Head of School

The Truth About Power

The following address was given by Head of School Trudy Hall at the Opening Convocation ceremony on September 5, 2007.

You may also download a pdf of this speech.

have power. I can call a day off from school any day I want. I can ask any student or faculty to drop everything and meet with me at a whim. I can even determine what is on the menu in the dining room at a given meal. Yes, I have power.

That is power, right? The ability to make anyone do anything at any time just because you want it? That is what powerful women do, right? Make people do things? And aren’t powerful women bossy, opinionated, manipulative, overbearing, devious, unpleasant, selfish, and unfeminine? (Be honest, you are all thinking about the slang word the dictionary uses for the type of woman we are describing: a B-----)

Whoa! How did that happen? How did power come to have such negative connotations when imagined in the same breath with a strong woman in a leadership position? What is that all about? And who does it serve?

Later this month Emma Willard is hosting a symposium entitled “Women, Power, and Responsibility.” We are inviting hundreds of women—including all of you—to think about the responsible ways in which women use power. The fact that in 2007 such a topic is still worthy of a conversation should give us cause for pause. Call me a feminist—and yes, is a problematic word, too— but I personally think that women and power are two things that should come together more often. I think much good happens when they do.

I define power as the ability to influence outcomes. Historically in this country, women had relative lack of access to resources that could directly improve their status. For example, despite the fact that we arrived on the Mayflower in 1620, American women did not officially have the right to vote in national elections until 1920, and that right was won only after a long, contentious political struggle. In fact, Lucy Stone, a reformer who played a key role in launching the suffragist movement, was admitted to Oberlin College in 1837, but although she was permitted to attend class with men, she was not allowed to read her own papers in class, participate in debates, or deliver a commencement address that she had written. You see, even a woman’s voice was not welcome in a public forum.

So, influencing outcomes for women meant resorting to indirect and personal strategies, with little direct confrontation. We had to become very good at wheedling, cajoling, and flattery or threatening to withdraw love or attention in order to manipulate situations. Many of us are still quite good at applying these strategies to ends that serve us, but fortunately, we no longer have to rely solely on feminine wiles. Truth be known, we never really had to in the first place. We have always had and will always have access to authentic power.

So what is authentic power? It is real power: power that is not granted by the position society has assigned you—being the wife of the president, or born to royalty or wealth; nor is it power that is granted by the position you have earned—the CEO of a Fortune 500 company or being the head of school or captain of the team. Authentic power is the power that was hardwired into you from the moment you were first created. It is the power you have within you even though you may not yet have discovered it, named it, or tapped it. Oprah Winfrey, arguably one of the most influential women in America, describes real power as “when you are doing exactly what you are supposed to be doing the best it can be done… There’s a surge, there’s a kind of energy field that says, ‘I’m in my groove. I’m in my groove.’ And nobody has to tell you, ‘you go, girl,’ because, you know, you’re already gone.”

Be honest with yourself: each of you has had such a moment. It might have been on a playing field, while practicing the piano in Lyon Remington, while writing a poem for an English class, while defending a political stance at a lunchtime discussion, while at the potter’s wheel, or making a discovery in the science lab. You were in your element. You were in the zone. You felt competent, strong, dare I say it—you felt powerful. And it felt good. Martha Graham, a renowned dancer and choreographer describes it this way: “There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost.” In other words, you use your authentic power or we—and the world—lose it.

Some women are more spiritual as they define this core of power. Tina Turner, an energized dynamo of the entertainment world, told an interviewer that the real power behind whatever success she has now was something she found within myself—something, she says, that’s in all of us: “a little piece of God just waiting to be discovered.”

Laura Esquivel, the author of Like Water for Chocolate, created a metaphor I like. She wrote: “My grandmother had a very interesting theory; she said that each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can’t strike them all by ourselves. We need oxygen and a candle to help. In this case, the oxygen, for example, would come from the breath of a person you love; the candle could be any kind of food, music, word, or sound that engenders the explosion that lights one of the matches. For a moment we are dazzled by an intense emotion. A pleasant warmth grows within us, fading slowly as time goes by, until a new explosion comes along to revive it. Each person has to discover what will set off those explosions in order to live, since the combustion that occurs when one of them is ignited is what nourishes the soul.”

“Being powerful is like being a lady,” Margaret Thatcher, the first female Prime Minister of England once suggested. “If you have to tell people you are, then you aren’t.” And one of the biggest mistakes we make as we think about the notion of power is that we assume we must have power “over” someone or “over” something for us to be truly powerful. Fortunately, the best sort of power doesn’t involve the preposition “over,” it involves the preposition “in.” The best sort of power comes from looking inside yourself, spending the time to know yourself, being honest with yourself about your strengths and competencies and being willing to take a hard look at addressing some of those habits that may be masking your true power. Are you a gifted poet who is afraid to hear constructive criticism? Maybe you are a natural athlete, but you are a slacker at practice. Perhaps you are a vocalist with perfect pitch, but are too disorganized to find out when choir tryouts are. Maybe your shyness prevents you from voicing well reasoned opinions from your especially logical mind.

In making a concerted effort to really know yourself, you start to notice moments in which you feel more competent, more comfortable, more successful, more alive, more focused. Pay attention in such moments: you are very close to your authentic power. It helps to remember that it often takes a lifetime to truly master your power, but that is why you must not wait a moment longer to start searching for it. As Katharine Hepburn, an Oscar winning actress, gently reminded us “as one goes through life one learns that if you don’t paddle your own canoe, you don’t move.”

I know that some of you are unconvinced. You are saying to yourselves: “Huh. Unique gifts. One of a kind power. What kind of power can I possibly have? I am just one small person in the universe.” A few years ago I had the opportunity to meet Anita Roddick, the British founder and visionary behind Body Works, a firm whose natural products many of us are wearing right now. She told the story of how the unemployed daughter of Italian immigrants came to believe her entrepreneurial vision was worthy; how she created an environmentally conscious enterprise in her living room in England that now has over 2,045 stores serving over 77 million customers in twenty-five different languages and across twelve time zones. She had presence. She had attitude. She clearly had authentic power. She reminded each of us that we, too, could make a similar impact if we had vision and persistence. She said,” If you think you are too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito.”

What each of you has is the power of one, and the power of one is the power to do something. It is the power to act, to be, to think, to speak, to move. It helps to think of power as a verb. Mari Webb the receptionist in the admissions office, grew her hair long so she could donate it to make wigs for cancer patients, for example. And Sally Goodrich, whom many of you heard speak here last year, chose to deal with her grief when she lost her son in one of the planes on 9/11 by using her power of one to start a school for girls in Afghanistan. Emma Hart Willard used her power of one to create this school, her living legacy, a school founded on the principle that educated women are better positioned to serve society. Later this month you will meet other women who have used the power of one in transformative ways. It is our hope that their example will inspire you to use your power of one in equally impressive fashion. It is our expectation that you will heed the wisdom of Margaret Sanger, an early twentieth century birth control advocate and activist, who was insistent that “a woman must not accept; she must challenge. She must not be awed by that which has been built up around her; she must reverence that woman in her which struggles for expression.” 4

As you begin exercising this grand power you alone have, it is vital to remember an essential truth: power and responsibility go hand in hand. Power is a gift. Use it wisely, use it judiciously, use it only with good will as your intent, and never use as a weapon.

When you hit roadblocks this year—and you will hit roadblocks—each of you should focus on the sources of constructive power always available to you. There is power in education. Taking full responsibility for your education is exercising your power. There is power in competence. Deep within each of you is something you do better than anyone else; practicing and perfecting that talent will strengthen the source of your power. There is power in passion. Energetic, enthusiastic, effervescent passion. Trust me; you all have passion! There is power in collaboration. Learn to ask for help. There is power in integrity, a raw, strong power. Embrace all of this power and more. An alumna of this school, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who spent her life fighting for women’s equality, once wrote: “It is a great truth to impress upon the mind of every girl that she is an independent creature with power…I would have girls regard themselves not as adjectives but nouns, not mere appendages made to qualify somebody else, but independent, responsible workers in carrying forward grand eternal plans.” Start thinking about yourself as an independent noun with a grand eternal plan imbedded in you.

For too many years, women around the globe have tiptoed tentatively around the notion of power. While it is true that women who have chosen to embrace power have not always walked an easy path, their perseverance has made a difference in the lives you and I live. They responsibly applied their power, and we are the beneficiaries of their triumphs; from the right to birth control to the right to vote, from the right to own property to the right to speak publicly; from the right to pursue an education wherever our intellect takes us to the right to run for political office. We honor these women by following their lead and exercising our authentic power with gusto and flair, with purpose and determination.

I leave you with the words written by the author Marianne Williamson and made famous by Nelson Mandela, the first democratically elected president of South Africa:

• Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
• Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
• It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
• We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
• Actually, who are you not to be?
• Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.

I challenge you to discover your authentic power this year and to use that power creatively, responsibly and joyfully. I look forward to watching proudly as you light the match within, get in your groove, paddle your own canoe, reverence the woman in you, regard yourself as a noun and refuse to play small. I look forward to experiencing the world your infinite power will make possible.

And with these words, I declare the 194th year of Emma Willard School to be officially. launched