My Photo

Grab your dream button

Power of Moms

Related Posts Widget for Blogs by LinkWithin

« Miranda Johnson: My Guinea Pig Scout | Main | Lori Lyn Price: Bridging From the Past to Her Future »

September 02, 2009

Comments

This has given me something to think about while I travel. Rosa Parks? Florence Nightingale? Madame Currie?

Great post! I'm looking forward to checking out the full list on Forbes. I think you should definitely create a Dare to Dream list! What a great idea!

I think of the kind of informal power we have when we appear before school boards, or PTO's and alter the course of the education in our community. Are we involved enough? Do we realize the power for good we can do on a micro level?

Hi

I really enjoyed this post. It is nice to see that someone acknowledges influential women.

I enjoy your blog.

Check out mine

steph

Great post. Makes me wonder, does informal power bring as much joy and long lasting fulfillment as formal power?

Comment #1: My thoughts.

I am very good at formal power, and miserably bad at informal power. I have to really concentrate to keep myself from talking loudly and doing aggressively - all the time in every situation. I developed this behavior because, like Whitney, I believe that womankind as a whole NEED to find some balance in our collective abilities, and in my arrogance, think I provide the counterbalance to the soft spoken, yet effectual power that comes from giving and listening.

To help myself learn another way, I've been meditating, "I am love. I am love. I am love." A new me is starting to emerge, and I am enjoying the change so much. My daily life is more joyful, and interestingly, things get done more quickly and with greater ease. The alchemy of a strong will powered by love - wow, it's amazing what happens.

Comment #2: Informal Power List of 100 Women

What's tricky about this idea is that women with informal power are not famous, generally - we do not know who they are.

Perhaps we can think about women who exhibit power, but who have not been "granted" it by some establishment.

I have thought more about this blog and see that I missed the point about informal power and yet think that the women I named did not hold formal power but seized the opportunities presented to them by doing what was expected or what they they were capable of doing.

Here are a few cultural references to informal power:

1. Behind every great man there is a great woman.

2. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.

3. Richer than I you will never be, for I had a mother who read to me.

I don't necessarily consider Kennedy to be a great man, but he likely would have ended up in jail (date rape) or rehab (alcohol) without his second wife. I saw him in DC during the summer of 1991, before Victoria took him in hand. He was blotchy and bloated and looked like a really bad life insurance risk (not to mention a prime heart attack risk). His accomplishments since then are directly due to the fact that she literally saved his life. Everyone talks about Joe Kennedy inheriting the Kennedy seat, despite the fact that he is a screamer and doesn't play well with others. If a Kennedy is going to get the set (and I dislike American political dynasties), Victoria has a much stronger claim than Joe.

Some of my favorite ladies with informal power have been Eve, Miriam, Elizabeth, Mary, Abigail Adams, Sacagawea, Jane Adams (Hull house), Nellie Bly (reporter), Elizabeth Fry (prison reform), and Helen Keller.

i just googled "women informal power." guess what the 9th result was?

dare to dream!

whitney, this site, and the whole dare to dream message have some serious "informal" power.

The comments to this entry are closed.

About this blog

  • When I took a sabbatical from Wall Street to pursue a different dream and help others live theirs, I learned that women in the U.S. may be placated, even pampered, but because we aren't dreaming, we are also desperate and depressed. Drawing on a variety of sources, ranging from academic studies to pop culture, dare to dream encourages us to dream. And then to act on our dreams.

Subscribe

  • Subscribe
Bookmark and Share

Tweet, tweet...

    follow me on Twitter