January 8, 2025 • 45 mins
RCBC's Women Advisory Group and Political Science Department partner with the League of Women Voters, The Alice Paul Institute, and American Association of University Women held a special discussion back in the Fall exploring the transformative impact of a potential female president of the United States. They dove into cultural milestones, gender roles, global influence and more. Tune in for a special archived edition of the Baroness Podcast looking into women in leadership roles.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. Brooke Mailhiot (00:00):
Welcome everyone. Good afternoon. How's
(00:02):
everybody doing? Yeah, that waspretty good. Excellent. Welcome
to our women in leadershiproles. Panel discussion at Rowan
College of Burlington County. Iam Dr Brooke Myatt. I am the
president slash Chair of theWomen's Advocacy Group here at
rcbc. I'm also the chair of theentertainment technologies
department, and I'm also thehost of the Baroness podcast. So
(00:25):
our women's advocacy group herehas a podcast called The
Baroness, and you can find itwherever you listen into your
podcast. So please look up theBaroness. We are thrilled to
have you with us today toexplore the dynamics of a female
president, and the uniquechallenges and triumphs that
come with such a role. First,I'd like to extend a heartfelt
(00:47):
thank to the rcbc Women'sAdvisory Group, the political
science department, the Leagueof Women Voters, the Alice Paul
Institute and the AmericanAssociation of Women and to
thank our panelists thisafternoon, your dedication and
collaboration have made thisevent possible, and your
commitment to empowering womenin leadership is truly
inspiring. As we engage intoday's discussion, let us
(01:10):
celebrate the remarkableachievements of women leaders
and explore how we can continueto break barriers and pave the
way for future generations.Together, we can foster an
environment where every womanfeels empowered to lead and
succeed. So thank you again forbeing here. I would like to
introduce now Professor KenMariano, science chair for the
(01:32):
Political Science Club.
Unknown (01:37):
Okay, thank you for joining us. I see there's a lot
of us here today, I think thatthis is a very important panel
discussion, because we are nowat the cuspid history that we
may potentially have a feed thefirst female president in
American history. We know thatit got pretty close in 2016 with
Secretary then it was SecretaryClinton, and then now we have
(01:59):
vice president Harris, so I wantto welcome everybody, and before
we do get started, I'd like tointroduce our CO president of
our political science club,Xander. Xander cash, Hi,
I'm the co president of thePolitical Science Club here. And
now that it is election year,many of us first time voters
here, at least college studentsthat showed up. It's very
(02:22):
important for us to talk aboutour options in voting and to
make sure that we go into thevoting booth educated on every
candidate possible, and whensomething new pops up, like
potential of having a firstfemale first female president,
it's important to talk to peoplewho are in the political sphere
around us and talk to othervoters about how we can go
(02:44):
forward with this. Thanks.
Dr. Brooke Mailhiot (02:49):
Thank you, Xander. And now I would like to
introduce our moderator for thepanel, Allison Millward. She's
an assistant professor ofhistory at rcbc. She holds an MA
from State University of NewYork, at Albany, and a BA in
government and internationalpolitics with an academic
background in Warren society.Her research interests include
women, experiences in war, life,writings of participants in
(03:11):
conflict, wartime art and mediaand design history, and she is
currently undertaking researchon the lived experiences of
nurses on the Western Frontduring World War One, please
welcome Professor Milford, thankyou so much.
Unknown (03:29):
Thank you so much. Professor Myatt, Professor
Mariano and Xander, we're soexcited to gather today to
discuss previous leaders andmoments of women in power in
history. I'd like to begin byallowing our panelists to
introduce themselves, and soI'll go ahead and begin with our
first panelist, Olivia arrico.
(03:53):
Hi everyone. My name is OliviaEriko. I am the public programs
manager at the Al's Paul centerfor gender justice, aka or
formerly known as the Alice PaulInstitute. We recently did a
rebrand, which is very exciting.My area of interest, my
specialty is history. I have abackground in public history, a
master's from RutgersUniversity, and my area of
(04:15):
interest is really women ingrassroots organizing and
feminist history.
Thank you so much, and I'llcontinue with Dr Christina
aguibi.
Hi. I Christina geibie. I havemaster's in doctoral training in
Counseling Psychology with aspecialty area in resilience.
(04:36):
I'm a structure professor hereat rcbc for the last few years,
and my interest in the area ofresilience is just learning how
to navigate changes andchallenges that may come with
changes, and navigating thosesuccessfully so that we can
thrive to the best of ourability. I also have done some
(04:57):
women's leadership myself. I wasthe president of. Ohio women of
psychology a few years ago andso kind of bring that lens into
this as well. Thank you
wonderful. Thank you so much.Molly Gonzalez, hi,
yeah. My name is Molly Gonzalez.I'm the advocacy manager at the
Alice Paul center for genderjustice, formerly known as the
(05:19):
Alice Paul Institute. I studiedpolitical science and Gender
Studies in college and receiveda master's in human rights at
American so my focus is reallyseeing feminism as a tool for
achieving human rights.
Thank you to all three of you,and again, we have so many, so
much varied and excellentexperiences here. So I'm really
(05:40):
excited to get started. WhatI'll do is I have some questions
here, and we could go down theline, or if there's no one in
particular who'd like to start,anyone who would like to jump in
can, after about 45 minutes orso of conversation, we'll go
ahead and have an open questionsession with the crowd. So if
anybody out there is thinkingabout or writing things down and
(06:04):
would like to jump in, please doso. So we're going to start with
our first question. AndProfessor Mariano really said it
nicely with this idea of we areon the cusp right. We are
definitely on the cusp ofgroundbreaking history here. And
so I would like to start withVice President Harris and her
campaign and really what thatmeans to history. So vice
(06:28):
president Harris has madehistory as the first woman of
color nominated for thepresidency by a major party, but
she is not the first woman torun for president again. Anyone
who would like to jump in isfree to do so, but maybe you all
can tell us a little bit moreabout the history of women
running for president in theUnited States. Anyone like to
(06:50):
start off? Go ahead.
Yeah. So something people mightbe surprised to learn is that
women have been running for thepresidency longer than women had
the right to vote, right? Somost women got the right to vote
in 1920 when the 19th Amendmentwas added to the Constitution.
But the first woman who ran forpresident ran in 1872 Her name
was Victoria Woodhull. She was asuffragist. She was a feminist.
(07:13):
She was actually one of thefirst female stock brokers on
Walmart on Wall Street. So thatwas the first woman who ever ran
1872 people didn't take hercampaign very seriously because
she had radical politicalbeliefs, but also because she
was under 35 and so you need tobe 35 to run for president. So
she was the first in 1872 and wereally see a big increase in
(07:35):
women running for president inthe second half of the 20th
century. So the first and thesewomen would run as Republicans,
Democrat and third party acrossthe political spectrum. Women
have run for president. Thefirst Republican Woman to be
nominated to be put up fornomination. So she didn't
receive the nomination, but shewas put as a candidate. Her name
(07:56):
was Margaret Chase Smith, andthat was in 1964 another really
important figure is ShirleyChisholm. She ran for president
in 1972 she was the first blackwoman to seek the Democratic
nomination for president. Andthen, of course, we've already
mentioned her, but HillaryClinton, in 2016 became the
first woman to receive a majorparty nomination for president.
(08:22):
Thank you so much. Is thereanybody else who would like to
add to that? I have a bit of afollow up. Oh, would you like to
add? You did a wonderful job. Ihave a bit of a follow up to
kind of tease out some of theseideas here. And I think you
mentioned it really, reallynicely as you began. But did
these women expect to win thepresidency? Or were they just
(08:45):
sending a message about women inpolitics? Or was there a mix?
Can you maybe explain that alittle bit for us?
Yeah, I can start. And if anyonewants to add in, I think I'll go
back to Victoria Woodhull. LikeI said she was the first woman.
She ran under a party that shestarted called the Equal Rights
Party. And so I think at thistime, especially keeping in
(09:08):
fact, in mind the fact that shewas under 35 so she knew that,
like, according to theConstitution, she could not
actually run, it was a statementabout women's equals right,
equal rights. They actually theEqual Rights Party had nominated
Frederick Douglass as her vicepresident. He did not accept,
you know, I don't know thereasons, but it was a political
statement about the equality ofpeople. Yeah,
(09:33):
thank you. Thank you so much. Iappreciate that our next, our
next question, is going to go abit global, because as as we've
seen in world history, therehave been women heads of state.
So I want us to kind of take alook at this from an
(09:54):
international, perhapstransnational, lens as well. You
know, the United States, as weall. Now has never had a female
president, but plenty of nationsworldwide have had these have
had women heads of states. Inyour thoughts were their
leadership markedly differentfrom their male counterparts,
and if so, in what ways?
(10:18):
So I think we like to think thatwe're like the leaders of the
free world in the United States,that we're the beacons of
progress, that we do everythingfirst, and we're the best
because we're the West, but theUnited States is one of six
countries that has not yetratified CEDAW, and CEDAW is
basically a women's bill ofrights that was proposed by the
UN almost 50 years ago. Right?It's saying it's the Convention
on the Elimination of All Formsof Discrimination, and we sit as
(10:40):
one of six countries that hasn'tratified it, next to Afghanistan
and Saudi Arabia, countries thatwe don't think of as being
leaders in women's rights. Andwe don't have codified gender
equality right. We don't have anequal rights amendment, even
though, when the United Stateshelps other nations write a
constitution, we alwaysrecommend codify your gender
equality. But that doesn't meanit's not an exciting time to
(11:01):
talk about global women'sleadership. Women's Leadership.
Right? Our neighbors in Mexicojust elected their first female
president, President Steinbaum.Claudia Steinbaum, and she's a
scientist who served as the headof the Environmental she was the
environmental Secretary ofMexico City before she was the
president, and as a politician,she ran on a platform of free
(11:22):
health care, free education,anti gun, lifting people out of
poverty through education and indifferent state programs, and
she won her presidency by alandslide. Notably, she's very
far left, much more far leftthan her predecessor, and so as
(11:43):
Mexico is celebrating theirfirst female leader, however,
9000 miles away in Bangladesh,the Bangladeshis are kicking out
their female leader, theirauthoritarian female leader,
who's cracked down on theopposition, crackdown on the
free press, led to a studentuprising that stormed her palace
and kicked her out. Why am Italking about all of these
random women? Well, does itmatter if she's a woman like is
(12:05):
my question, right? Are womenmore peaceful? Are women better
leaders? Women can be leaders.We've seen this. They're capable
of it as are men, but they canbe both arbiters of peace, and
if we think of, for example, theUnited Kingdom's longest serving
Prime Minister, MargaretThatcher, they can be arbiters
(12:25):
of great, great violence,especially against other women.
And so I think thinking ofMargaret Thatcher, who said, the
feminists hate me, don't they?Well, I don't blame them. I hate
the feminists. Feminism ispoison. She was marketably anti
gay, anti abortion and antiwomen's liberation. So are women
(12:46):
more peaceful? Are do womenserve differently than men? I'm
not sure. I think both of thosekind of questions can and often
do rely on sexist stereotypes.Maybe women are more peaceful,
but that does rely on a genderedstereotype. And so I think if we
want to kind of transcendnotions of sexism and gendered
stereotypes, that meanstranscending these stereotypes
(13:08):
that claim women, just by beinga woman, are better at certain
things, are more accustomed topeace
well. And I think, I think youmake a really important point
there, and that you know womenwould you know, are inherently
more peaceful and and men are,you know, kind of flipping that
stereotype as well. Men areincapable of peace, right? So we
(13:29):
kind of lend these, thesedifferent gendered stereotypes
to like, to both sides,absolutely. But you've come up
with exit excellent examples ofways in which we've had very
proactive female leaders, butthose who are, as you mentioned,
are getting unseated as wespeak. Any more thoughts on even
just the perception of theUnited States having a female
(13:51):
president, even if just notfrom, you know, comparing to
other nations, but even just theconcept that the United States,
as you had mentioned, poignantlyis, you know, kind of lagging
behind in some of the equalrights policies that we've seen.
But anyways, just some of themessages that sent with the
(14:12):
United States not having afemale president. Would anyone
like to speak to that, or eventhe previous question,
yeah. I mean, one of the biggestjobs of a president, right is,
is to signal to is the worldleader, is the ambassador to the
world. They are the ones thatchoose all of the ambassadors.
One of their only kind ofunchecked and balanced position
is being this global ambassador.And so maybe through having a
(14:34):
female president, we can finallysignal that we care about women
in this country, because thepast few decades of legislation
does not really indicate that.And so more than just indicating
that we care about women, itcould indicate that we're
catching up, because we'rereally, really behind. Our
neighbors in the north and southhave already had women heads of
state. Most of the EU has hadwomen heads of state. We're far
(14:55):
behind. And so as far as likehow we can catch up to the rest
of the world. Which is a reallydire human rights problem, then
that's something that a womanpresident could signal
Absolutely. Thank you. Any otherthoughts? I
think it also could signal thatwe can be both strong and
compassionate wise leaders andbring in all of the female lens
(15:18):
into this potential. WhenJacinda Arden of New Zealand was
head of state, there's you knowthat showed that, there's some
quotes about this, that sheshowed the world that neither
age nor gender, nor motherhood,nor any other barrier can stop
you from reaching your fullpotential, because she became
head of state at 37 years old.So we can, you can balance both
(15:42):
the compassion and the strength,I think, and still show a force
of strength in the world, butwith a compassionate lens as
well.
Excellent. Thank you. Thank youfor your thoughts on that. Now
we talked a little bit aboutwomen running for presidency,
(16:03):
and so just to kind of think ofthe actual possibility of a
woman being elected into theexecutive branch, I want us to
lean into both, you know,examples from the past, but even
just the present, the present,and what that could potentially
mean when we think Of all thefeminist movements of the past,
these, what's often called thewaves of feminism and the
(16:25):
several feminist movements, wasgetting a woman elected to the
executive branch, necessarily agoal of the feminist movements?
Or, you know, again, to kind ofswing back around to the first
question, Was it really just tokind of raise awareness? Was,
you know, what might be somereasons why certain movements
(16:52):
would push a female president?
Yeah, I can speak to this one.Yeah. So I think the first thing
to put it first, to say theanswer is both, like a yes and
no. I think the first thing thatwe need to draw out, which you
hinted at, is that when we talkabout feminism, it's not one
thing. We're talking about amovement that has existed for
(17:12):
over 100 years. The people whohave been in this movement, you
know, incredibly diverse rangeof thought, political
orientation goals. So for somewomen, some feminists, yes, it's
been a goal to get women in thepresidency. For other women,
it's not, you know, for a longtime, remember, women that we
(17:33):
call first wave feminists werejust fighting to get the right
to vote. The idea that theycould be president was like
much, much in the future forpeople we might call Second wave
feminists. And when I say that,I'm really talking about people
in like the 1960s 70s, 80s,there was a huge diversity of
thought in that movement.People, there were women who
(17:53):
were much more concerned withissues that were impacting
ordinary women every day. Sothings like the gender wage gap,
reproductive health, those kindof issues that we see in our day
to day that impact everydaywomen. But there were other
women who were very interestedin this question of a woman
president. And the historicalmoment when this started to
(18:14):
change was 1980 so the 1980election of Ronald Reagan was
the first time since 1920 whenwomen got the right to vote,
that more women than men votedin the election. It was also
notable because there was anotable gender gap. So what I
mean by that is that theynoticed that more women had
(18:34):
voted against Ronald Reagan thanmen. So the voting pattern was
really different if you lookedat gender So because of these
out turn this outcome in 1980 itreally got some feminists at the
time, particularly womenassociated with the group, the
National Organization for Women,interested in the idea of
getting a woman on the ticketfor the 1984 election. Because
(18:57):
they thought, okay, more womenare coming out to vote than men
and women don't always vote thesame way as men. So if we get a
woman on the Democratic ticket,maybe we can win this election.
So those women for the 1984election rallied behind the
Democratic Party to get them tonominate a woman vice president.
They put a lot of pressure onthem, and eventually a woman was
(19:19):
selected. Her name was GeraldineFerrero. She was a
representative from New YorkCity, but so they get her on the
ticket. Unfortunately for thewomen who were planning this,
the Democrats were blown out ina landslide, one of the hugest,
biggest defeats in US politicalhistory. So the lesson there, of
(19:43):
course, is that just because youget a woman on the ticket does
not mean that women will votefor her. More women voted for
Reagan in that election in 1984than they voted for Mondale, who
was the presidential nominee.
Any other thoughts? Well. US, Ihave a bit of a follow up
(20:03):
question this, because it's, Ithink, really this idea of
messages, right? So we've kindof been smoothing out this
concept of different messagesthat are being sent, both
globally and nationally. What?What might you suggest, at least
from the historical record, orjust you know idea like
philosophy on gender and publicoffice. What might you suggest
(20:28):
to people who say, Oh, womenonly run for president as a
result of feminist movements.Right like there, there might be
that lack of seriousness. Theymight just be trying to be
president to make a point, wouldwe have any ideas on even not
just a response from you, butmaybe responses that you've
(20:49):
heard or seen throughouthistory?
Yeah, I can start on this one. Ithink so. What I've I've read
and heard about other peopletalking about kamala's campaign
versus Hillary's in 2016 and ifyou can remember back to 2016 if
(21:10):
you want to remember back to2016 Hillary really did
emphasize this like I'm going tobreak the glass ceiling. I'm
going to be the first woman vicepresident, or women president.
Sorry. But if we look at Kamalacampaign, she's not doing that
as much, right? So I think thatis, she has picked up this
messaging question that you'venoticed that it doesn't really,
(21:33):
it might not be a thing thatsells for a lot of people,
right? This glass ceiling awoman in this role, it might
actually work against her insome ways, at least, that might
be what the campaign is sayingwhen they're not really pushing
this point forward.
Any other thoughts,
(21:55):
it's just, it's reallyimportant, I think, to push the
not just to be, you know, thefirst president, like you're
saying, but to to push theissues forward that are
important. And there are issuesrelated to equality. Of course,
we've been leaders in many otherareas, through Congress or
(22:16):
leaders in private sectors, andthis is an important step for
Global Equality, but also withinthe US and so this is the next
kind of logical step. It isimportant to to have a woman
president potentially, but it'salso important that it's not
just looked at as just afeminist issue, but for moving
(22:37):
the entire movement along.
So thank you. Now we again.We've talked a lot about
elections themselves, but I'mwondering what kind of lessons
can we glean from campaigns ofpast women candidates, so we
know some of the possiblereasons or motivations why they
(22:59):
ran. We know that there weresome who were quite successful
in their own ways, even if theydidn't quite make it to office,
they had sent messages. But whatare some, like, core lessons
just from these campaigns, evenjust how to run a campaign, or,
you know, kind of like we werejust talking about with the 2016
election messages that work ordon't work, just hindsight of
(23:22):
the last 100 120, years or so.Are there any key lessons we can
take away? Okay,
well, I'll start with this one,and I'm gonna go back to the
campaign of Geraldine Ferrarothat I was talking about before,
when she was vice president,because I think that gets to
something that is really kind ofimportant for any campaign, any
election, right? They ran. Theythought this, having a woman as
(23:45):
the vice president would helpget the women's vote for the
Democratic Party. They saw thatdidn't work. And so I think the
lesson there is that if you area woman running for an office,
you can't just depend on gettingthe women's vote because you are
a woman and as voters, I thinkwhat that also, what we also get
from that is that we have tohold men and women candidates to
(24:07):
the same standards. And by that,I mean you have to be an
informed voter. You have to doyour research, know where all
the candidates stand on theissues, regardless of their
gender, and vote for the personwho best represents you.
This is also a quick campaign,right? Like, I think another
huge difference a lot of peopleare putting forth about with
(24:28):
2016 is, of course, Hillaryreally leaned into being a woman
and that that would make herdifferent than her, not enemy,
but enemy, opponent. But this isshe had a couple years to do
that. She was cranking that outfor a while. This is a short
campaign. This was 100 days, ifthat, and so it didn't give us a
(24:49):
lot of time to kind of questionher and her motivations the same
way it did with Hillary. Sheisn't under the same microscope
that Hillary was under. Wearen't getting the same kind of
hit pieces. That we were withHillary. It's a completely
different campaign for materialreasons, because it's a lot less
time. And similarly to whatOlivia is echoing, that women,
(25:10):
as women in all theaters, areoften boxed in. You're a woman,
so you do this, you're a woman,so you vote for a woman. And we
know from 2016 from 1980 fromevery time a woman has run for
any office that that's not truethat women, women don't just
vote for other women becausethey're women. Women are more
complex than that, just as menare more complex than that. Men
(25:30):
vote for women all the time.Women vote for men all the time.
And so to echo Olivia's pointthat gender doesn't have to be
this defining factor of someonethat's that was a feminist, aim
is to break that mold that yourgender defines every single
thing about you, and your genderis a amalgamation of stereotypes
that aren't necessarilypositive. And so when we're
(25:51):
looking at this very shortcampaign compared to other
presidents that we have votedfor, or presidents that we
haven't been able to vote for,but we watched on TV for those
who are voting for the firsttime, this is a different
campaign for a lot of reasons,but one of them is because it's
it's shorter,
absolutely, certainly historicin multiple ways, not just
because of Vice PresidentHarris's candidacy, but just
(26:13):
everything that had transpired,absolutely, making This a
shorter campaign for her. Anyother thoughts? Excellent. So we
know from the women's suffrageera. I'd be remiss if I didn't
ask a question of individualsfrom the Alice Paul Institute.
(26:34):
There were people, there werewomen, but there, there were
groups of people in general whowere anti suffrage again,
including women. What kind ofvoices did we hear in the past
from people who who had said,Not only should women not vote,
but they shouldn't holdleadership positions in public
(26:54):
spaces like the presidency andand do we still kind of see
traces and attitudes like thattoday. Any thoughts, thoughts on
that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I canstart on that. So I want to
break this down and start with,like, the anti suffrage
(27:14):
question. Why? Why were therewomen who were anti suffrage? It
seems counterintuitive. Whywould you be against your own
right to vote? And I thinksomething so there's a concept
called the separate spheres.When we talk about history,
really that there were, therewas a domestic sphere and a
public sphere. The domesticsphere is the home that was
(27:35):
where women belonged, raisingchildren, cooking, cleaning,
etc. Public Sphere was themasculine realm that was holding
public office, that was engagingin politics, that was going out
to work. And this was a dominantideology in the 19th century,
and we do see echoes of thatstill today, but we'll get to
there. So, so there were antisuffrage women, because this was
(28:00):
the ideology they were broughtup in. They they even as women,
believed like I am a woman, I amsupposed to be in the home, my
responsibility, my role insociety, is raising children,
making sure they're goodcitizens. So I think that's a an
important part of that, is thatpeople are these are beliefs
that people were brought up insame way that we're brought up
(28:21):
in some gendered stereotypesstill today. And I think getting
to the second half of yourquestion, we definitely do still
see echoes of this idea thatwomen belong in the domestic
sphere and not the publicsphere. I think it's a more
fringe belief than it is than itwas in the 19th century, but we
definitely still see it in someplaces.
(28:43):
Yeah, definitely that duality ofspheres we still kind of see
lingering Absolutely. It hadoftentimes kind of been seen as
something of the past. Thespheres have broken, but, and I
like that idea that it's there.It may still be a fringe, but it
definitely still exists in somerealms. So tying into this, you
(29:05):
know, there and some of theseconcerns that individuals might
have about the role of theexecutive branch in general, and
some of the concerns that toomuch progressive change might be
made too many things mightchange too fast. I want us to
kind of break down this idea ofreality versus kind of maybe
(29:26):
some fears or like ideals. Okay,and so my question now is, what
are actually some of thelimitations of the executive
branch in their ability to makeprogressive change?
Yeah, yeah. So we kind of havetwo what seems like completely
different worlds that are goingto happen in November. That's
(29:47):
kind of what they're telling us.And the framers and the founders
made a lot of mistakes, but onething that they were holding in
their mind when they wereframing our government was a
fear of kings, the. Right ofKings. They were scared of a
monarch. They were scared of oneguy controlling everything and
ruining it. And so they puttogether tons of different what
(30:07):
they're called checks andbalances, to make sure that a
king would not emerge and ruintheir new country. So Article
Two of the Constitution outlineswhat it is that the President
can actually do, and the powersare a lot more limited than we
might think. The President isnot a king. They have to get
checks and balances for a seriesof different behaviors. We'll
(30:28):
say from the Senate, they haveall of their what I was talking
about earlier with how they getto confirm ambassadors and pick
all of their differentsecretaries, the Secretary of
Labor, the Secretary of theenvironment, the interior, those
all have to be confirmed by theSenate as well. So when we think
about all of the powers that be,of the scary, there's one that's
(30:51):
maybe scary to some, that'sscary to me. What's important to
note is that the presidency, theexecutive branch itself, has
immense limitations, and thatthat position is not a king, and
that when we had a president in2016 who was elected, who did
not maybe share some of ourviews on on women's rights, on
the equality of genders, whaterupted was the greatest and
(31:14):
most populated mobilization ofwomen in the history of this
country. And so the President isnot the one who defines how each
person in here thinks andbelieves. And in fact, we get to
vote more than just on november5 to decide what all of us
believe and how that is impactedinto legislation. And so yeah,
of course, the President is avery powerful person. They
(31:35):
wouldn't be yelling at us on thephone and texting us every day,
which I'm sure you guys aregetting those texts too, if it
wasn't such an importantposition. But luckily, the
framers thought ahead a littlebit to ensure that they weren't.
They would not become a god, ademagogue. And so what's also
very important is that we canvote for legislate legislatures
(31:55):
as well, and that their job, inpart, is to check and balance
this presidency?
Yeah, absolutely, yeah, no. Ithink that's very well said,
despite how it feels. Sometimesthere are other positions that
are up for grabs in November toothat are just as important and
if not because of checks andbalances, as important as the
(32:17):
presidential election.Definitely. Any other thoughts
on the limitation of theexecutive branch and powers of
the executive branch in general,
it's going to be up to creatingdiplomatic relationships on all
sides because of thoselimitations, if they want to,
you know, make any progressmoving ahead. So it's up to this
(32:40):
President, whoever it's going tobe, to reach a kind of
diplomacy, both globally and athome, in order to get these
things done because of theselimitations, which are again put
in for our protection.
Yeah, I'm just going to add,like, one more historical
example. So we are from theAlice Paul Center. We are named
(33:04):
after Alice Paul, who was asuffragist. She helped get women
the right to vote. One of thethings that Alice did that added
to the movement that was reallyher big one of her big
contributions is that whenPresident Woodrow Wilson was
inaugurated, became president,he was against suffrage. He was
very anti suffrage, and shedecided, okay, for the next
election, what we're going to dois get all the women who could
(33:27):
vote, because in some Westernstates at this time, there were
women who could vote, and we'regoing to tell them not to vote
for Wilson. So if the you know,Molly just told us the President
actually doesn't have that muchpower, and that would be
something that falls in thelegislature. Why did Alice put
the pressure on women voters tovote out Wilson? Because one of
(33:47):
the powers that the Presidentdoes have, and this is what
Alice believed, was to shapepublic opinion so he could, if
he went out in front of Congressand made a speech and said, I do
support women's suffrage, thatwould really change public
opinion and the opinion ofpeople in his party in the
legislature. So I just wanted toadd that as kind of a
counterpoint to Molly's pointabout the limitations of the
(34:08):
executive.
Definitely, fair. You know,we're kind of breaking down
ideal and reality, andabsolutely, sometimes they kind
of go back and forth and switch,for sure, absolutely, I want us
to kind of keep on this idea ofchange, though, because, again,
I think we're really touching onthis theme of, regardless of
(34:29):
what happens in November, youknow, there's this idea of a
historic election. There is thisidea of change as well across
all of the branches ofgovernment, across all of the
different, you know, areas ofgovernment, whether it's
federal, whether it's local,whether it's state, and even
though we know that some ofthese ideas of women leadership
(34:49):
versus male leadership are basedoff of stereotypes, you know, we
talked about the dual sphere,and we talked about different
perceptions of what gender isor. People thought it was in the
past, women, I think, inherentlyhave different experiences from
males in society, because ofthese stereotypes and because of
(35:11):
what has been perpetuated. Sothat said, I think my next
question is combining this ideaof change, but this idea of, you
know, having differentexperiences. You know, based on
some of these social ideas, howcan women kind of utilize both,
like these individualexperiences they may have had,
but like collective experiencesas well, to contribute to this
(35:34):
changing landscape?
So resilience is my area of kindof expertise, and this area
really involves a lot offlexibility and learning and
adaptability to differentchanges and different
challenges, and that hashappened domestically, both at
home and domestically, withinthis country, and then also
(35:57):
globally as well. So they cancertainly contribute to some of
these areas, through thecollaborations that they do
through again, leading withstrength and compassion at the
same time, maybe even being calmunder pressure. And again, these
things are stereotypical, butcan also be beneficial in as we
develop and grow and change as acountry, to be more flexible to
(36:20):
adapt and to learn from others,which is a strength, definitely,
that women can have on manydifferent arenas.
Excellent. Any other thoughts, arelated question, and this is
(36:42):
kind of like as we're windingdown on our questions here
again, going back to that ideaof potential collective and
shared experiences based off ofeverything that we've been
talking about, are therestrengths women bring to the
table that can ease transition?Again, whether, no matter what
happens in November, it'sdefinitely a time of that's
(37:05):
going to require some sort ofdiplomacy, peacekeeping,
transition. Are there thingsfrom our lived experiences that
can help ease, you know, thesetransitions while, you know,
having or encouraging people tolook forward to the future. So
citizens look forward to thefuture.
So again, looking at justresearch or even global women
(37:26):
leadership, and some of these,again, are very stereotypical
kind of adjectives ordescriptions, but they really do
bring some strengths to thetable that can help move things
forward a little bit and moreequality and more balance, but
things like collaboration, ableto collaborate with lots of
different people. Again, likethe New Zealand Head of State,
(37:49):
she was compassionate, but alsohad wisdom and strength. They
can be calm under pressure, haveattention to detail, being open
and intuitive, having a strengthof empathy and understanding
what other people may bring tothe table, and understanding
multiple different perspectives,again, the flexibility and
adaptability and the learningthat comes with resilience and
(38:12):
able to move through challengesand navigate those being bold,
at the same time with havingemotional intelligence and
understanding what differentgroups may bring to the table,
as well as being effectivecommunicators that can be really
an important concept foreverything domestically and
globally, as well, having aninclusive vision that includes
(38:32):
everybody else's ideals andperspectives is important being
holistic in their decisionmaking and not Just looking at
things logistically, but also,again, with compassion and
intuition and empathy. They canbe visit visionary leaderships
that are confident andproductive. They can be both
optimistic and positive. Theycan go after the things that
(38:54):
they want to do with tacklingfear at the same time and having
a caring perspective while,again, exhibiting strength and
leadership. So there's many goodqualities that can balance both
strength and leadership and alsocompassion and kindness that the
world needs now more than ever.
(39:16):
I guess I would say, I wouldhope that men could be
compassionate and kind too, andthat we could encourage not just
women to be those that have tohave that burden of compassion,
empathy and kindness, and thatlooking at examples of women
leadership, Jacinda Ardern is agreat example. She was only in
power for, I think, a year and afew months. If we look at women
who were in power for decades,Angela Merkel is an example of
(39:39):
someone who was, you know, theleader of Europe, kind of
Germany, for over 20 years, andher unempathetic economic policy
decimated Greece. I mean,there's a lot of things that
happened too, but that's part ofit. And so a lot of her lack of
empathy, as with other womenleaders like she. Casino and
(40:00):
Bangladesh, like MargaretThatcher in the UK, they did not
demonstrate a whole lot ofempathy towards other women,
minoritized groups. All three ofthese women have put forth
policies that are anti gay.Uncle Margo less so is Margaret
Thatcher and she Cassina. But tosay that as far as women in
(40:21):
leadership, women deserve to beleaders, just as much as men
deserve to be leaders becausethey're human beings, not
because they have somethingabout their gender that makes
them better at certain thingsthan other other genders. All of
us have kindness within us. Allof us have empathy within us,
not because I was born with acertain gender, but because I'm
a human being, and because wehave history and examples put
(40:45):
forth of both women inleadership and men in leadership
making terrible mistakes and notbeing empathetic. And of course,
we have examples of women andmen in leadership making great
choices and liberating a lot ofpeople too. And so I think my
kind of thesis that I'llconclude with that question is
that just because someone is awoman does not mean that they
(41:07):
are predisposed to be morepeaceful, that they're more
predisposed to oppose war, thatthey're going to make policies
that will help women, that theirexperiences are very important,
and I would hope that they wouldguide the decision making. But
as I've mentioned with some ofthese examples of women in
leadership, they didn'tnecessarily stand for bodily
(41:28):
autonomy or the liberation ofqueer people or strong trade
unions to make sure that womenhad limited work days, for
example. And so genderstereotypes, I don't think will
liberate us. I don't think willpush us forward into a new
feminist epoch. I thinkunderstanding that all of us are
(41:48):
capable of empathy, compassion,peace, using our personal
experiences to care aboutothers, is what would put us
forth into a new feminist epoch.And if that includes a woman
president, that's great, but Idon't think if that woman
president doesn't come with anadvocation for other women, then
that's kind of a bummer. Ithink,
(42:12):
any other thoughts on women intransitions, whether
historically, you know, thinkingabout that idea of historical
examples or even just from amodern lens, I'll ask this kind
of as I wrap up my set ofquestions here, I always like to
think of, you know, justchildren, whether it was
(42:33):
individuals I grew up with, or Iwatched grow up who always said,
you know, I'm going to bePresident someday, or I want to
be president someday, and andfrom my experience, it's been
both males and females say thatfemales tended to get a little
bit more pushed to the side thanmales. But what I'm going to ask
is this, what would you say tothis generation of young people,
(42:56):
whether they're elementary agedor, you know, college age and
their Poli Sci majors,regardless of gender, who say, I
want to be president someday.What would your message to them
be? Any any thoughts on that?
I mean, I think we, you know,one of the messages or themes
(43:18):
that has really emerged fromthis conversation is qualities
that we'd like in a leader,right? We've talked a lot about
empathy, kindness, being able torelate to other people and
communicate, well, all thesequalities that you kind of
outlined in a great leader. AndI think the thing I would say is
like, Well, I hope that you cando these things, that you will
(43:40):
be an empathetic leader, thatyou can communicate well, and
that also, since we have beentalking a lot about women and
women's issues, that regardlessof who you are, how you
identify, that you will takeseriously the issues women and
other gender minorities in thiscountry face and make them a
(44:01):
real part of your of the workyou would do.
And it was a bit of a lightninground question,
I would say it's a bigresponsibility and but it's an
important platform that youhave, that you can voice things
to move society forward, andagain, to lead with compassion
(44:24):
and empathy is just as importantas leading with strength,
regardless of the gender of theperson that is running or in
that office. It is important tohave a lot of wisdom and
compassion at the same time, andso it's an important role to
model to the world, you know howyou want things to see in the
(44:45):
world for the next generationand many generations after that,
to someone
who wants to be president, yeah,good luck. Make sure you read a
little bit more than some of theguys we've got around here.
Awesome.
So well. Thank you so much. Iwill go ahead and conclude
(45:05):
today's event, thank you againfor your enthusiasm and
expertise. Is very muchappreciated. And thank you to
everybody who came out today tolisten to this panel and these
and these excellent thoughts onboth the past, present and
future of politics.
(45:30):
You.
Welcome everyone. Good afternoon. How's
(00:02):
everybody doing? Yeah, that waspretty good. Excellent. Welcome
to our women in leadershiproles. Panel discussion at Rowan
College of Burlington County. Iam Dr Brooke Myatt. I am the
president slash Chair of theWomen's Advocacy Group here at
rcbc. I'm also the chair of theentertainment technologies
department, and I'm also thehost of the Baroness podcast. So
(00:25):
our women's advocacy group herehas a podcast called The
Baroness, and you can find itwherever you listen into your
podcast. So please look up theBaroness. We are thrilled to
have you with us today toexplore the dynamics of a female
president, and the uniquechallenges and triumphs that
come with such a role. First,I'd like to extend a heartfelt
(00:47):
thank to the rcbc Women'sAdvisory Group, the political
science department, the Leagueof Women Voters, the Alice Paul
Institute and the AmericanAssociation of Women and to
thank our panelists thisafternoon, your dedication and
collaboration have made thisevent possible, and your
commitment to empowering womenin leadership is truly
inspiring. As we engage intoday's discussion, let us
(01:10):
celebrate the remarkableachievements of women leaders
and explore how we can continueto break barriers and pave the
way for future generations.Together, we can foster an
environment where every womanfeels empowered to lead and
succeed. So thank you again forbeing here. I would like to
introduce now Professor KenMariano, science chair for the
(01:32):
Political Science Club.
Unknown (01:37):
Okay, thank you for joining us. I see there's a lot
of us here today, I think thatthis is a very important panel
discussion, because we are nowat the cuspid history that we
may potentially have a feed thefirst female president in
American history. We know thatit got pretty close in 2016 with
Secretary then it was SecretaryClinton, and then now we have
(01:59):
vice president Harris, so I wantto welcome everybody, and before
we do get started, I'd like tointroduce our CO president of
our political science club,Xander. Xander cash, Hi,
I'm the co president of thePolitical Science Club here. And
now that it is election year,many of us first time voters
here, at least college studentsthat showed up. It's very
(02:22):
important for us to talk aboutour options in voting and to
make sure that we go into thevoting booth educated on every
candidate possible, and whensomething new pops up, like
potential of having a firstfemale first female president,
it's important to talk to peoplewho are in the political sphere
around us and talk to othervoters about how we can go
(02:44):
forward with this. Thanks.
Dr. Brooke Mailhiot (02:49):
Thank you, Xander. And now I would like to
introduce our moderator for thepanel, Allison Millward. She's
an assistant professor ofhistory at rcbc. She holds an MA
from State University of NewYork, at Albany, and a BA in
government and internationalpolitics with an academic
background in Warren society.Her research interests include
women, experiences in war, life,writings of participants in
(03:11):
conflict, wartime art and mediaand design history, and she is
currently undertaking researchon the lived experiences of
nurses on the Western Frontduring World War One, please
welcome Professor Milford, thankyou so much.
Unknown (03:29):
Thank you so much. Professor Myatt, Professor
Mariano and Xander, we're soexcited to gather today to
discuss previous leaders andmoments of women in power in
history. I'd like to begin byallowing our panelists to
introduce themselves, and soI'll go ahead and begin with our
first panelist, Olivia arrico.
(03:53):
Hi everyone. My name is OliviaEriko. I am the public programs
manager at the Al's Paul centerfor gender justice, aka or
formerly known as the Alice PaulInstitute. We recently did a
rebrand, which is very exciting.My area of interest, my
specialty is history. I have abackground in public history, a
master's from RutgersUniversity, and my area of
(04:15):
interest is really women ingrassroots organizing and
feminist history.
Thank you so much, and I'llcontinue with Dr Christina
aguibi.
Hi. I Christina geibie. I havemaster's in doctoral training in
Counseling Psychology with aspecialty area in resilience.
(04:36):
I'm a structure professor hereat rcbc for the last few years,
and my interest in the area ofresilience is just learning how
to navigate changes andchallenges that may come with
changes, and navigating thosesuccessfully so that we can
thrive to the best of ourability. I also have done some
(04:57):
women's leadership myself. I wasthe president of. Ohio women of
psychology a few years ago andso kind of bring that lens into
this as well. Thank you
wonderful. Thank you so much.Molly Gonzalez, hi,
yeah. My name is Molly Gonzalez.I'm the advocacy manager at the
Alice Paul center for genderjustice, formerly known as the
(05:19):
Alice Paul Institute. I studiedpolitical science and Gender
Studies in college and receiveda master's in human rights at
American so my focus is reallyseeing feminism as a tool for
achieving human rights.
Thank you to all three of you,and again, we have so many, so
much varied and excellentexperiences here. So I'm really
(05:40):
excited to get started. WhatI'll do is I have some questions
here, and we could go down theline, or if there's no one in
particular who'd like to start,anyone who would like to jump in
can, after about 45 minutes orso of conversation, we'll go
ahead and have an open questionsession with the crowd. So if
anybody out there is thinkingabout or writing things down and
(06:04):
would like to jump in, please doso. So we're going to start with
our first question. AndProfessor Mariano really said it
nicely with this idea of we areon the cusp right. We are
definitely on the cusp ofgroundbreaking history here. And
so I would like to start withVice President Harris and her
campaign and really what thatmeans to history. So vice
(06:28):
president Harris has madehistory as the first woman of
color nominated for thepresidency by a major party, but
she is not the first woman torun for president again. Anyone
who would like to jump in isfree to do so, but maybe you all
can tell us a little bit moreabout the history of women
running for president in theUnited States. Anyone like to
(06:50):
start off? Go ahead.
Yeah. So something people mightbe surprised to learn is that
women have been running for thepresidency longer than women had
the right to vote, right? Somost women got the right to vote
in 1920 when the 19th Amendmentwas added to the Constitution.
But the first woman who ran forpresident ran in 1872 Her name
was Victoria Woodhull. She was asuffragist. She was a feminist.
(07:13):
She was actually one of thefirst female stock brokers on
Walmart on Wall Street. So thatwas the first woman who ever ran
1872 people didn't take hercampaign very seriously because
she had radical politicalbeliefs, but also because she
was under 35 and so you need tobe 35 to run for president. So
she was the first in 1872 and wereally see a big increase in
(07:35):
women running for president inthe second half of the 20th
century. So the first and thesewomen would run as Republicans,
Democrat and third party acrossthe political spectrum. Women
have run for president. Thefirst Republican Woman to be
nominated to be put up fornomination. So she didn't
receive the nomination, but shewas put as a candidate. Her name
(07:56):
was Margaret Chase Smith, andthat was in 1964 another really
important figure is ShirleyChisholm. She ran for president
in 1972 she was the first blackwoman to seek the Democratic
nomination for president. Andthen, of course, we've already
mentioned her, but HillaryClinton, in 2016 became the
first woman to receive a majorparty nomination for president.
(08:22):
Thank you so much. Is thereanybody else who would like to
add to that? I have a bit of afollow up. Oh, would you like to
add? You did a wonderful job. Ihave a bit of a follow up to
kind of tease out some of theseideas here. And I think you
mentioned it really, reallynicely as you began. But did
these women expect to win thepresidency? Or were they just
(08:45):
sending a message about women inpolitics? Or was there a mix?
Can you maybe explain that alittle bit for us?
Yeah, I can start. And if anyonewants to add in, I think I'll go
back to Victoria Woodhull. LikeI said she was the first woman.
She ran under a party that shestarted called the Equal Rights
Party. And so I think at thistime, especially keeping in
(09:08):
fact, in mind the fact that shewas under 35 so she knew that,
like, according to theConstitution, she could not
actually run, it was a statementabout women's equals right,
equal rights. They actually theEqual Rights Party had nominated
Frederick Douglass as her vicepresident. He did not accept,
you know, I don't know thereasons, but it was a political
statement about the equality ofpeople. Yeah,
(09:33):
thank you. Thank you so much. Iappreciate that our next, our
next question, is going to go abit global, because as as we've
seen in world history, therehave been women heads of state.
So I want us to kind of take alook at this from an
(09:54):
international, perhapstransnational, lens as well. You
know, the United States, as weall. Now has never had a female
president, but plenty of nationsworldwide have had these have
had women heads of states. Inyour thoughts were their
leadership markedly differentfrom their male counterparts,
and if so, in what ways?
(10:18):
So I think we like to think thatwe're like the leaders of the
free world in the United States,that we're the beacons of
progress, that we do everythingfirst, and we're the best
because we're the West, but theUnited States is one of six
countries that has not yetratified CEDAW, and CEDAW is
basically a women's bill ofrights that was proposed by the
UN almost 50 years ago. Right?It's saying it's the Convention
on the Elimination of All Formsof Discrimination, and we sit as
(10:40):
one of six countries that hasn'tratified it, next to Afghanistan
and Saudi Arabia, countries thatwe don't think of as being
leaders in women's rights. Andwe don't have codified gender
equality right. We don't have anequal rights amendment, even
though, when the United Stateshelps other nations write a
constitution, we alwaysrecommend codify your gender
equality. But that doesn't meanit's not an exciting time to
(11:01):
talk about global women'sleadership. Women's Leadership.
Right? Our neighbors in Mexicojust elected their first female
president, President Steinbaum.Claudia Steinbaum, and she's a
scientist who served as the headof the Environmental she was the
environmental Secretary ofMexico City before she was the
president, and as a politician,she ran on a platform of free
(11:22):
health care, free education,anti gun, lifting people out of
poverty through education and indifferent state programs, and
she won her presidency by alandslide. Notably, she's very
far left, much more far leftthan her predecessor, and so as
(11:43):
Mexico is celebrating theirfirst female leader, however,
9000 miles away in Bangladesh,the Bangladeshis are kicking out
their female leader, theirauthoritarian female leader,
who's cracked down on theopposition, crackdown on the
free press, led to a studentuprising that stormed her palace
and kicked her out. Why am Italking about all of these
random women? Well, does itmatter if she's a woman like is
(12:05):
my question, right? Are womenmore peaceful? Are women better
leaders? Women can be leaders.We've seen this. They're capable
of it as are men, but they canbe both arbiters of peace, and
if we think of, for example, theUnited Kingdom's longest serving
Prime Minister, MargaretThatcher, they can be arbiters
(12:25):
of great, great violence,especially against other women.
And so I think thinking ofMargaret Thatcher, who said, the
feminists hate me, don't they?Well, I don't blame them. I hate
the feminists. Feminism ispoison. She was marketably anti
gay, anti abortion and antiwomen's liberation. So are women
(12:46):
more peaceful? Are do womenserve differently than men? I'm
not sure. I think both of thosekind of questions can and often
do rely on sexist stereotypes.Maybe women are more peaceful,
but that does rely on a genderedstereotype. And so I think if we
want to kind of transcendnotions of sexism and gendered
stereotypes, that meanstranscending these stereotypes
(13:08):
that claim women, just by beinga woman, are better at certain
things, are more accustomed topeace
well. And I think, I think youmake a really important point
there, and that you know womenwould you know, are inherently
more peaceful and and men are,you know, kind of flipping that
stereotype as well. Men areincapable of peace, right? So we
(13:29):
kind of lend these, thesedifferent gendered stereotypes
to like, to both sides,absolutely. But you've come up
with exit excellent examples ofways in which we've had very
proactive female leaders, butthose who are, as you mentioned,
are getting unseated as wespeak. Any more thoughts on even
just the perception of theUnited States having a female
(13:51):
president, even if just notfrom, you know, comparing to
other nations, but even just theconcept that the United States,
as you had mentioned, poignantlyis, you know, kind of lagging
behind in some of the equalrights policies that we've seen.
But anyways, just some of themessages that sent with the
(14:12):
United States not having afemale president. Would anyone
like to speak to that, or eventhe previous question,
yeah. I mean, one of the biggestjobs of a president, right is,
is to signal to is the worldleader, is the ambassador to the
world. They are the ones thatchoose all of the ambassadors.
One of their only kind ofunchecked and balanced position
is being this global ambassador.And so maybe through having a
(14:34):
female president, we can finallysignal that we care about women
in this country, because thepast few decades of legislation
does not really indicate that.And so more than just indicating
that we care about women, itcould indicate that we're
catching up, because we'rereally, really behind. Our
neighbors in the north and southhave already had women heads of
state. Most of the EU has hadwomen heads of state. We're far
(14:55):
behind. And so as far as likehow we can catch up to the rest
of the world. Which is a reallydire human rights problem, then
that's something that a womanpresident could signal
Absolutely. Thank you. Any otherthoughts? I
think it also could signal thatwe can be both strong and
compassionate wise leaders andbring in all of the female lens
(15:18):
into this potential. WhenJacinda Arden of New Zealand was
head of state, there's you knowthat showed that, there's some
quotes about this, that sheshowed the world that neither
age nor gender, nor motherhood,nor any other barrier can stop
you from reaching your fullpotential, because she became
head of state at 37 years old.So we can, you can balance both
(15:42):
the compassion and the strength,I think, and still show a force
of strength in the world, butwith a compassionate lens as
well.
Excellent. Thank you. Thank youfor your thoughts on that. Now
we talked a little bit aboutwomen running for presidency,
(16:03):
and so just to kind of think ofthe actual possibility of a
woman being elected into theexecutive branch, I want us to
lean into both, you know,examples from the past, but even
just the present, the present,and what that could potentially
mean when we think Of all thefeminist movements of the past,
these, what's often called thewaves of feminism and the
(16:25):
several feminist movements, wasgetting a woman elected to the
executive branch, necessarily agoal of the feminist movements?
Or, you know, again, to kind ofswing back around to the first
question, Was it really just tokind of raise awareness? Was,
you know, what might be somereasons why certain movements
(16:52):
would push a female president?
Yeah, I can speak to this one.Yeah. So I think the first thing
to put it first, to say theanswer is both, like a yes and
no. I think the first thing thatwe need to draw out, which you
hinted at, is that when we talkabout feminism, it's not one
thing. We're talking about amovement that has existed for
(17:12):
over 100 years. The people whohave been in this movement, you
know, incredibly diverse rangeof thought, political
orientation goals. So for somewomen, some feminists, yes, it's
been a goal to get women in thepresidency. For other women,
it's not, you know, for a longtime, remember, women that we
(17:33):
call first wave feminists werejust fighting to get the right
to vote. The idea that theycould be president was like
much, much in the future forpeople we might call Second wave
feminists. And when I say that,I'm really talking about people
in like the 1960s 70s, 80s,there was a huge diversity of
thought in that movement.People, there were women who
(17:53):
were much more concerned withissues that were impacting
ordinary women every day. Sothings like the gender wage gap,
reproductive health, those kindof issues that we see in our day
to day that impact everydaywomen. But there were other
women who were very interestedin this question of a woman
president. And the historicalmoment when this started to
(18:14):
change was 1980 so the 1980election of Ronald Reagan was
the first time since 1920 whenwomen got the right to vote,
that more women than men votedin the election. It was also
notable because there was anotable gender gap. So what I
mean by that is that theynoticed that more women had
(18:34):
voted against Ronald Reagan thanmen. So the voting pattern was
really different if you lookedat gender So because of these
out turn this outcome in 1980 itreally got some feminists at the
time, particularly womenassociated with the group, the
National Organization for Women,interested in the idea of
getting a woman on the ticketfor the 1984 election. Because
(18:57):
they thought, okay, more womenare coming out to vote than men
and women don't always vote thesame way as men. So if we get a
woman on the Democratic ticket,maybe we can win this election.
So those women for the 1984election rallied behind the
Democratic Party to get them tonominate a woman vice president.
They put a lot of pressure onthem, and eventually a woman was
(19:19):
selected. Her name was GeraldineFerrero. She was a
representative from New YorkCity, but so they get her on the
ticket. Unfortunately for thewomen who were planning this,
the Democrats were blown out ina landslide, one of the hugest,
biggest defeats in US politicalhistory. So the lesson there, of
(19:43):
course, is that just because youget a woman on the ticket does
not mean that women will votefor her. More women voted for
Reagan in that election in 1984than they voted for Mondale, who
was the presidential nominee.
Any other thoughts? Well. US, Ihave a bit of a follow up
(20:03):
question this, because it's, Ithink, really this idea of
messages, right? So we've kindof been smoothing out this
concept of different messagesthat are being sent, both
globally and nationally. What?What might you suggest, at least
from the historical record, orjust you know idea like
philosophy on gender and publicoffice. What might you suggest
(20:28):
to people who say, Oh, womenonly run for president as a
result of feminist movements.Right like there, there might be
that lack of seriousness. Theymight just be trying to be
president to make a point, wouldwe have any ideas on even not
just a response from you, butmaybe responses that you've
(20:49):
heard or seen throughouthistory?
Yeah, I can start on this one. Ithink so. What I've I've read
and heard about other peopletalking about kamala's campaign
versus Hillary's in 2016 and ifyou can remember back to 2016 if
(21:10):
you want to remember back to2016 Hillary really did
emphasize this like I'm going tobreak the glass ceiling. I'm
going to be the first woman vicepresident, or women president.
Sorry. But if we look at Kamalacampaign, she's not doing that
as much, right? So I think thatis, she has picked up this
messaging question that you'venoticed that it doesn't really,
(21:33):
it might not be a thing thatsells for a lot of people,
right? This glass ceiling awoman in this role, it might
actually work against her insome ways, at least, that might
be what the campaign is sayingwhen they're not really pushing
this point forward.
Any other thoughts,
(21:55):
it's just, it's reallyimportant, I think, to push the
not just to be, you know, thefirst president, like you're
saying, but to to push theissues forward that are
important. And there are issuesrelated to equality. Of course,
we've been leaders in many otherareas, through Congress or
(22:16):
leaders in private sectors, andthis is an important step for
Global Equality, but also withinthe US and so this is the next
kind of logical step. It isimportant to to have a woman
president potentially, but it'salso important that it's not
just looked at as just afeminist issue, but for moving
(22:37):
the entire movement along.
So thank you. Now we again.We've talked a lot about
elections themselves, but I'mwondering what kind of lessons
can we glean from campaigns ofpast women candidates, so we
know some of the possiblereasons or motivations why they
(22:59):
ran. We know that there weresome who were quite successful
in their own ways, even if theydidn't quite make it to office,
they had sent messages. But whatare some, like, core lessons
just from these campaigns, evenjust how to run a campaign, or,
you know, kind of like we werejust talking about with the 2016
election messages that work ordon't work, just hindsight of
(23:22):
the last 100 120, years or so.Are there any key lessons we can
take away? Okay,
well, I'll start with this one,and I'm gonna go back to the
campaign of Geraldine Ferrarothat I was talking about before,
when she was vice president,because I think that gets to
something that is really kind ofimportant for any campaign, any
election, right? They ran. Theythought this, having a woman as
(23:45):
the vice president would helpget the women's vote for the
Democratic Party. They saw thatdidn't work. And so I think the
lesson there is that if you area woman running for an office,
you can't just depend on gettingthe women's vote because you are
a woman and as voters, I thinkwhat that also, what we also get
from that is that we have tohold men and women candidates to
(24:07):
the same standards. And by that,I mean you have to be an
informed voter. You have to doyour research, know where all
the candidates stand on theissues, regardless of their
gender, and vote for the personwho best represents you.
This is also a quick campaign,right? Like, I think another
huge difference a lot of peopleare putting forth about with
(24:28):
2016 is, of course, Hillaryreally leaned into being a woman
and that that would make herdifferent than her, not enemy,
but enemy, opponent. But this isshe had a couple years to do
that. She was cranking that outfor a while. This is a short
campaign. This was 100 days, ifthat, and so it didn't give us a
(24:49):
lot of time to kind of questionher and her motivations the same
way it did with Hillary. Sheisn't under the same microscope
that Hillary was under. Wearen't getting the same kind of
hit pieces. That we were withHillary. It's a completely
different campaign for materialreasons, because it's a lot less
time. And similarly to whatOlivia is echoing, that women,
(25:10):
as women in all theaters, areoften boxed in. You're a woman,
so you do this, you're a woman,so you vote for a woman. And we
know from 2016 from 1980 fromevery time a woman has run for
any office that that's not truethat women, women don't just
vote for other women becausethey're women. Women are more
complex than that, just as menare more complex than that. Men
(25:30):
vote for women all the time.Women vote for men all the time.
And so to echo Olivia's pointthat gender doesn't have to be
this defining factor of someonethat's that was a feminist, aim
is to break that mold that yourgender defines every single
thing about you, and your genderis a amalgamation of stereotypes
that aren't necessarilypositive. And so when we're
(25:51):
looking at this very shortcampaign compared to other
presidents that we have votedfor, or presidents that we
haven't been able to vote for,but we watched on TV for those
who are voting for the firsttime, this is a different
campaign for a lot of reasons,but one of them is because it's
it's shorter,
absolutely, certainly historicin multiple ways, not just
because of Vice PresidentHarris's candidacy, but just
(26:13):
everything that had transpired,absolutely, making This a
shorter campaign for her. Anyother thoughts? Excellent. So we
know from the women's suffrageera. I'd be remiss if I didn't
ask a question of individualsfrom the Alice Paul Institute.
(26:34):
There were people, there werewomen, but there, there were
groups of people in general whowere anti suffrage again,
including women. What kind ofvoices did we hear in the past
from people who who had said,Not only should women not vote,
but they shouldn't holdleadership positions in public
(26:54):
spaces like the presidency andand do we still kind of see
traces and attitudes like thattoday. Any thoughts, thoughts on
that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I canstart on that. So I want to
break this down and start with,like, the anti suffrage
(27:14):
question. Why? Why were therewomen who were anti suffrage? It
seems counterintuitive. Whywould you be against your own
right to vote? And I thinksomething so there's a concept
called the separate spheres.When we talk about history,
really that there were, therewas a domestic sphere and a
public sphere. The domesticsphere is the home that was
(27:35):
where women belonged, raisingchildren, cooking, cleaning,
etc. Public Sphere was themasculine realm that was holding
public office, that was engagingin politics, that was going out
to work. And this was a dominantideology in the 19th century,
and we do see echoes of thatstill today, but we'll get to
there. So, so there were antisuffrage women, because this was
(28:00):
the ideology they were broughtup in. They they even as women,
believed like I am a woman, I amsupposed to be in the home, my
responsibility, my role insociety, is raising children,
making sure they're goodcitizens. So I think that's a an
important part of that, is thatpeople are these are beliefs
that people were brought up insame way that we're brought up
(28:21):
in some gendered stereotypesstill today. And I think getting
to the second half of yourquestion, we definitely do still
see echoes of this idea thatwomen belong in the domestic
sphere and not the publicsphere. I think it's a more
fringe belief than it is than itwas in the 19th century, but we
definitely still see it in someplaces.
(28:43):
Yeah, definitely that duality ofspheres we still kind of see
lingering Absolutely. It hadoftentimes kind of been seen as
something of the past. Thespheres have broken, but, and I
like that idea that it's there.It may still be a fringe, but it
definitely still exists in somerealms. So tying into this, you
(29:05):
know, there and some of theseconcerns that individuals might
have about the role of theexecutive branch in general, and
some of the concerns that toomuch progressive change might be
made too many things mightchange too fast. I want us to
kind of break down this idea ofreality versus kind of maybe
(29:26):
some fears or like ideals. Okay,and so my question now is, what
are actually some of thelimitations of the executive
branch in their ability to makeprogressive change?
Yeah, yeah. So we kind of havetwo what seems like completely
different worlds that are goingto happen in November. That's
(29:47):
kind of what they're telling us.And the framers and the founders
made a lot of mistakes, but onething that they were holding in
their mind when they wereframing our government was a
fear of kings, the. Right ofKings. They were scared of a
monarch. They were scared of oneguy controlling everything and
ruining it. And so they puttogether tons of different what
(30:07):
they're called checks andbalances, to make sure that a
king would not emerge and ruintheir new country. So Article
Two of the Constitution outlineswhat it is that the President
can actually do, and the powersare a lot more limited than we
might think. The President isnot a king. They have to get
checks and balances for a seriesof different behaviors. We'll
(30:28):
say from the Senate, they haveall of their what I was talking
about earlier with how they getto confirm ambassadors and pick
all of their differentsecretaries, the Secretary of
Labor, the Secretary of theenvironment, the interior, those
all have to be confirmed by theSenate as well. So when we think
about all of the powers that be,of the scary, there's one that's
(30:51):
maybe scary to some, that'sscary to me. What's important to
note is that the presidency, theexecutive branch itself, has
immense limitations, and thatthat position is not a king, and
that when we had a president in2016 who was elected, who did
not maybe share some of ourviews on on women's rights, on
the equality of genders, whaterupted was the greatest and
(31:14):
most populated mobilization ofwomen in the history of this
country. And so the President isnot the one who defines how each
person in here thinks andbelieves. And in fact, we get to
vote more than just on november5 to decide what all of us
believe and how that is impactedinto legislation. And so yeah,
of course, the President is avery powerful person. They
(31:35):
wouldn't be yelling at us on thephone and texting us every day,
which I'm sure you guys aregetting those texts too, if it
wasn't such an importantposition. But luckily, the
framers thought ahead a littlebit to ensure that they weren't.
They would not become a god, ademagogue. And so what's also
very important is that we canvote for legislate legislatures
(31:55):
as well, and that their job, inpart, is to check and balance
this presidency?
Yeah, absolutely, yeah, no. Ithink that's very well said,
despite how it feels. Sometimesthere are other positions that
are up for grabs in November toothat are just as important and
if not because of checks andbalances, as important as the
(32:17):
presidential election.Definitely. Any other thoughts
on the limitation of theexecutive branch and powers of
the executive branch in general,
it's going to be up to creatingdiplomatic relationships on all
sides because of thoselimitations, if they want to,
you know, make any progressmoving ahead. So it's up to this
(32:40):
President, whoever it's going tobe, to reach a kind of
diplomacy, both globally and athome, in order to get these
things done because of theselimitations, which are again put
in for our protection.
Yeah, I'm just going to add,like, one more historical
example. So we are from theAlice Paul Center. We are named
(33:04):
after Alice Paul, who was asuffragist. She helped get women
the right to vote. One of thethings that Alice did that added
to the movement that was reallyher big one of her big
contributions is that whenPresident Woodrow Wilson was
inaugurated, became president,he was against suffrage. He was
very anti suffrage, and shedecided, okay, for the next
election, what we're going to dois get all the women who could
(33:27):
vote, because in some Westernstates at this time, there were
women who could vote, and we'regoing to tell them not to vote
for Wilson. So if the you know,Molly just told us the President
actually doesn't have that muchpower, and that would be
something that falls in thelegislature. Why did Alice put
the pressure on women voters tovote out Wilson? Because one of
(33:47):
the powers that the Presidentdoes have, and this is what
Alice believed, was to shapepublic opinion so he could, if
he went out in front of Congressand made a speech and said, I do
support women's suffrage, thatwould really change public
opinion and the opinion ofpeople in his party in the
legislature. So I just wanted toadd that as kind of a
counterpoint to Molly's pointabout the limitations of the
(34:08):
executive.
Definitely, fair. You know,we're kind of breaking down
ideal and reality, andabsolutely, sometimes they kind
of go back and forth and switch,for sure, absolutely, I want us
to kind of keep on this idea ofchange, though, because, again,
I think we're really touching onthis theme of, regardless of
(34:29):
what happens in November, youknow, there's this idea of a
historic election. There is thisidea of change as well across
all of the branches ofgovernment, across all of the
different, you know, areas ofgovernment, whether it's
federal, whether it's local,whether it's state, and even
though we know that some ofthese ideas of women leadership
(34:49):
versus male leadership are basedoff of stereotypes, you know, we
talked about the dual sphere,and we talked about different
perceptions of what gender isor. People thought it was in the
past, women, I think, inherentlyhave different experiences from
males in society, because ofthese stereotypes and because of
(35:11):
what has been perpetuated. Sothat said, I think my next
question is combining this ideaof change, but this idea of, you
know, having differentexperiences. You know, based on
some of these social ideas, howcan women kind of utilize both,
like these individualexperiences they may have had,
but like collective experiencesas well, to contribute to this
(35:34):
changing landscape?
So resilience is my area of kindof expertise, and this area
really involves a lot offlexibility and learning and
adaptability to differentchanges and different
challenges, and that hashappened domestically, both at
home and domestically, withinthis country, and then also
(35:57):
globally as well. So they cancertainly contribute to some of
these areas, through thecollaborations that they do
through again, leading withstrength and compassion at the
same time, maybe even being calmunder pressure. And again, these
things are stereotypical, butcan also be beneficial in as we
develop and grow and change as acountry, to be more flexible to
(36:20):
adapt and to learn from others,which is a strength, definitely,
that women can have on manydifferent arenas.
Excellent. Any other thoughts, arelated question, and this is
(36:42):
kind of like as we're windingdown on our questions here
again, going back to that ideaof potential collective and
shared experiences based off ofeverything that we've been
talking about, are therestrengths women bring to the
table that can ease transition?Again, whether, no matter what
happens in November, it'sdefinitely a time of that's
(37:05):
going to require some sort ofdiplomacy, peacekeeping,
transition. Are there thingsfrom our lived experiences that
can help ease, you know, thesetransitions while, you know,
having or encouraging people tolook forward to the future. So
citizens look forward to thefuture.
So again, looking at justresearch or even global women
(37:26):
leadership, and some of these,again, are very stereotypical
kind of adjectives ordescriptions, but they really do
bring some strengths to thetable that can help move things
forward a little bit and moreequality and more balance, but
things like collaboration, ableto collaborate with lots of
different people. Again, likethe New Zealand Head of State,
(37:49):
she was compassionate, but alsohad wisdom and strength. They
can be calm under pressure, haveattention to detail, being open
and intuitive, having a strengthof empathy and understanding
what other people may bring tothe table, and understanding
multiple different perspectives,again, the flexibility and
adaptability and the learningthat comes with resilience and
(38:12):
able to move through challengesand navigate those being bold,
at the same time with havingemotional intelligence and
understanding what differentgroups may bring to the table,
as well as being effectivecommunicators that can be really
an important concept foreverything domestically and
globally, as well, having aninclusive vision that includes
(38:32):
everybody else's ideals andperspectives is important being
holistic in their decisionmaking and not Just looking at
things logistically, but also,again, with compassion and
intuition and empathy. They canbe visit visionary leaderships
that are confident andproductive. They can be both
optimistic and positive. Theycan go after the things that
(38:54):
they want to do with tacklingfear at the same time and having
a caring perspective while,again, exhibiting strength and
leadership. So there's many goodqualities that can balance both
strength and leadership and alsocompassion and kindness that the
world needs now more than ever.
(39:16):
I guess I would say, I wouldhope that men could be
compassionate and kind too, andthat we could encourage not just
women to be those that have tohave that burden of compassion,
empathy and kindness, and thatlooking at examples of women
leadership, Jacinda Ardern is agreat example. She was only in
power for, I think, a year and afew months. If we look at women
who were in power for decades,Angela Merkel is an example of
(39:39):
someone who was, you know, theleader of Europe, kind of
Germany, for over 20 years, andher unempathetic economic policy
decimated Greece. I mean,there's a lot of things that
happened too, but that's part ofit. And so a lot of her lack of
empathy, as with other womenleaders like she. Casino and
(40:00):
Bangladesh, like MargaretThatcher in the UK, they did not
demonstrate a whole lot ofempathy towards other women,
minoritized groups. All three ofthese women have put forth
policies that are anti gay.Uncle Margo less so is Margaret
Thatcher and she Cassina. But tosay that as far as women in
(40:21):
leadership, women deserve to beleaders, just as much as men
deserve to be leaders becausethey're human beings, not
because they have somethingabout their gender that makes
them better at certain thingsthan other other genders. All of
us have kindness within us. Allof us have empathy within us,
not because I was born with acertain gender, but because I'm
a human being, and because wehave history and examples put
(40:45):
forth of both women inleadership and men in leadership
making terrible mistakes and notbeing empathetic. And of course,
we have examples of women andmen in leadership making great
choices and liberating a lot ofpeople too. And so I think my
kind of thesis that I'llconclude with that question is
that just because someone is awoman does not mean that they
(41:07):
are predisposed to be morepeaceful, that they're more
predisposed to oppose war, thatthey're going to make policies
that will help women, that theirexperiences are very important,
and I would hope that they wouldguide the decision making. But
as I've mentioned with some ofthese examples of women in
leadership, they didn'tnecessarily stand for bodily
(41:28):
autonomy or the liberation ofqueer people or strong trade
unions to make sure that womenhad limited work days, for
example. And so genderstereotypes, I don't think will
liberate us. I don't think willpush us forward into a new
feminist epoch. I thinkunderstanding that all of us are
(41:48):
capable of empathy, compassion,peace, using our personal
experiences to care aboutothers, is what would put us
forth into a new feminist epoch.And if that includes a woman
president, that's great, but Idon't think if that woman
president doesn't come with anadvocation for other women, then
that's kind of a bummer. Ithink,
(42:12):
any other thoughts on women intransitions, whether
historically, you know, thinkingabout that idea of historical
examples or even just from amodern lens, I'll ask this kind
of as I wrap up my set ofquestions here, I always like to
think of, you know, justchildren, whether it was
(42:33):
individuals I grew up with, or Iwatched grow up who always said,
you know, I'm going to bePresident someday, or I want to
be president someday, and andfrom my experience, it's been
both males and females say thatfemales tended to get a little
bit more pushed to the side thanmales. But what I'm going to ask
is this, what would you say tothis generation of young people,
(42:56):
whether they're elementary agedor, you know, college age and
their Poli Sci majors,regardless of gender, who say, I
want to be president someday.What would your message to them
be? Any any thoughts on that?
I mean, I think we, you know,one of the messages or themes
(43:18):
that has really emerged fromthis conversation is qualities
that we'd like in a leader,right? We've talked a lot about
empathy, kindness, being able torelate to other people and
communicate, well, all thesequalities that you kind of
outlined in a great leader. AndI think the thing I would say is
like, Well, I hope that you cando these things, that you will
(43:40):
be an empathetic leader, thatyou can communicate well, and
that also, since we have beentalking a lot about women and
women's issues, that regardlessof who you are, how you
identify, that you will takeseriously the issues women and
other gender minorities in thiscountry face and make them a
(44:01):
real part of your of the workyou would do.
And it was a bit of a lightninground question,
I would say it's a bigresponsibility and but it's an
important platform that youhave, that you can voice things
to move society forward, andagain, to lead with compassion
(44:24):
and empathy is just as importantas leading with strength,
regardless of the gender of theperson that is running or in
that office. It is important tohave a lot of wisdom and
compassion at the same time, andso it's an important role to
model to the world, you know howyou want things to see in the
(44:45):
world for the next generationand many generations after that,
to someone
who wants to be president, yeah,good luck. Make sure you read a
little bit more than some of theguys we've got around here.
Awesome.
So well. Thank you so much. Iwill go ahead and conclude
(45:05):
today's event, thank you againfor your enthusiasm and
expertise. Is very muchappreciated. And thank you to
everybody who came out today tolisten to this panel and these
and these excellent thoughts onboth the past, present and
future of politics.
(45:30):
You.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
Introducing… Aubrey O’Day Diddy’s former protege, television personality, platinum selling music artist, Danity Kane alum Aubrey O’Day joins veteran journalists Amy Robach and TJ Holmes to provide a unique perspective on the trial that has captivated the attention of the nation. Join them throughout the trial as they discuss, debate, and dissect every detail, every aspect of the proceedings. Aubrey will offer her opinions and expertise, as only she is qualified to do given her first-hand knowledge. From her days on Making the Band, as she emerged as the breakout star, the truth of the situation would be the opposite of the glitz and glamour. Listen throughout every minute of the trial, for this exclusive coverage. Amy Robach and TJ Holmes present Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial, an iHeartRadio podcast.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Come hang with Amy Poehler. Each week on her podcast, she'll welcome celebrities and fun people to her studio. They'll share stories about their careers, mutual friends, shared enthusiasms, and most importantly, what's been making them laugh. This podcast is not about trying to make you better or giving advice. Amy just wants to have a good time.