Peggy Noonan, former Reagan speech writer even contended in her book about public speaking that “Sooner or later, we’re all on C-Span.”  Well, I’m not sure I agree with that, but I do believe that we will all have opportunities to speak “on camera.”  Whether that’s over Skype with the grandchildren or being interviewed by Anderson Cooper, speaking effectively on-camera is a must-have communication skill.

Another observation is that today’s college-age population is relatively comfortable speaking on camera.  I think it is the You-Tube phenomenon.    But comfort does not mean effective, so here’s my list of dos and don’t for on-camera speaking.  Get your smart phone out, turn on the camera and give it a try.  The technology may have changed, but one thing never will:  practice makes perfect! 

1.  Atmosphere – Choose a neutral place, or a professional setting such as a desk area.  We don’t want to see your kitchen, bedroom, bathroom (unless you are a realtor giving a home tour).  Keep the background neutral and neat.  YOU are the main focus.

2. Dress – Again, neutral and veer toward the formal.  We don’t need to know your favorite sports team.  And we don’t want too much information about your physique (unless you are promoting a fitness video).  No cleavage, tattoos, or underwear should be revealed.  You know what clothing flatters you without revealing too much–wear it!

3.  Smile – Not constantly because you’ll look suspicious and weird.  But a little and at try to look pleasant.  I was struck by the number of speakers who said “I have a passion for ______” with the enthusiasm of someone being sedated for a root canal.  

4.  Delivery – Speak from notecards with key words on them only, not the entire script.   Some speakers write out the script and strategically place it somewhere to read it word-for word.  Invariably, it means that they are looking off camera.  Look INTO the camera.  Make a few key-word notecards for yourself and glance at them, but natural beats memorized every time.

5.  Lighting – Bright is better (trust me on this).  Anyone over 45 understands that “let there be light” may be our favorite declaration.  So position yourself in a well lit area.

6.  Not too close –  Oh, sure you can eliminate the awkward or messy  background by zooming in really close, but if we can see your nose hairs, pull back, OK?  It’s weird to have you so close.  This isn’t a soap opera.  Viewers like to have a sense of context.

7.  Relax - Who are you?  Let your personality come through.  But don’t relax so much that you are speaking in tangents unrelated to your topic. 

8.  Don’t curse - Please. 

9.  Have some fun – It will show on camera that you aren’t tortured by this experience and that’s a good thing. Maybe you’ll get that job you want, or the business you need, or you’ll get to know your family better.

10.  Practice – You’ll get better!

As women continue to aim for the White House, it is crucial that they are seen as independent political players, even if their husbands are political powerhouses.  A good example is how Hillary Clinton has created her own political image, apart from the venerable former president’s.  Not an easy undertaking, especially for a woman who served in the gender time-frozen role of first lady.   When we hear “Clinton” we have to ask:  “which one?” 

The barrier of the “minimizing press” and others are discussed in my forthcoming co-authored  (with Theodore Sheckels and Diana Carlin) book:  Gender and the American Presidency:  Nine Presidential Women and the Barriers They Faced.  The Lexington book, and the cover art are due any day now!

What this new article on Hillary Clinton shows is that women in high positions of power and those  aspiring to the presidency must possess considerable rhetorical finesse, and even when they do, the media may pay little attention.  As a presidential candidate  women candidates’  phrases will be scanned for the words that suggest high seriousness in a world with major economic and international problems. Rick Perry’s silly gesticulations or Herman Cain’s flip-flopping statements about sexual harassment make it to The Daily Show routines or a run on the major news networks, but they won’t disqualify them from the race.  Women candidates who don’t exhibit brainpower, rhetorical sensitivity and likability simultaneously and consistently will be discounted as not ready for prime time.  There is less room for  mis-steps for women seeking the White House. 

This is one of several  imbalances between male and female candidates found in a forthcoming book I’ve co-authored with Theodore F. Sheckels and Diana B. Carlin on women and the US presidency:  Gender and the American Presidency:  Nine Presidential Women and the Barriers They Faced (Lexington Books, 2012). 

Until there are more women running for president who overcome the considerable, yet often ridiculous barriers, the US presidency will remain an all-male affair.

Hardcover: 978-0-7391-6678-9, $85.00Paperback: 978-0-7391-6679-6, $36.99
324 pages, Lexington Books, 2012 by Sheckels, Gutgold and Carlin

It is because women are the forgotten would-be candidates. 
It isn’t surprising that a governor would attract Republicans who are looking for fresh leadership.  Political scientists often direct attention to governors when determining who will emerge as presidential candidates.  From a communication perspective, the governorship gives a candidate a platform that showcases leadership ability while distancing them from legislative intricacies, which can complicate their presidential possibilities. Governorships frequently serve as a proving ground for presidential hopefuls.  A governor rises above partisan legislative actions, which increases her ethos, at least theoretically speaking,  as a presidential contender. 

Here are two women governors you may have never heard of:
Democratic governor of Washington, Christine Gregoire is enjoying the same high approval ratings during her second term that marked her first.    A compelling personal narrative, Gregoire was raised by a single mother and was the first woman elected attorney general in Washington. As governor, she balanced the budget and expanded health coverage. 

Like Gregoire, former Republican governor of Hawaii, Linda Lingle, enjoyed success and popularity in her second term. She was the first mayor elected governor of Hawaii and the first female governor of Hawaii. During the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City, Lingle took to the national stage when she served as chairman of the convention. 
It seems as though Republicans are actively seeking a new figurehead.   Maybe they should focus their attention on potential candidates who seem to receive the least attention:  women.   Despite her success at offering Hawaii a “new beginning” by making state government more open, and her high approval ratings throughout her two terms, former Hawaii Governor Lingle, like Governor Chris Gregoire, are not mentioned as presidential timbre.  

Even when a woman declares her candidacy for president, the press often reduces her “yes” to as close a “no” as possible.  In 1999 press speculation abounded that Elizabeth Dole’s presidential bid was really just a hope for a vice presidential nod.    And even after Hillary Clinton won almost 18 million votes, the most notable aspect of her campaign that lingered in the media was that she lost.  Women running for president are subjected to an overly critical media and a downplaying of victories, as we have seen with the campaign of Hillary Clinton.  Even worse, women who have served two terms as governors have barely recognizable names because the press forgets about them.    

In case anyone wants to beg a potential candidate, here are the names of women governors, in addition to Christine Gregoire, Democratic, Washington:   Beverly Perdue,  Democratic, North Carolina; Jan Brewer, Republican, Arizona; Susana Martinez, Republican, New Mexico; Mary Fallin, Republican, Oklahoma; and  Nikki Haley, Republican, South Carolina.

I say we forget about Governor Christie, at least for now.

Nichola D. Gutgold is associate professor of communication at Penn State Lehigh Valley and author of several books, including the forthcoming:  Gender and the American Presidency:  Nine Presidential Women and the Barriers They Faced, co-authored with Theodore F. Sheckels and Diana B. Carlin.

                Elizabeth Dole, former North Carolina senator,  has recounted similar hostile reactions to her when she attended Harvard Law School in the early 1960s and Patricia Schroeder, former Colorado congresswoman, who attended HLS at the same time, has told similar stories of overt sexism. She remembers: “I think it was not until I got to Harvard Law School where it suddenly hit me that not everybody was quite as open and supportive of women as my father. …[T]here were only 15 women in the class and routinely male professors asked: ‘Do you realize you have taken this position from a man?’ And even the dean of Harvard Law School said the same thing, and he was then [a member of] the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. He had all the women over to his house the first week, and he put us in a circle and said, ‘I want to know why you came here.’ His spin was: We let you in equally, but I don’t think any of you are going to use this [law degree].”                   

                 Fast forward to 2003:  Elena Kagan is about to become the first woman dean of Harvard Law School and women made up forty-five percent of the 2003 graduating class.  The curriculum includes courses taught by men and women that touch on gender issues.  The number of women on the permanent faculty is fifteen. In the span of forty years women had finally made it into the hostile, male centric world of Harvard Law in an undeniably strong way. 

                Fast forward to 2011 and Kagan is now a Supreme Court justice, the fourth woman since the Court’s inception in 1790.

                 In several ways the rhetoric of the women of the Supreme Court has followed a similar trajectory. 

                The issues of gender have receded and the comfort of women justices to speak without having to address their novelty as women is apparent.  Sonia Sotomayor’s quick and lively questioning on the bench at the start of her tenure as a justice and  the repartee exhibited by Elena Kagan during her confirmation hearings is further proof of their confidence and comfort with their place at the table, so to speak.     These are sure signs of progress.   Glacial, but progress, indeed!

                 I hope you’ll read more in my forthcoming book:  In Their Words:  The First Four Women of the Supreme Court!

Then I opened this past Sunday’s New York Times and read Zachary Woolfe’s article:  “A Gift From the Musical Gods” that asks:  “Some Performers Have Charisma.  But What Is It?  It’s….It’s….”  It’s a question I’ve been thinking about a lot  and writing about a little for a long time.   In a new book that will be released next year Ted Sheckels, Diana Carlin and I ask why some seemingly qualified women have never been tapped for the presidency.  One of my subjects, Washington Governor Christine Gregoire, is said to suffer from a ”charisma gap” in some press articles.

 But what is it?  Does it just mean you are dull if you don’t have it? 

Like Woolfe, I’ve used the term to refer to several of my subjects:  Elizabeth Dole, Betty Ford, and though I haven’t written much about Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, I’m quite sure I’ve written somewhere that they are “charismatic.”  I even found a book called The Clinton Charisma.  He must have it if there is a whole book devoted to it.   I remember Maureen Dowd commenting that Caroline Kennedy’s charisma compensates for her poor public speaking.  Really?  I thought people with charisma are good public speakers.  Sociologist  Stephen Turner in a 2003 article “Charisma Reconsidered”offers that it  refers to “role-models who break new ground” and that it ”seems to collapse into personal style.” 

Christine Gregoire

The Encarta dictionary says it is “personal magnetism” and a “divine gift.”  That’s what I mean when I say someone is charismatic, I think, especially the personal magnetism part.

Although one person’s “magnetism” could be another person’s “bombastic.”

If so than is charisma a matter of opinion?

What is charisma again?

 A conservative, she called for Sarah Palin to step down as vice-presidential candidate, and later teamed up with Eliot Spitzer, a.k.a. Client Number 9 for a T.V. show called “Parker/Spitzer: In the Arena.”  She clearly got my attention for her novel take on things, but neither the Sarah “step down” column or the “Regis/Kelly wanna-be” for the thinking set TV effort with Spitzer were not nearly as interesting to me as her 2008 book, Save the Males: Why Men Matter, Why Women Should Care.  I had read NY Times columnist Maureen Dowd’s 2005 book Are Men Necessary?, and recognized that Parker’s book must be the conservative rebuttal.  Indeed, Parker says as much early in the book.

Parker cites her motherhood to three boys as ethos for her book’s thesis.  Similarly, being a mom to both a male and female I often wondered which gender has it easier.  Clearly Parker thinks girls have it easier in their transition to womanhood than boys have it in their transition to manhood.  And here’s why:  She notes the plethora of commercials and Internet ads that mock manhood (she cites erectile dysfunction medicine advertisements and the portrayal of the bubbling dad in sit-coms) to cultural cues that diminish maleness, to the rise of the wealthy single mother and the advent of “Mr. Mom.”   TIME’s recent cover story on “Chore Wars” underscores the workload tension between married couples.  And I remember former Colorado Congresswoman Pat Schroeder lamenting to me in an interview in the late 1990s that she worried more about her son’s development than her daughter’s.  She reasoned that her daughter grew up seeing that a woman could be whatever she wanted to be, but it wasn’t as simple for her son.

In her book Parker argues that  subtly and not so subtly American culture is trying  to point the American male in another direction–away from traditional masculinity to something more closely resembling womanhood.  She writes, “What women seem to really want from men meanwhile is a better girlfriend–one with broad shoulders who can come to the rescue in a pinch, but who is otherwise equally at home with a Dustbuster and a weed whacker.”  But more seriously and more deeply as the book ends she points to the real danger for our children, whether male or female, the break up of the American family.  She writes:  “bringing men and women back together–inviting our sons and daughters to recognize each other as friends and future partners instead of hostile forces to be one-upped and conquered–may save us from self-destruction.”

    And she calls for “restoring the family–not by eternal means, but through mature recognition and voluntary self-sacrifice.”  That raising children in an environment where they feel safe and free from parental bickering and put-downs could have positive effects on them.  Nobody’s perfect, and maybe we should behave with a little grace.   What a concept.   Here’s to men and women behaving well.  I have a lot of research ahead on Parker, but for starters I thoroughly enjoyed (and quite agree with) Parker’s book.

I’m glad I took on this new project.  Good thing my husband and I split the chores.

And when Elena Kagan was nominated to the Supreme Court, a consultant advised her to downplay her intelligence, so as not to make the inquisitive senators seem too dim by comparison.  Her solution?  Rely on her quick wit.  Evidence of her funny bone was front and center at her hearings a year ago.  Here are a few memorable examples:

When Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter  asked Kagan about her views on cameras in the courtroom, he was completely upstaged by her humor.    In his slow and somber speech Specter asked:  “Well…you’ve already said you’re in favor of televising the court, but wouldn’t televising the court and information as to what the court does have an impact on the values which are reflected in the American people?”

Kagan began seriously, noting her intent to confer with the other justices on their views, and for the “greater understanding of the court” that televising would offer, and when Specter droned on about the topic longer, Kagan retorted to uproarious laughter: “It means I’d have to get my hair done more often, Senator Specter.”  

At another lighthearted moment, Senator Dianne Fienstein oddly suggested that she and Kagan have “a little heart-to-heart,” with  Kagan gaining eye contact with Feinstein and, recognizing the absurdity of a private exchange,  teased “Just you and me?”  Again, the crowd roared.

Senator Lindsey Graham, when questioning Kagan about her views on the war on terror, inquired where she was last Christmas Day, when a group of suspected terrorists attempted to blow up a plane en route to Detroit.  She replied, to the delight of many:  “You know, like all Jews, I was probably in a Chinese restaurant.”  Her nomination was contentious, and the committee’s Republicans cited many reasons for voting against  Kagan: her lack of judicial experience; her decision, while dean at Harvard, to briefly bar military recruiters from the use of law school facilities; and her work as an aide to President Bill Clinton on matters like gun rights and the procedure known as partial-birth abortion.   The partisan divide over the nomination illustrated the increasing political polarization of fights over Supreme Court nominees, but  her sense of humor drew wide praise from Republicans and Democrats alike.

 It seems to be getting better for women in male dominated fields.  In his some  of his last-ever remarks on the Senate floor, Arlen Specter, who has witnessed the rise of women in politics during his own long career cast his vote for Kagan and said: “I am also impressed with the President’s nominating another woman. I think that is very salutary. When I came to the Senate, prior to the 1980 election, we only had one woman Senator, Senator Nancy Landon Kassebaum. Now our body is much improved with the 17 women we now have in this body. I thought that was a desirable trait.”  Well, that’s nice. 

It will be even nicer when women running for office or being nominated to the Supreme Court can tout their good looks or intelligence without worry that either could be used against them.  In the meantime, I’m in favor of using all the available means of persuasion to get women’s numbers to at least fifty percent in politics, law and anywhere else they want to be.  And that’s no joke.

In countries around the world women are prime ministers and presidents, but in America a woman has yet to be named president.  While women have made headway in corporations and at the highest levels of educational institutions, in science and in engineering, no woman has ever been U.S. president. 

 The 2008 election was a watershed with Hillary Clinton as the almost-Democratic nominee and Sarah Palin as the Republican vice-presidential nominee, but if women are to continue to compete at the highest level of American politics, women must run for president.  

Michele Bachmann, Republican congresswoman from Minnesota,  inched women and the U.S. presidency forward.

Linton Weeks, NPR journalist asked an important question earlier this month:  “But what, if any, difference will the participation of Palin or Bachmann make in the campaign?”

I believe that to level the political playing field for women it is an imperative to have women candidates in every presidential election.  It is important to have Michele Bachman on the stage if for no other reason , that there is evidence that the more women who run for president the less that gender matters because women will not be seen as novelty candidates.

Michele Bachmann used her debate appearance last night to make her formal announcement of her candidacy for president.  She also raised her credibility by reminding voters that she is a former federal tax attorney.  She exuded all the markers of a president:  intelligence, wit, composure, temperament and perhaps most important in this multi-media age:  youth and charisma.    She also communicated forcefully and decisively by asserting:  “The president was absolutely wrong.”  Forcefullness is especially important for women candidates because critics of women and leadership are quick to question the toughness of women. 

Better than one woman on the stage last night would have been two or more and even better than that would have been all women and only one male candidate. 

Still, Bachmann gave an impressive showing at the debate last night and from the perspective of women and the United States presidency, that’s a very good thing.

Since this is an academic field study, I was especially interested in discovering something about my speech communication discipline and in my first class lecture here I accomplished my goal.

I saw a lesson that I’ve been teaching in my public speaking class for more than twenty years come to life like no textbook can make it.  In my Penn State CAS 100 class, we always have a unit on multiculturalism. The notion of an individualistic vs. collectivist society always drew a few notes of interest from students as I explained that the typical response from Chinese students when invited to give a speech is, “I am not a very good public speaker,” even if they are very good public speakers.

In my class here in Beijing at the Capital University of Business and Economics, I offered the class of about fifty Chinese students an overview of public speaking.  Then, because the university wanted us to teach “like typical American professors,” (I thought:  I can do that), I pulled out the bag-o-speech-topics that is always a sure-fire hit back at Penn State Lehigh Valley.  I even toned down the exuberance with which I invited students to the front of the class to make an impromptu speech, realizing that they are accustomed to a more subdued teaching style.  After what seemed like the labor and delivery of both of my children, Igor (his American name) rose to his feet and approached me and my “speech bag.”  He put his hand in (no peeking) and pulled out chopsticks.  In a cogent, entertaining style he said that chopsticks are meant to be used together, which is something that is useful in other areas of life.  After I praised his presentation he said, “I am not a very good speaker.”

Of course, I disagree!  Not only is Igor a good speaker, he gave me my first “take-away” of the trip:  “People should be like chopsticks and work together!”  (Thank you, Igor.)    Even more profound, the class cemented in my life forever (and gave me a good real life example for the next time I teach) the lesson I had taught for decades:  The United States is an individualistic society, and China is a collectivist society.  I get it now.