Some surprising things happened on the way to our "Women of Power" cover feature for this month’s magazine. The idea of casting the spotlight on Louisville women in influential positions traces back to our January 2005 and January 2006 issues, when we used two different lenses to find the city’s powerful people and received a chorus of protest from female readers.
In 2005, we profiled a man many consider the most influential in town, Mayor Jerry Abramson, and introduced a handful of young Louisvillians with the entrepreneurial drive and financial clout to be among the next generation of civic leaders. All were male. Then, last year, we ranked the 50 most powerful people in the metro area by reporting the results of a survey of predominantly Leadership Louisville alumni, who were asked to list, in order, their 10 top influence-wielders. Four women were named in that Top 50.
One way to look at our efforts in recent years is that they reflect an inconvenient reality about Louisville — that, despite gains by women in the workplace and in civic affairs, it’s still pretty much a guy’s club at the top in this town. Another take, however, is that we weren’t asking the right questions. Isn’t surveying graduates of Leadership Louisville, most of whom were targeted for inclusion in the program through traditional networking methods, a formula for status quo responses? And isn’t using a follow-the-money approach to identifying future civic leaders who could load funding weight onto a project, as we did in 2005, a way of preselecting men in the business world?
This year, we decided to directly address the issue by dedicating our annual January look at movers and shakers to women with power — and we broadly defined the term to include pursuits as varied as fiction writing, medical research and church ministry as well as the expected business, political and community-service occupations. Our project was headed up by frequent contributor Robyn Davis Sekula, who made calls to a number of women asking for input on the best candidates. Our editorial team also networked the subject, and all of us met to hash out a final 15-woman list. They are a diverse and dynamic lot. You’ll find mini-profiles of them beginning on page 42.
What we didn’t expect was that several of our subjects during interviews for these write-ups would register objections to our use of the word "power" to describe their inclusion on the list. Some argued that power is a "male" word and an uncomfortable fit for how women exercise clout when they have it; others felt it carries so many negative connotations that alternatives such as "influential women" or "women who are leaders" might be more appropriate. These critiques generated some interesting conversations at Louisville Magazine about the most suitable label for the gallery of high-powered . . . I mean strong, effective, impactful (does any word really get it?) . . . women in our feature.
I’m just a guy, but I’m of two minds on this. One side of me believes that the word "power" has been given a bad name by the past actions of many of our political and business leaders. Yes, I realize that in recent times it has been primarily males abusing power on Wall Street and in Washington and Frankfort. But do we abandon the benign definitions of a word because of these transgressions, just as we’ve stood by while words like "liberal," "democratic" and now, it seems, "desegregation" have seen their positive values eroded? The first Webster’s definition of power is the "ability to act or produce an effect." That effect can be good or bad — and I’m on board with those who say men have been excelling at the bad lately, so let’s let more women in on the power-broking.
The other side of me hears the argument that exercising power can have an aggressive, male quality to it, inappropriate in some cases for describing how women approach the act of influencing people. More attuned to communication and unity, the women I’ve observed generally keep the human element in higher regard and are less likely to force their wills upon a situation. They’d be inclined to act collectively, not individually, perhaps relying less on coercion. How they would do this may require a different sobriquet.
Still, no word has more charisma or clarity in describing dynamic, influential people than those strong two syllables: "pow-er." So we’ve opted for "Women of Power" as our cover line for this issue. Inside, however, we’re going with "Women Who Lead" as the headline. Maybe they can help define for us a better way forward.
For my part, this little confession of confusion has been very — dare I say — empowering.
