Leadership Quote by Charlotte Bunch

The line lands like a friendly correction to a slogan. Charlotte Bunch isn’t arguing against “women leaders” as a goal; she’s warning how easily representation gets sold as a substitute for politics. The first sentence speaks in the language of broad consensus, the kind that fits on a conference banner. The second sentence tightens the screws: leadership without a project is just a new face on an old machine.

Bunch’s intent is strategic, shaped by decades of feminist organizing where institutions learned to absorb critique by hiring it. Put a woman in the room, take the photo, declare progress, keep the agenda. Her “But” calls out tokenism without having to name it. It also pushes back on a narrower careerist feminism that treats power as an individual achievement rather than a lever for structural change. “A vision for something” sounds almost plainspoken, but it’s doing real work: it demands a direction, a constituency, an ethic. Vision implies risk, conflict, priorities - the things diversity initiatives often try to avoid.

The subtext is also a challenge to audiences who want feel-good milestones. If women leaders replicate the same economic, racial, or militarized priorities, representation becomes a shield for the status quo. Coming from a human rights activist associated with global feminist networks, the context is one where “women’s empowerment” can be embraced by governments and NGOs precisely when it is emptied of redistributive, anti-violence, or anti-imperial demands. Bunch’s sentence is a reminder: the point isn’t who holds the microphone; it’s what they plan to say, and who they’re willing to disrupt to say it.