Susan Markham’s Twitter bio perhaps sums up her professional journey most aptly. She is a policy expert, advocate and political strategist who “understands the power of women and girls”. Susan is also the co-founder of Smash Strategies, an organization committed to helping businesses, foundations and philanthropists craft sustainable and creative solutions to complex challenges where they are able to effectively tap the underutilized power of women and girls, and invest in game-changing ideas.
Growing up in Ohio with three siblings, she said her family wasn’t particularly political, and that her parents would not tell them how they voted, but the family watched the national news and discussed current events every night when they sat down together for dinner. She went to college in Ohio before moving to Washington DC and getting involved in politics. It was while studying for her graduate degree in Public Policy and Women’s Studies, that she started to focus in on women running for political office in the US.
She adds, “At this point in the early 90s there were just four women in the Senate (out of 100) and 28 in the House (out of 435). So my Master’s thesis focused on women’s experience as candidates. I interviewed women and asked THEM if they thought about gender in their campaigns. After that, I wanted to become a Political Science professor focused on this issue, but thought I should have some first-hand experience on a political campaign.”
But after working in the US politics out on the campaign trail and in Washington for political organizations, Susan was feeling very cynical about her country’s political system. A great overseas trip helped her see a bigger picture - how the rest of the world worked and how the US appeared to others.
“I realized is that for most women, running for office was a crazy luxury. If a woman doesn’t have access to clean water or her kids are hungry or sick, she simply doesn’t have the capacity or time to be involved in politics.”
“I had the opportunity to go work for the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and spent four years helping to increase women’s political participation, as voters, activists, candidates, and officeholders. But what I realized is that for most women, running for office was a crazy luxury. If a woman doesn’t have access to clean water or her kids are hungry or sick, she simply doesn’t have the capacity or time to be involved in politics. Moreover, oftentimes, the women I met felt that the political system didn’t work for them so that running for office was not worth it.
So, I had the opportunity to join USAID as the Senior Coordinator for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment and I jumped at it. There, I tried to help my colleagues in the democracy bureau value the work of the Agency around health, education, energy and other issues so that women would have the chance to think about politics. I also tried to convince my colleagues working in these more traditional areas of development that without good governance, their work was unsustainable.”
In January 2017 along with her partner Stephenie Foster, Susan started Smash Strategies using their combined knowledge from the last couple of decades to help both for-profit and not-for-profit groups think about gender as they make business and philanthropic decisions.
They feel using this “gender lens” makes the work both more impactful and sustainable.
“I think the hardest part is that folks think of gender issues as a “nice to have” on the margin of their work. We were talking to a tech executive who was very excited about the work of Smash but said ‘This is great, but I’m focused now on increasing our online membership.’ He totally missed the point! We were saying that if he thought about offline networks of women and girls that ALREADY exist or how women might use his app differently then he would be creatively expanding his business. Sometimes it can be frustrating. If you’re taking 50 percent of the population into account when you’re doing politics or creating new products, you’re really missing the boat.”
Furthermore, as the leader of the US, President Donald Trump has shown through his words and deed that he does not believe in equality between men and women. “He has an out-of-date notion about the roles we should play in society and he’s creating an administration (both with the people he is appointing and the actions they are taking) to roll back the progress we have made towards equality in the US Donald Trump is also a racist, so his actions exponentially affect women of color, LGBTQI folks, those with different abilities, etc.”
Susan feels that what sometimes keeps people from embracing feminism is the thought that if women gain rights or if we expand gender roles in our society, then men will somehow lose their place. Whereas she thinks of it as not taking away their part of the pie, but just making the pie bigger for everyone.
“A woman CANNOT work the first shift at a job AND the second shift at home with both physical and emotional exhaustion. Men have got to step up to play a greater role at home, but it shouldn’t penalize him in any way.”
She explains, “When women started working outside the home in really big numbers in the US, our economy benefitted and families had more money to spend. The problem is that while women worked more hours outside of the home, they were still working the same number of hours at home with the kids, cooking, laundry, etc. We need to adjust our roles to adjust to this new reality. A woman CANNOT work the first shift at a job AND the second shift at home with both physical and emotional exhaustion. Men have got to step up to play a greater role at home, but it shouldn’t penalize him in any way. That informal work will help the whole family. The current gender roles are restrictive for men and women. I just want a more equal world.”
Looking ahead to the 2018 legislative and 2020 presidential elections in the US, she hopes that more people will understand that government at the federal, state and local levels plays a very important role in their lives - helping with health care, keeping water and air clean, cleaning up after natural disasters for example.
She hopes they understand that government is not something being done TO them, but that they can play a role in their communities to make it better by going to local meetings, reaching out to their elected officials or even running for office themselves.
“I hope that we will see a record number of women running for office and winning to show Donald Trump and his Republican colleagues that we (men and women) will not allow for a rollback of women’s rights in this country.”
In the coming years, Susan says, we will see a new global women’s movement that shows how a threat to women’s rights anywhere is a threat to human rights everywhere – “I think we can use new technologies to increase communications between activists and use new data to show the importance of gender equality in fighting climate change and bringing peace and stability to the world.
Also Read: ‘Women Need To Challenge and Disrupt Norms’, Says Vidya Shah
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