Gay, Female & Iconic: Author Fran Liebowitz Talks Back On Today's Pushbacks
Author and speaker Fran Liebowitz at a recent event at Northwestern University.
“It is so much harder to be a girl now than when I was growing up,” says Fran Liebowitz, 75, author, actress and outspoken public critic on the subjects of gender, bias, identity, work, democracy, popular culture and the future.
Today’s culture is perilous, she says, speaking in a packed Northwestern University’s Cahn Auditorium in Evanston outside of Chicago. “It is not perfect, it is not even good. It’s all misogyny. A lot is about being anti-woke.”
“Author Fran Liebowitz on today’s divisive culture: “It is not perfect, it is not even good. It’s all misogyny. A lot is about being anti-woke.” @NorthwesternU @takeleadwomen #genderbias #backlash”
In the same week as her 75th birthday, and her tour selling her books including The Fran Liebowitz Reader, there was indeed a high profile setback for women in leadership of Fortune 500 companies.
“Priscilla Almodovar exited as CEO of Fannie Mae. It was announced that Toni Townes-Whitley was out as CEO of Science Applications International Corp, or SAIC. A Now, the Fortune 500 is left with 52 female chief executives, down from 55,” Fortune reports.
This backslide to the past for gender equity progress has been increasing with the legislation against DEI and a fear of repercussions if diversity is embraced.
“Take The Lead’s mission since 2013 is #gender and racial #equity in #leadership across all industries, inclusive of all identities for best possible outcomes. @takeleadwomen ”
“The share of new female board appointments at S&P 500 companies fell from 41 per cent in 2024 to 37 per cent in the first five months of this year, the lowest level in six years, according to the Conference Board, a think-tank, “ Financial Times reports. “The drop in female appointments at board level serves to highlight a broader pullback in corporate America’s gender diversity efforts as the Trump administration cracks down on progressive causes.”
The FT reports, “According to a March survey of 864 managers across the US by Resume Builder, a CV app, 24 per cent of respondents said women had received less respect in the workplace since Trump took office in January.”
“ March survey of 864 US managers by @ResumeBuilder: 24% said women received less respect in the workplace since new White House admin took office in January.” #bias #divide #politics #women #workplace ”
A similar retreat in progress for LGBTQ individuals is also in place, says Liebowitz, who identifies as gay. “You need to express outrage,” she says. “People in power have no intention of making it safer for gays, with hatred of trans. And this is not a majority of people. If it’s not you, why do you care?”
Gloria Feldt, co-founder and president of Take The Lead says progress does happen, even when barriers stall forward motion.
“Change is after all an unpredictable process, hinging on social, cultural, and political shifts that can take generations to realize,” Feldt says. “But when change seemingly happens quickly (even when it has been in the making for many years, such as the gay rights movement from Stonewall to the US Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision legalizing same sex marriage) there is almost always a pivotal moment, an unexpected event when movements gains momentum, and what seemed impossible becomes inevitable.”
“Change is after all an unpredictable process, hinging on social, cultural, and political shifts that can take generations to realize,” says Gloria Feldt, co-founder, prez @takeleadwomen. #change #cultural ”
Growing up in the 1950s, Liebowitz says, there was silence and secrecy about being gay. “When I was young, it was against the law to be gay,” Liebowitz says. “Everything comes back like platform shoes. And they were never a good idea.”
Read more in Take The Lead from Susan Arnot Heaney on progress
She adds, “Do what you want, be who you are, tell me what to call you and I’ll call you that.”
But unfortunately, diversity, equity, inclusion, tolerance and acceptance are on the decline in this country.
“In May of this year, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas vacated portions of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) workplace harassment guidance. Specifically, he rejected sections that protected transgender employees from being denied bathroom access that matches their gender identity, being deliberately misgendered, or being prevented from dressing according to their gender identity,” according to Outsmart magazine.
Read more in Take The Lead on LGBTQ fairness
This reverses the 2020 Supreme Court of The United States ruling “that Title VII’s prohibition against sex discrimination in employment covers discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.” According to the ruling, “An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex,” Outsmart reports.
“You need to express outrage.” Liebowitz says. “People in power have no intention of making it safer for gays. There is hatred of trans, who are not a majority of people. If it’s not you, why do you care?” she asks.
“You need to express outrage. People in power have no intention of making it safer for gays. There is hatred of trans, who are not a majority of people,” says Fran Liebowitz, #author #LGBTQbias #antitrans ”
Liebowitz uses her dry, sarcastic humor speaking around the world about current topics and the state of the world—as she sees it. She offers no apologies or excuses.
Read more in Take The Lead on inclusion
“I only know what it’s like to be me,” Liebowitz says. “I was a child in the 1950s. On all my report cards it says, ‘Francis asks too many questions.’”
“No Excuses is a Leadership Power Tool @takeleadwomen and is part of the courses, training, and mentorship for women addressing their careers and shaping their futures. https://www.taketheleadwomen.com/foryou.”
Liebowitz is still asking and answering questions as she did in her event held on the Northwestern campus, in her conversation with NU adjunct, journalist and filmmaker Josh Karp.
The 2010 documentary series she did with Martin Scorsese, “Pretend It’s A City,” was a thrTaje The Leadee-part back and forth with the acclaimed filmmaker. Liebowitz says he recently contacted her to make a second documentary with him. She says, “Why make two documentaries about the same person unless it’s George Washington?”
Read more in Take The Lead on women making documentaries
She is an author of several books, including her first, Metropolitan Life in 1978, followed by Social Studies in 1981, and a children’s book, Mr. Chas and Lisa Sue Meet the Pandas, and several more including collaboration—and she writes by hand..
What many may find surprising is that Liebowitz cannot type. “I have no cell phone or computer. They say I’m a luddite, but I have a lifelong antipathy to machines. I do not know how to type,” she says. “Stop showing me stuff on your phone.”
There is a FranCon in New York City every fall, she says, when everyone who cares to dresses like Liebowitz—jeans, button-down shirt, blazer, cowboy boots and trench coat. “Yes, people in New York dress up like me,” she says. “I will not defend the indefensible.”
At a time when there is a rush to ban certain books from libraries, schools and higher education curriculum, Liebowitz says this is unconscionable. “I would have had a whole different life if I didn’t have a library card,” she says. “The only thing I like to buy is books.”
“I would have had a whole different life if I didn’t have a library card. The only thing I like to buy is books.” #FranLiebowitz #author #liraries #books #bookbans”
Read more in Take The Lead on libraries
According to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, GLAAD, “The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA), alleging that schools on U.S. military bases have engaged in widespread censorship by removing books and altering curricula related to race, gender identity and sexual orientation, and civil rights.”
“School librarians are the backbone of democracy,” Liebowitz said.
Read more in Take The Lead on libraries
As a bestselling author for nearly 50 years, Liebowitz has many author friends, but few as important to her than her friend of 40 years, the late Toni Morrison. “She had the biggest humanity of anyone I’ve ever known. We talked on the phone four to five times a week. She was two of my four closest friends.”
Answering questions from the audience for more than one hour, Liebowitz demonstrated her razor-sharp wit and lightning-fast retorts.
“The idea of America is immigration. The big divide in this country is of people who like cities and people who don’t. And it’s a hatred of different kinds of people. You don’t have to like each other, just leave each other alone and there will be the least amount of ethnic violence,” Liebowitz says.
“The idea of America is immigration. The big divide in this country is a hatred of different kinds of people. You don’t have to like each other, just leave each other alone and there will be the least amount of ethnic violence,” #FranLiebowitz #diversity #DEI #divisive @takeleadwomen”
Read more in Take The Lead on the power of marching on issues
Going back to the idea of regression for gender, racial and identity equity and acceptance, the author says, “The country has made it clear we are not going to have a woman president. So pick a straight, white, gentile man. We have no shortage of them.”
Read more from Gloria Feldt on moving forward during chaos
Addressing her age, a member of the audience asked her about her wellness plan towards the end of her life.
“By that, do you mean when I die?”
She adds, “It used to be that you were healthy or sick. Wellness to me is like extra health,” Liebowitz says. “Whatever is wrong with me is all I can handle.”
Just as she is writing, speaking out and pointing to lies, hypocrisies and danger inflicted on Americans and others across the world, she says, attention, effort and action need to happen to make change and reverse the backslide into harmful politics and division. People need to be accountable for the destruction caused and the harm that is happening in this country and in the world.
Read more in Take The Lead on immigration
“Humans are the cause of every problem. No one has ever blamed the giraffes.”
