As part of Time magazine’s “firsts” issue, it interviewed “women who are changing the world,” one of whom, its staff decided, is Kellyanne Conway. The first woman to run a successful presidential campaign, Conway talked about her entry into Republican politics, where she said “my gender was an immediate source of curiosity.”
“In Republican politics, particularly 20 some years ago, there were few women,” she went on. “There were few women consultants, there were few women candidates, there were certainly few women congressmen and officeholders.” In fact, she compared the political scene to “walking into the men’s locker room at the Elks Club, holding a bachelor party.”
Eventually, she learned how to fit in: “My comfort level came in learning how to think like a man and to behave like a lady,” she said. Her uphill struggle apparently resonated with her children, who she says were a bit confused as to why she wasn’t supporting Hillary Clinton in the presidential race. Conway said she had to explain to her three daughters and one son — all under the age of 12 — “why mommy, who’s a woman, did not support the first female presidential candidate from a major party.”
She explained it like this:
I would tell them that I respect very much that Secretary Clinton was running for president, and it showed that in this country anybody can do anything if they set their mind to it. At the same time, I tried to explain to them that you can be excited for someone with whom you disagree.
How else do you get to be, as Conway puts it, “the highest ranking non-relative female in [Donald Trump’s] White House?”
