Heather Thomas based her new novel “Trophies” on Hollywood trophy wives - who, she says “get a bad rap, and there’s a lot of misconceptions about them. But really, there isn’t a hospital wing or a library in this city that wasn’t the result of some trophy wife’s efforts.”

Here is an excerpt from the mediabistro blog GalleyCat:

Thomas readily admits that she and her fellow philanthropist/activists are held up for ridicule, dismissed as intellectual lightweights, sometimes even by the ostensible political allies who come courting the money they control. “If you’re a wealthy second wife,” Thomas says, “you’re like a poster child for schadenfreude…

“But as a feminist, I don’t think we should attack other women. I’ve never met a bimbo trophy wife. I think women label other women because we’ve been socialized to compete with one another—but when we stop attacking each other, we’ll realize how powerful we are.”

It’s a subject she cares passionately about, and her argument about contemporary political activism is peppered with references to Leonard Shlain’s theories about the different ways men and women process information, which lead her to believe that YouTube and other elements of digital multimedia are reestablishing a feminizing influence over the Internet after an early period of text-heavy conservatism.

For Thomas, it can’t come fast enough. “It’s not even patriarachial anymore,” she says of the current political situation. “It’s just fascism.” To combat those forces, she says, the “ladies’ groups” others so readily mock are “the only people who have the time, the money, and the will,” and she plans to continue her fundraising efforts in the months leading up to this fall’s presidential election.

From A New, Literary Spotlight for Heather Thomas, mediabistro blog GalleyCat.

Leonard Shlain has noted that “one pernicious effect of literacy has gone largely unnoticed: writing subliminally fosters a patriarchal outlook. Writing of any kind, but especially its alphabetic form, diminishes feminine values and with them, women’s power in the culture. …

“I propose that a holistic, simultaneous, synthetic, and concrete view of the world are the essential characteristics of a feminine outlook; linear, sequential, reductionist, and abstract thinking defines the masculine. Although these represent opposite perceptual modes, every individual is generously endowed with all the features of both.”

From his book The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image.

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“Years ago my husband and I were at the Golden Globes. I was wearing some borrowed dress that wasn’t me, my hair was done in a way that I never wear my hair, and I had earrings on.

“And my husband said, ‘You know who is the most beautiful woman in the room?’ And I was hoping he was going to say me. And he pointed across the room at Jessica Tandy. She was sitting at a table wearing a cream-colored silk-shantung pantsuit. Single strand of pearls, short white hair, a little lipstick—nothing else. And I thought, ‘He’s totally right.’ There was none of the pretense, none of the trying so hard.

“My style is a distillation. I’ve etched out who I am through myriad haircut attempts, outfit attempts, beauty attempts, diet attempts. It’s been an evolution. I’ve let my hair go gray. I wear only black and white. Every year I buy three or four black dresses that I just keep in rotation. I own one pair of blue jeans. I’ve given away all my jewelry, because I don’t wear it.

“The same way that midcentury modern architecture was in the ’50s, I want to be as a human being. New. Different. Challenging the old. Function over frivolity. Clean living. Clean lines.”

[From article: Jamie Lee Curtis Turns 50, By Nancy Griffin, AARP The Magazine, May & June 2008.]

In addition to acting, Curtis expresses her creative talents by writing books for children. Her next upcoming title is Today I Feel Silly and Other Moods That Make My Day.

Actor Tyne Daly [left, with her "Judging Amy" costar Amy Brenneman] has commented about aging as a way to grow and change: “I feel less obliged to protect any made-up version of myself. When you’re young, you want to make a good impression in Hollywood. But I’ve kind of moved on from caring very much about other peoples’ judgments of me.” [From my article Maturity and Creativity.

Also see more quotes on the page: Maturity.

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She has talked about how her multi-ethnic background was at times in her life painful, but has also helped fuel her ambition to achieve, along with the inspiration from her parents.

“From my mother, I got an attitude that’s fundamental to me,” Curry said in an interview. “She used to say, ‘gambaru.’ It’s a Japanese term that means ‘Never, ever give up, even if there’s no chance of winning.’

“Gambaru symbolized her life. She survived bombing raids during the war in Japan, starvation on the rice farm where she grew up, racism in America right after the war. From my father I got this ‘be of service’ thing. He’s the guy who said, ‘Ann, try to be of some service.’

“But gambaru is also why a poor girl, from a family without any history of anyone going to college — a mixed-race girl, no less; a girl growing up in a family where the mother barely spoke English correctly — could rise and become someone who speaks in English to millions of people every day.”

[From MORE magazine, July/August 2006.]

This word “gambaru” has a lot of meaning relevant to how we live and pursue success. An English translation of a Japanese article says: “Gambaru is, for one thing, a process-oriented concept that emphasizes the moral significance of an effort, or doryoku.

“What is important is that one makes the sincerest effort possible, and the outcome of that effort is secondary at best, and, in many situations, completely irrelevant. In other words, in the value system of gambaru, the process of making an effort is intentionally dissociated from the outcome that the effort brings, so that the effort can be evaluated, and admired, on its own merit.” [Lost In Translation blog.]

Gaining a high level of achievement and fulfillment may depend on that kind of attitude, and on motivation and perseverance.

Carol S. Dweck, PhD, a Professor of Psychology at Stanford, thinks “our society tends to believe that geniuses are born, not made. And I wouldn’t dispute that there might be a strong innate component, but it’s just clear from the histories of so many geniuses that motivation is a key component.

“And when you sift through the literature on creative genius, the researchers agree that motivation is perhaps the number one component in the realization of genius.”

From my post It takes more than talent.

Also see Grit and perseverance mean more than talent.

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Jenny: You know, I read this book [A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle] when it first came out and that was one of my big wake up calls. Realizing that when I was with Evan, all I needed to do was just be with Evan. And our relationship bloomed like you wouldn’t believe, the love connection was there.

He was getting fulfilled because he knew, even when Evan wasn’t able to speak. This is when Evan still wasn’t able to use words. Energetically he felt that I was with him, that I was being with him. And I’m so grateful, Eckhart, that you taught me that.

I do have a question. Okay. It’s long so bear with me. It’s not spelled on but bear with me. One very common emotion that I have personally experienced and that I have seen in many mothers is this emotion called guilt. Mothers today experience a few different forms of guilt and I’m going to explain three different versions where I’m sure moms listening right now, one of them will say that’s my guilt.

The first one is the 9:00 to 5:00 working mom feels guilty for leaving the baby with the nanny all day. The second one is the stay at home mom feels guilty for getting bored playing with her, you know, her son or daughter all day long.

And sometimes you can only play choo choo so long and you can’t do it anymore and you feel guilty for not wanting to do that.

And the last one being, and this one I can really connect to, the thousands of mothers I’ve met who have children with autism carry a huge amount of guilt with them.

Tolle responded in his article On Guilt and Ego.

Jenny McCarthy is author of Louder Than Words: A Mother’s Journey in Healing Autism.

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That is a description of Anne Boleyn (second wife of Henry VIII) by Susan Brigden, author of New Worlds, Lost Worlds: The Rule of the Tudors, 1485-1603.

Natalie Portman portrays Anne in The Other Boleyn Girl [right], and says she saw the film as “a cautionary tale about capitalism. All of the characters who subscribe to these values of rising up and gaining power and who will step on anyone to get there are punished. Anne is certainly the most forward about it, but she is following her family’s values…

“I think it’s very different to be ambitious and to be ruthlessly ambitious, which Anne certainly is in the movie. In reality, an argument can be made that Anne Boleyn was witch-hunted because she had so much power.”

Asked by Elle magazine about her own independence and ambition, she says, “It’s definitely complicated. I bury it a lot, which is a very common woman thing to do. They say women often preface their statements with ‘This might sound stupid, but…’ It sort of tempers what you are going to say. It takes the edge off so you can still be seen as ladylike. I think I have a lot of that in me. I’m very nonconfrontational; I’m definitely a pleaser.”

But she has also started her own production company, Handsomecharlie films (named after her late dog, Charlie). She says, “It is proactive. It gives you more control over creating things, as opposed to having to get hired every single time… Having your own company is a nice way to concentrate your ideas and make the kinds of movies you want to see.”

From Natalie Portman interview by Ariel Levy, Elle, April 2008; more quotes in my article She Is Running The Show.

Being a “pleaser” may be one reason for many women having conflicted feelings about leadership and power.

As “Fried Green Tomatoes” co-producer Anne Marie Gillen once noted, “If you look at how little boys play on a team, there’s a leader, they pick you or they don’t pick you, they go out there and beat each other up, they win the game and it’s over and they put their arms around each other and go on. But little girls play one-on-one (and think), she’s my best friend - I don’t want to hurt her feelings, because if she leaves, I’m alone.”

And psychotherapist Laura Morris, who works with a number of women in the entertainment industry, thinks “We are brought up to compete with other women. They are ‘The Enemy’ - they’re going to get something we’re after. Men have a closer bonding… they aren’t that competitive with each other… I think we make our own glass ceiling by not being very nice to each other.”

[Both quotes from my article Women in Film: Identity and Power.]

But do women have to “play like men” to gain leadership roles, corporate power or to realize other talents?

Judy B. Rosener, Ph.D., a management professor at the University of California, Irvine, thinks “we have defined everything in our society in terms of male behaviors, attitudes and values. Straight, white male. So if you’re anything but that, you are perceived as deficient, and have internalized that.”

She also asserts, “From the day we’re born, we are told - in the United States, anyway - that only white males are smart, and the rest of us haven’t quite got it. It’s scary.

“I’m married to a white male, I’m the mother of one, and I’m the daughter of one. It isn’t white males against the rest of us, it’s that white males think it is unfair that they now have to compete with women and people of color.

“Until now, they only had to compete with other white men - and they understand them. They don’t understand the rest of us and that makes them anxious.”

From my interview with Judy Rosener - she is author of America’s Competitive Secret: Women Managers - “This book proposes an audacious idea: that leveraging the talents of professional women will lead to more innovative, productive, and profitable organizations.”

A related comment by Sharon Stone: “If I was just intelligent, I’d be OK. But I am fiercely intelligent, which most people find very threatening.” [From my article Gifted Women: Identity and Expression.]

Perhaps many women of high intelligence and competence share her experience.

But some of the most compelling women in literature, films and on television are characters who use their sexual, intellectual and political power effectively - and with evident pleasure, though not without complications and conflicts.

Julianna Margulies plays defense attorney Elizabeth Canterbury on “Canterbury’s Law.” In an early scene her character walks into a men’s bathroom to demand answers from another lawyer.

Margulies explains why she liked the scene: “Because it’s what’s important to her. To me, it’s nothing’s going to stop her from getting to the point. And if you’re in the men’s bathroom, I don’t care.” [From interview on blog.meevee.com March 07, 2008]

She continues, “I personally, as Julianna, would have waited and waited, and then the moment goes by and then the person comes out and then you forget your whole point, you know?

“This is a woman who gets what she wants. She’s diligent; she’s unbelievably pushy and bossy. She doesn’t care if anyone is in there; she wants to go and get what she’s after.”

Related:
article: Women of Talent - Power and Leadership
pages: Power; Leadership

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Related perspective: Elizabeth Wurtzel on feminism
“Feminism, which was meant to be fun, has lately started to seem so sour… But it cannot be the case that we went through all that bra-burning and consciousness-raising to be left choosing between, yet again, the madonna or the whore.

“Balance is difficult. But we can do it; we’re women. Like Ginger Rogers, we’ve been doing everything that men do, only backward and in high heels, for a very long time.”

More in her article Bitter ashes of burned brassieres.

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But what sorts of challenges do women face when changing or expanding their career choices?

Charlize Theron was actively involved as a producer of her recent film Sleepwalking, as she was for her acclaimed film Monster.

She admires her mother as a role model, and for her individuality: “It was the greatest thing she has given me. I don’t think she knows that. I don’t even think she set out to teach me that. That’s just how she lived her life and what she encouraged me to do. She was a great mother but at the same time she was very much an individual. She ran a business.

“I always say to my friends who are so torn between having a job and leaving kids behind to go to work that their kids will thank them one day. That will be the thing that will inspire them, because I remember watching my mom put her suit and high heels on and go into a board meeting with eight guys.

“She was running the show and I was like, I want to be like that. She always encouraged me to be an individual, to have my own philosophy.”

Continued in my article She Is Running The Show.

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That is a quote by Sue Bender, author of Everyday Sacred: A Woman’s Journey Home.

According to a Page Six Magazine article [by Stephanie Trong], Mena Suvari was raised in an affluent family in Rhode Island, and “the 28-year-old actress says her upbringing was so sheltered, she never even learned how to take out the garbage.

“Then, soon after achieving stardom in 1999’s American Beauty, the then-21-year-old married cinematographer Robert Brinkmann, 17 years her senior.

“During that marriage, which lasted five years, she remained insecure and dependent. ‘I’d convinced myself that I wasn’t capable of doing things,’ she says. ‘I felt as if I were waiting for someone to validate me.’

“After her divorce, she moved into her own home for the first time and began to see herself as an individual, not as someone’s wife or daughter. ‘I’ve gotten to the point where all the love that I need, all the support that I need, the confidence, I can give myself. It’s empowering and freeing.’

“She also takes great pride in her ability to accomplish such tasks as building her own bookcase or hanging her own holiday decorations. ‘One year I was like, I am going to put up those damn Christmas lights outside by myself. My guy friends would ask, Can I do that for you? and I’d be like, No! I have to do this, because to me it’s an accomplishment.’”

Hilary Swank has commented about achievement: “As in life, your mind can be the hugest obstacle or tool, depending on how you choose to use it. And I find that a lot of people who are successful in life say, ‘I can do this, and I will do this.’

“Their minds don’t get in their way; whereas people who wake up and say, ‘Oh, I can’t,’ their mind is in their way, and it’s going to stop them from doing what they need to do to achieve their dream.”

[Photo: as boxer Maggie Fitzgerald in Million Dollar Baby.]

But various fears and anxieties can get in the way of realizing our dreams.

Arianna Huffington points out, “Fear is universal; we all have fear.” Certainly men can experience as much self-limiting fear as women, overall.

But, Huffington adds in her book On Becoming Fearless, some fears “do tend to be more prevalent among women than men, including fear of staying single; fear of imperfection; fear of failure; of ugliness; of loneliness; of growing old; public speaking; ridicule; being alone; getting wrinkles.”

From a post on the Developing Talent site: Judy and Hilary Swank on courage.

Psychologist and creativity coach Eric Maisel addresses in his work and books the issue of how important meaning is for creative people in defining themselves, engaging their talents and maintaining mental health.

He says, “Even before you can make meaning, you must nominate yourself as the meaning-maker in your own life and fashion a central connection with yourself, one that is more aware, active, and purposeful than the connection most people fashion with themselves.

“Self-connection — understanding that you are your own advocate, taskmaster, coach, best friend, and sole arbiter of meaning and that no one else can or will serve those functions for you — is crucial.”

From Eric Maisel’s “Van Gogh Blues” Explores Connection and Meaning-making as Treatments for Depression, an interview by Janet Grace Riehl.

Hillary Clinton, in her Commencement Address at CUNY Honors Graduation May 31, 2005, said one of her great personal heroines was Eleanor Roosevelt. “The more I know about her, the more I admire her.

“A woman who may have come from privilege but had very little support in the family in which she was born. Who in a very American way invented herself.”

Clinton quoted Roosevelt: “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the things which you think you cannot do.”

[From the page Courage / confidence.]

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One way we can stay vital and authentic is by saying what we really think, even when that may be a risk.

Actor Rachel McAdams once said, “I always feel incredibly intimidated, so I kind of kick myself in the ass and give myself a pep talk. I’m like, “Okay, go in there and say what you mean and mean what you say. And be brave.”

One exciting example of being brave is the real life character Samantha Booke (played by Jurnee Smollett) in the film “The Great Debaters” - she becomes the first woman selected by debate coach Melvin B. Tolson (Denzel Washington) to compete on the debate team at Wiley College in Texas during the Great Depression.

Smollett gives a passionate and powerful performance, and she gives credit to her mother, who “had a very socially active life. She marched and she did the sit-ins and voter organizing,” Smollett said. “It built that whole warrior spirit inside of all of us.” [More on The Inner Actor post.]

Taking risks can be a challenge, regardless of our gender, but we men may be, in general, more trained and socially supported to take risks, be outspoken and behave assertively.

Arianna Huffington points out, “Fear is universal; we all have fear.” But, she adds in her book On Becoming Fearless, some fears “do tend to be more prevalent among women than men, including fear of staying single; fear of imperfection; fear of failure; of ugliness; of loneliness; of growing old; public speaking; ridicule…”

From post: Arianna Huffington - “Women have more fears in some areas.”

Katherine Heigl (”Grey’s Anatomy,” new movie “27 Dresses”) has a “growing reputation as being unusually frank, her comments coming in somewhere between Dorothy Parker-tough and diva-spoiled,” according to the article “Topic of discussion,” by Paul Brownfield, Los Angeles Times Jan 6, 2008.

The article continues: “Outspoken,” people call her, although it could also just be said that she speaks. Jane Fonda in Vietnam was outspoken; Heigl in Hollywood, calling the character she played in “Knocked Up” a shrew, is merely being forthright.

“The press or the media has decided that I’m outspoken, and I guess that’s my angle or something?” she asks. “I have been this way for the last five to seven years when I started saying, ‘You know, screw it, I’m not going to pussyfoot around issues anymore.’

“I kind of say what I think. And if I feel passionately about something I will be honest about it, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”

Actor Annette Bening thinks maturity can help being authentic: “One of the great things about being in my forties is you really do come into your own.

“I spent a lot of time trying to please other people and have everybody get along. There are some ways in which that’s a virtue, and some it’s not.

“You can’t really get your needs met if you’re constantly gauging what everybody else is going to be most appreciative of. Trying to find a way to do both is what one would hope for.

“Say what you think, ask for what you want. As I’ve gotten older, I have a quicker access to that. I like that about myself now.

[From Annette Bening: “Say what you think, ask for what you want.”

Hillary Clinton says one of her "great personal heroines was Eleanor Roosevelt. The more I know about her, the more I admire her.

"A woman who may have come from privilege but had very little support in the family in which she was born. Who in a very American way invented herself.

"She once said: 'You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the things which you think you cannot do.'"

[From her Commencement Address, 2005.]

Related Talent Development Resources articles:
The Price Isn’t Right
Six Simple Habits That Defeat Anxiety
The Impostor Syndrome

pages:
Courage / confidence.
Courage / confidence 3.articles books
Fear …..Fear 2 : quotes articles books

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She “grew up with no sense of self-worth,” according to the interview article Anne Geddes’ newest baby is a ‘Labor of Love’, by Fran Henry, Plain Dealer Nov 07, 2007.

The article continues: “It has taken the wisdom of my years to see that my childhood was not ideal,” Geddes said.

She quit school at 17 and left home. “I wanted to get on with my life,” she said, not that she had any idea what that life might look like.

All she had was a vague sense that her life held promise. She remembered being 7 or 8, telling her mother there was “something I needed to do, but I didn’t quite know what it was.”

Her focus sharpened when she was 25. She picked up her husband Kel’s old 35 mm camera and, through trial and error, taught herself how to use it.

A publisher in Melbourne, Australia, rejected Anne Geddes’ early portfolio.

“You can’t just photograph babies,” he said flatly. As Geddes, 51, recalled, she laughed as she left his office. “He became known as the man who turned down Anne Geddes,” she said, smiling a bit.

On New Year’s Eve 1984, she surprised herself when she announced to her husband and friends, “I’m going to be the best-known baby photographer in the world.” She doesn’t know where those words came from, but she believed them.

Her earliest venture was making personalized Christmas cards embossed with a photograph of her two daughters, an innovation so unusual that the local newspaper wrote about her.

Not long after, a portrait in a Melbourne newspaper stopped her in her tracks. “I was taken by it and called the photographer. I asked, Would you like an unpaid assistant?” The photographer said yes. “I walked inside the studio and said to myself, This is where I am meant to be.”

And babies were meant to be her life. “It sounds like a cliche,” she said, “but I love babies. They’re my passion. They’re pure. There’s no such thing as a mean-spirited baby. And a baby represents so much potential.”

Also see her site annegeddes.com

Labor of Love: An Autobiography, by Anne Geddes

Related Talent Development Resources article & pages:
In Praise of Positive Obsessions
Early life
Passion

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