Madam Presidents

What happens after America elects its first female President? With history as their guide, Cristen and Caroline forecast to what extent a gender revolution in the Oval Office will affect long-term equality at large.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to stuff Mom Never told You from how stupp
works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline, and this is coming to you
on November seven, the day before the American presidential election

(00:25):
between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and in some places
Gary Johnson and Dr Jill Stein. So what else could
we possibly talk about than Madam President's Laurel. Yeah, that's right.
I As we were going over the notes for this episode,
I was thinking about how normal it had always seemed

(00:47):
to me growing up and even now as an adult,
even now as an adult, um, that women would lead
other countries. I mean, I grew up reading about female
world leaders, presidents, prime ministers, things like that Queen's um.
So it just never seems strange. Where it seems strange,

(01:07):
as when we came back to this country and we
had never had a female president, And it's not shocking
to me that it's taken a woman this long to
get an office in this country. UM, But the idea itself,
to me in general, just isn't that strange. Well, yeah,
it's not strange at all. Women are completely capable of

(01:30):
leading nation governments, period. But I like how you are
speaking as though Madam President Hillary Clinton already exists. So
I got my time machine for this episode right right,
you know. And honestly, it's been such to to use

(01:50):
a word that we often disparage on the podcast. It's
been such a hysterical election season, especially the past few weeks,
that I am honestly just bracing myself until November nine,
when Trump supporters, I hope you go out and vote
in mass um, because no, no, no, his vectors are

(02:12):
going out the ninth. It's totally fine. You can do
early voting on the ninth. You can wait until the
day of I don't care. Is my birthday that is
an amazing birthday present. Um, But I am just bracing
myself until the deal is done. So I'm I'm thankful
for your your optimism and ensure assuredness that this is happening. Well.

(02:40):
My strategy for surviving this has been to tune out
cable news, the twenty four hour news networks, all of
them equally. Um. My boyfriend NonStop when he is home,
has CNN on, and I just can't take it. It's punishing,
it is it is punishing, and I don't want to

(03:01):
it would be one thing, if I were watching or
listening to some sort of news outlet that was literally
giving me the news, giving me the facts I needed,
giving me policy, giving me, you know, things that could
help me as a voter in general, make up my mind,
decide how I feel about all sorts of Canadas, not

(03:22):
just the two people running for president. Um. But that
is not the case with the American cable news system,
and I just can't deal with it. So I get
on Twitter and where I follow a lot of really smart,
funny people, and I get to read jokes, and then
when it becomes too intense, I just log off of
Twitter too. For myself a little bit of champagne cocktail.

(03:44):
But the fact of the matter is, it is so
hard to become a female president, whether in the United
States or anywhere, because you and I grew up when
Thatcher was just kind of fading out. But you're still around,
and as we're gonna learn, becoming a female prime minister,

(04:06):
while challenging yes, uh, is not as hard as becoming
a president. I had no idea about this, me neither,
and I had no idea about the very gendered aspects
of that. I mean, aside from like you know sexism period,
but it is so interesting to learn about the things
that tip the office of President and Prime minister in

(04:28):
favor of men or women. Yeah, and it also offers
a more global understanding of where we stand in terms
of gender and perception and sexism and leadership. And maybe
a good place to start would be in Australia. Hello,

(04:48):
Australian listeners. I hope we can see face to face
one day because I've never been to Australia and would
really like to go. Um And, Australia had its first
and still only female prime minister a few years back,
Julia Gillard, and she became famous worldwide with something called

(05:11):
the Misogyny Speech. It actually has its own Wikipedia entry
the Misogyny Speech does um And I suggested to Caroline
before she started diving into a lot of the more
depressing research on women in politics, that she watched this
fifteen minute speech that Gillard delivers on the Parliamentary floor

(05:39):
directly to the leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, who
would later become Prime Minister, calling out sexism and misogyny. Oh,
it's brilliant. It's brilliant, And first of all, I would
just like to say that Australians, your parliament is way
more interesting then watching the US Congress do its work. Yeah,

(06:04):
because you get to yell at each other and holler
when people are talking. So often you just hear politicians
tow the line and you know, be nervous about calling
out things like sexism and misogyny directly. But Australia's former
PM did it. Yeah, she had had enough And just
for a quick backstory, she had spearheaded this carbon tax

(06:28):
that apparently she you know, said she wasn't going to
be in favor of. She ended up backing it. Um,
Australians listening, if if I need to, if you need
to fill me in on the details, please do. But
it sparked this nasty political debate that was filled with
all sorts of sexist rhetoric that was condoned by Opposition

(06:48):
leader Tony Abbott. And there was this other incident that
came up with Gillard's party where this guy, um Fred
Slipper which is a fabulous name, Mrs Slipper had had
sent us some unsavory text messages like jokey, you know

(07:09):
those awful sexist emails that you know that your unfortunate
uncle sends along and thinks that you'll laugh at um.
So he got caught sending those and so Tony Abbott
stands up and it's like old stand for this, and
Gillard is like, oh oh, suddenly you're you're calling out sexism.
So in October she gets up and just drags Abbot

(07:35):
for fifteen minutes on the parliamentary floor figuratively speaking um,
kicking things off, saying I will not be lectured about
sexism and misogyny by this man. If he wants to
know what misogyny looks like in modern Australia, he doesn't
need a motion in the House of Representatives. He needs
a mirror bern. And then you hear, you know, some

(07:58):
of her supporters yell out and echo a mirror yes fabulous.
Oh because also to consider that this same guy, Tony Abbott,
on parliamentary floor once said that Gillard, who is unmarried
and child free, should quote make an honest woman of herself.

(08:21):
I mean this woman had just been essentially absorbing all
of this sexism and she had had enough. Yeah, people
have been holding signs outside of Parliament calling her a
bitch and a witch. And who was it? Was? It?
Abbott who said that she should be just putting a
bag and thrown into the ocean, and she's like, ha,
jokes on you, which is don't drown. Yeah, I mean

(08:46):
she talked about a nasty woman. Um. She she is one.
And she wrote an open letter in The New York
Times earlier this year to fellow nasty woman Hillary Clinton
and talked about quote, the curious question of gender and
the fact that we often refuse to just like call

(09:08):
a spade a spade when it comes to women in politics,
to identify sexism, and the whole likability trap and a
nonsense of pulling the woman card if you do call
out sexism. Um. And she encouraged, uh, the electorate too similarly,
you know, hold people accountable. And now, of course I

(09:30):
don't know, maybe like half the population listened, but uh,
I feel like that's that's a good place to start,
because to me, that misogyny speech encapsulates all of all
of the rage um of the barriers, the invisible barriers
that still prevent women from becoming president in particular. But

(09:53):
I mean, but I am talking about a female prime
minister and like you said, Caroline at the top of
the podcast, is like it wasn't a foreign idea to
you that women could lead nations, So it can't be
all that bad, right, is it just in the United States?
I mean, yeah, it's not all that bad. Um. As

(10:16):
of July of this year, more than seventy countries have
had at least one female president or prime minister. I mean,
if you look at Nepal, Croatia, Turkey, Bangladesh, New Zealand, Mozambique,
on and on. And some of you listeners out there
might remember Croatia's president Kalinda Grabber Katarovich from UH an

(10:41):
episode of Samantha b where she talks about how after
she was elected, Uh, people went nuts posting bikini pictures
online that we're supposed to be of her, but they
were not, And the hilarious twist is that they were
actually of Coco Ice Tea s why from I Love Coco. Uh. Yeah. Anyway, well,

(11:04):
and it's worth noting too that she was is Croatia's
first female president, so welcome to the presidency. Everyone is
objectifying you, okay, And she tells Samantha Be in that
segment about how it does not feel great to know

(11:24):
that there are people actively sexually objectifying you. As you
might imagine. Yeah, and I mean there's this idea that
we have heard from I mean, this is obviously not
just a female president thing, but any women in leadership
roles at all. Of like, hopefully I'm making it better
for the women who come after me. But it is

(11:44):
horrifying when you stop and think about what these women
have to endure just to lead a country and try
to get the job done. And one thing to keep
in mind too, when we see all of these listicals
that really begin circule it even more um during this election,

(12:04):
of all of the places in the world that have
had female leaders outside of the United States. But you
gotta keep in mind that those numbers are slightly deceptive because,
as CNN reported, many countries, female leaders were in office
for at times just a few days, often less than

(12:25):
a year, or just serving as interim president. For instance,
in Ecuador, Rosalia Artiaga Serrano served as acting president for
two days. Two days. I mean, that's it's like a
nice little weekend. I know, I'd be down with taking
like a two day presidency, that's it, and then just
hop out can I do it for like six hours

(12:48):
because I want to be out in time for happy
and not not even a full nine to five. No, No,
if I can be out of there by four to
go ahead and get you a cocktail. I think they
bring you cocktails though when you're the president, So can
I just drink it under the desk then and hide
from people who want things for me? I'm sure you
wouldn't be the first president to do that. I am

(13:09):
not like cut out to be president, I think, which
is why these women are so impressive. But another part
two is not only have a lot of these female
leaders been in office for just short snippets of time,
usually more than my little six hour stint that I'm
envisioning your six hour booze crews. Yeah, sounds like a

(13:32):
regular Thursday. Um. But most of those seventy countries that
we just mentioned have had only one female president or
prime minister. When you look back at Argentina, for example, Uh,
they are an outlier actually in in the whole list
of countries that have had female leaders. They've had both

(13:53):
Isabel Parroone and Christina Fernandez di Kirchner serving in the
role of president. But got a note to that. Perrone
took over from her husband who died in office and
she was ousted by a coup. So see, I mean,
why why you gotta have coups? Why you know, right,
why you gotta have you gotta have cus um. But

(14:15):
but that's an interesting thing to note. I mean, does
that have anything to do with the glass cliff effect
that we talked about in our episode on failure and perfectionism? Yeah,
it absolutely could, and we'll get into that a little
bit more. But a lot of times women end up
leading nations when times are the most unstable, similar to

(14:38):
female CEOs being brought in when a company is on
the verge of collapse, because research from Harvard and elsewhere
has found that we perceive women to be better leaders
during those times of crisis because of our nurturing and
our coalition building. So they want us to be nurturers

(15:02):
and coalition builders. But then they passed bikini fake bikini
shots of us online. Well sure, I mean if you
can also like be sexy, that's like a two for one, right,
But then it's just used against us as Yeah, I
don't like playing Devil's advocate into the sexual objectifier of
Croatian presidents um. And also too, we have to keep

(15:24):
in mind, like how the number of female state leaders
relates to the actual power that we wield worldwide. So
according to the United Nations, currently not counting figurehead monarchs
like Queen Elizabeth, we have eighteen female world leaders, including

(15:45):
twelve heads of government and eleven elected heads of state.
And in rough terms, this is based on data um
so it might give or take a little bit. But
women account for just around seven percent of all national
leaders and hold just two percent of all presidential posts.

(16:07):
And while those numbers are not exciting, they represent massive
growth since the nineteen sixties, because we were pretty much
starting from nothing before nineteen sixty. Well, yeah, and when
you do go back to nineteen sixty, you have Sri
Lanka's Sirimavo Bandra Nike, who became the first female head

(16:29):
of government in the modern world. But and this is
pretty common, she was actually taking over for her dead
husband amid a whole bunch of democratic upheaval in the country,
and she ended up losing her positional several times. She
served from nineteen sixty to sixty five and then nineteen

(16:51):
seventy to seventy seven and then to two thousand and
in the meantime, the opposition party amped up the presidential power.
She was prime minister, but they had a dispersed power.
They also have a president um and so the opposition
party gave more power to the president in a way

(17:11):
to kind of rein her in um. But you also
see the power of nepotism a because she's taking over
from her husband and you have her daughter, Shandrika Kumara
Tanga being appointed president from nine to two thousand five
by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, which though her husband,
who was also a former prime minister, founded So it

(17:35):
does help if you are a woman who wants to
have the highest office in the land, if you are
related to a man who has had the highest office
in the land. And the next two ladies that we're
going to talk about um were two of the women
that I was sort of thinking of when I mentioned
the fact that I grew up thanks to my history
teachers being very familiar with the idea that women could

(17:59):
exercise hour around the world. In nineteen sixty six, Indira
Gandhi became India's third Prime Minister and first and only
woman so far elected to the post. And again being
related to someone previously in power comes into play. She
was the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister,

(18:20):
and Gandhi served three consecutive and controversial terms between nineteen
sixty six and seventy seven, and she came back after
stepping away in nineteen eighty to nineteen eighty four, but
her bodyguards assassinated her in ninety four, So not a
good end for Indira Gandhi. But then in the meantime,

(18:43):
in nineteen sixty nine, you get Golden Mayor, who was
a founder, one of the founders of the State of
Israel and was its fourth prime minister from nineteen sixty
nine to nineteen seventy four, and Uh Mayor attempted to
broker a peace deal in the Middle East until the
October nineteen seventy three young kipper war Um. And I

(19:06):
think that she's an interesting character. There's a quote about
her from the Jewish Women's Archive where they say that
Mayer chose not to be woman identified and behaved as
if gender doesn't matter, and and that really to me
reminded me of our episode that we did on Margaret Thatcher. Yeah,
I mean, they're both iron ladies. Um kind of have

(19:27):
to feeling like they had to desex themselves in order
to be perceived as powerful. And also, like Margaret Thatcher,
mayor wasn't exactly an unabashed women's rights advocate UM. And
the closest she came to really acknowledging the existence of
sexism was this bit in her autobiography when she says

(19:51):
that at one point David Ben Gurion called her the
only man in his cabinet, and she wrote, What amused
me about it was that obvious a slee he or
whoever invented the story, thought that this was the greatest
possible compliment that could be paid to a woman. I
very much doubted that any man would have been flattered
if I had said about him that he was the

(20:12):
only woman in the government. Gender is a funny thing,
such a funny thing. But she, I mean, she was
wielding it, though to her advantage, similar to Iron Lady
Number two, Old Margaret I know nothing to women's lib.
Quote Thatcher, who became British Prime Minister in nineteen seventy nine,

(20:36):
and we did a whole episode, well most of an
episode on her. We were talking about whether UM female
leaders are necessarily good for women UM And in the
case of Margaret Thatcher. The answer is not always. But
she was Prime Minister until and just as an example

(20:59):
of how Thatcher was certainly not out to start some
kind of feminist revolution, she appointed just one woman to
her cabinet during that entire time. Yeah, I think she
would be an example of someone who is not lifting
as she climbed. She's more pulling the ladder up behind
her as she climbs. Yea, Although we now have a

(21:21):
prime Minister Theresa May and talk about a glass cliff situation,
you know, because she became Prime Minister um on the
heels of the Brexit vote. And I do not envy
her one bit. No, but you said the key word there,
or I guess key set of words which should be

(21:41):
prime minister um. Most of the women that we've discussed
so far have not been president, they have been prime minister.
And there are some interesting gender expectations at play there. Yeah. So,
while yes, Sierra Mavo, Bander and Hockey in nineteen sixty

(22:02):
did become the first female head of government in the
modern world, it's not until nineteen eighty that we get
the first democratically elected female president. In the same similar
kind of situation that we have going on here in
the United States. Yeah, Hey, vig dis what vig dis
big dis finnbug diet here. I'm sorry, I'm American. That's

(22:24):
like the best I can do. I think he did great.
Thank you. She's an Iceland. Yeah, and I'm pretty sure
she got some shout outs in our podcast a while
back on Iceland's women's strike. But that's crazy though. I mean,
it took the world until nineteen eighty to get its
first democratically elected lady press, and not terribly surprising that

(22:46):
it's in a small, small country and a relatively progressive,
gender progressive country. Yeah, and she actually was in office
until nineteen which makes her the longest sir, being elected
female head of state ever. And she paid a lot
of attention to that role modeling effect. You know, she

(23:07):
didn't let her pioneering and trailblazing status fall to the side.
One thing Finn Baghdatre said was quote, I'm also glad
that I've been able to help give women's self confidence
in Iceland. They come to me and they say, for
all of these years, you've been a role model for me.
They tell me they think if she could do it,

(23:29):
I can do it. This makes me very happy. And
you know what, Victus makes me very happy, Caroline, I know.
And another woman who makes us very happy, as should
be evident if you do go back and listen to
our episode about women striking in Iceland is Johanna Sigura Datier,
who was Iceland's first female Prime minister from two thousand

(23:52):
nine and the world's first openly gay female head of
state Iceland. All the snaps, I know, I was just
snapping in my head to h you know, I've got
as sassy as I sit here as sassy hand on
my hip and I am snapping in my head, moving
my head like I'm snapping um now. Right after Vigdus

(24:13):
comes into office, their Norwegian neighbor in nineteen eighty one
gets its first female prime minister with Dr gro Harlem
brunt Land, and she stayed in office less than a
year and then came back and served from s to
eighty nine and then from ninety to nine six when
she resigned and listen rad prime Minister alert. Because Bruntland

(24:39):
became known for appointing women to her cabinet, she did
not pull a Maggie Thatcher. Eight out of the eighteen
positions she appointed were two women. Um. And she's also
nicknamed the Mother of sustainability and has led so many
environmental efforts, including becoming the Director General of the World

(25:00):
Health Organization and Chairman of the UN Commission on the
Environment in October. So, uh, dr grow love it well.
I think that's a great name for someone who's an environmentalist, yes,
and also advocating for women. Yeah. I don't know how
to do a Norwegian accent. I wish I did Norwegian listeners,

(25:22):
I know you're out there. Um. And in six when
I was but a child of three. Uh, Corazon Aquino
becomes the Philippines first female president thanks to the People
Power Revolution. And she also, by the way, was Time
Magazines Woman of the Year. Yeah. We could devote a
whole episode to her because her life and work is

(25:47):
pretty incredible. But I will just give you this snippet
from that Time Magazine Person of the Year article, in
which they described her as quote a widowed housewife who
avenged her husband's death by overthrowing the regime widely blamed
for his murder doing talk about some z snaps going
on in my head. Now I would watch a movie

(26:10):
version of that, Like, I mean, obviously of her life.
I would totally watch a Corazone biopic, but I also
want to like see that set as kind of a
Game of Thrones storyline where she like comes in on
a horse with a sword. I will avenge my husband.
Um kick started. There you go. And in. Yet another

(26:34):
woman who comes up in my mind when I think
about my high school history classes and government classes is
Benezir Bhutto. She became the first democratically elected female leader
of an Islamic nation, Pakistan. She served from eight eight,
ninety and ninety three to ninety six, but much like
Indira Gandhi, she did not have a happy end. She

(26:58):
was actually assassinated in two thousand seven while running for
a third term as Prime minister. And I had to
blink for a minute because I totally thought she had
died earlier. Um, and I might have mixed her up
in my head with Indira Gandhi in that regard, um,
but I I do remember learning about her in high

(27:20):
school and being like, yeah, yeah, women can can kick
ass as leaders. Well. I distinctly remember Benezer Bhutto's assassination
because that was the first time that I ever heard
the words Afghan Taliban because she was killed by members
of the Taliban and she often had to flee, you know.

(27:42):
And and because first of all, like the presidents who
were in power while she was Prime minister typically weren't
fans of her. Um. Right, that's right, that's right, that's right, yes, yes,
it's it's all coming back to me now. Um. And
she would also be one who would make for a

(28:03):
terrific podcast because, um, there were a number of articles
we were reading about her role modeling effect. Just by
virtue of being a female leader in an Islamic nation,
she was considered the daughter of Pakistan and how inspirational

(28:23):
she continues to be for a lot of Pakistani women. Um.
And one piece that I was reading was essentially mourning
the fact that, um, that she's not not there anymore
to inspire girls who weren't alive when she was in power. Yeah, exactly.
Not to mention, she faced a ton of turmoil in

(28:46):
order to become prime minister at the ripe age of
thirty five. Her dad, for instance, was formerly a prime minister.
There again we have the family effect. But he was
assassinated and and she was constantly in an out of jail. Um.
When her dad was assassinated. She I want to say,
she and her mom were also captured and they weren't

(29:11):
allowed to go to his funeral a sort of as
a form of punishment. Um, And so she would also
be under house arrest, she would go into exile, but
she kept coming back, you know. So I mean talk
about a fighter, well, and we see another fighter in
Ireland's Mary Robinson. She was in office from nine to

(29:32):
nineteen seven as the country's first female president and defying
the trend generally worldwide of having one female leader at
a time. Well, I mean, you know, not back to
back is what I mean. Her successor was not only
another woman, but it was another Mary, Mary mcalees, and
that's so rare. Yeah, one are the odds of back

(29:54):
to back Mary's well, but Robinson supported birth control and
gay righte in Ireland, and she said, I was elected
by the women of Ireland who, instead of rocking the cradle,
rock to the system. And we didn't have time to
go off on a little bit of a research tangent.
So I am hoping that we'll hear from some Irish

(30:18):
listeners who might be able to fill us in on this,
because I was surprised to see more of a pro
woman president, considering how Ireland is having so many issues
with reproductive rights and abortion not being legal there. Um.
So I wonder if she was pro birth control but

(30:40):
not pro abortion, or maybe she was both and just
didn't have the support. Um. Yeah, phill Us in listeners
if you know, well, Kristen, I have a TV question
for you. Have you watched the new the new New
Tracy Ullman show that's on? No? No, I have not
watched the New New. Um. I asked this because she

(31:02):
does an incredible Angela Merkel character. It's it's Angela Merkel.
She's doing an impression of her, and it's I might
have laughed until there were tears in my eyes at
her characterization of Angela Merkel. Uh. She is quite a powerhouse.
Oh totally. She became in two thousand five Germany's first

(31:24):
female chancellor. Um. Also, did you know that she has
a background in physics? Um? I learned that as we
were researching for this episode. Yeah, me too. Why doesn't
she tout that more often? Like? What should she just
like wear a lab code and carry a beaker around?
She just just say something on the back of her

(31:44):
her blazers hey, p s, I have a background in physics.
I'm probably smarter than you. Um. And since two thousand five,
though she has remained Chancellor, she's also served as the
President of the European Council in oh seven yes, I
said twenty seven seven, Um, and she served as a

(32:05):
chair of the G eight. And meanwhile she has become
a key leader in the European Union. And that's one
reason that Time magazine named her it's Person of the Year.
And pretty much, if you want to become Forbes magazines
most powerful Woman of the Year, you're gonna have to

(32:27):
go toe to toe with Merkel because she has held
that title for six years running. And um. One of
the reasons, going back to Time though, that she received
that honor was because of her handling of the Syrian
refugee crisis, even though it is caused um, you know,
some issues state side German listeners. I'm also curious to

(32:50):
hear from you, um how beloved Merkel is, because I
know that more conservative politicians have been putting more heat
on her. UM. So I'm curious if, ah if her
chancellorship might be coming to an end sometime soon. UM.

(33:14):
But just f y, I while campaigning for her third term,
Merco said that she did not identify as a feminist,
but don't worry. All she's been like had tea with
Lena Dona and Taylor Swift and they just like hash
everything out. Now, Um, she probably did that because she
would have alienated conservative voters. Yeah, but she's been lately
more outspoken. And I say lately, I don't mean necessarily

(33:37):
like this week, but she has lately been more outspoken
about women's rights and giving women a platform and and
a lega. Yeah, and you'll know how we feel about
that question. The question to celebrities and even heads of
state up, are you a feminist? Yes or no? No
context of what it might mean. Just give us something
that we can make a headline out of. Yeah. If

(33:57):
if no one asked Sarah Jessica Parker if she's a
feminist ever again, I can die happy. Just stop asking her, please.
And if we jump a year after Angela Merkel became
Germany's first chancellor, first female chancellor. Sorry, um, we get

(34:17):
to a badass economist and former finance minister and Nobel
Prize winner Ellen sur Leif Johnson, she became Liberia's and
really all of Africa's first female president. Um. She was
also nicknamed the Iron Lady, which makes me wonder y'all. Okay, ye,

(34:40):
I think we're on the same page. Um, we have
one nickname for women in power that we respect, and
it's an iron lady. If there isn't a lot of
gendered messaging just packed into that, you're right. Are you
going to say that they should be called iron maiden instead?
I totally agree. I wasn't, but now I am, no,

(35:04):
I congres I totally agree with you. As I was reading,
I thought the same thing. As I was going through sources,
I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, we're calling
yet another woman iron lady. Yeah, do you just mean
that this is a a woman human who exercises power.
To me, the iron says that she has the tough

(35:27):
masculinity to get the job done. But the Lady, I
means she puts doilies everywhere. It means that she is
still likable enough. You know, she hasn't completely de sexed herself,
even though Goldenmere like that was kind of her intention. Well,
but it's a weird qualifier. It's like when people feel
the need to say, uh, female firefighter or male nurse.

(35:51):
It's like, or you could just say firefighter or nurse.
It's kind of the same thing. You could just say
she's the press in or she's a tough leader, or
she's a powerful leader of a country. I feel like,
why do we need to continue giving women heads of
state nicknames like iron lady and only iron lady, Like

(36:15):
that's the thing. I don't know of other nicknames. Maybe
people in these separate countries aren't talking to each other,
they don't realize that it's been done. And also historically
not not. I mean, I'm sure that there are presidential
and prime prime ministerial nicknames that countries will give their

(36:36):
own leaders, like kind of like as in jokes, but
I'm not immediately recalling um a lot of similar nicknames
for male leaders. You know, It's not like, although, who
was allick somebody was all Hickory, that was Andrew Jackson.
But we all know, we all know what a what

(36:56):
a great guy Andrew Jackson was. Nabe Bill Clinton was
like the saxophone gentleman. That'll be his name, his title,
that'll be the one of the nice things that he's called. Unfortunately,
but let us not diminish the accomplishments of Ellen Sirlief Johnson,
who took over a war torn country and has had

(37:22):
to literally like rebuild Liberia even in terms of just
getting basic necessities like water and power to places. Um.
So she's also one who is following the pattern of
women coming into power during phases of massive instability. Um.

(37:46):
And she's another one who deserves her own podcast because
her path to the presidency also included having to go
into political exile and almost being killed more than once,
I believe, going to Harvard, and all sorts of things. Yeah,
so quite a distinguished list. She's not someone who would
be satisfied with a six hour booze cruise stint of

(38:08):
a president thing. No. Um. But when we come right
back from a quick break, we're going to get into
the heart of this discussion, which is why presidencies are
so elusive. So one source that we spent a lot

(38:39):
of time with in preparation for this episode is a
book by Farita Gelos called Shattered, Cracked, or Firmly Intact
Women and the Executive Glass Ceiling, and Gelos, in speaking
to Vox, said that the fact remains that almost never
do women actually win their election contest and they're running

(39:00):
for presidencies, and that seems bleak, and that seems to
go against all of these things we've been talking about
with women being able to attain positions of leadership. Also,
she's not just talking about American presidencies. We're talking about
anywhere on the planet almost never. And I would just
like to point out, and I mean we we kind
of said this at the top of the podcast, but

(39:23):
reading Jeels's scholarship and her writing on this topic kind
of blew my mind. And uh, she pointed out a
lot of things I just had not considered, such as well,
I mean just such as in my mind when I
think of female leadership, I had never really separated prime
ministers from presidents. I had not taken into account how

(39:47):
those different and of course those governmental systems work differently.
I had just never taken the time to think about
how that would affect women in leadership, right, and differences
between heads of state and heads of government, and whether
you have a shared prime ministership and presidency or like

(40:07):
in the United States, you have the sole president and
commander in chief, and the president is usually almost always
the head of government. And because of that, female presidents
are simply walking talking law enacting gender norm violators. Yeah,

(40:29):
so that's like our podcast mascot exactly exactly. The gender
police are about to run out and write her a ticket,
except they'd be like, oh, wait, no, we can't because
you're president. I don't know how this works. Um. So
another person who was talking to Vox about this was
Bulloit professor Georgia Dwhere's Laity, who's also studied um this

(40:52):
curious question of gender and presidencies, And she said, quote,
executive power is characterized by unity of command, hierarchical arrangements,
and with centralized control, a capacity to act quickly and
decisively when circumstances dictate. These factors create circumstances in which

(41:13):
women are understood as other in contrast to a masculine norm,
and they do so in a way that it's predictable
inside gender ideology. And you know, this makes me think
of Caroline how Trump says that Hillary Clinton doesn't have
that presidential Look. Oh, I mean to me, that just

(41:34):
was him being a jerk and commenting on her appearance.
But you're totally right, um. And you know what, bells
went off in my head when you said the word hierarchical,
because that made me think of our episode that we
did on Man's Plaining, where we kind of did a
deep dive into gendered communication and the ways that we
are sort of socialized to speak and interact and how

(41:56):
uh stereotypically uh and in general, boys and men are
socialized to sort of communicate in a way that exerts
a hierarchical structure to say, like who's who's the main
boy in in the group and the friend group. God,
I would love to see a boy say I'm the
main boy. I'm the main boy. Um. Yeah, So men

(42:21):
tend to speak in a more assertive style. Women tend
to speak in a more affiliate of style, especially in
professional context. Exactly, you know, Trump wants to be the
main boy that's always ever wanted. Um. But here here's
the thing too, so shattered, cracked or firmly intact. FRIEDA.

(42:43):
Jelal's Ice book is really just a huge study peeling
apart why there is this executive gender gap. And she
discovered that if you look at male heads of state
and female head of state, women are just as educationally

(43:03):
and politically qualified and credentialed to hold executive offices as men,
So it's not like women just aren't bringing the right
skill sets to the table. Rather, she writes, the gendered
nature of executive office still typically promotes men instead of women.
So here we have some unconscious bias. Despite their impressive

(43:25):
educational backgrounds, professional experience, and associations with politically active families,
women remain under represented at the highest levels of power
everywhere everywhere because what they are square pegs and around whole,
they don't fit what we think of as someone who
is presidential and able to lead. Yeah, I mean that

(43:48):
it's that gendered nature of executive office promotes men instead
of women because of what Dare Lady was saying about
how that executive power or is so thoroughly masculine gendered. So,
whether we are conscious of it or not, that often
is what happens. Although there are some prime conditions for

(44:13):
women to reach executive office, like really, if Hillary had
wanted to sail into office a that never would have happened,
because the worst thing about her is that her last
name is Clinton. You could argue even more so than
the fact that she has a vagina um. But if
say we were in the depths of uh the Great Depression,

(44:35):
maybe maybe she'd have an easier time of it because
chaos um as chaos. Yeah, but but first, but first,
what would have really helped is if the United States
were a parliamentary system and not a presidential system, because
if you have a parliament, the party's vote for prime minister,

(44:56):
whereas the public votes for president. Yes, I mean, think
of Justin Trudeau. Everyone's the global crush. Well, I'm sorry,
I'm speaking for a lot of people the entire globe.
I'm definitely speaking for me. Um Like, that's that's how
I say we. I want to say we. That's how
we wound up with Justin Trudeau. Hi, Canada. We we

(45:20):
have we love him, we we think about him often wistfully. Gosh,
can you just imagine he's walked in pride parades? Dude?
What other like? Come on, you know who also has
I'm sure I'm not basing this on anything, but other
than his rad nous, I'm sure Obama has and Clinton
has to Hillary Clinton. Yeah, but I mean, I'm just

(45:42):
saying current leaders Justin Trudeau. True dat, true, true, true dat. Yeah.
So basically, the bottom line when it comes to a
parliamentary system, as far as women are concerned is the
more dispersed the executive power is, the more conducive it
is for women to be leaders. Yeah, and also to

(46:04):
winning a prime ministership is more of a process of
that coalition building and consensus cultivating, which is more feminine
coded rather than the more masculine coded knockdown, drag out election.
So if you are really gunning for presidency, as long
as you're essentially a figurehead, because there are some states

(46:26):
where the prime minister holds more power than the president,
then hey, ladies, come on down um or find a
natural disaster or some kind of horrific just cultural or
societal collapse and go there because of the glass cliff, because,
like we've said a number of times now, just as

(46:48):
happens in corporations, women are likelier to take power in
periods of instability. And we even have stats on this. Yes,
So Pamela Paxton and Melanie Hughes wrote in When Men,
Politics and Power that of women came to power after
after a period of political transition, forty five percent came

(47:09):
to power in countries with a recent history of instability,
and thirty three percent after a military takeover. I feel
like you could argue that this campaign in America itself
has been a period of chaos and instabilities, right, one
would think it would lead it lend itself quite well
to a woman. Yeah maybe, Um, I don't know, like

(47:31):
Amy Poehler and Jessica Williams should just swoop in and
just take everything and become our our leaders insteady um
and Swedish listeners. I'm curious as to whether this stability
factor is also why y'all, as gender progressive as you
are have never had a female prime minister, because that

(47:52):
was surprising to me to see like in Scandinavia, like,
oh of course you have, Oh no, no, well yeah, because,
like we've talked about, if there's no chaos or upset
of the traditional system the people, whether you're in a company,
a corporation or voting for a world uh countries leader,

(48:13):
you wouldn't feel the need to mix up the game
basically at that stage. Also, nepotism a huge help. I
mean we've already mentioned that. Has it applied to in
Dear Gandhi um. In Argentina, Christina Fernandez de Kirschner was
married to the former President Um. Same thing happened in

(48:36):
Guiana with Janet Jagen. And there's even a term called
widows succession, which is that super common practice both in
executive offices. But we also see this all the way
down the ballot of women filling their deceased husband's seats.
And that was in the United States at least, that

(48:58):
was how women for tiptoed their way into political office. Um.
So the first women who uh were in Congress were
there because their husbands were there first and died. So
it took a while for us to outright elect a woman. Right.
But another mark that you can put under Ellen, sir

(49:20):
leif Johnson's coolness column is that she did not, is
that her leadership did not depend on a male relative.
She got in there by virtue of her own general awesomeness.
I imagine her coolness column is so long, um, But
get this, jeel as I found that those political family connections,

(49:42):
whether you have a widows succession or UH father who
was in office, regardless, those connections are the statistically largest
gender gap between male and female political executives. So if
you're looking for the factor that separates the two the most,

(50:06):
it is that women far and away get into office
um with the help of family. More so than men.
And I would also say that that is more evidence
of the challenge for women and also the sexism that
it's like we need, we need a dude we're related
to to kind of prove, like, you know, well he'll

(50:28):
be okay. I think that's why it's interesting in this
country because you have George W. Bush becoming president after
his father, two men. But Hillary Clinton is getting a
lot of criticism and flak based on her husband's role
in this country's leadership, right because you know, a lot

(50:52):
of that has to do with Bill Clinton's policy and
also his extracurriculars, yes, being a straight up liability for her.
And keep in mind too, how um George W. Was
often mocked for being just you know, George seniors little boy.

(51:15):
You know in a way that main boy. I'm the
main boy. That was actually Jeb Bush crying at home. Um.
Do you remember when we thought it would be Jeb
and Hillary. Do you remember we talked about his wakam
that he made on Sundays, Please clap. I never knew

(51:37):
those could be the good old days. Um. But but
an interesting gender dynamic there where it is a penalty
in a way for a guy to take over from
his dad. But if you are a woman, that's a
leg up for you. Yeah, it's expected like, oh, well
a woman needs the extra help of having the family connection.
Oh but if the man uses the family connection, what's

(52:00):
wrong with you? Yeah, you must be weak. Um. But
even being one of the most powerful people in your country,
if you make it through, regardless of family connections or not,
and you become the prime minister, president, what have you?
That does not inoculate you from sexism. In fact, it

(52:20):
might invite even more sexism. Would have guessed every and
this was something that dr grow over in Norway. Uh.
Prime Minister Bruntland wrote about in her autobiography in terms
of how she essentially hoped that she would bear the
brunt Land so to speak of the sexism, saying, quote,

(52:43):
next time a woman becomes party leader or Prime Minister
of Norway, maybe many years from now, she will not
meet the same problems I had. I have to tolerate,
have to live with this uncomfortable atmosphere because I am
the first it's my duty just to tolerate it. Next
time it will be easier for another woman. But then
that's the question, will there be another woman and how

(53:06):
long will it take? And I don't want to get
ahead of myself because next up we have a Samantha
By montage. Yeah, I'm telling you. This episode of Samantha By,
where she talks to female world leaders, in addition to
the freaking always delightful Madeline all Bright Um was so

(53:29):
interesting but like so much of what Samantha By talks about,
also so deeply depressing. Um. She talked to Michelle Bachelet,
the Chilean President, who said, I have seen misogyny come down,
but it didn't disappear. She did admit that if she
shows too much emotion, she's hysterical. And then who can

(53:49):
forget I had actually forgotten about this until Samantha By
brought it up. But who can forget the flak that
Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg caught over the UH footage
of her putting her cell phone in her bra. She
was like, what she was like standing on stage, there
was some event or whatever, and she like checked her

(54:09):
phone and put it in her shirt. And that's not
exactly what I would call uncommon for women to do.
And she even told Samantha Be She's like, I think
they don't know that women just do this well. And
before that she talked about how, especially after she first
came into office, when she would go out with her entourage,

(54:31):
people would look for the oldest man standing next to
her and assume that that was the Prime Minister. Oh yeah,
And I mean that that story should sound super familiar
to women really at any walk of life, in any
career or industry that I feel like I have heard
about that happening to just so many women, UM, whether

(54:54):
you're walking into like the U N or a boardroom
at a company. And the thing is, we can't stop
with just talking about the first and the trailblazers and
the pioneers, because while important, what is even more telling
is whether and when there will be the second. And
there's been a lot of research in the past few

(55:15):
years on this relatively new concept of moral licensing UM,
and a study on it, which is yet to be
published as of this recording found that quote the Obama
presidency may have given some whites the perceived moral license
to express more critical attitudes about minorities. And anecdotally, I

(55:38):
would say, of course it. Did you know racism went
through the roof in the United States, Well, not because
suddenly people became racist, but because all of a sudden, oh, well,
we have a black president, so that means that we
can express our racism more openly. Right, And a lot
of it had to do with um part of the
study which showed that if a and correct me if

(56:01):
I'm wrong, if a black person was in a leadership role,
people at that company felt like, oh, I don't need
to hire more black people because look, a black person
has made it to the highest position at this company. Right.
We see the trailblazer as a checked box. Um. And
the concept of moral licensing is that subconsciously or sometimes consciously, uh,

(56:26):
we pat ourselves on the back for electing, say, our
first female president and have no real interest in electing
another because it's like we've been through this. We've elected
a female president, y'all have done it. Okay, so back
to business as usual. You know, why do we need

(56:46):
to reinvent this wheel? And you see it happen a
lot of times. Like we said at the top of
the podcast, most of the women who have been heads
of state have been the only female heads of state
in their country. Well, and is this not something that
we've addressed multiple times on the podcast, especially when we
talk about women in leadership roles in the business world,

(57:06):
about how trickle down feminism is not really a thing.
Just because you have a woman's CEO, just because you
have a Marissa Meyer or a Cheryl Sandberg, that does
not mean that there is equality in general. That does
not mean that we have no more need for feminism
that sexism is over all. That indicates well, as we've

(57:28):
talked about, that probably indicates that there's been a little
bit of chaos and some glass cliff stuff going on.
But all that indicates is that that woman was able
to get into that position. It does not indicate anything
else positive about the company or about our culture. Yeah,
I mean, and that in no way is to diminish
the powerful role modeling effect and the powerful optics of

(57:53):
having a black president and our first female president. Absolutely. Um,
but we can't then sit down and congratulate ourselves and
go on. And I predict that similar to what happened
during the Obama administration, we are going to see in

(58:15):
the next four years, possibly eight, uh, a tidal wave
of sexism and misogyny. You know, we ain't seen nothing yet. Yeah,
Because I mean, I feel like so often women on
line are already silenced with the refrain of like, what
do you have to complain about? You have everything you

(58:36):
could possibly need. What are you complaining about? Inequality four
that doesn't really exist. You're just making it up to
victimize yourself. You have a female president, what else do
you want? You've got a black president. What else could
you need? All lives matter? Oh yeah, it's moral licensing. Yeah,
and it allows people who are so inclined to skip

(58:59):
over the very real facts that a black leader or
a female leader, uh, does not equate to policies that
help you and me, that help the average person who
you know, trying to live his or her life. It
does not necessarily mean that the entire group that is

(59:20):
represented by that person, or presumed to be represented by
that person, has made great advances socially. And there is
one person, one final person though, from that Samantha by Montage,
that we should mention um who is Hilda Heinie, who
is the president of the Marshall Islands. And she was
the one woman that Samantha b spoke to who was

(59:42):
like it's great, Like I really don't get any flak
from you know, the few people who live in the
Marshall islands um for being a woman. She's like, yeah,
they just they mainly complain about policies. And Samantha By
is astonished and she says, how how is that the case?
And she says, welcome here to you know, say your

(01:00:02):
your country. We're just a lot more gender equitable. And
there it is, ladies and gentlemen. So listeners, if you're
in the United States and you're listening to this podcast
when it is coming out, go vote if you haven't already. Uh.
And if you're listening to this in the line for voting,

(01:00:26):
good for you. Stay in that line, um, and we
want to hear from you. We're really hoping to hear
from a lot of our international listeners for this as well,
because y'all have been watching this wild election season in
the US too. But we also want to know how
all of this relates to the situation where you live.
Let me tell you. When I turned in my voter

(01:00:49):
card when I went to go early vote, I literally
skipped to the poll worker who was by the door
collecting the cars. I wish I could have seen that, mom.
Stuff at how stuff works dot Com is where you
can send us to your letters. You can also tweet
us at mom Stuff podcast or messages on Facebook, and
we've got a couple of messages to share with you

(01:01:09):
when we come right back from a quick break. Well,
I have a letter here from a listener who would
like to remain anonymous, in response to our episode on
villain Ness's, but also in response to an old episode
we did on Kleptomania. She says, while listening to your
podcast on Villain's excellent job with the divine name drop,

(01:01:32):
thank you. I heard you mentioned an older episode on Kleptomania.
Having dealt with an adolescent arrest for stealing and some
recent sticky fingers, I was quite intrigued as to what
you had to say about the subject. You hit so
close to home that you may as well have recorded
the episode from my living room. I have a history
of being treated for clinical depression with therapy as far
back as preschool and started with medication in either the

(01:01:55):
second or third grade. I don't remember what compelled me
to steal when I was a young teen, but I
will say that I have a sensory processing disorder that
went undiagnosed for the first twenty seven years of my life.
As my mom would say, I always looked uncomfortable. Controlling
what I was capable of was very important to me,
as so many things out of my control were so distressing. Well,

(01:02:15):
I never made the connection before about control, my psych
history and stealing. It makes a lot of sense as
to where the urge came from. Mostly at the time
I was stealing items like beauty products and such. Ironically,
the only time I got caught and subsequently arrested was
when I was stealing something for someone else. Fast forward
thirteen years and I find myself stealing the same type

(01:02:36):
of products again. The most recent incident happened so quickly
and as soon as I had left the store, I
started to cry and panic. I had no idea what
compelled me to do such a thing. After listening to
the episode, I was able to confirm what my gut
has been telling me that the cause of my recent
sticky fingers is distress over a very sudden, sick and
possibly terminal family member. I had never thought of what

(01:02:56):
I was doing as actual kleptomania, but after listening to
you both to discussing the disorder, it clicked. I intend
to bring this up with my mental health care providers.
And see what I can do to be in control
when I find myself compelled to steal. I also want
to let it be known that despite a lifetime of
dealing with mental health issues, I am a functional member
of society while doing a decent job of adult ing.

(01:03:18):
I have an advanced degree and work in healthcare. I'm married,
and I have a wonderful social life. Thanks so much
for the reference in your Villains episode and for the
podcast in general. You two have brought me many hours
of enjoyment, with one of my favorite self care activities
being a bubble bath and listening to two of my
favorite fellow feminists. Well, lady, I am glad that you
were able to listen to the episode and get help. Well,

(01:03:41):
I have a lot of here about our episode on Villainesses,
with a Maleficent correction, which I believe we received from
a few people. So Sarah writes, I wanted to make
a point on your coverage of the Angelina Jolie Maleficent,
which I watched while handing out candy this weekend. In

(01:04:02):
the movie, it's not just that Maleficent has her heartbroken
by a man, which is sad, yes, but as you
stated in the episode. It's a kind of blow background story.
The man who breaks her heart drugs her and cuts
her wings off her back so he can return them
to the king she's fighting against, etcetera, etcetera, to further
his own political career in the Human Kingdom. Maleficent is

(01:04:23):
drug and as her body assaulted, she loses her ability
to fly, and the heartrending scene where she wakes up
from her drugged stupor to find her body mutilated hit
me right in the gut. I'm sure I was not
alone in reading that assault as rape. I viewed Maleficent's
revenge motives as rooted in a woman's attempt to recover
her bodily autonomy as well as punish her assailant. I

(01:04:45):
read them two thousand fourteen Maleficent, with all of the
Gloria's contouring, as a story of trauma and recovery, which
made Maleficent as a character heartbreaking, lee relatable. Thank you
so much for reminding me of that, Sarah. I Maleficent
on a plane, which might explain why I didn't recall

(01:05:06):
that part, but it's so true, and now that you're
talking about it, I remember that scene and it was heartbreaking. Indeed,
and thanks to everybody who sent us your letters and
corrections and if you have something to share with us,
Mom stuff at how stuff works dot com is where
you can send them and for links to all of
our social media as well as all of our blogs,
videos and podcasts with our sources so you can learn

(01:05:29):
even more about Madam President's head on over to stuff
Mom Never Told You dot com. For more on this
and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot
com