Raised in a family where men worked hard and
women knew their place, Swanee Hunt understood
early on that to make a difference, she
would have to fight constraints that governed
everyday life. In the end it came down to less a struggle of will
and more a conviction of righteousness and steadfastness.
Hunt, daughter of oil baron H.L. Hunt and an heir to the
Hunt family fortune, has toiled tirelessly to make her mark in
a man’s world, bringing hundreds of thousands of other
women along on her journey. Much of her work has been
through The Women’s Foundation of Colorado, an organization
formed by a group of visionaries who understood that
collectively women of influence could wield power that a
woman standing alone could only imagine.
Long an icon in Denver’s giving circles, Hunt is so much
more than a philanthropist who writes a check and moves on
to the next charity of choice. She becomes ensconced in a
cause and, on occasion, has created the cause itself when the
need existed but the mechanism was not yet in place.
Take, for instance, her tenure as President Clinton’s United
States ambassador to Austria, which led to a complete redefining
of the atrocities being faced by women and their families in
Bosnia. “Here I was living in Vienna, yet a horrible war was being
waged next door. It was a call to action for me,” she recalls.
Hunt uses the following example to aptly describe how the
war affected her on a personal level: “How can you be living
in Topeka and know there is a horrible war taking place in
Amarillo? And then say, ‘Thanks, I’ll have another piece of
Sacher torte’? There were 70,000 refugees straining across
the border, and it was unlike anything I could have imagined,”
she says.
This revelation was in 1994, and it is chronicled in two works
of nonfiction that were penned by Hunt. The first, This Was Not
Our War, describes the efforts of 26 Bosnian women representing
all facets of society who are united in a common struggle to
rebuild their fractured society. The second book, Half-Life of a
Zealot, provides stunning autobiographical revelations about
the events that shaped the life of this remarkable woman,
including candid portraits of her family in all its stages.
What emerges from her writing is a clear picture of a
woman with a lifelong passion for lifting the less fortunate to
a higher level, a woman who refuses to take no for an answer
and who looks at every obstacle as a challenge that must be
met and overcome.
Now in her late 50s, Hunt shows no sign of slowing down,
and in fact was a major presence at the recent Democratic
National Convention, where she hosted a stimulating daylong
event called Unconventional Women. The nonpartisan
conference featured House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and was
designed to inspire future generations of women leaders.
Her actions speak so much louder than her words, which
in themselves are more powerful than those of the most
dynamic orator. Her voice is a commanding presence: wellmodulated
and confident and filled with warmth that commands
a room and holds those around her in rapt attention.
“Whatever I’ve tried to do in my life has been about
change,” she explains. One of the more telling examples of her
passion to set things right occurred in 1994, when in her role as
ambassador she was asked to host negotiations between leaders
of Bosnia and Croatia, then in the midst of a brutal conflict
that had killed or displaced more than 2 million Bosnians. Hunt
took the burden upon her shoulders, and today still wonders,
“How could I have let that happen? There are very powerful
forces of exclusion, and we don’t even see them. It means that
those of us who care about long-term systemic change have to
take this on as part of our mission to ensure women’s voices are
fully heard. There must be leadership, and we can never
assume anything. In any change there are certain people who,
because of their experiences or their hard wiring, are willing to
be in the first 3 percent. Others must be convinced, but they will
be willing to be in the next 10 percent. But others will not join
until the masses are involved.”
But change can occur, Hunt believes, if in the end there are
enough believers who will step up and fight. “The leaders in
any fight are the ones who are willing to step up and say the
unpopular while others stick to the safer ground. It doesn’t matter
what topic you’re talking about, but it really must be looked
at through a gender lens, and the question must be asked, ‘Will
this affect women differently than men?’ This brings a different
weight to any question, regardless of the subject,” she says.
During her years with the Clinton administration, Hunt met
and interacted with some of the country’s most influential
women, including first lady Hillary Clinton, Ambassador
Pamela Harriman and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
Whether these women were the impetus for Hunt’s zeal to place
women as part and parcel of the political process, or whether
they are simply affirmation of women’s potential, is not the
issue. What is much more telling is her unwavering commitment
to boost the number of women in high places, in business,
in public policy, anywhere they can make a difference.
“What this means is we can’t just throw up our hands and
say, ‘We lost that battle, so be it.’ Instead we must say that
whether it is attributable to external or internal reasons, women
are less confident, and we need to understand
what it will take to bolster that confidence,”
she says.
One way to empower these women,
Hunt believes, is to make sure they have
plenty of peer support and encouragement.
“Women do much better in groups
because they have different brain chemistry
than men,” she says. “This is an evolutionary
outcome, and given that, we
should encourage women to be part of a
group and to run in groups.” Here, she
points to EMILY’s List, a group that
empowers Democratic women and provides
resources for women to be elected
to higher positions in government. EMILY,
an acronym for Early Money Is Like Yeast,
literally pushes the idea of putting in
enough to make the dough rise. “So here
is an example of women joining with
other women to become part of a group,
and then playing off that strength to effect
huge change,” she comments.
Taking the idea of the collective power of women a step
further, Hunt points to the long-standing success of The
Women’s Foundation as yet another example of how even
small amounts of money can have a dramatic impact when
enough is contributed. “I was approached by two women in
the mid-1980s who said we need a women’s foundation to
further this cause. I ended up writing the largest check I’d
ever given, which at the time was $10,000. But then they said,
‘We were hoping you would organize this,” she recalls.
The goal of the foundation remains to fight the injustices
that women suffer and to alleviate that suffering. Or, as Hunt
puts it, “to unlock the power of women and to change our
entire society.
“Let me be clear that I was not the only one who initially
was responsible for forming the foundation,” Hunt says. “In
terms of hour-by-hour measure in the beginning, I probably
put in more hours than anyone else. But after the first four
years, there were just as many people putting in a lot of work
as well. And I’m not here to be humble about my participation,”
she continues. “I don’t do humble very well.
“What I do want to do is be loving, kind and respectful. If I
can do all of these, maybe it adds up to humble. But for women
in particular, trying to be humble can feed into the expectation
that she won’t demand anything or accomplish anything.
“When I was a girl I never imagined myself becoming a
woman,” she continues. “I wasn’t depressed or suicidal, but
I didn’t want to live past 20 because there wasn’t one woman
I knew who I wanted to be like. I didn’t have a single role
model. But then I got to college and started reading about
one woman or another and thought maybe, just maybe, I
could be like that woman. I tried to explain it to my mother,
and she kept giving me things that were
pink and lacy. I tried to make her understand
that I’m red and I’m blue. And she
took that literally and gave me things
that were bright red and blue!”
Married for the first time in her early
20s, Hunt was a product of her Southern
upbringing, one in which women were
taught to smile all the time and contribute
little. “But I was attracted to philosophy,
theology professors, men who were
thinkers. These were not considered
appropriate for a female,” she says.
When she married her first husband,
Mark Meeks, the couple would host and
attend dinner parties where “the men
would be in one room discussing theology,
and the women would be in the other
room discussing recipes, when they
would have babies, etc. I would be in with
the men, which made the women uncomfortable,
but the men seemed fine with
it,” she recalls.
Although her first marriage ended in
divorce at age 35, Hunt’s confidence and
passion continued to grow. She worked
tirelessly for causes such as mental
health (her daughter, Lillian, suffers from
bipolar disorder), completed her doctorate
in theology and eventually married
renowned conductor Charles Ansbacher,
with whom she later had a son.
For each success she has had along
the way, Hunt acknowledges at least two
failures. “But the failures are short-lived,
while the successes live on for decades,” she says. “The setbacks
are never huge because I’m in a group.”
Today, Hunt has no trouble acknowledging and paying tribute
to her husband, a man she calls her biggest cheerleader.
“He has always believed in me more than I believed in myself,”
she says. “He’ll see a situation and say, ‘You can solve that, you
can take that position.’ I would never have become ambassador
if not for Charles, and I owe him so much.”
It’s clear that Hunt will never stop working to right society’s
wrongs, to stamp out injustice and to help others who are
unable to help themselves. She elaborates, “One of the credos
I’ve tried to live by is to just do the next right thing. This is not
to say I don’t dream dreams and have a vision – I usually take
on tasks that are beyond what other people are comfortable taking
on. I can’t judge success that way, but if no one takes on the
undoable tasks, then we concede the injustice.
“It may sound grandiose, but I want to believe that at
least I am an inspiration for someone who is coming in
behind me who really will create a lasting solution. This is
not something that can be measured. Sometimes people
build great castles that look like they’ll last through time.
But go back a decade or two later and you’ll find that that
orchestra, that neighborhood is in dire disrepair. And the
opposite may hold true, whereby people who feel like
they’ve accomplished little in their lifetime may in reality
have opened up the door for incredible change.”
Now that Swanee Hunt the achiever has explained the reason
behind her remarkable achievements, what words of wisdom
can she impart to others who may be wondering how
they can do their small part to reach their ultimate potential?
“OK then, here is my advice to women,” she says.
“If you’re going to marry, choose very carefully.
“Get over the idea that you must be the 100-percent mom.
The whole idea of balance is the worst paradigm, and you
can accept the fact that there is no right balance. Go with
your gut and intuition, and as long as your kids are kept safe
and understand they are loved by you and by others, then
you’ve done your job. Beyond that it’s mostly icing.”
