It is one of the older and more uncomfortable patterns in working life: women in power sometimes pull the ladder up behind them, leaving the women coming after stranded.

Research shows it’s less about gender than about scarcity — about what happens when there are only so many seats at the table.

Danielle North has lived it. She’s a Detroit entrepreneur who’s spent the last decade building what the world didn’t give her: a childcare center, a college program for first-generation students, a women’s leadership network with 11,000 members.

North founded that network in 2014 after some of the hardest setbacks of her career came not from men, but from other women.

Fast forward to this moment, when Michigan has more women in power than ever: a woman governor, a woman secretary of state who has a good chance to be the next governor, a woman attorney general, a woman leading Detroit for the first ever. Many of them are here at the Mackinac Policy Conference this week. So today we’re asking: when women finally get power, how do they keep the door open for others?

North joined Robyn Vincent to discuss.

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