Nancy Gibbs Quotes

Of course a magazine is shaped by its editor, and each editor is different.

I'd like to see where boys and girls end up if they get equal encouragement - I think we might have some differences in how leadership is done.

At 'GQ,' there was never a temptation to pander or preach to the choir because I had no concept of who the reader was or what that reader might want.

That the Op-Ed page is very important in readers' and the nation's perception of the Times, the perception of its editorial positions, and of its implicit editorial positions as expressed by the publisher's choice of people who are given the freedom to write opinion columns.

You're at the mercy of the editors' hands.

It is important to have a woman editor. Movie is an industry where it is predominantly women. Male editors might cut out pauses that are interesting, while a woman might not be afraid of that pause. Trying to do a movie with an editor who is not funny is impossible. There are certain talents that go with certain genders.

You’re not buying news when you buy The New York Times. You’re buying judgment.

Vision is an important part of being a good editor, but so is teamwork and grace.

In my personal life I'm not very tough at all, but in my professional life, having to deal with being a woman in a man's world, I'm really tough. I never back down from a fight or an argument. I'm willing to stand there toe to toe with anyone.

I'm not just a female chef. I'm a woman in a brand new hotel, and that's why I think it's so perfect to be at the Cromwell, in a corner of one of the busiest intersections of the world, with my name in lights. It's different in all those sorts of ways, and I'm hoping I'll be able to carry that through. Because if I can't, it's a step back for women in general. People will say - men will say - "See, that's why it's mostly men".

There's a ton of academic literature that shows people are much more critical of female leaders than they are of male leaders. They're much less tolerant of female ambition, much more threatened by female power.

Leadership is the catalytic gift that energizes, directs, and empowers all the other gifts.

The problem with most leaders today is they don't stand for anything. Leadership implies movement toward something, and convictions provide that direction. If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything

[Bill Shawn] had always been in The New Yorker immaculately dressed - quietly, immaculately dressed, very soft-spoken. On the phone I could hardly hear him sometimes.

I have often been asked whether I am a women or an athlete. The question is absurd. Men are not asked that. I am an athlete. I am a women.

I don't face any particular problems as a woman president because I have been a professional for a long time. I keep telling people: I am a technocrat who happens to be a woman.

Women, as the minority, have to prove their worth all the time. That's the reason we tend to over-prepare, over-study, over-anticipate. I think it's the case with many women leaders. We tend to over do it.

Go to a playground: Little girls get called 'bossy' all the time, a word that's almost never used for boys. And that leads directly to the problems women face in the workforce. When a man does a good job, everyone says, 'That's great.' When a woman does that same thing, she'll get feedback that says things like, 'Your results are good, but your peers just don't like you as much' or 'maybe you were a little aggressive.'

The things that hold women back, hold them back from sitting at the boardroom table and they hold women back from speaking at the PTA meeting.

I've seen it in so many talented young women who hold back because they're not sure that what they say will be smart enough. Or maybe they've said something in a prior meeting, and people acted like they hadn't said it, and that was crushing. Then we have all had the experience where 20 minutes later, a man says the same thing and everybody responds positively.... So don't take it personally. Take it seriously so that you understand it, and then try to devise techniques to overcome it.

Why would people have confidence in a female director when there are so few?

It's time to take the 'Men Only' sign off the White House door.

I have always said, in my own rise in the leadership, please don't ever ask anybody to vote for me because I'm a woman.

Women still have an uneasy relationship with power and the traits necessary to be a leader. There is this internalized fear that if we are really powerful, we are going to be considered ruthless or pushy or strident - all of those epithets that strike right at our femininity. We are still working at trying to overcome the fear that power and womanliness are mutually exclusive.

The American press is, and always has been, a booster press, its editorial pages characteristically advancing the same arguments as the paid advertising copy.