Anne-Marie Slaughter: Feminism today is too focused on the number of women at the top

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April 10, 2017 1:52 PM

Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO of New America, explains the issues that arise when feminism is too focused on the number of women at the top.

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We interviewed Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO of New America, on March 23. Here Slaughter explains the issues that arise when feminism is too focused on the number of women at the top. Following is a transcript of the video.

Sara Silverstein: Well, one of the interesting things you've brought up is that feminism today is very focused on the women who make it to the top. How many CEOs are female and - that's our measuring stick. But that the big problem is at the bottom, and - can you talk a little bit about that?

Anne Marie Slaughter: Yeah, that there are too few women at the top but way too many at the bottom and look right now, we are in the midst of this enormous health care debate. Who are the people who are going to really be left on the streets, right? If you are, you know, a single mother with children, and you are in a state that expanded Medicaid and now retracts it? You have nothing. You know, and you child gets sick, well, you'll go to the emergency room and that will bump up our health cost but those are the women, if we're really thinking about equality between men and women across the board, we need to be paying every bit as much and really in many ways, more attention to women - low-income women, middle-class women, who are essentially trying to do a full breadwinner job and a full caregiver job.

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