Advertisement Before her election to Congress, Pelosi questioned whether she’d had too many “opportunities.” She was chairwoman of the 1984 Democratic National Convention Host Committee and chairwoman of the committee that enforced delegate selection rules and wondered whether she should resign one of those positions. Boggs replied: “Darlin’, no man would ever, ever have that thought.”
Pelosi’s “Know Your Power: A Message to America’s Daughters” (Doubleday, $23.95) is peppered with such anecdotes, as well as biographical vignettes and wisdom gleaned from her life as political daughter, wife (for 45 years), mother (of five), grandmother (of seven), congresswoman and first female speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
“Know Your Power” is not a straight-up biography, though Pelosi does write about growing up in a devout Catholic Italian household as the daughter of congressman Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., who later served as mayor of Baltimore for 12 years.
Her family background, though, didn’t lead her immediately to politics: “I thought I had done that, and now I wanted a little more normalcy,” she says of her marriage to Paul Pelosi, which inspired her to abandon law-school plans and led her to California to become a homemaker. Motherhood, though, proved to be a great training ground for the rigors of Congress: “It’s hard. It’s constant and challenging, and you don’t want to do anything wrong.”
Still, Pelosi, who became speaker in 2007 after 20 years in Congress, tried to focus on her message in the book. “This is a time in our society where women should have every opportunity. They have to make it for themselves. There’s never been a time when power has just been given away, not political power or corporate power or academic power. All we have is the power of determining our own fates.”
Q: What message do you want readers — particularly women — to take from your book?
A: My idea is that women have to know what is inside of them, and what they have as experience has a value beyond what others in society might place on it. Young women can do anything they set out to do. In fact, what they are setting out to do is necessary to us as a nation. I want young working moms — not people like me, who came to political life after my children were grown — to realize we need their voices.
What’s interesting to me is that, in my generation, there were certain obstacles to women’s success, but I really did think in my daughter’s generation they would be ancient history. But what I find out when I travel is that some of those obstacles still exist. And the next generation shouldn’t have to tolerate that.
Q: You write that every issue today is a woman’s issue. Does that mean we’ve finally reached a harmonic convergence of interests?
A: Well, there are some issues that women have a primary responsibility for or understanding of. Coming up in Congress we have legislation on equal pay for equal work, and we’re bringing up consumer-products safety legislation for protecting children from products harmful to their health. But we’re not confined to those issues. Health, education, national security, the economy, fiscal soundness — we’re claiming ownership of every issue that faces America.
Q: How did Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign affect the role of women in this country?
A: Sometimes women who supported her will say to me, ’We didn’t win.’ I say there are two ways to win. You can win the election, and that’s up to the voters, and you can win the campaign, and that’s up to you. Hillary Clinton won the campaign. She emerged as the most respected political leader in our country, and she galvanized women voters. That is hopeful for our political system and our country. She demonstrated knowledge, intellect, eloquence, strength and stamina that said: We can do it. Women should be encouraged by that. It wasn’t just about winning the election; it was about winning the day in terms of change.
Q: So you’d say you’re hopeful about the future of the country?
A: Yes, I am, because of the next generation. For young people it’s going to be easier. There will be less apprehension about the role of women. I think the way daughters and sons are being raised now, to be involved, is a benefit to our country. For us in Congress now, we have to put certain issues to bed ... like equal pay for equal work. Why should we be having to do that in this day and age? It’s ridiculous.
I want to remove all doubt in the minds of women. I had no ambition or desire to do what I did at first. I was interested in public policy and kept myself informed, but as a wife and mom, I wasn’t even on a professional course. If I can go from the kitchen to the Congress, women with a goal can do anything they set out to do.
