort of flow from there, that the order of events could happen in the other direction. I I think that's our time for today. This has been a lovely discussion. Thank you so much uh for listening in, everybody. And we're going to wrap up with uh one big takeaway from each of us uh from today's podcast. Boy, I think mine is that men probably should ask questions and join in the conversation. And it probably feels less weird when we ask these questions together.

Lynne 27:45

I think mine are around um this concept of designing work and organizations with women, right? Rather than that being a hypothetical question, what does that look like? Let's start to answer that. And I think we know women do lead differently than men. Let's define that and build that into these businesses that we're designing together. And then finally, uh, I'm not saying soft power anymore. I'm talking about coactive power, which is what leadership looks like.

Patti 28:20

I love that. Um, so and by the way, soft skills are now called power skills. So keep that in mind, right? Okay, so look, I'm gonna ask you guys a question, then I'm gonna share my takeaway. What do the names John, Mark, or not and or David have in common?

Dan 28:39

John, Mark, or David? I mean, the obvious thing is they all sound like men's names.

Lynne 28:44

Yeah, I was gonna say there's they show up in the Bible.

Patti 28:50

All of those are true. Um, but what research showed us is if you have any one of those names, not all three combined, but if you are John, if you are Mark, if you are David, you hold more corporate board seats than the entire population of female corporate directors combined, not and or. And so when I think about how do we solve this, we already know how, right? We are being kept out of the room, which then goes to so how are women viewed? Like we talked about, you know, the power and having a title. What do we need to do to change women from being a resource to being the source? What does that look like and whose job is it? Love it, Patty.

Lynne 29:40

So, everybody, thanks for listening today. We are so grateful that you're here with us. Um, today's episode was sponsored by the long game, played by women everywhere, often when they can't see the scoreboard.

Patti 29:55

Our music was composed by Jake Papanel.

Dan 29:59

Our cover art was created by Mads Green.