The Art of Power: My Story as America’s First Woman Speaker of the House

“While speaking with the legendary Louisiana congresswoman Lindy Boggs, I mentioned that I thought I had too many titles—three—and should probably give one up. In her lovely drawl, Lindy replied, ‘Darlin’, no man would ever make that statement.’ ‘Know thy power,’ she said, ‘and use it.’ I never forgot that vital lesson.”

As a woman who occupied the third-most powerful position in the United States as speaker, Pelosi is a trailblazer in American politics. In this quote, she describes a mentor’s perspective on The Challenges of Navigating Gender Norms, namely, that women who wish to be powerful must get in the habit of self-promotion. This is one of the many lessons Pelosi learned from female mentors.

“As he spoke, my chair started to feel crowded, and I had the sensation of being surrounded. It was as if I were being joined by the great women’s rights activists and leaders Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, and Alice Paul. I was not alone in my chair; all of them were sitting with me saying, At last, we have a seat at the table. My next thought was, ‘We want more.’ More women. More diversity. More seats at the table.”

Pelosi explicitly situates her rise to power as a progression from the work of previous women in politics, which reflects The Challenges of Navigating Gender Norms. Invoking this tradition naturalizes the idea of women in power. Pelosi also references the idea of paying forward the strength she received from that tradition by recruiting more women for political office. This commitment to expanding opportunities for women is an important part of the progressive ideology Pelosi espouses throughout the memoir.

“From housewife to House member to House Speaker, I certainly would never have broken the marble ceiling without Paul’s support, encouragement, and love. And I would never have done it if I thought it would one day cause him to risk his own life.”

Pelosi uses a new metaphor—“the marble ceiling,” a play on the phrase “glass ceiling”—to describe the barriers women have faced in the halls of government, which are frequently laden with marble. Pelosi also brings in personal detail and connects it to her political life. A willingness to address the connection between the personal and the political is a hallmark of modern feminist political thought. Finally, Pelosi references the great cost to Paul of Pelosi’s role in politics. Acknowledging the cost is meant to make her seem more authentic and personable.

“Amid this poisonous rhetoric, I also do not hear serious, sustained calls by the other side saying that threats of political violence and personal demonization are unacceptable. This is not the way our country should be—if you engage in public service, you should not be a target, and your family should not be a target.”

Pelosi is first and foremost Democrat. As she does here and throughout the book, she portrays Republicans as people who have largely abandoned important values like civility, which she believes should be central to The Nature of Leadership and Power. This kind of partisanship is a frequent feature of political memoirs.

“My reply was no, thank you. I told them that women had been waiting for more than two hundred years, which made our timeline a heck of a lot longer than theirs. But I also said to my fellow members that I didn’t want anyone to vote for me because I was a woman or vote against me because I was a woman.”

Pelosi uses several rhetorical appeals in this quote. She offers a logical argument to support the idea that it was her turn to take on leadership of her caucus. She also presents herself as a person who believes in, and expects, fairness in how she is measured. This quote also highlights how frequently Pelosi encountered The Challenges of Navigating Gender Norms in politics.

“Recognizing the differences among our caucus members, I considered myself a weaver at the loom. Every member is an essential thread in the tapestry our caucus is weaving. The beauty is in the mix […] This leads from my vision of the loom to another key metaphor in my approach: the kaleidoscope. I’ve always professed that in Congress, we know that after a vote is over, tomorrow is another day. As with a kaleidoscope, the coalition that works in one design is not necessarily replicated in another combination.”

Pelosi uses two metaphors to describe her role as speaker and The Dynamics of Political Negotiation and Conflict. This use of figurative language shows her facility with language—a key skill for a politician—and her effort to make what may seem like arcane legislative maneuvers more comprehensible for her audience of lay readers. The image of collaboration between House members as a beautiful tapestry of many threads also offers her the opportunity to highlight the diversity that is at the heart of progressive ideology.

“Whatever differences occur in the legislative debate, it is always important to respect others’ points of view—but it is necessary to trust that the people you are working with speak the truth. ‘Truth’ is a word that Donald Trump exploits but never engages in.”

Pelosi’s theory of The Dynamics of Political Negotiation and Conflict is that decision-making and negotiation have to happen in the context of a shared ethical framework. Her negative assessment of Donald Trump is based on her sense that he does not share with her fundamental American values.

“In some ways, however, Trump is a manifestation of a larger problem in our political life, one that has been slowly metastasizing: greed. Trump has a greed for power, but from my early days in Congress, I saw how greed for markets, at the expense of human rights and the inhumanity of prison labor, drove our China policy. In the 2008 economic crisis, it was the greed of too many financial institutions whose pursuit of profits put average Americans and their livelihoods and homes at risk […] [T]here is Trump’s selfish greed or sense of entitlement that we saw on display after the 2020 election and when rioters attacked the Capitol on January 6.”

Pelosi extends her discussion of ethics and power by identifying what she sees as a dangerous trend in American political and economic life. The anti-corporate, anti-big business elements of these ethics reflect her belief in progressive policies. This ideology appears throughout the memoir.

“By the time of the Iraq War, I had ten years of experience studying and reviewing intelligence. Due to my committee and leadership roles, I also had access to the highest levels of reports and briefings from the complete intelligence community that were offered to members of Congress. Based on everything my experienced intelligence staff and I had seen, read, and been told, I did not believe that the president and his administration were being fully transparent with the American people when it came to Iraq. My position was simply this: ‘The intelligence does not support the threat.’”

Part of Pelosi’s task as a woman in power is to establish credibility in the face of norms that do not support the idea of women in power. Here, she relies on having done her homework—studied the topics on which she is legislating—to show that she made informed decisions as a legislator. She also uses the direct quote at the end of this passage as the chapter title. That rhetorical choice reminds the reader that the facts eventually bore out her perspective and, thus, further enhances her credibility.

“He had served in Vietnam and had achieved the rank of four-star general. He had served as national security advisor in the Reagan administration and had been chairman of the Joint Chiefs under George H. W. Bush, overseeing the earlier Gulf War. As I listened, I thought Secretary Powell was ill-served by his security staff, who had to know that the proof was not there.”

Pelosi presents Colin Powell as a profoundly ethical man who made poor decisions because he lacked good information from his support staff about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Pelosi is pointing out the importance of good and ethical support staff when wielding political power. A less- generous interpretation of Powell’s actions would be that he, too, lied to the American and international public, but she gives him the benefit of the doubt.

“The post-9/11 resolution’s final language shows how important a few words can be in crafting meaningful legislation […] Congress ensured that the focus remained on 9/11 and ‘international’ terrorism; the word ‘aggression’ was removed, and we specified that the targets had to remain individuals, organizations, or nations that could be directly connected to September 11.”

Pelosi gets into the nitty gritty of legislating by explaining the choices she and her peers made in crafting legislation that restrained George W. Bush. Moments like these demonstrate her prowess as a legislator and The Dynamics of Political Negotiation and Conflict.

“If we as Americans do not speak out about human rights in China because of commercial interests, then we lose all moral authority to speak out about human rights abuses in any other country in the world. This position has put me at odds with every administration to occupy the White House, Republican and Democrat. It has put me at odds with members of my own party.”

This is an argument based on ethics, a key element of Pelosi’s approach to The Nature of Leadership and Power. Pelosi also makes it clear here that sometimes wielding power ethically requires a willingness to engage in conflict, and a willingness to negotiate with people who are not ordinarily one’s allies.

“Together, Rep. Ben Jones, Democrat of Georgia, and Rep. John Miller, a Republican from Washington State, and I stood in Tiananmen Square and unfurled a small, hand-painted black fabric banner emblazoned with the words ‘To those who died for democracy in China,’ in English and Chinese characters. It was a simple, silent protest, but there were journalists present to cover and film what we did.”

Pelosi also relies on public gestures as a means to use her power to do good. Her decision to stage the protest in front of cameras shows her use of the media to advance her agenda.

“The DC lawyers and lobbyists—many on the payroll of the Chinese government—have thanked me for sending their children to college. But if I do say so immodestly, my knowledge of China is second to none in Congress: I’ve spent at least an hour every day for three decades doing my homework on China, reading and consuming information on issues from human rights to nuclear proliferation to trade.”

Pelosi is directly countering a gendered norm—that women should be modest in claiming credit in public spaces. She acknowledges the norm but violates it. That double movement is how she addresses The Challenges of Navigating Gender Norms.

“The value of protecting homes and the people who work and sweat and save to buy them has a special meaning to me personally. In fact, it’s in my DNA. For my entire childhood, my father, Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., was the mayor of Baltimore. My mother, Nancy, made affordable housing her personal priority as First Lady of Baltimore.”

Pelosi humanizes herself by including details about her childhood, attributing her special care for housing issues to what she learned from her parents. This passage reinforces Pelosi’s idea that The Nature of Leadership and Power requires politicians who care for the average citizen.

“From my time as the Democratic whip, I learned that if I fed my members, it put everyone in a good mood and made them feel welcome. I’m Italian, so offering food is also in my nature; our motto was ‘First, we eat.’ While I was Speaker, we had breakfasts, lunches, and dinners […] But sometimes, when it came to the health care debate, if the meetings got contentious or long-winded, I’d have to consider: Do I supply food to improve the mood—or deny food to bring the discussion to an end?”

Pelosi here occupies a traditionally feminine role—a nurturer—in this passage. At the same time, she is relying on that role to manage the process of legislation. Her point here is that there is no contradiction between being a woman who is nurturing and being a person who exercises power over people, thereby highlighting another tactic of how she deals with The Challenges of Navigating Gender Norms.

“I’m still bothered by Republican accusations that we had not read our own bill—the meetings we held were not a secret. Perhaps in accusing us, the Republicans were simply projecting their own poor practices in policymaking and procedural shortcomings.”

One key purpose of the political memoir is to burnish the legacy of the writer or to justify controversial decisions (See: Background). Pelosi addresses a widely-believed criticism of the process she used to get the Affordable Care Act passed. She is protecting her legacy when she makes statements like these. She also takes this as an opportunity to denigrate Republicans, which she frequently does as a Democratic partisan.

“But before I could be recognized, Paul Ryan pulled his own bill—because he did not have the votes. One lesson in successful legislating that should be observed: the Speaker should only bring a bill to the floor when he has the votes—not simply on the anniversary of when I had the votes.”

Pelosi uses humor to make her points—a disarming strategy here that belies what she is actually doing, which is to compare her record with Ryan’s and find his wanting. Pelosi has learned the art of owning her power.

“Here, I want to state clearly, because there have been so many mistruths, including, sadly, from Republican members of Congress: The National Guard is under the control of the executive branch. In my capacity as House Speaker, I had no authority to call up the Guard for anything, just as then-Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell had no authority to call up the Guard. The only entity that can formally request—but cannot call up—the Guard is the three-member Capitol Police Board—the two sergeants at arms and the Capitol Police chief. Mitch, Chuck, and I repeatedly asked that the Guard be sent to the Capitol.”

Pelosi shows her deep knowledge of the institutions in which she plays a role. Knowing this kind of information is another example of her having done her homework. She is defending against people who are ignorant of how these institutions function. In doing so, she attempts to more fully establish her own credibility.

“Trump, who instigated the plot, didn’t know enough about our government to realize that presidential electors sign a total of six ballots. Only one set goes to the Capitol; the other five are sent to a variety of locations, including the National Archives, to be preserved.”

By Pelosi’s account, Donald Trump lacked basic knowledge of the institutions of government and their processes. She highlights that gap to diminish a man who is arguably one of her greatest political nemeses and to portray him as incompetent. She uses him as a foil to what she believes The Nature of Leadership and Power should be.

“On January 6, just as I had done as a young girl all those years ago, I looked up at the Capitol dome and saw that our flag was still there. And on that dark January night, under our nation’s flag, Congress came together to fulfill our oath of office and project America’s strength and resolve.”

Pelosi uses direct quotes and allusions to “The Star-Spangled Banner” in the title of this chapter and throughout this chapter. That appeal to patriotism is designed to build community with her audience and contextualize her actions on January 6 as a victory for democracy.

“But just as important: the victories that President Biden signed into law are under assault—by Big Pharma, by Big Oil, by the gun lobby, by extreme Republicans, and by Donald Trump. That’s why, as President Biden has declared, we must ‘Finish the Job.’”

At the time of the publication of the book, Joe Biden was president and a member of Pelosi’s political party. Pelosi’s ideological commitment to her party and to progressivism are on display here, with her partisanship reflective of a common element of political memoirs (See: Background).

“Because leadership means never being content with history, when you can and must make progress.”

As a progressive, Pelosi is committed to using government to drive change. This quote, found in the last chapter of the book, is one of her final statements about The Nature of Leadership and Power, with her presenting the purpose of power as making progress.