The Female Lead Read online

  I spent far too much time when I was younger thinking about how much I weighed. When I think of the man hours – woman hours – I spent on that subject, it was the biggest waste of the minutes of my life. So if I could go back, I’d say, ‘Think about the bigger picture.’ Of course, it’s a visual medium. We think about our looks. I don’t bring a suitcase with my dossier in it to an audition or interview, I bring my body – so you can’t moan about the fact that you’re judged on your looks – it’s a visual medium, it’s showbusiness. But the other thing is that you’re representing lives, and lives look all different ways, all different shapes. That’s one thing I do see is changing and it’s really good. It just makes the cultural landscape richer.

  Meryl’s Object

  My wedding ring. At various times it’s been so tight that they couldn’t get it off for movies, not without surgically removing the finger, so they had to invent other rings to go over it. I love it even more than for the regular reasons. I was in a play at the Public Theater a short while after I was married and, as an actress, you give in your valuables, so I put my wedding ring in my wallet and gave it to the stage manager to put in the safe. At the end of the play they brought it back and I went out into the lobby to say hello to some people and when I came back it was gone. It had been my great grandmother’s ring, dating back to 1880-something. Beautiful. My husband took his wedding ring and cut it in half and that’s what I have now. It’s little, because it’s half of his. But it’s even better.

  MERYL STREEP

  Academy Award-winning actor

  LEYMAH GBOWEE

  Leymah Gbowee is a Liberian peace activist and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. In 2002, angered by the civil war that had been raging in her country for most of her adult life, the then 30-year-old social worker and mother of four (she now has seven children) organised a march of Christian and Muslim women on the capital, with a sit-in that lasted for months. Thousands of women prayed, camped and went on a sex strike. Their actions led President Charles Taylor, who was responsible for much of the violence, to agree to attend peace negotiations in neighbouring Ghana. When it was evident the talks were getting nowhere, Gbowee organised her ‘troops’ to blockade the meeting room and hold the negotiators ‘hostage’ until agreement was reached. The women’s actions led to the removal of Taylor and the inauguration of the first woman president of an African country, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, with whom Gbowee shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011.

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  I was 17 when the Liberian civil war started. I had just finished high school and was planning to be a doctor but the war upended everything. It shortened my horizons. I had been brought up to believe in fairness and opportunity and a world in which everyone had a chance. I grew up in a religious household and I had been taught that God would always be there. Yet suddenly a bullet could undo everything. I couldn’t see the point of spending four or five years in medical school. I felt so angry at what was happening that it was impossible to focus on life beyond the immediate present. We just existed. Surviving in a war takes a lot of energy.

  I did a basic three-month social work course because that seemed the most immediate way to help to make things more bearable. In time, I worked with former child soldiers, young people who had been destroyed both physically and emotionally by fighting. Many of them were still carrying shrapnel in their bodies. They had been used and thrown aside. This was happening over and over again. I remember being in a village in south-eastern Liberia when the government sent in a truck to abduct the children so as to teach them how to use an AK47 and make them fight. I was with the mothers, watching their children being taken before their eyes.

  By 1998, the second serious outbreak of fighting had been going on for five years. I felt powerless. I had met women activists from Sierra Leone who claimed that women could change things, but I was very cynical about their optimism. It was only when I began to work with the wives of ex-combatants that I began to see what they meant. The ex-soldiers were often very violent and angry, but their wives stood up to them. I appreciated then the power women have through our empathy and understanding. We are at the heart of things, observing everyone, seeing their comings and goings, knowing the pains and happiness of the family, the whole community. Yet when tensions arise, the men dismiss all that knowedge and wisdom. They say mothers and daughters can’t come, can’t be involved.

  I realised that not only can women talk about peace but we can also step out in front and say, ‘This is what people need.’ I joined a Christian women’s group. I had a dream of putting women together across the communities, and we started visiting mosques and talking to Muslim women. Did we lose people because of that? Yes, a lot of Christian women left. But we persisted. There was a lot of work to do to create a movement that would really have some impact. It took us two and a half years to prepare our protest. The important thing, the key to success, was that we had no political agenda. We weren’t campaigning to become something. Our objective was very clear – we had a shared vision for peace. That was something we could all support. We were there because we cared about the lives of our children, the livelihood of our families.

  In 2002 we marched on Monrovia, the capital, and we stayed there, praying for peace. Even though there were thousands of us and our protest was very visible, the men still weren’t taking much notice. When we started the sex strike, it was out of desperation. We wanted to get across the idea that women were doing something and there was a need to support us. We had no idea the media would be interested. But it became a huge story and that became an opportunity for us to talk about peace.

  I had met women activists from Sierra Leone who claimed that women could change things, but I was very cynical about their optimism. It was only when I began to work with the wives of ex-combatants that I began to see what they meant.

  The pressure built and talks took place aimed at ending the fighting but it was clear that nothing was coming out of them. There was no real commitment. So we went to the hotel where the talks were being held and sat down outside the room. When they threatened to remove us, we said we would disrobe, which horrified them. To see a married or elderly woman deliberately bare herself is thought to bring down a terrible curse.

  We were able to use things that were ours – our empathy, the ways we are perceived, our relationships – to make the men listen. I think it is important that we understand those strengths we have, because, over the last few years, wars have become more than ever about terrorising women. Rape and abuse of women and children are seen as ways to demoralise and disgrace the enemy, to show them that they are unable to take care of their families and homes. It has become an exotic thing to capture women.

  It is no longer an option for women to say, ‘I’m not a politician.’ We need to up our game, to know the issues and do our best to get into the conversation. I see a lot of discomfort from men when there is discussion about women’s rights, and a view that women are craving to take over from them, to destroy them. Of course, this is not true, but we are interested in justice. We don’t want to be passive, victims, used. When it comes to rehabilitation and reconstruction, girls need to be at the top of the list. The age-old excuse has been that we can’t find the good women. It is time for the good women to step up.

  Leymah’s Object

  A cross. The cross is a very powerful symbol of the strength that lies in weakness. Christianity has always been important to me but I had a very deep anger with God for a long while because I felt the protection I had been promised was not there. But then it was religious groups who initially came together to call for peace. For me, the cross has many associations that make sense of what I am doing – it signifies a place of pain, but also of redemption. It reminds me that there is terrible suffering in the world but it is possible to get past that. It makes me think of reconciliation and healing.

  Every day I wake up and I am amazed by what has happened to me and the honours that I have had, and I feel guilty, because it se
ems nothing to do with me and my intellectual ability. Keeping the cross in mind helps me to make sense of that. Those honours are not really for me; they are for peace. I cannot feel arrogant while I keep the cross in mind and I do not have to feel embarrassed. Do I deserve what has happened to me? No. But I will strive to be deserving.

  LEYMAH GBOWEE

  Activist and winner of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize

  CHRISTINE LAGARDE

  Christine Lagarde was born in Paris, studied law and has held ministerial positions in the French government, including that of finance and economy minister. She was the first woman to become finance minister of a G7 country. Now she is managing director of the International Monetary Fund, the first woman to be elected to the position, which she took up in 2011. She has been reappointed by the IMF Board for a second term starting 4 July 2016. The IMF, which has its headquarters in Washington DC, has 189 member countries and exists to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty.

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  Unfortunately, I am often the only woman in the room. There are a few more women than there were 10 or 15 years ago but finance is still a very male-dominated environment. We are dealing with banks, financial experts, economists, finance ministers and governors of central banks, and in most instances these people are men. I do not think that I am treated differently but I probably had a harder time establishing credibility and being respected, whereas for men these are taken for granted instantly. The probation period for women is probably a little longer and the probation tests are probably a little harder.

  In some countries women are not as educated as men. Sisters are prevented from going to school when their brothers are allowed to go to school.

  We all like to be liked and being criticised is hard, but you just accept it. You fix it when it is legitimate, you ignore it when it is completely gratuitous, or full of hatred – you move on. Occasionally, I compare with other women and very often we have faced and experienced the same issues. We had to prove ourselves and overcome the almost inherent lack of confidence that I do not think men experience as much as we do.

  Studies, including some of our own, show that about half of the women capable of joining the workforce are not joining it because of all sorts of impediments, whether these are cultural hurdles, personal hurdles or issues of childcare.

  There are not many days when I get up thinking life is not beautiful. That might be rooted in my education, my faith, and my natural optimism.

  There are other reasons as well. In some countries, women are not as educated as men. Sisters are prevented from going to school when their brothers are allowed to go. If you look at some of the low-income countries in particular, that is the case. If you look at some countries of the Middle East, it is a different story. Females are very well educated, but for cultural reasons they are not given the same access as their male counterparts to the job market. So it varies depending on countries. What we see on a cross-country basis for women is certainly hurdles, discrimination, obstacles towards getting an education, setting up businesses, accessing finance, and joining the economy more generally.

  We have in quite a few instances convinced countries and their authorities that it is in their interest, and in the interest of the economy and society, to encourage women to have children and work. We have shown that it is better to remove discrimination, to allow the same inheritance and property laws, and to give the same access to finance to both men and women. Quite a few countries are now keen to experiment and to make sure that they derive full benefit from women’s talent. I want women to have a choice, and to choose on a completely even-handed basis, on a level playing field. They have the same capacity, the same potential as men, and that should not be hampered.

  If there is a collective will to include women – and that is often the case – then there has to be a good analysis of what the situation is, what the numbers are, what the education level is, what the opportunities can be, and what the obstacles may be along the way. Once that map has been drawn, then every effort should be made to remove the obstacles, improve opportunities, support education and set targets. Now, whether you call these targets quotas or participation rates in the labour market does not really matter. But to have objectives, and ways to measure against those objectives, I think is necessary. I used to be against quotas when I was much younger, thinking, ‘Why should we not just succeed and participate on our own merits?’ Unfortunately, there is such a long way to go that targets, quotas and accountability are needed in order to bridge that gap.

  I was very lucky to have a powerful, independent mother – and a smart father as well! My mother was determined to encourage what she called my natural sense of independence – and authority, on occasion. I was the eldest of four siblings and she did not stop me from being the boss in those days. She delegated quite a bit of authority to me at the time and I was babysitting the younger boys when I was four or five years of age. That empowerment from a very early stage has certainly been very helpful to me.

  Failure is OK. This is not necessarily accepted in all societies or in all civilisations. But success does not come easily and should not be taken for granted. It is very much about hard work, resilience, determination – it is also about teamwork. Helping others, being helped, operating with others on your team is critically important. Some people will not be helpful and some people will want to promote themselves instead of the group. But that is not a reason to assume that you can succeed on your own. I would also say reach out to other women, including more senior women who have succeeded, and ask them for advice, for support.

  How do I achieve balance? There have been times in my life when it was certainly not perfect. I have succeeded at certain levels and I have no regrets about what I have done, but you cannot have it all at the same time. Over the course of your life, you can succeed in many areas and you can try not to hurt, not to damage along the way – I think that is the most important. There are not many days when I get up thinking life is not beautiful. That might be rooted in my education, my faith and my natural optimism. Life has its baggage of hard moments, sorrow, pain, frustrations, but I still think that it is beautiful.

  I have observed in many instances that when a society, a corporate organisation or a community is in crisis, very often women are called upon to help, support, fix and rebuild. In times of crisis, very often I see women taking the lead, taking the helm. A good friend of mine who used to be governor of a central bank in Africa used to say, ‘Men go to war and women come afterwards to fix it.’ Very often, in times of crisis, we call the women!

  Christine’s Object

  A terracotta sculpture of people in a circle. You can put a candle in the centre. It was a gift from my mother, who brought it back from one of her trips to Latin America, and it sits on my desk in Paris. It is a symbol of the team, of collective force, as the people are holding hands in a circle around the source of energy and light, without which we are nothing.

  CHRISTINE LAGARDE

  Managing director, the International Monetary Fund

  YEONMI PARK

  Yeonmi Park is a human rights activist. She was born in the North Korean city of Hyesan, close to the Chinese border. After her father was imprisoned for trading on the black market, the family were branded criminals and forced to the margins of society. In 2007 Yeonmi and her mother defected from North Korea, eventually finding asylum in South Korea. Since then she has travelled the world to speak out against the brutal communist regime in North Korea, currently led by Kim Jong-un, who inherited the leadership from his father and grandfather. Her memoir, In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom, was published in 2015.

  * * *

  When I was growing up, I had no clue that North Korea was a strange place to live. I was told it was perfect. We were hungry, and there was no 24-hour electricity, no internet, no human rights or
freedom. At school I learned propaganda, how our enemies – the American bastards and Japanese imperialists – were trying to attack us at any moment. We learned about the power of the regime and of our great leaders.

  I thought our Dear Leader was a god. I didn’t think he was a human being. I believed he could make miracles and that he could read my mind, so I mustn’t think bad thoughts about him. When you live in North Korea, you survive by being paranoid. You are watched and reported on, and people get arrested and disappear for many reasons. We heard of people being executed or sent to prison for watching movies. That’s why, when I was very young, my mother told me not even to whisper because the birds and mice could hear you. It was very odd for me, when I came to the West, to see parents answering their children’s questions and trying to encourage them to express their thoughts. My upbringing was totally opposite to that.

  My mother had been to college in North Korea but she was a housewife. My father had been a party member before he was arrested for being a vendor on the black market. When he was sent to prison, I was around eight or nine, and I was very sad. It felt like the end of the world and I didn’t see him for three or four years. I didn’t know what injustice was, so I didn’t feel any anger at the regime or think it unjust that he was being tortured and starved. After he was arrested, I couldn’t go to school any more. I stayed at home and went to the river to wash our clothes and into nature to find things to eat. We ate grasshoppers and plants and flowers and that’s how we survived.