“I could tell you a great way that my gender has helped me with the president,” she told Business Insider. “I’m actually unafraid to express my mind, but I do it very respectfully. Very respectfully and very deferentially.”

Conway told an audience at the Women Rule Summit in Washington that she’s able to deliver bad news “with a big smile,” but without “sugarcoating.” (It was Conway who broke the news to Trump about the release of the Access Hollywood video in October.)

“I think there’s a femininity that is attached to the way one carries herself or the way one executes on her duties,” she told Business Insider.

In a New York Times profile of Hicks, one of Trump’s longest-serving political aides whom Politico has called the president’s “gatekeeper and security blanket,” Trump described Hicks’ interactions with him in similar terms.

“She will often give advice, and she’ll do it in a very low-key manner, so it doesn’t necessarily come in the form of advice,” Trump said. “But it’s delivered very nicely.”