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its head .
    By the age of twenty-six I was hiring and firing physicians. Much to their chagrin I “auditioned” my doctors, staying in the operating room while they performed abortions so I could assess their interactional skills with the patients. The doctors cared about their patients’ well-being, but they resented my position of power. They were comfortable with women as nurses, handmaids in the surgical suite, but the very idea of a young woman telling doctors how to handle patients, influencing their financial lives and time, was anathema. They could not get used to being under my jurisdiction, and when there were conflicts they would appeal to Marty. As a fellow member of that elite male club, he was able to smooth their ruffled feathers. He never allowed them to undermine me, though. He made sure they knew that my administrative directions were to be followed.
    The nurses and counselors posed a different kind of challenge to my authority. There was no room for me to have my own office, so I set up an executive director’s desk amid the
nurses’ station and recovery cots. I knew I wouldn’t be able to run the clinic efficiently unless my staff took me seriously, and since I had no physical area I could use to enforce professional boundaries, I had to firmly demonstrate that even though I was young and inexperienced, I was in charge. But some of them made it clear that they resented my position in the medical hierarchy, their lack of respect palpable with every interaction. They weren’t going to accept my authority so easily.
    I’d wanted power, and now I had it, but I had no idea how to wield it effectively. I found that the very notion of women having power was difficult for many of my female staff to digest. Many had adopted the popular belief that power in and of itself was oppressive and destructive, regardless of who had it. Others thought women in positions of authority should use their power differently from men. When I conducted interviews for new employees, I asked each candidate how she felt about the concept of power. Extraordinarily, each and every one of the applicants, even those for supervisory positions, said almost the same thing: “I don’t want to have power over others, I want to empower others.” I would run up against this particular female hesitation about power for years to come.
    A few of my staff, wanting to employ the egalitarian concepts of the times, told me they felt that the clinic’s atmosphere was too traditionally medical, and that the white coats might be off-putting to patients. We were all equal, so why did medical personnel have to differentiate themselves by their dress? I decided to conduct a pilot study on the issue to put their ideas to the test. I made up a questionnaire that I gave to patients asking about their attitudes on medical uniforms. The results were significantly skewed toward a preference for professional dress in white coats. Patients needed
to feel safe, and the traditional white coats helped them to do so. In a world where most women were afraid that having an abortion could kill them, many had never been to a gynecologist, and there were no sexual education classes to teach people how their bodies worked, power—the power that came with knowledge, expertise, and experience—was something to embrace, not reject.
    Still, my employees expected me to embody all the alternative superior qualities that women with power would ideally have: sensitivity, openness, and leniency. Wanting to be liked, I decided to try to meet their expectations. Perhaps that would earn me their respect.
    I took them to dinner, listened when they confided in me about their personal relationships, helped them to analyze their dreams, and offered sympathy when they spoke of their stress levels. If people needed extra time, they got it. If someone was late, I often overlooked it. Every decision was individually negotiated. Never feeling