CITY WEEKLY

Liswood's goal: A woman in the White House

By Gloria Negri, Globe Staff, May 2, 1999

CAMBRIDGE -- Laura Liswood began her crusade to get Americans thinking seriously about a woman president by traveling around the world in 1993 and 1994, interviewing 15 women world leaders to learn about their experiences.

Margaret Thatcher of England was the most formidable, Liswood recalled last week.

"At one point during the interview Lady Thatcher pointed a finger at me and said, 'Don't think life is fair because it isn't,' " said Liswood. "She also told me she had stopped reading newspaper stories where her name was mentioned."

Much has come from Liswood's interviews. In 1995, she published a book, "Women World Leaders" (HarperCollins), and in 1996, founded the Council of Women World Leaders, headquartered at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In late 1997, she helped form the White House Project, a national campaign to elect a woman president within the next two elections.

Iceland's then-president, Vigdis Finnbogadottir, 16 years in office at the time Liswood interviewed her, gave Liswood a look at how acceptable a woman head of state can be.

"She told me that after she had been in office eight years, she realized there were children under 8 who thought that only a woman could be president of Iceland and that it was the boys who asked whether they could someday be president."

Liswood, 49, who lives in Brookline, founded the White House Project with philanthropist Barbara Fish Lee, also of Brookline. Lee is a Simmons alumna who founded the Simmons Institute for Leadership and Change and is a member of the National Board for Women's Studies at Brandeis University.

The project's third founder is Marie Wilson, president of the Ms. Foundation and the woman who made Take Our Daughters to Work Day a national event. She is president of the White House Project, which is based in New York. The project received a $500,000 founding grant from Lee.

Nonpartisan in nature, the project launched its campaign with a straw ballot printed in a variety of magazines last November, offering 20 women as potential presidential candidates.

"About 100,000 people from all walks of life responded," Liswood said. "There were five top winners: Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Dole, [New Jersey Governor] Christine Todd Whitman, [California Senator] Diane Feinstein, and General Claudia Kennedy, the highest ranking woman in the military. The two runners-up were women of color, Mae Jamison, an astronaut, and Ann Fudge, president of Maxwell House Coffee Company.

"We want to continue this cultural message with a series of forums and lectures around the country," Liswood said. "They will address what it will take for us to elect a woman and what it might be like to have" a woman president. "We're going to poll people's attitudes."

So far, polls show hope.

"We know that in 1960, only 3 percent of the population said it would vote for a woman president," Liswood said. "In 1999, we're at 76 percent.

"Attitudes are shifting," she said. "The Civil Rights Act of 1964 helped. So did Title VII and Title IX, [federal anti-gender-discrimination acts]. There are more women in higher level positions and people are getting used to seeing them in leadership positions.

"We see a strong first lady and a strong secretary of state," she said, referring to Madeleine Albright, "and that we have nine women senators, which is still awful but better than it was, and some women governors. All that is cracking through that mentality."

Originally from California (her late father was a highway patrolman), Liswood received her undergraduate degree from San Diego State University, her law degree from the University of California at Davis, and her master's degree in business from Harvard in 1976.

Before returning to Massachusetts, she was a business executive for 20 years involved in women's advocacy issues, and published "Seattle Women" magazine while serving on the Commission on Women in that city. In Seattle, she worked to get more women elected to office. She passed the bar in California and Massachusetts and practiced civil rights law.

In 1991, Liswood joined a group cycling across Siberia because she "wanted to see a culture that had been closed to the West." The trip taught her "to handle fear and how to go interview prime ministers and to face Lady Thatcher." The next year, she bicycled through central Asia.

Back in Seattle several years later, Liswood took a leave of absence from her job and, at her own expense and initiative, set out to interview world women leaders, 15 at the time.

"To find out what it would be like if a woman were president of the United States you would have to go outside to look for an answer," said Liswood.

The presidents and prime ministers she interviewed, besides Thatcher and Finnbogadottir, included Corazon Aquino (the Philippines); Sirimavo Bandaranaike (Sri Lanka); Benazir Bhutto (Pakistan); Gro Harlem Brundtland (Norway); Violeta Chamorro (Nicaragua); Eugenia Charles, (Dominica); Tansu Ciller (Turkey); Edith Cresson (France); Maria Liberia-Peters, (Netherlands Antiles); Kazimiera Prunskiene (Lithuania); Mary Robinson (Ireland); Hanna Suchocka (Poland) and Khaleda Zia (Bangladesh).

"Part of the common thread was that they all felt that as women they were somewhat different in their leadership styles than men, though I don't think Lady Thatcher ascribed to that," said Liswood. "They felt that they were overscrutinized and that the tolerance for mistakes was less. Some did feel there was a trade-off between their personal and their work lives. A lot of them thought there was too much scrutiny in the media about their person, their clothes, their hair. Even Elizabeth Dole's shoes were described as 'matching the carpet.' "

In 1996, with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, Liswood brought 10 of the leaders together for the first time in Stockholm. At the Kennedy School, her council has regular summits for women world leaders.

As for Dole's chances at the presidency, Liswood considers her "a credible candidate with the potential, perhaps, to raise the kind of money that is needed. She has national visibility and name recognition."

Dole is as credible of many of the male candidates, Liswood said.

"On the other hand, it shows how far we have to go yet because, here, you've got at least nine men running and just one woman," said Liswood. "We should also have nine women. You have to broaden the spectrum of political position. People shouldn't have to chose between, 'She doesn't represent my political position, but she's a woman, so I'll vote for her.' "

A lot of consciousness-raising is yet to be done, Liswood said.

"We call a man assertive if he bombs a small country, but we might call a woman assertive if she puts someone on hold on the telephone," she said.

Liswood said the time for a woman president has not only come, "it's gone."

"We are a democracy, but clearly not a fulfilled one, otherwise we wouldn't have women making up only 9 percent in the Senate and 11 percent in Congress."

As it now stands in this country, she said, "a young boy can both imagine and see himself as president. A young girl can only imagine."