March 5, 2024 • 42 mins
On this special International Women’s Day episode, Bridget reflects on what honoring women means and talks to NBC’s Ali Vitali about why we haven’t seen a woman in the White House...yet.
Check out Ali’s great book, Electable: Why America Hasn't Put a Woman in the White House . . . YET: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/electable-ali-vitali?variant=40087982473250
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, I'm Bridgeton and this is
there Are No Girls on the Internet. Friday, March eighth
is International Women's Day, and here at there are No
Girls on the Internet. We're celebrating by taking part in
(00:24):
Iheartradios Women Take the Mic initiative. International Women's Day has
always kind of meant a lot to me. It is
so important to me to be honoring and lifting up
women all over the world, and I think this year
I'm doing that while also really wrestling with the fact
that women both here in the United States but especially globally,
are facing a lot right now. You know, in times
(00:45):
of war in conflict, we know that it is always
women that really bear the brunt, and I guess that's
just sort of weighing very heavy on my mind as
I reflect on what International Women's Day means to me
this year, I do also just want to take a
moment to honor the women who have supported me and
helped me to get where I am today. You know,
I know that I would not be doing any of
(01:06):
what I am doing if not for the women that
came before me. You'll hear a bit more about that
later in this episode. But the woman that I kind
of modeled my career after was the late Great Gweneifel,
a journalist and correspondent on PBS. Gweneifel was the first
woman to host a nationally televised US public affairs program
with Washington Weekend Review. I actually have a picture of
(01:28):
her hanging on my fridge right now. My parents always
watched her on PBS, and when I was a kid,
it was the first time that I saw a black
woman have this big career on television, and I always wondered, Wow,
I wonder if I could do that too someday. You know,
she really had the quintessential big career that I always
wanted for myself.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Like she did it all.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
She moderated presidential debates. In fact, in February of twenty sixteen, Gweneifel,
alongside Judy Woodruff, became the first team of women to
moderate a Democratic residential debate, moderating the debate between Hillary
Clinton and Bernie Sanders. You know, some little girls dream
of being president, while I did not dream of being president.
I dreamt of being the woman who asks the person
(02:11):
who wants to be president, hard questions on television and
I might not ever have a big career like Gwen Eifels,
but she really inspired me to want to ask questions
and challenge myself and others. As women, we should be
seeing ourselves reflected in government, politics, media, journalism, culture, art,
and every other place where decisions are being made, including
(02:35):
the White House. NBC's Ali Vattally has been covering elections
from the campaign trail for years. Her book Electable, Why
America Hasn't put a woman in the White House dot
dot dot Yet takes a sweeping look at one of
the lingering questions of American elections. At a time when
more women have run for president of the United States
(02:55):
than ever before in our history? Will we ever see
a woman president? Alie and I have been friends for years,
and I hope that you'll enjoy our conversation about women
and our White House ambitions throughout history as much as
I did. So Allie, you have been covering the campaign
(03:17):
trail pretty much like since I've known you so for Yes,
what has that been like for you?
Speaker 3 (03:23):
It has been like, I don't know, six or seven
years now straight of just traveling from Iowa to New Hampshire, Nevada, Florida,
everywhere in between, constantly just following candidates for Republicans, Democrats, midterms, presidentials.
We do it all.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yeah, I mean, one of the big questions I have
for you is, having done this for so long, what
changes have you seen in the way that we talk
about candidates, especially women, people from marginalized backgrounds, Like, have
you seen a change since the beginning of your time
doing this to now?
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Gosh?
Speaker 3 (03:57):
I hope it's changing for the better. I think it's
changing for the better, in large part because I think
that media is more comfortable calling out sexism and racism.
There's not necessarily any more this knee jerk reaction to
both sides things that just shouldn't be both sides. So
I look at it, especially through the lens of someone
(04:18):
like Hillary Clinton. Right in two thousand and eight, the
media ecosystem didn't necessarily know how to deal with a
moment about like are you likable enough? Hillary?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Right?
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Remember that moment on the debate stage with Barack Obama
or in New Hampshire. Everyone remembers the Obama piece of
that moment, and he's got a little bit of criticism
for that but few people remember the fact that it
was a media moderator who teed that moment up by
asking Hillary Clinton, voters say that you are qualified, but
(04:49):
they say that you're not likable, how would you reassure
them as if likability is something that you need to
be president, it's nice to have, But like I don't
think you need to be president if you're only if
you're a likable person. So people forget that, and I
think that we have come further, thankfully in the decade
since that moment, or less than a decade since that moment,
(05:11):
at least not asking those questions anymore. But the thing
about sexism, then you know this is it's persistent. If
it's not likability, it becomes something else. And I would
argue that in twenty twenty, likability became electability. And that's
sort of the whole premise of my book, and that's
really where I start out. The whole thesis is that
(05:32):
it's fair to want a candidate who's electable, who can win,
because everyone wants to pick a winner. And certainly in
twenty twenty, every single Democratic voter that I talked to
just so badly wanted to pick the person who could
beat Trump. But the thing about electability is no one
knows who can actually win until voters vote, and so
it's really where you assigning your benefit of the doubt.
(05:55):
And I think the upshot of the book is in
a whole bunch of different ways we give mail candidates
much more benefit of the doubt than we do female candidates.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
It's fascinating. The book is fascinating.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Can can you talk us through some of the ways
that you see this playing out for women, that women
are not given the benefit of the doubt the way
that men are, Because yeah, I could think of some
recent male presidents who I might say were not the
most likable, and yet it didn't stop them from getting
to the White House.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
I mean the first person that I thought of was
Donald Trump because I would go out on the campaign trill.
I covered him in the twenty sixteen election and his
first year and a half in the White House, and
what voters would say to me all the time was,
I don't like him. I don't like the way he talks,
I don't like the way he acts towards people. But
I also like that he says what is on his mind.
And I also like that he tells it how it is.
(06:44):
But I like the policies. I like the judges. They
found ways to rationalize the fact that they didn't like him,
but he was strong and they wanted him to be president.
And with women, what a study that I point to
in my book has found is that it's not just oh,
nice to be like everyone wants to be liked. It
impacts the way that people won't vote for female candidates
(07:05):
because in the case of someone like Trump, voters will
vote for a man that they don't like, but they
are less likely to vote for a woman who they
don't like. And so it's not just nice.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
To have You have to have it.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
You have to be likable, but then you also have
to be strong. And the moment that I come back
to a lot from twenty twenty was this seminal moment
on the debate stage in January of twenty twenty in Iowa,
were like two weeks from caucus. All of us are exhausted,
heavily caffeinated, room of reporters, everyone on stage is very
on edge, all of the candidates because there's just been
(07:38):
this leaked meeting that happened between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
I'm sure you remember this where Bernie allegedly said to
Elizabeth Warren, I don't think a woman can win the presidency,
or I don't think a woman can win the presidency
against Trump, and Elizabeth Warren, surprise surprise, disagreed with bot
promise as a woman who was going to try to
be a woman who took on Trump. And they get
on this debate stage and I'm covering the Warren campaign,
(08:00):
and they feel like she's on the record telling her
side of the story, and no one is believing her.
And so she goes forward and tries to take this
moment and make it into one that's like a big
electability argument. Here's why Elizabeth Warden can win. And she says,
of all the people that are on this stage right now,
and she's next to Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders and
Pete budajigj and Amy Klobashar is the only other woman
(08:22):
up there. She says, of all the people on this
stage right now, only two of us have won all
of our elections, me and Amy Klobashar. And that's the
reaction that Klobashar had. She's like laughing, chuckling at her
podium because she knows it's right, and everyone else is
just up there stoically nodding. And it's a proof point.
That's a way that you can prove the unprovable, which
(08:42):
is like, I know, you don't know who's gonna win.
Come I will talk this day in twenty twenty, but
I can tell you that every other time I've been
on a ballot, everyone's voted for me, and up to
the point that I've won. Same with Amy Klobashar. The men,
they don't get to say that. Joe Biden, he ran
for president twice before he ran twenty twenty. He didn't
win any states outright then they were failed presidential campaigns,
(09:05):
and yet he was the guy who had the air
of electability around him in twenty twenty, in large part
because he was a moderately positioned white male of a
certain age. And so that's a moment that I look
at it and I'm like, this is the seminole moment
where you look at electability as both an important metric
and also a very heavily gendered one. And part of
(09:27):
the reason I wanted to tackle it in this book
is because in the media environment, especially in cable. We
are moving forward so quickly, doing live shots every hour
on the hour, and you don't always get the chance
to unpack things through a gender lens, a race lens.
You are solely looking at it sometimes through a horse
race lens. And I really wanted to be able to
(09:47):
go back over this campaign, especially because all of us
were stopped in twenty twenty right after Warren dropped out
because of the pandemic. I wanted to be able to
go back over it with a heavy gender lens and
try to explain what's unquantifiable, which is that gender really
plays a role here. You can't put a percentage on it,
but that doesn't mean that it's not there.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
I so, first of all, I just you probably get
this a lot, or maybe you don't.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
I get so fed up with the kind of reporting
that only frames things as a horse race, like who's
going to come out ahead? Because I do think that
can be important, but it doesn't really tell us a
lot about where we are as a people, what we
care about, what we're thinking about when you're just thinking about.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
It as like who's gonna win.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
I think so much of the nuance about things like identity, gender,
race gets lost. But we know these things are so
salient in our world and in our society. So thank you,
like from the bottom of my heart, for like actually
doing the work of trying to shade in some of
that nuance.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
It is so easily lost when we talk about politics.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
But I also think that that's what people are hungry for,
right Like people are very tuned in right now. That
is one of the biggest out growths I think of
the Trump era is the fact that a lot of
people who might have been casual or non political people
have started to tune in in a little bit more
of a consistent way. And I recognize that there's a
ton of fatigue out there right now, but I think
(11:13):
that's also why it's important to put things in context
for people and to explain, like, Okay, this one thing
happened over here, but it's connected to these ten things
that happened over here, and oh, by the way, the
thing that runs under the lens of all of them
is gender, or is race, or is something else. And
I think that that's really important. Right if you're going
(11:34):
to get to be an expert in something, you should
be able to talk about all the different prongs of it,
and so I think it's a real privilege to be
able to explain politics through all of those lenses, not
just who's going to win, even though you and I
both know elections have consequences. Sure, But like I do
think one of the positive things about twenty twenty was
you had candidates who were running who were putting policy
(11:54):
at the forefront. The fact that Elizabeth Warren's tagline was
I have a plan for that wasn't necessarily just about policy,
though she loves policy, Like these people love policy, let
me tell you, they love the policy. And also, like
as someone who's read many of those policy memos, they
know their stuff. I mean, many of the policy priorities
(12:15):
that she put forward ended up being the nuts and
bolts of like the larger Democratic platform once the primary
was over. But it was also a way for her
to show expertise, and that's really important for women when
they are running as well. So like you had candidates
who were trying to lean in not just to the
horse race, but who were trying to steer the conversation
to a policy place as well, and that helps too.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Yeah, I want to talk a bit about that because
you talked about the amazing moment of Warren being like, oh, well,
we've won all of our races the women on the stage.
Did you think when I think about all the different
stereotypes and negative misconceptions about women as leaders, I think
that's and you and I will probably rattle off a
bunch of them, but I think that one that we
(13:01):
used to see a lot of is like, oh, women
are not competent, And part of me feels like it
has ping gotten to a place where it's like women
are competent, but like, yeah, she has to be competent,
but also nice about it. Like I almost wonder if,
like the if like the stereotype has kind of evolved
to continue to oppress women and not allow us to
(13:21):
be the leader, the effective leaders that you and.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
I know that we can be.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
But also it's like, oh, yeah, you can't just be
a woman who has a plan for everything.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
You also have to be like demurror about it.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
You need to be nice about it. It's like I
have a plan for everything, but no worries if not,
you know, but I do think so. First of all,
the good news is that any like polling or bias
research that's out there shows that thankfully, public opinion has
shifted on this idea of female competency, like there is
now and I point to this in my book, like
(13:52):
people think that men and women are as competent as
each other. So yay for very obvious progress. It should
have never had to be progressed too. But I also
talk in the book about this idea, and I'm actually
sure that you feel this too, Like the idea of
being called a smart girl is something that I dig
into in my book because it's something that I've been called.
(14:13):
But it's an example of like words that are coded
that like, if you are female, you know what it's
like to have something said to you that kind of
sounds like a compliment, but like isn't actually a compliment.
And it's one of the things that I dive into
in the book in relation to how we talk about
female candidates, because you're right, there's almost an apology that
(14:35):
has to come after you assert yourself, or after you
show how smart you are, or after you actively pursue
the goal that you're trying to go towards. And there's
a great op ed that came up during the twenty
twenty race that said something to the effect of, you know,
she's the most beautiful woman in the world, but also
she's very ugly. She's you know, she holds it, she
(14:56):
knows how to shoot a gun, but also she's never
held a gun. Like all of these random examples that
the author gave, and the final one I thought really
was a gut punch because it was she wants to
be president, but she'd never run for it. And that's
almost what we demand in women, is like, we want
you to assert yourself, we want you to try, we
want you to be the best. You should strive to
(15:17):
be the best, but also don't make anyone feel uncomfortable
that you're in your pursuit of doing those things. And
that's you know, I think that's something that women who
are listening to this and who have been in these
spaces that are still so male dominated. I think that's
something that a lot of people resonate with. And it's
part of why I think that the more diverse your
(15:38):
newsroom gets, the better you'll be it calling out the
narratives when they start against female candidates. And also you
won't fall into those traps in the first place, at
least I hope not.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Yeah, Oh, that is a gut punch, and I feel
like I really saw it with Vice President Harris. I
remember reading someone saying like, oh, she's really like the
insult that they gave them. They didn't they didn't come
out and say that it was an insult, but we
can read between the lines. It's like, Oh, she's ambitious,
she really wants to be president. And it's like, do
you think that the men on stage like accidentally filled
(16:13):
out their paperwork to run for president and they don't
actually want it.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
It was just some big mistake and now they're.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
On stage day.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Yeah, it's like, of course she wants to be president.
That's the point. Everybody on that stage wants to be president.
That's the point. The fact that it is lobbed at women,
coded as an insult or coded is like, this is
why you shouldn't trust them, because they have high end,
they have high ambitions for themselves, and they want power
and they want visibility and they're making themselves big, and
(16:42):
that's something that is to be distrustful of if you
are a woman or a person, or like a woman
or a woman of color in particular, Like, yeah, I
don't see that same thing lobbed at men, even though,
of course they want to be president.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Of course they're ambitious.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Yep, exactly. And that was the word of the vice
presidential deepstakes, if you remember, right, Biden says he's going
to pick a woman. A bunch of really amazingly qualified
women get put on both the public list that the
media likes to make but also the campaign's list, and
it's everyone from Stacy Abrams to Kamala Harris, to Elizabeth Warren,
(17:18):
to Amy Klobashard to Val Deming's, Tammy Duckworth, Gretchen Witmer,
all of these really amazing women that showcase just how
much work Democrats have put in to filling the pipeline
with really good talent and diverse talent, and all of
them going forward and voicing the fact that they want
(17:39):
to be vice president, raising their hand and saying, yeah,
I would do that job and I would be good
at it. And here's why that got turned into, oh, well,
they're ambitious, and now we're back to those words that
sound like they should be compliments, but really they're not.
And that was I think one of the things that
felt particularly gendered about process that shouldn't have had gender
(18:02):
perpolating behind it. At all was the vice presidential beepstakes,
and that word ambition just reared its head in such
a negative way. But I think the silver lining to
it was that what we saw happen was Democratic groups
formed this whole group of you know, strategists and operatives
(18:23):
and Emily's Lists and other groups that have been working
to elevate women across politics. They formed we have her Back,
and you watched it happen. When they would do live shots,
they would be asked, Okay, you know who's better suited
to be vice president? Karen Bass Kamala Harrison And instead
of comparing, contrasting, tearing one down to elevate the other.
(18:45):
I watched Valerie Jarrett do this time and again on MSNBC.
She would say, well, Karen Bass would be a great
choice for X y Z reason, Kamala Harris would be
a great choice for ABC reason, and they would both
be amazing vice president. Period. They did not say anything,
and they did not pit these women against each other.
That's not to say that it didn't happen, because politics
is still politics, but when it came down to it,
(19:08):
you watch democratic women, especially try not to make this
seem like a cat fight. And I think that was
a really big silver lining that makes it better going forward.
But yeah, Kamala Harris has been a really fascinating person
rising to the role of vice president because her ambition
and having run for president beforehand, which by the way,
(19:30):
Joe Biden did right before he got to be vice president.
That's somehow being held against.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Let's take a quick break.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
At our back.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
For women, both in politics or government or just professional
women in general.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
I'm sure that you get this as a journalist.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
I think that we have this this cultural attitude that
effort is bad, Like if people can see the effort,
that's no good.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
It's supposed to look effort.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
You're supposed to like you don't really want it, and
that you know, if you're good at something, it's just happenstance,
it's just natural. Like I've never had a gun before,
but I'm great at shooting a gun. Like, yeah, I
think work, we're told as women that you have to
hide all of the inner machinations that make you ambitious,
that make you show up as a professional person who
wants to achieve things and and you know, have a
(20:30):
big flashy career or a big flashy life or something
I think it's I think it goes back to this
like cultural attitude that we are not supposed to see
that from women, and when we do, we don't like
it and we have to like ding it down.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Yeah, and so you know what, like to the extent
that we can as individuals, like we have to lift
up the work, right, Like I do feel like we're
in a period where I think it's like all of us,
Like I look at my girlfriends who are hard workers.
They strive for their goals, they reach for them, Like
(21:03):
I am definitely someone who tries hard. I will I
will say that openly. I do my research when a
story is breaking. For example, when I knew that Speaker
Pelosi was going to be making an announcement about her
future plans, the first thing I did was pick up
a book that I had read about Pelosi six months
ago that I didn't remember every detail of. But I
was like, okay, how can I scan for the fine
(21:24):
points that I had marked off the pages on, Like
it's okay to do your research, like to anyone who's listening,
Like I would never be able to show up on
television every day and know random facts about the legislative
push that Nancy Pelosi made in two thousand and eight,
just off the top of my head. You have to
work at it. And I actually think the more that
(21:46):
we normalize that for other women, the harder it becomes
to ding people for working hard and for showing up
and being smart. And you know, we can kind of
take that back. Like, I do want to believe that
that power is within us. So I'm not willing to
seed the space to the patriarchy on that one for
me or for anyone else, like who's running for president
or who's just like you know, going about their day
(22:07):
trying to be the best version of themselves.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yeah, and it.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Goes back to what you were saying about the we
Have Her Back coalition, you know, I do think that.
I mean, on the one hand, I hate that it's
kind of on us as individuals to combat this this
stigma that I think is like highly institutional and systemic.
But I do think like modeling how you can talk
about other women who are ambitious and like not not
(22:32):
give not give people thought her to be like ooh,
catfide or like ooh like you know. So I work
for a gender justice organization, Ultra Violet, and we have
a norm where even if we're talking about a woman
that we don't like or that we don't agree with her,
our values don't align. We think she's like not good
for the country or whatever. As a lawmaker, we don't
call her unqualified, we don't call there are certain things
(22:55):
that we don't call her or that we will never
like even imply because it. It adds to this. It
adds to this the.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Stigma that I think holds us all down. That's with it.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
And so even if we're saying like, oh, this woman,
we don't like her, if we say that she's unqualified
or this or that or this, that can come back
to get us. Because we're all women and all of
our oppression is really linked in that way. We're just
we're just adding fuel to that fire to have somebody
be able to lob that at another woman and keep
her down.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Yeah. Look, so much of this is systemic too. Like
I always think about the idea of a lot of
my friends, I feel this way a lot, the idea
of imposter syndrome, and really that almost puts the onus
on us, like it's our fault that we don't feel
like we are qualified enough or that we are taking
up space in the right way, and really like the
owners should be on the systems in which we are operating,
(23:48):
because I can guarantee that every single one of my
friends who has the feeling of being an impostor in
the spaces that they're in, that's not the case. They
are more than qualified to be there. Their voice should
be value there. It's the systems that we need to
push back on and the systems that need to stop
making us feel like we are outsiders to them. So
I think that that's really important. It's not fair that
(24:11):
we have to reshape these structures, but that's sort of
the onus that we have right now, whether it's fair
or not.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Yeah, I mean it's it's like, that's the trip of
living in a patriarchal society. I guess it's like it
shouldn't be on us, but it is, and like it's
like part of the work, part of showing.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Up in and what a trip it is, and.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
What a trip it is.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
But you know what you bring us something that's so
interesting too, because there is in the book, I do
explore a lot about democrats, in large part because six
of them ran for president in twenty twenty but I
also talk about Republicanism and gender and identity, and there's
a really fascinating thing happening on the Republican side right
now where they are electing more women, but the groups
(24:57):
that exist on the Republican side to try to get
more women in their pipeline. Thankfully, now there's a recognition
among Republicans that women can run in really tight races.
They're a large part of the reason that they flipped
so many seats in twenty twenty. A lot of the
competitive seats this cycle had women running in them on
the Republican side especially, So all of those things are true,
(25:21):
but they're having a kind of debate about can we
call other women unqualified or unviable? And they're having it
because of people like Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Bobert
who have embraced non reality and who have embraced conspiracy
theories and elections in nihilism, and it's a party that
the whole It's the thing that the whole Republican Party
(25:43):
is dealing with right now, like the role of Trump,
the role of elections in nihilism, the role of the
fringe of the party. They're all figuring it out right now.
But when it comes to women, I've watched these women's
group try to draw the line by using words like
we only endorse viable female candidates, or we only endorse
qualified female candidates. They're trying to make that delineation because
(26:07):
they think that some of the women who have risen
to popularism in recent years and months are not qualified
and should not be indicative of the kind of Republican
women serving. So it's fascinating that those are one of
the words that you guys think about actively, because in
watching it on the Republican side, that's one of the
words that they use as sort of like a line
(26:27):
of demarcation, like we only support serious candidates, which is
to say they don't support the conspiracy theorists, and like
that's a line that needs to be drawn in Republican
politics right now. But it's fascinating the way that they're
drawing that's so interesting.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
And it's like, I mean, especially coming out of mid terms,
where people are like, oh, there's going to be a
bad way, and I would say that like people kind
of rejected that like election denihilism vibe. But I think
people kind the voters kind of were like, no, thank you.
And I do think like figuring a it's interesting how
they're they're using these I don't know if euphemisms is
(27:03):
the right word, but using these ways to draw a
lot in the sand and to like explain like, oh,
these are the kind of candidates that we're looking to
support and uplift, not these other ones.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
They're not gonna they're not gonna come out.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
And say we don't want to, you know, get in
bed with an election denial of denial candidate or a
conspiracy theory candidate. But like the way that they're using
language is sort of like, but you know what we're
trying to say, you know.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Yeah, yeah, well well, and some of them will say that,
I mean, some of the women that I talk to
and quote in the book will say that is not
the kind of a female candidate that we want to
put our money behind, to put our resources behind, to
help out of primaries. And I specifically say to help
out of primaries because a large part of the reason
that groups are so important in elevating female candidates and
(27:50):
people of color, basically anyone who's non white and non male.
The reason it's important is because they're operating in structures
that are just tilted against them, Like, this is a
system the end of the day. It was built by men,
built by white men, for white men, to keep power
for white men. So anyone who's not that is already
kind of going against the system as it was built.
(28:11):
But in primaries is really where we see gender and
race play a role that can be counter productive to
the candidate. And that's why it's so important to focus
on primaries because when people get to general elections, their
tribal If you're a Democrat, you're probably voting Democrat. If
you're a Republican, you're probably voting a Republican. I love
independent voters, but increasingly it's a smaller and smaller slice
(28:34):
of the pie. And so that's why the focus is
so important on primaries just generally, because that's really where
the dynamics are. It's not as tribal there because you're
picking among multiple people in your own party.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Yeah, this is going to be I'm not even really
sure how to ask this, but it fits so nicely
in the intersection of your work. There are so many
women candidates who do embrace things like election denilism and
conspiracy theory. Are men there are a lot of men
who do it too, but plenty of women become like
rising stars and have big platforms and big profiles on
the basis of their embracing conspiracy theory and elections nihilism.
(29:09):
Do you think there's something about women where when they
have embrace this ideology, it like.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Helps them more? Like what do you think is going on.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Well on the Republican side, Definitely, I mean, but again,
it's not just women on the Republican side who are
being forced to grapple with what I would call like
republicanism in the age of Trump. Because the more I'm out,
the more I hear voters who say that, like, the
word Republican doesn't mean conservative anymore of them, the word
(29:39):
Republican means Trump. So the party itself is going through
a reckoning the fact that there are women at the
forefront of that movement, but there are also men at
the forefront of that movement, you know, Like, I don't
know if that's necessarily a gender question, but I do
think that it speaks to something that Secretary Hillary Clinton
said to me when I was talking with her for
(29:59):
this project, which is the entire idea of electability has changed, right,
Like the idea, and she brought up an example, not
using a specific candidate, but she pointed to the Republican
side where she thought at one point that a woman
holding a gun prominently in a campaign ad might not
have been viewed as electable several years ago, but certainly
(30:22):
helps a woman's electability now in the Republican party. So look,
the upside of that is that we are starting to
see more kinds of women as electable. The downside is
that right now in Republican politics, it is also popular
to deny results of legitimate elections proffer lies to an
(30:45):
electorate about those elections. That's problematic from a small d
democracy standpoint, and that's just like a Republican thing that
they're dealing with right now.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Gender aside, Yeah, that is so interesting, and it's like,
even though that's not necessarily you know, particular to gender,
I do see it as just like another way that
it can become a trap for women, right, like another
way that like it can be this tightrope that women
are expected to walk that men.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Just are not. Yes, yeah, well there's also something interesting
on the Republican side of this too, where I found
a study in my book where if you are female
or a person of color. And I think the study
was around demographic biases that may exist within conservative voters.
(31:36):
One of the ways that candidates of color and female
candidates can overcome any demographic biases that exist is by
being more hyper conservative. So if you're Carly Fiorina or
if you're Ben Carson, and those were some of the
names that were tested by in this one study their
hyper conservatism, showing that ideologically they ascribe to all aspects
(31:59):
of publicanism that can overcome any bias that might exist
because they are black or because they are female. And
I thought that was a really interesting study that sort
of explains why you have the rise of certain very
hyper conservative women on the right. It kind of explains
Sarah Palin and Marsha Blackburn and Marjorie Taylor Green and
(32:23):
Lauren Bobert, Like there at least is some explanation for
it because on the Republican side, otherwise they do not
want to talk about gender and identity politics. That is
like a bad word. Don't get into it, don't talk
as a woman, don't talk you know, they don't want
to hear that. It's just are you you know, their
metrics for assessing candidate viability are just different.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
That is so fascinating. So I have to ask Bough.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
The book is called Electable by America hasn't put a
woman in the White House dot dot dot yet, And.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
That title makes me say that you are so like you.
What are your thoughts? Do you think we're going to
see a woman president in your lifetime? Our lifetime? Like?
Are you hopeful? What do you think?
Speaker 3 (33:05):
I need to see it. We have to see it.
We're gonna see it.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
I thought we had our time.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
And then then you know, I mean, look, I say yet,
because I need to be optimistic about this.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
I do think that you have people, even Liz Cheney
right now, who have made the point in recent months
that men have been running things for a while and
it hasn't always gone so great. I do think that
it's time to maybe try something else. At the same time, though, too,
there have been just systemic issues with why a woman
(33:47):
has not been able to ascend to the White House,
And in large part it's because we haven't seen a
ton of women serving in elected office until like the
last forty or fifty years. And I know that sounds
like a long time, but it's actually not that long,
and women are filling the ranks of both parties so
much right now that finally there are long lists of
(34:09):
women who we can say, Okay, they can run for
president on the Republican side, they can run for president
on the Democrat Democratic side, to the point where I
think in twenty twenty four and twenty twenty four is
tough because two men still govern this process, and so
at a certain point it becomes a numbers game, and
I think that gone are the days where you're just
going to have only fields of dudes running for president.
(34:32):
There are going to be women who are running. I
also think that what Biden did by electing by choosing
Kamala Harris and then Kamala Harris and Joe Biden being
elected in twenty twenty, the fact that we have our
first female vice president is huge. Women of both parties
that I talk to for this book agree that she
makes it easier for those who come after her simply
(34:53):
because she goes to work being who she is every
single day, and it allows the American mindset to see
female leadership at its highest rungs. Quite frankly, that's also
something that Speaker Pelosi has done for this country because
she was elevated first. But I also think that, especially
if it's Biden and Harris again in twenty twenty four,
(35:14):
it's going to be really hard for Republicans to just
nominate another ticket that looks like Trump and Tense, that
just looks like two older white men. Again. I do
think that we're now in a place where gender and
diversity is an asset. And I look at it in
twenty twenty when Biden chose Harris, I mean the fact
(35:35):
that he had just consolidated his power, he had just
won the primary, and he comes out and he says,
I'm going to choose a woman. To me, it was
a sign that times had changed, because if you look
at the last few times that men had selected women
as their running mates. We're talking about Walter Mondale in
nineteen eighty four when he chose Geraldine Ferraro and his
(35:58):
campaign was in the ten. He was not doing well.
He needed something that could excite his base. They thought, hey,
we'll do a woman, and it was sort of a
throw spaghetti at the wall kind of moment, see if
it sticks. It didn't, but it was also the mindset
the next time we saw that happen, which was on
the Republican side. Two thousand and eight, John McCain picking
Sarah Palin, shocking everybody, but the mindset was the same.
(36:20):
He was falling behind Obama in the polls. He needed
something to excite the base. He chose someone who was female,
who use the phrases like she wanted to finish the
work that Hillary Clinton had started. Because Clinton ran an
eight and fell short to Obama. I mean it was
very throw spaghetti at the wall. See what sticks. Now,
in twenty twenty, you have Biden purposefully choosing a woman,
(36:44):
saying that her gender, her lived experience, the different things
that she brings to the table, our assets. It's not
just yeah, we'll see what happens. We'll pick a woman.
It's no, we want to pick a woman. We want
to pick a woman of color. She provides us drinks
that we would not otherwise have. That is a really
big moment of progress and one that it's hard for
(37:05):
me to see not sticking. And so I do think
we're going to have a female president, and I do
think we're going to see more female vice presidents. I
would love to see both happen at once. That would
be really cool. But progress is slow, but it's coming.
I have to believe it.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
I'm happy that you're doing this work of like modeling
the progress that we have made and signaling to the
progress that has yet to be made in the future.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
You know, I do think this book came about at
a dark time for everybody, because the pandemic happened. I
was asked to do this book in March of twenty twenty,
and a week later I flew home from being on
the road with Biden and Ohio and Elizabeth Warren had
just dropped out and all of us never left our
houses again for the next few months. So it was
(37:49):
a dark time, and I remember the only thing that
I said to my editor was I don't want to
do this book. If I can't come out in a
place where I feel optimistic, I can't not find the
silver linings. I remember some of the early calls that
I made to some of the smartest sources that I have,
where I just said, make me feel good about this,
like it's going to happen, right, Like I feel like
it's going to happen. Point me to some examples that
(38:11):
make you feel like it's going to happen. And I
came out with a lot of examples, and yes, it's
important to show why it hasn't happened yet and to
shine a spotlight on moments where unfortunately the isms sexism, racism,
all of the others won out. But I think once
you show people that those moments have happened, once you
(38:33):
see it, you can't stop seeing it. And that's part
of helping this road to progress too.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
That's so powerful. And Alie, I have to say, and
not to get to like sappy or whatever, but we
kind of came up in the in the sort of
political media space together, and I remember when we were
working together at MSNBC. You I can just tell that,
like you were going to be a real mover and
(39:01):
shaker in the space.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
And so watching you like you were on the campaign trail.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
You were like, I follow you on Instagram and I
see these images of you, like you know, setting up
producing like shots and setting up shots like talking like
you are in it, and watching this trajectory has been
really incredible and powerful. It's like I can't help but
wonder how many little girls, Like when I was a kid,
I used to watch Gwen Eifel on TV and be
(39:26):
like I could be her someday, And I wonder, like,
are you the Gwen Eifel for a new generation of
which finding their voice in political media?
Speaker 2 (39:33):
I say yes.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
First of all, you just gave me chills. Second of all,
my god, immeasurable, immeasurable goals for me to put up.
I mean, my God. But I think about it too
as like there's just more of us now, right, Like
there are just more women who are out there who
are empowered to be experts, who are empowered to ask good,
(39:57):
tough questions. I think that's good for everybody. I mean,
I love looking around and seeing in a scrum or
in a gaggle when I'm with a candidate, like a
bunch of other women around me. I think that that
is just such an amazing thing. And I love it
even more when it's a female candidate. It's the center
(40:18):
of it. But I mean, yeah, you and I both,
I think, have really climbed through our industries. And I
think about the way that we first met too. I mean, right,
we were doing a shoot for Liz Plank. Right, Liz
Plank brought us all together the Queen to talk about
(40:41):
hate online and like the nasty things that people said
to us, and it sort of brings us full circle
a little bit too, right, because we were there trying
to reclaim some of the nasty words that people were
throwing at us, just simply for being smart and female
and a line. Right. Thankfully, there are girls on the
(41:02):
internet now, right who can have each other's back and like,
you know, not not let that stuff just go unchecked.
But like that's how we met. We met by calling
out sexism online. And now you get to be a
proof point that like it's not just dudes in a
toxic environment, like it's women are here and making it better,
(41:24):
which I would argue is just happening all over.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
I mentioned it at the start of the show.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
But the team here at There Are No Girls on
the Internet is celebrating International Women's Day this week. For
more programming honoring the incredible women of the network and worldwide,
head to iHeart Podcasts International Women's Day feed by searching
women Take the Mic. Wherever you look for your podcasts.
We're featured along shows that I love, like Therapy for
Black Girls and others that's women.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Take the Mic.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
I mean iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Got a story about an in thing in tech, or
just want to say hi. You can reach us at
Hello at tangody dot com. You can also find transcripts
for today's episode at tengody dot com. There Are No
Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget Todd.
It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. Jonathan Strickland
(42:14):
is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and
sound engineer. Michael Amado is our contributing producer. I'm your host,
Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate
and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
get your podcasts.
There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, I'm Bridgeton and this is
there Are No Girls on the Internet. Friday, March eighth
is International Women's Day, and here at there are No
Girls on the Internet. We're celebrating by taking part in
(00:24):
Iheartradios Women Take the Mic initiative. International Women's Day has
always kind of meant a lot to me. It is
so important to me to be honoring and lifting up
women all over the world, and I think this year
I'm doing that while also really wrestling with the fact
that women both here in the United States but especially globally,
are facing a lot right now. You know, in times
(00:45):
of war in conflict, we know that it is always
women that really bear the brunt, and I guess that's
just sort of weighing very heavy on my mind as
I reflect on what International Women's Day means to me
this year, I do also just want to take a
moment to honor the women who have supported me and
helped me to get where I am today. You know,
I know that I would not be doing any of
(01:06):
what I am doing if not for the women that
came before me. You'll hear a bit more about that
later in this episode. But the woman that I kind
of modeled my career after was the late Great Gweneifel,
a journalist and correspondent on PBS. Gweneifel was the first
woman to host a nationally televised US public affairs program
with Washington Weekend Review. I actually have a picture of
(01:28):
her hanging on my fridge right now. My parents always
watched her on PBS, and when I was a kid,
it was the first time that I saw a black
woman have this big career on television, and I always wondered, Wow,
I wonder if I could do that too someday. You know,
she really had the quintessential big career that I always
wanted for myself.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Like she did it all.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
She moderated presidential debates. In fact, in February of twenty sixteen, Gweneifel,
alongside Judy Woodruff, became the first team of women to
moderate a Democratic residential debate, moderating the debate between Hillary
Clinton and Bernie Sanders. You know, some little girls dream
of being president, while I did not dream of being president.
I dreamt of being the woman who asks the person
(02:11):
who wants to be president, hard questions on television and
I might not ever have a big career like Gwen Eifels,
but she really inspired me to want to ask questions
and challenge myself and others. As women, we should be
seeing ourselves reflected in government, politics, media, journalism, culture, art,
and every other place where decisions are being made, including
(02:35):
the White House. NBC's Ali Vattally has been covering elections
from the campaign trail for years. Her book Electable, Why
America Hasn't put a woman in the White House dot
dot dot Yet takes a sweeping look at one of
the lingering questions of American elections. At a time when
more women have run for president of the United States
(02:55):
than ever before in our history? Will we ever see
a woman president? Alie and I have been friends for years,
and I hope that you'll enjoy our conversation about women
and our White House ambitions throughout history as much as
I did. So Allie, you have been covering the campaign
(03:17):
trail pretty much like since I've known you so for Yes,
what has that been like for you?
Speaker 3 (03:23):
It has been like, I don't know, six or seven
years now straight of just traveling from Iowa to New Hampshire, Nevada, Florida,
everywhere in between, constantly just following candidates for Republicans, Democrats, midterms, presidentials.
We do it all.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yeah, I mean, one of the big questions I have
for you is, having done this for so long, what
changes have you seen in the way that we talk
about candidates, especially women, people from marginalized backgrounds, Like, have
you seen a change since the beginning of your time
doing this to now?
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Gosh?
Speaker 3 (03:57):
I hope it's changing for the better. I think it's
changing for the better, in large part because I think
that media is more comfortable calling out sexism and racism.
There's not necessarily any more this knee jerk reaction to
both sides things that just shouldn't be both sides. So
I look at it, especially through the lens of someone
(04:18):
like Hillary Clinton. Right in two thousand and eight, the
media ecosystem didn't necessarily know how to deal with a
moment about like are you likable enough? Hillary?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Right?
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Remember that moment on the debate stage with Barack Obama
or in New Hampshire. Everyone remembers the Obama piece of
that moment, and he's got a little bit of criticism
for that but few people remember the fact that it
was a media moderator who teed that moment up by
asking Hillary Clinton, voters say that you are qualified, but
(04:49):
they say that you're not likable, how would you reassure
them as if likability is something that you need to
be president, it's nice to have, But like I don't
think you need to be president if you're only if
you're a likable person. So people forget that, and I
think that we have come further, thankfully in the decade
since that moment, or less than a decade since that moment,
(05:11):
at least not asking those questions anymore. But the thing
about sexism, then you know this is it's persistent. If
it's not likability, it becomes something else. And I would
argue that in twenty twenty, likability became electability. And that's
sort of the whole premise of my book, and that's
really where I start out. The whole thesis is that
(05:32):
it's fair to want a candidate who's electable, who can win,
because everyone wants to pick a winner. And certainly in
twenty twenty, every single Democratic voter that I talked to
just so badly wanted to pick the person who could
beat Trump. But the thing about electability is no one
knows who can actually win until voters vote, and so
it's really where you assigning your benefit of the doubt.
(05:55):
And I think the upshot of the book is in
a whole bunch of different ways we give mail candidates
much more benefit of the doubt than we do female candidates.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
It's fascinating. The book is fascinating.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Can can you talk us through some of the ways
that you see this playing out for women, that women
are not given the benefit of the doubt the way
that men are, Because yeah, I could think of some
recent male presidents who I might say were not the
most likable, and yet it didn't stop them from getting
to the White House.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
I mean the first person that I thought of was
Donald Trump because I would go out on the campaign trill.
I covered him in the twenty sixteen election and his
first year and a half in the White House, and
what voters would say to me all the time was,
I don't like him. I don't like the way he talks,
I don't like the way he acts towards people. But
I also like that he says what is on his mind.
And I also like that he tells it how it is.
(06:44):
But I like the policies. I like the judges. They
found ways to rationalize the fact that they didn't like him,
but he was strong and they wanted him to be president.
And with women, what a study that I point to
in my book has found is that it's not just oh,
nice to be like everyone wants to be liked. It
impacts the way that people won't vote for female candidates
(07:05):
because in the case of someone like Trump, voters will
vote for a man that they don't like, but they
are less likely to vote for a woman who they
don't like. And so it's not just nice.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
To have You have to have it.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
You have to be likable, but then you also have
to be strong. And the moment that I come back
to a lot from twenty twenty was this seminal moment
on the debate stage in January of twenty twenty in Iowa,
were like two weeks from caucus. All of us are exhausted,
heavily caffeinated, room of reporters, everyone on stage is very
on edge, all of the candidates because there's just been
(07:38):
this leaked meeting that happened between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
I'm sure you remember this where Bernie allegedly said to
Elizabeth Warren, I don't think a woman can win the presidency,
or I don't think a woman can win the presidency
against Trump, and Elizabeth Warren, surprise surprise, disagreed with bot
promise as a woman who was going to try to
be a woman who took on Trump. And they get
on this debate stage and I'm covering the Warren campaign,
(08:00):
and they feel like she's on the record telling her
side of the story, and no one is believing her.
And so she goes forward and tries to take this
moment and make it into one that's like a big
electability argument. Here's why Elizabeth Warden can win. And she says,
of all the people that are on this stage right now,
and she's next to Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders and
Pete budajigj and Amy Klobashar is the only other woman
(08:22):
up there. She says, of all the people on this
stage right now, only two of us have won all
of our elections, me and Amy Klobashar. And that's the
reaction that Klobashar had. She's like laughing, chuckling at her
podium because she knows it's right, and everyone else is
just up there stoically nodding. And it's a proof point.
That's a way that you can prove the unprovable, which
(08:42):
is like, I know, you don't know who's gonna win.
Come I will talk this day in twenty twenty, but
I can tell you that every other time I've been
on a ballot, everyone's voted for me, and up to
the point that I've won. Same with Amy Klobashar. The men,
they don't get to say that. Joe Biden, he ran
for president twice before he ran twenty twenty. He didn't
win any states outright then they were failed presidential campaigns,
(09:05):
and yet he was the guy who had the air
of electability around him in twenty twenty, in large part
because he was a moderately positioned white male of a
certain age. And so that's a moment that I look
at it and I'm like, this is the seminole moment
where you look at electability as both an important metric
and also a very heavily gendered one. And part of
(09:27):
the reason I wanted to tackle it in this book
is because in the media environment, especially in cable. We
are moving forward so quickly, doing live shots every hour
on the hour, and you don't always get the chance
to unpack things through a gender lens, a race lens.
You are solely looking at it sometimes through a horse
race lens. And I really wanted to be able to
(09:47):
go back over this campaign, especially because all of us
were stopped in twenty twenty right after Warren dropped out
because of the pandemic. I wanted to be able to
go back over it with a heavy gender lens and
try to explain what's unquantifiable, which is that gender really
plays a role here. You can't put a percentage on it,
but that doesn't mean that it's not there.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
I so, first of all, I just you probably get
this a lot, or maybe you don't.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
I get so fed up with the kind of reporting
that only frames things as a horse race, like who's
going to come out ahead? Because I do think that
can be important, but it doesn't really tell us a
lot about where we are as a people, what we
care about, what we're thinking about when you're just thinking about.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
It as like who's gonna win.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
I think so much of the nuance about things like identity, gender,
race gets lost. But we know these things are so
salient in our world and in our society. So thank you,
like from the bottom of my heart, for like actually
doing the work of trying to shade in some of
that nuance.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
It is so easily lost when we talk about politics.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
But I also think that that's what people are hungry for,
right Like people are very tuned in right now. That
is one of the biggest out growths I think of
the Trump era is the fact that a lot of
people who might have been casual or non political people
have started to tune in in a little bit more
of a consistent way. And I recognize that there's a
ton of fatigue out there right now, but I think
(11:13):
that's also why it's important to put things in context
for people and to explain, like, Okay, this one thing
happened over here, but it's connected to these ten things
that happened over here, and oh, by the way, the
thing that runs under the lens of all of them
is gender, or is race, or is something else. And
I think that that's really important. Right if you're going
(11:34):
to get to be an expert in something, you should
be able to talk about all the different prongs of it,
and so I think it's a real privilege to be
able to explain politics through all of those lenses, not
just who's going to win, even though you and I
both know elections have consequences. Sure, But like I do
think one of the positive things about twenty twenty was
you had candidates who were running who were putting policy
(11:54):
at the forefront. The fact that Elizabeth Warren's tagline was
I have a plan for that wasn't necessarily just about policy,
though she loves policy, Like these people love policy, let
me tell you, they love the policy. And also, like
as someone who's read many of those policy memos, they
know their stuff. I mean, many of the policy priorities
(12:15):
that she put forward ended up being the nuts and
bolts of like the larger Democratic platform once the primary
was over. But it was also a way for her
to show expertise, and that's really important for women when
they are running as well. So like you had candidates
who were trying to lean in not just to the
horse race, but who were trying to steer the conversation
to a policy place as well, and that helps too.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Yeah, I want to talk a bit about that because
you talked about the amazing moment of Warren being like, oh, well,
we've won all of our races the women on the stage.
Did you think when I think about all the different
stereotypes and negative misconceptions about women as leaders, I think
that's and you and I will probably rattle off a
bunch of them, but I think that one that we
(13:01):
used to see a lot of is like, oh, women
are not competent, And part of me feels like it
has ping gotten to a place where it's like women
are competent, but like, yeah, she has to be competent,
but also nice about it. Like I almost wonder if,
like the if like the stereotype has kind of evolved
to continue to oppress women and not allow us to
(13:21):
be the leader, the effective leaders that you and.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
I know that we can be.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
But also it's like, oh, yeah, you can't just be
a woman who has a plan for everything.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
You also have to be like demurror about it.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
You need to be nice about it. It's like I
have a plan for everything, but no worries if not,
you know, but I do think so. First of all,
the good news is that any like polling or bias
research that's out there shows that thankfully, public opinion has
shifted on this idea of female competency, like there is
now and I point to this in my book, like
(13:52):
people think that men and women are as competent as
each other. So yay for very obvious progress. It should
have never had to be progressed too. But I also
talk in the book about this idea, and I'm actually
sure that you feel this too, Like the idea of
being called a smart girl is something that I dig
into in my book because it's something that I've been called.
(14:13):
But it's an example of like words that are coded
that like, if you are female, you know what it's
like to have something said to you that kind of
sounds like a compliment, but like isn't actually a compliment.
And it's one of the things that I dive into
in the book in relation to how we talk about
female candidates, because you're right, there's almost an apology that
(14:35):
has to come after you assert yourself, or after you
show how smart you are, or after you actively pursue
the goal that you're trying to go towards. And there's
a great op ed that came up during the twenty
twenty race that said something to the effect of, you know,
she's the most beautiful woman in the world, but also
she's very ugly. She's you know, she holds it, she
(14:56):
knows how to shoot a gun, but also she's never
held a gun. Like all of these random examples that
the author gave, and the final one I thought really
was a gut punch because it was she wants to
be president, but she'd never run for it. And that's
almost what we demand in women, is like, we want
you to assert yourself, we want you to try, we
want you to be the best. You should strive to
(15:17):
be the best, but also don't make anyone feel uncomfortable
that you're in your pursuit of doing those things. And
that's you know, I think that's something that women who
are listening to this and who have been in these
spaces that are still so male dominated. I think that's
something that a lot of people resonate with. And it's
part of why I think that the more diverse your
(15:38):
newsroom gets, the better you'll be it calling out the
narratives when they start against female candidates. And also you
won't fall into those traps in the first place, at
least I hope not.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Yeah, Oh, that is a gut punch, and I feel
like I really saw it with Vice President Harris. I
remember reading someone saying like, oh, she's really like the
insult that they gave them. They didn't they didn't come
out and say that it was an insult, but we
can read between the lines. It's like, Oh, she's ambitious,
she really wants to be president. And it's like, do
you think that the men on stage like accidentally filled
(16:13):
out their paperwork to run for president and they don't
actually want it.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
It was just some big mistake and now they're.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
On stage day.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Yeah, it's like, of course she wants to be president.
That's the point. Everybody on that stage wants to be president.
That's the point. The fact that it is lobbed at women,
coded as an insult or coded is like, this is
why you shouldn't trust them, because they have high end,
they have high ambitions for themselves, and they want power
and they want visibility and they're making themselves big, and
(16:42):
that's something that is to be distrustful of if you
are a woman or a person, or like a woman
or a woman of color in particular, Like, yeah, I
don't see that same thing lobbed at men, even though,
of course they want to be president.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Of course they're ambitious.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Yep, exactly. And that was the word of the vice
presidential deepstakes, if you remember, right, Biden says he's going
to pick a woman. A bunch of really amazingly qualified
women get put on both the public list that the
media likes to make but also the campaign's list, and
it's everyone from Stacy Abrams to Kamala Harris, to Elizabeth Warren,
(17:18):
to Amy Klobashard to Val Deming's, Tammy Duckworth, Gretchen Witmer,
all of these really amazing women that showcase just how
much work Democrats have put in to filling the pipeline
with really good talent and diverse talent, and all of
them going forward and voicing the fact that they want
(17:39):
to be vice president, raising their hand and saying, yeah,
I would do that job and I would be good
at it. And here's why that got turned into, oh, well,
they're ambitious, and now we're back to those words that
sound like they should be compliments, but really they're not.
And that was I think one of the things that
felt particularly gendered about process that shouldn't have had gender
(18:02):
perpolating behind it. At all was the vice presidential beepstakes,
and that word ambition just reared its head in such
a negative way. But I think the silver lining to
it was that what we saw happen was Democratic groups
formed this whole group of you know, strategists and operatives
(18:23):
and Emily's Lists and other groups that have been working
to elevate women across politics. They formed we have her Back,
and you watched it happen. When they would do live shots,
they would be asked, Okay, you know who's better suited
to be vice president? Karen Bass Kamala Harrison And instead
of comparing, contrasting, tearing one down to elevate the other.
(18:45):
I watched Valerie Jarrett do this time and again on MSNBC.
She would say, well, Karen Bass would be a great
choice for X y Z reason, Kamala Harris would be
a great choice for ABC reason, and they would both
be amazing vice president. Period. They did not say anything,
and they did not pit these women against each other.
That's not to say that it didn't happen, because politics
is still politics, but when it came down to it,
(19:08):
you watch democratic women, especially try not to make this
seem like a cat fight. And I think that was
a really big silver lining that makes it better going forward.
But yeah, Kamala Harris has been a really fascinating person
rising to the role of vice president because her ambition
and having run for president beforehand, which by the way,
(19:30):
Joe Biden did right before he got to be vice president.
That's somehow being held against.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Let's take a quick break.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
At our back.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
For women, both in politics or government or just professional
women in general.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
I'm sure that you get this as a journalist.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
I think that we have this this cultural attitude that
effort is bad, Like if people can see the effort,
that's no good.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
It's supposed to look effort.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
You're supposed to like you don't really want it, and
that you know, if you're good at something, it's just happenstance,
it's just natural. Like I've never had a gun before,
but I'm great at shooting a gun. Like, yeah, I
think work, we're told as women that you have to
hide all of the inner machinations that make you ambitious,
that make you show up as a professional person who
wants to achieve things and and you know, have a
(20:30):
big flashy career or a big flashy life or something
I think it's I think it goes back to this
like cultural attitude that we are not supposed to see
that from women, and when we do, we don't like
it and we have to like ding it down.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Yeah, and so you know what, like to the extent
that we can as individuals, like we have to lift
up the work, right, Like I do feel like we're
in a period where I think it's like all of us,
Like I look at my girlfriends who are hard workers.
They strive for their goals, they reach for them, Like
(21:03):
I am definitely someone who tries hard. I will I
will say that openly. I do my research when a
story is breaking. For example, when I knew that Speaker
Pelosi was going to be making an announcement about her
future plans, the first thing I did was pick up
a book that I had read about Pelosi six months
ago that I didn't remember every detail of. But I
was like, okay, how can I scan for the fine
(21:24):
points that I had marked off the pages on, Like
it's okay to do your research, like to anyone who's listening,
Like I would never be able to show up on
television every day and know random facts about the legislative
push that Nancy Pelosi made in two thousand and eight,
just off the top of my head. You have to
work at it. And I actually think the more that
(21:46):
we normalize that for other women, the harder it becomes
to ding people for working hard and for showing up
and being smart. And you know, we can kind of
take that back. Like, I do want to believe that
that power is within us. So I'm not willing to
seed the space to the patriarchy on that one for
me or for anyone else, like who's running for president
or who's just like you know, going about their day
(22:07):
trying to be the best version of themselves.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yeah, and it.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Goes back to what you were saying about the we
Have Her Back coalition, you know, I do think that.
I mean, on the one hand, I hate that it's
kind of on us as individuals to combat this this
stigma that I think is like highly institutional and systemic.
But I do think like modeling how you can talk
about other women who are ambitious and like not not
(22:32):
give not give people thought her to be like ooh,
catfide or like ooh like you know. So I work
for a gender justice organization, Ultra Violet, and we have
a norm where even if we're talking about a woman
that we don't like or that we don't agree with her,
our values don't align. We think she's like not good
for the country or whatever. As a lawmaker, we don't
call her unqualified, we don't call there are certain things
(22:55):
that we don't call her or that we will never
like even imply because it. It adds to this. It
adds to this the.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Stigma that I think holds us all down. That's with it.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
And so even if we're saying like, oh, this woman,
we don't like her, if we say that she's unqualified
or this or that or this, that can come back
to get us. Because we're all women and all of
our oppression is really linked in that way. We're just
we're just adding fuel to that fire to have somebody
be able to lob that at another woman and keep
her down.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Yeah. Look, so much of this is systemic too. Like
I always think about the idea of a lot of
my friends, I feel this way a lot, the idea
of imposter syndrome, and really that almost puts the onus
on us, like it's our fault that we don't feel
like we are qualified enough or that we are taking
up space in the right way, and really like the
owners should be on the systems in which we are operating,
(23:48):
because I can guarantee that every single one of my
friends who has the feeling of being an impostor in
the spaces that they're in, that's not the case. They
are more than qualified to be there. Their voice should
be value there. It's the systems that we need to
push back on and the systems that need to stop
making us feel like we are outsiders to them. So
I think that that's really important. It's not fair that
(24:11):
we have to reshape these structures, but that's sort of
the onus that we have right now, whether it's fair
or not.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Yeah, I mean it's it's like, that's the trip of
living in a patriarchal society. I guess it's like it
shouldn't be on us, but it is, and like it's
like part of the work, part of showing.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Up in and what a trip it is, and.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
What a trip it is.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
But you know what you bring us something that's so
interesting too, because there is in the book, I do
explore a lot about democrats, in large part because six
of them ran for president in twenty twenty but I
also talk about Republicanism and gender and identity, and there's
a really fascinating thing happening on the Republican side right
now where they are electing more women, but the groups
(24:57):
that exist on the Republican side to try to get
more women in their pipeline. Thankfully, now there's a recognition
among Republicans that women can run in really tight races.
They're a large part of the reason that they flipped
so many seats in twenty twenty. A lot of the
competitive seats this cycle had women running in them on
the Republican side especially, So all of those things are true,
(25:21):
but they're having a kind of debate about can we
call other women unqualified or unviable? And they're having it
because of people like Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Bobert
who have embraced non reality and who have embraced conspiracy
theories and elections in nihilism, and it's a party that
the whole It's the thing that the whole Republican Party
(25:43):
is dealing with right now, like the role of Trump,
the role of elections in nihilism, the role of the
fringe of the party. They're all figuring it out right now.
But when it comes to women, I've watched these women's
group try to draw the line by using words like
we only endorse viable female candidates, or we only endorse
qualified female candidates. They're trying to make that delineation because
(26:07):
they think that some of the women who have risen
to popularism in recent years and months are not qualified
and should not be indicative of the kind of Republican
women serving. So it's fascinating that those are one of
the words that you guys think about actively, because in
watching it on the Republican side, that's one of the
words that they use as sort of like a line
(26:27):
of demarcation, like we only support serious candidates, which is
to say they don't support the conspiracy theorists, and like
that's a line that needs to be drawn in Republican
politics right now. But it's fascinating the way that they're
drawing that's so interesting.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
And it's like, I mean, especially coming out of mid terms,
where people are like, oh, there's going to be a
bad way, and I would say that like people kind
of rejected that like election denihilism vibe. But I think
people kind the voters kind of were like, no, thank you.
And I do think like figuring a it's interesting how
they're they're using these I don't know if euphemisms is
(27:03):
the right word, but using these ways to draw a
lot in the sand and to like explain like, oh,
these are the kind of candidates that we're looking to
support and uplift, not these other ones.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
They're not gonna they're not gonna come out.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
And say we don't want to, you know, get in
bed with an election denial of denial candidate or a
conspiracy theory candidate. But like the way that they're using
language is sort of like, but you know what we're
trying to say, you know.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Yeah, yeah, well well, and some of them will say that,
I mean, some of the women that I talk to
and quote in the book will say that is not
the kind of a female candidate that we want to
put our money behind, to put our resources behind, to
help out of primaries. And I specifically say to help
out of primaries because a large part of the reason
that groups are so important in elevating female candidates and
(27:50):
people of color, basically anyone who's non white and non male.
The reason it's important is because they're operating in structures
that are just tilted against them, Like, this is a
system the end of the day. It was built by men,
built by white men, for white men, to keep power
for white men. So anyone who's not that is already
kind of going against the system as it was built.
(28:11):
But in primaries is really where we see gender and
race play a role that can be counter productive to
the candidate. And that's why it's so important to focus
on primaries because when people get to general elections, their
tribal If you're a Democrat, you're probably voting Democrat. If
you're a Republican, you're probably voting a Republican. I love
independent voters, but increasingly it's a smaller and smaller slice
(28:34):
of the pie. And so that's why the focus is
so important on primaries just generally, because that's really where
the dynamics are. It's not as tribal there because you're
picking among multiple people in your own party.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Yeah, this is going to be I'm not even really
sure how to ask this, but it fits so nicely
in the intersection of your work. There are so many
women candidates who do embrace things like election denilism and
conspiracy theory. Are men there are a lot of men
who do it too, but plenty of women become like
rising stars and have big platforms and big profiles on
the basis of their embracing conspiracy theory and elections nihilism.
(29:09):
Do you think there's something about women where when they
have embrace this ideology, it like.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Helps them more? Like what do you think is going on.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Well on the Republican side, Definitely, I mean, but again,
it's not just women on the Republican side who are
being forced to grapple with what I would call like
republicanism in the age of Trump. Because the more I'm out,
the more I hear voters who say that, like, the
word Republican doesn't mean conservative anymore of them, the word
(29:39):
Republican means Trump. So the party itself is going through
a reckoning the fact that there are women at the
forefront of that movement, but there are also men at
the forefront of that movement, you know, Like, I don't
know if that's necessarily a gender question, but I do
think that it speaks to something that Secretary Hillary Clinton
said to me when I was talking with her for
(29:59):
this project, which is the entire idea of electability has changed, right,
Like the idea, and she brought up an example, not
using a specific candidate, but she pointed to the Republican
side where she thought at one point that a woman
holding a gun prominently in a campaign ad might not
have been viewed as electable several years ago, but certainly
(30:22):
helps a woman's electability now in the Republican party. So look,
the upside of that is that we are starting to
see more kinds of women as electable. The downside is
that right now in Republican politics, it is also popular
to deny results of legitimate elections proffer lies to an
(30:45):
electorate about those elections. That's problematic from a small d
democracy standpoint, and that's just like a Republican thing that
they're dealing with right now.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Gender aside, Yeah, that is so interesting, and it's like,
even though that's not necessarily you know, particular to gender,
I do see it as just like another way that
it can become a trap for women, right, like another
way that like it can be this tightrope that women
are expected to walk that men.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Just are not. Yes, yeah, well there's also something interesting
on the Republican side of this too, where I found
a study in my book where if you are female
or a person of color. And I think the study
was around demographic biases that may exist within conservative voters.
(31:36):
One of the ways that candidates of color and female
candidates can overcome any demographic biases that exist is by
being more hyper conservative. So if you're Carly Fiorina or
if you're Ben Carson, and those were some of the
names that were tested by in this one study their
hyper conservatism, showing that ideologically they ascribe to all aspects
(31:59):
of publicanism that can overcome any bias that might exist
because they are black or because they are female. And
I thought that was a really interesting study that sort
of explains why you have the rise of certain very
hyper conservative women on the right. It kind of explains
Sarah Palin and Marsha Blackburn and Marjorie Taylor Green and
(32:23):
Lauren Bobert, Like there at least is some explanation for
it because on the Republican side, otherwise they do not
want to talk about gender and identity politics. That is
like a bad word. Don't get into it, don't talk
as a woman, don't talk you know, they don't want
to hear that. It's just are you you know, their
metrics for assessing candidate viability are just different.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
That is so fascinating. So I have to ask Bough.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
The book is called Electable by America hasn't put a
woman in the White House dot dot dot yet, And.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
That title makes me say that you are so like you.
What are your thoughts? Do you think we're going to
see a woman president in your lifetime? Our lifetime? Like?
Are you hopeful? What do you think?
Speaker 3 (33:05):
I need to see it. We have to see it.
We're gonna see it.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
I thought we had our time.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
And then then you know, I mean, look, I say yet,
because I need to be optimistic about this.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
I do think that you have people, even Liz Cheney
right now, who have made the point in recent months
that men have been running things for a while and
it hasn't always gone so great. I do think that
it's time to maybe try something else. At the same time, though, too,
there have been just systemic issues with why a woman
(33:47):
has not been able to ascend to the White House,
And in large part it's because we haven't seen a
ton of women serving in elected office until like the
last forty or fifty years. And I know that sounds
like a long time, but it's actually not that long,
and women are filling the ranks of both parties so
much right now that finally there are long lists of
(34:09):
women who we can say, Okay, they can run for
president on the Republican side, they can run for president
on the Democrat Democratic side, to the point where I
think in twenty twenty four and twenty twenty four is
tough because two men still govern this process, and so
at a certain point it becomes a numbers game, and
I think that gone are the days where you're just
going to have only fields of dudes running for president.
(34:32):
There are going to be women who are running. I
also think that what Biden did by electing by choosing
Kamala Harris and then Kamala Harris and Joe Biden being
elected in twenty twenty, the fact that we have our
first female vice president is huge. Women of both parties
that I talk to for this book agree that she
makes it easier for those who come after her simply
(34:53):
because she goes to work being who she is every
single day, and it allows the American mindset to see
female leadership at its highest rungs. Quite frankly, that's also
something that Speaker Pelosi has done for this country because
she was elevated first. But I also think that, especially
if it's Biden and Harris again in twenty twenty four,
(35:14):
it's going to be really hard for Republicans to just
nominate another ticket that looks like Trump and Tense, that
just looks like two older white men. Again. I do
think that we're now in a place where gender and
diversity is an asset. And I look at it in
twenty twenty when Biden chose Harris, I mean the fact
(35:35):
that he had just consolidated his power, he had just
won the primary, and he comes out and he says,
I'm going to choose a woman. To me, it was
a sign that times had changed, because if you look
at the last few times that men had selected women
as their running mates. We're talking about Walter Mondale in
nineteen eighty four when he chose Geraldine Ferraro and his
(35:58):
campaign was in the ten. He was not doing well.
He needed something that could excite his base. They thought, hey,
we'll do a woman, and it was sort of a
throw spaghetti at the wall kind of moment, see if
it sticks. It didn't, but it was also the mindset
the next time we saw that happen, which was on
the Republican side. Two thousand and eight, John McCain picking
Sarah Palin, shocking everybody, but the mindset was the same.
(36:20):
He was falling behind Obama in the polls. He needed
something to excite the base. He chose someone who was female,
who use the phrases like she wanted to finish the
work that Hillary Clinton had started. Because Clinton ran an
eight and fell short to Obama. I mean it was
very throw spaghetti at the wall. See what sticks. Now,
in twenty twenty, you have Biden purposefully choosing a woman,
(36:44):
saying that her gender, her lived experience, the different things
that she brings to the table, our assets. It's not
just yeah, we'll see what happens. We'll pick a woman.
It's no, we want to pick a woman. We want
to pick a woman of color. She provides us drinks
that we would not otherwise have. That is a really
big moment of progress and one that it's hard for
(37:05):
me to see not sticking. And so I do think
we're going to have a female president, and I do
think we're going to see more female vice presidents. I
would love to see both happen at once. That would
be really cool. But progress is slow, but it's coming.
I have to believe it.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
I'm happy that you're doing this work of like modeling
the progress that we have made and signaling to the
progress that has yet to be made in the future.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
You know, I do think this book came about at
a dark time for everybody, because the pandemic happened. I
was asked to do this book in March of twenty twenty,
and a week later I flew home from being on
the road with Biden and Ohio and Elizabeth Warren had
just dropped out and all of us never left our
houses again for the next few months. So it was
(37:49):
a dark time, and I remember the only thing that
I said to my editor was I don't want to
do this book. If I can't come out in a
place where I feel optimistic, I can't not find the
silver linings. I remember some of the early calls that
I made to some of the smartest sources that I have,
where I just said, make me feel good about this,
like it's going to happen, right, Like I feel like
it's going to happen. Point me to some examples that
(38:11):
make you feel like it's going to happen. And I
came out with a lot of examples, and yes, it's
important to show why it hasn't happened yet and to
shine a spotlight on moments where unfortunately the isms sexism, racism,
all of the others won out. But I think once
you show people that those moments have happened, once you
(38:33):
see it, you can't stop seeing it. And that's part
of helping this road to progress too.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
That's so powerful. And Alie, I have to say, and
not to get to like sappy or whatever, but we
kind of came up in the in the sort of
political media space together, and I remember when we were
working together at MSNBC. You I can just tell that,
like you were going to be a real mover and
(39:01):
shaker in the space.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
And so watching you like you were on the campaign trail.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
You were like, I follow you on Instagram and I
see these images of you, like you know, setting up
producing like shots and setting up shots like talking like
you are in it, and watching this trajectory has been
really incredible and powerful. It's like I can't help but
wonder how many little girls, Like when I was a kid,
I used to watch Gwen Eifel on TV and be
(39:26):
like I could be her someday, And I wonder, like,
are you the Gwen Eifel for a new generation of
which finding their voice in political media?
Speaker 2 (39:33):
I say yes.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
First of all, you just gave me chills. Second of all,
my god, immeasurable, immeasurable goals for me to put up.
I mean, my God. But I think about it too
as like there's just more of us now, right, Like
there are just more women who are out there who
are empowered to be experts, who are empowered to ask good,
(39:57):
tough questions. I think that's good for everybody. I mean,
I love looking around and seeing in a scrum or
in a gaggle when I'm with a candidate, like a
bunch of other women around me. I think that that
is just such an amazing thing. And I love it
even more when it's a female candidate. It's the center
(40:18):
of it. But I mean, yeah, you and I both,
I think, have really climbed through our industries. And I
think about the way that we first met too. I mean, right,
we were doing a shoot for Liz Plank. Right, Liz
Plank brought us all together the Queen to talk about
(40:41):
hate online and like the nasty things that people said
to us, and it sort of brings us full circle
a little bit too, right, because we were there trying
to reclaim some of the nasty words that people were
throwing at us, just simply for being smart and female
and a line. Right. Thankfully, there are girls on the
(41:02):
internet now, right who can have each other's back and like,
you know, not not let that stuff just go unchecked.
But like that's how we met. We met by calling
out sexism online. And now you get to be a
proof point that like it's not just dudes in a
toxic environment, like it's women are here and making it better,
(41:24):
which I would argue is just happening all over.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
I mentioned it at the start of the show.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
But the team here at There Are No Girls on
the Internet is celebrating International Women's Day this week. For
more programming honoring the incredible women of the network and worldwide,
head to iHeart Podcasts International Women's Day feed by searching
women Take the Mic. Wherever you look for your podcasts.
We're featured along shows that I love, like Therapy for
Black Girls and others that's women.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Take the Mic.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
I mean iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Got a story about an in thing in tech, or
just want to say hi. You can reach us at
Hello at tangody dot com. You can also find transcripts
for today's episode at tengody dot com. There Are No
Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget Todd.
It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. Jonathan Strickland
(42:14):
is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and
sound engineer. Michael Amado is our contributing producer. I'm your host,
Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate
and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
get your podcasts.
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