July 11, 2018 • 36 mins
A & B look back at this classic episode, and check in to see if 2018 is shaping up to be a year of the woman.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi, This is Annie, and this is Pridget, and you're
listening to stuff mom never told you, and we have
an update for you today on the Year of the Woman.
Year of the Woman. It's actually good news this time.
(00:27):
Oh good. That's always fun. Women are winning big in
primaries all over the country. I don't know if it's
too soon to actually declare this the Year of the Woman,
but it's looking pretty good. Of the ninety two women
who participated in the eight primaries back in early June,
at least thirty six of them have emerged victorious. Women
are likely to be elected as governor for the first
(00:49):
time in Iowa and South Dakota, and for the first
time in nearly five decades in Alabama, according to gender
Watch two eighteen, a project of the Center for American
Women in Politics at Rutgers University. Women are also poised
to make significant progress in house races. Iowa, for example,
mayle like its first ever congresswoman, and New Mexico mail
like the country's first Native American congresswoman, Deb Holland. More
(01:11):
than five women have so far filed to run for
office and primaries this year, according to the Center for
American Women in Politics and that number represents a jump
from most of the women running our Democrats, although one
third of Republican women running have also won their races.
And here are just a few. Stacy Abrams won her
primary for Georgia governor, besting Stacy Evans. If she went,
(01:33):
she'll be the first black female governor in the United States. Yeah.
I had another great person to mention this, Alexandra Occacio Cortes.
So just less than a year ago, the twenty eight
year old was working at a bar in New York,
actually above the of OZ Human Rights organization offices, and
my friend would go there all the time and see her,
so shout after her working in the bar below of
OZ um. But she was just twenty eight working in
(01:55):
a bar, had never run for public office before, and
she ran and won her primary in New York Sporting District.
She took down longtime Rep. Joe Crowley, who had not
had a primary challenger in fourteen years. So that is huge.
I mean that's a big deal. Yeah, he played a
Bruce Sperence. He is born to run such an interesting
(02:16):
he was born to lose. Was just kidding, just kidding.
She's the first woman of color to run in the district,
which encompasses parts of Queens and the Bronx, and she
also won in a landslide. She won fifty seven point
five percent of the vote, while Crowley had just forty. Yeah,
she's kind of a rad lady. She's a socialist, and
she has a super progressive platform, including medicare for all
and canceling all student debt. And I wanted to include
(02:38):
her because I think, if you're thinking you want to
run for office, but you don't have the experience, the money, whatever,
think about Alex She was working in a bar less
than a year ago and had no experience running for office,
and she ran on a real lefty progressive platform and
she won her primary. Yeah, so she can do it. Yeah,
you can do It's inspiring stuff. Let's hope that this
(03:00):
does prove to be the Year of the Women, and
we have many more stories like this to tell in
the future, but in the meantime, we thought we'd give
you this update. And today I am so excited to
(03:21):
ask a prediction question as we look at the new
year we're rolling out before us, will especially the election cycle,
produce another so called Year of the Woman. That's the
compelling question we want to dare I say unpack today
and we're gonna be joined by a friend of mine,
(03:42):
a really awesome guest too, you'll hear from later this episode.
But first, let's talk about what that means. The Year
of the Woman. What is that? Perhaps you've heard this
term thrown around and perhaps you know that it refers
to nineteen two women trip hold their numbers in the Senate,
which sounds awesome until you look at the fact that
(04:04):
we went from having to senators as women serving out
of one U S senators to a whopping six and
actually Barbara Boxer Pennant op ed for USA today that
kind of looked back almost sheepishly on nine two being
called the Year of the Woman. I mean, she was
part of the Year of the Woman in ninety two
when she and Haanne Feinstein became the first two female
(04:27):
senators elected for many one state. And yes, she acknowledges
they triple their numbers in the Senate, but going from
two to six out of hundred is not exactly something
to brag about. Looking back on it, she says, calling
ninety two the Year of the Woman was an overstatement
and after much hype, everyone focused on other things. I
(04:47):
can see how you would be really really excited thinking, Yeah,
we were going to do this, this is our time,
and then being like, what happened, y'all? I thought this
was our year? Like we went from a small number
to another small number, and so of feeling a little
bit underwhelmed. That's why I really really hope that actually
will be a resurgence of the Year of the Woman.
And there's reason to draw a parallel there as well.
(05:10):
Despite its modesty, the Year of the One in ninety
two was still historic. And what's interesting in terms of
looking at the parallels of today is that it followed
Professor Anita Hill going public with her story of humiliation
and verbal abuse at the hands of her then boss,
Clarence Thomas during his confirmation hearings to become a sitting
(05:35):
member of our Supreme Court, and looking at movements like
me too, it does seem like a similar trajectory where
we are following this wave of women speaking out about
their experiences with sexual misconducts and men in powerful positions,
and if you look at the last primary and election cycle,
it does seem mike a little bit of a hopeful
moment for a reckoning power. It's like a powder kick.
(05:57):
And what's interesting is today the hash a me two
is demonstrating that we are actually listening to and believing
women who are speaking out about this stuff, as opposed
to Anita Hill's case, which did lead to the confirmation
of Clarence Thomas being a member of our Supreme Court,
almost like the commander in chief of ours that we
have at the moment being ushered into the halls of
(06:19):
power just by bragging about sexual assault and back into
the senators who were grilling Professor Hill and really producing
kind of a character assassination. During the Clarence Thomas trials,
they prohibited three other women from testifying who would have
corroborated Anita's story and treated her with disrespect from both
(06:41):
sides of the aisle. That led to understandable outrage and
anger on behalf of a lot of women on a country,
which led to that historic, though modest doubling in. And
doesn't that feel like the powder keg and the moment
of reckoning that we're in right now, of righteous anger
provoking revolution. God, I hope so, because we've been waiting
(07:06):
for long enough. I'm really hoping this is the moment
that women all stand up and use our powerful voices,
and those voices are heard and believed and listened to exactly. Sadly,
the number of women who have been holding public office
is held pretty steady in recent years, barely breaking the
mark even though we represent obviously fifty plus percent of
(07:28):
the US population. But a lot of experts agree that
the conditions are ripe for a significant increase in two
thousand and eighteen, especially as more politicians are forced to
step down or retire amid the growing me too movement.
We've already seen four congressmen announced plans to retire or
(07:49):
not seek reelection following allegations, and that doesn't even include
Senator Al Franken, who immediately stepped down whether or not
he really wanted to write. Yeah, What this really says
to me is something I've been getting on my high
horse about on the show a lot, which is that
we need more women and less men to have these
kinds of things be combated. And I really hope that
this is the reckoning a moment where more women start saying, hey,
(08:12):
maybe give us a chance for a while to see
if we can do a better job of running the stuff,
because all these men can't seem to keep it in
their pants long enough to even get the chance to
a lot of experts are seeing more women throther hat
into the ring and plan to run for office this
year than ever before. And it's not just Democrats that
we're talking about here. First time Republican and Libertarian women
(08:33):
candidates are also jumping into the mix. In fact, Republicans
launched an effort back in two thousand twelve that's focused
on specifically electing more women. It's called the Right Women,
Right Now Program, and since the initiative was started, three
GOP women have been elected. So we know that the
(08:54):
numbers are far imbalanced when it comes to women's equal
representation in this country and looting. On the local level,
only of state legislators are women. So we want to
take a closer look at not only how the conditions
are even better now than they were in ninety two
for more women to get elected on the local and
(09:16):
federal level, but some of the organizations behind equipping women
with the skills to run for public office and win.
And we're going to talk to our good friend Aaron
Valarti from Vote Run Lead after this quick break and
a word from our sponsors and We're back and we
(09:40):
are so excited to be joined by Aaron Valarti, the founder, CEO,
and executive director of Vote Run Lead, a national nonprofit
leveraging technology and training to accelerate the number of women
across the political spectrum in civic and political leadership. Aaron,
thank you so much for joining us for today's conversation.
Thank you. So As Bridge and I are looking at eighteen,
(10:04):
we are asking ourselves, is this going to be another
Year of the woman? Alaho allah Post, Anita Hill, how
do you think this year is shaping up in terms
of the women you're training to run for office and
get more engaged in politics. I think the Year of
the Woman has a lot of similarities to what we're
going to see in eighteen, but I think there's some
(10:26):
unique comparisons that we also need to be aware of.
One of the first things that happened was that there
were tons and tons of open seats, meaning that women
weren't running against incumbents. They were actually running against, you know,
someone who was also probably running for that seat for
the first time. So there's a huge advantage there and
that's something we need to really look at closely in
our democracy. How many actually open seats are there going
(10:49):
to be. Now, jerrymandering and redistricting is critically important because
that has actually made seats really safe. We're in incumbents
are getting reelected over and over again, and an incumbent
is someone who's just sitting in that seat and as
eligible to run again. So that's one of the things
that's a big differentiator is that they're likely aren't going
to be the same number of open seats. So you
are beginning to see some serious retirements happen UM, and
(11:11):
that will help. So you know, I've been kind of
hilariously doing a national call to men to retire, so
they can go right ahead and retire. That'd be really great.
It will really help us with repeat. But in the
you know a lot of similarities in the sense that
women are piste off and they're looking around and going,
how did we get these systems this way in which
you know, we're not able to get justice, in which
(11:32):
people are getting away with things that um are slowing down,
our careers, are keeping us under you know, a thumb.
And when it comes to public policy, and they're seeing
power UM and they're looking at politics again in a
way that says, hey, I can do that, UM, And
that's I think what saw. So you won't see the
same jumps which were like doubling and tripling doubling in
the Senate, but that was only like something like to
(11:54):
six or eight, right, so you're not going to go
to forty. UM, so you won't see the same kind
of percentage jumps, but you will, I think see UM
a larger increase also in the number of women of
color who are running for Congress and UM. You know
that was something that was a positive coming out of
the elections, was also the number of women of color
and in Congress and in the Senate. I'm curious, why
(12:15):
do you think that is. I've been so so excited
to see more women of color and what feels like
a more inclusive political climate. Why do you think that is?
Why do you think that's been part of this moment?
Two reasons. I think that women of color are stepping
up in a way that UM. One, the March was
a very visible, um and honest assessment where the leadership
(12:39):
of the women's movement like skipped a generation. So we
went from the sort of you know, glorious dynam era
to all of a sudden we had women in their
twenties and thirties running this movement, women like Todd of
the digital team for the March on Washington, the Women's
March last year, And the generational stuff is huge, Like
the the younger women just get it in a different way. Um.
(13:02):
Maybe it's because, you know, we were raised by different moms.
Maybe it's just culturally we've seen a lot more like
women and women of color and TV and films. You know,
I don't know, there's a lot of reasons for it,
but like we are just coming at this like, yep,
we got this, trust us, we can do it. Yeah,
we know it's going to be hard, you know, and
I'm going to bring along this like diverse coalition with me.
So I think there's really something about that generational shift
(13:24):
where we kind of miss that in like feminist literature
about young women, and we know this about millennials. You
we're much we have much more diverse groups of friends,
were open to you know, more much more open to
gay marriage before our you know, older counterparts. Um. And
I think women's organizations are also getting a good kick
in the butt to say nope, you know you have
I've got to see a diverse board. I've got to
(13:44):
see a diverse team around inclusion of women of color.
This cannot be just like one of the things that's
part of your you know, talking points. It's got to
be deeply ingrained in your strategy. UM. Groups like the
Miss Foundation are only funding women of color led organizations
and it's awesome, UM and it makes for we We
know this from you know, thirty years of research that
(14:05):
diverse bodies actually make better leadership decisions. And I think
the women's community is taking that to heart. I love
that so much, and I just I completely agree. And
I've been thrilled to see not even just in electoral politics,
but like you were saying, in the advocacy space, in
the media space, kind of a willingness to pass the
mic two younger women, women of color, at trans women.
(14:26):
I was so so pumped in the last Virginia primary
Dana Carome the first trans woman to win, Like that
was a huge, huge thing. And I unders been so
thrilled to see that this generation a feminist is saying,
our feminism is inclusive, Our feminism includes women of color,
Our feminism includes women that have been traditionally marginalized and
(14:47):
we are going to go forward with a very inclusive
and diverse coalition and kick some mass I wonder what
your take is on the Alabama Senate race then, because
whereas it was exciting to see Roy Moore, basically a
child molester, accused child molester, go down in a state
(15:08):
like Alabama despite the full support and endorsement of a
lot of the Republican infrastructure and are sitting president, but
when you look at the exit polls, when you look
at the numbers white women, just like they have supported
Donald Trump, We're very comfortable, frankly supporting a candidate like
(15:29):
Roy Moore, And had it not been for women of color,
that's how that election would have shaken out. So I wonder,
you know, are we going to see in women as
any kind of a cohesive voting block across racial lines,
or is it really white women who are still not
necessarily um voting based on gender issues at all. I
(15:53):
think that that second part is true, Emily, that you
have you still have whole generations and whole groups of
women who do not see power in womanhood and they
are they see power in partisan politics. They see power
in their husband's identities, you know, around his economic well
being um, the attachment to the family UM. And you know,
(16:16):
as we we do a lot of work in rural communities.
And the good news is there's a lot of amazing
feminist women in rural communities and they are doing this
really quiet social justice work that is just keeping their
communities together, which is fantastic. The hard part is is
that there's no feminist dialogue out there without them like
cutting new ground. Um. And so you are, you have
(16:38):
these women who are surrounded by and given tons of
messages that are like, you know, how dare you vote
for Hillary Clinton? Your You know, I got emails that
were like my mom can't tell my dad she's voting
for Hillary Clinton. UM. That you know, it's just and
so when you do an assessment of your personal power,
your woman power is not even making top five. Um.
(16:59):
And so we've got to figure out how we and
I think the Me Too movement is part of this.
It's like, how we really make sure that feminism and
this movement is including those women, although sometimes we want
to like shake them right in a way that's like
what's going on? Um? Because once I think we start
to put some cracks there, you know, you saw which
(17:20):
was awesome. The head of the Young Republicans, which is
a woman, she bowed out pretty quickly about not endorsing
roy More and that the you know, she could no
longer she said that publicly. She went out on Twitter
for that um And so I'm also really curious about
what would it take to get some younger Republican women's
and young Republican women of color. I know we're working
on this, trying to figure out how they, you know,
(17:41):
reshape the party from the inside out. So we've got
to make sure that when we're talking about diversity and
inter sexual illness of this movement, that we're also you know,
taking a look at some of our conservative sisters and
saying where can we you know, where can we align
and where is it that I can help bring you along?
Because I just think like you will be more powerful
in this sisterhood. I love it. I love that too. Yeah.
(18:04):
I would like to think that child molestation I'll be
like the legend. But in my mind I was like, oh,
what woman could support this? And I remember watching like
an interview of all these older women saying things like, oh,
I would have been thrilled if that was my daughter. Yeah,
I mean, I think comes in the craziest like we
(18:24):
gotta just let them go, Like there's no we're not
going to get them. You know, there's a certain percentage
of folks where you like, no, if we firmly disagree
on you know, predatory child molestation and behavior, so we're
gonna have to draw the line there. There's probably not
a lot of room for us to work together. I
like that as a tactic, knowing where there's not even
a reason to sort of expend your energy trying to
(18:47):
flip these people to get them on our side, knowing
where it's a lost cause, and saying there actually are
people on the right that we it's worked it to
start building some coalitions and some intersections with but then
also knowing when that is not gonna happen. That's what
I love about the work you're doing with Vote, Run,
Lead Right. You are a nonpartisan organization, is that correct? Yeah?
(19:08):
And and having trained more than twenty six thousand women
to run for political office, You've got a huge diverse
program running in urban and rural parts of our country.
And I think that's a really important perspective to bring
to this conversation. I want to talk about how you
teamed up with she should run and Marie Claire tell
(19:30):
us about the research you did together in serving seven
and fifty potential women candidates to learn more about what
they're looking for in reclaiming some of their power in
in this election cycle. What was really fun when when
Reclaire approached vote re lead and she should run on
why women you know, why millennial women want to run
(19:50):
for office? Is? Um what really actually ran a bunch
of Twitter ads to make sure that we were getting
outside of our you know, email lists of women who um,
you know might already be inclined to run. So close
to half of the women or I think it's a
little more than half of the women were thinking about
running before before the November sixteen election, So there was
(20:12):
this sort of like inspiration they were thinking about it.
It was on their mind. Um, they strongly believe that
more women, that there is a gendered component to leadership,
that more women make a difference. Um, you know, they're
they're pretty evenly split around like the motivation, like some
have been asked to run by others, but they just
don't like the direction that the country is going in
and they totally like overwhelming it was close, like just
(20:35):
hands down field that women are not treated well in
public life, so they know they're stepping into an environment
where they're not going to get a fair shake, you know.
But what I thought was probably the most interesting of
this was money. Of them said, what's kind of the
biggest factor for you? Like are you tackling issues? You know?
Are you concerned about what your platform might be? And
they said fifty percent of them want to know how
(20:56):
to make a living, which is something that vote rerun
LYAD knows a lot about we where we target a
lot of low income communities and make sure that you know,
not just a long racial and ethnic lines, but that
we're making sure that folks can run for office. You know,
I don't have to be millionaires to do it, um,
And that's you know, how do I make a living?
How do I talk to my boss? You know, I
(21:16):
can't use this campaign finance money for putting food on
the table, But I've got to leave my job every
day at three o'clock to go door knock or to
you know, stand outside the subway at five when rush
hour starts. So really figuring that out, um, about how
we do this and incorporating this into our really busy lives.
So that was one of the more interesting findings for
me coming out of the Reclaire um and I'm so
(21:36):
glad to see me Reclaire and Cosmopolitan and in style,
like all these magazines getting political, which is awesome. We'll
hear more from Aaron after this quick break Edward back,
Let's get right back to Aaron. I remember reading somewhere
(21:57):
that when Trump took office, and I know that y'all
are a bipartisan organization, but when Trump took office, that
it didn't matter if you were a fashion magazine or
a food magazine. All of those things were political now,
and that we really owe it to ourselves as folks
and the media to acknowledge that and say it doesn't
matter if you know, you are a food writer, now
you're a politics writer. And I also think it's important
(22:19):
to acknowledge something that we talked about in our episode
around teen Vogue is that women's magazines have really always
lead the way in fierce political report ng. And it's
not just now that women's magazines are embracing it, but
women's magazines have always sort of been at the forefront
of intersections of you know, not just fashion, glamour, entertainment,
(22:39):
but real hard hitting journalism around politics and you know, activism.
I agree, and I think we're seeing things where it
used to show up in the style section actually showing
up on the front page. Um. And that shift. You know,
even though half of the men who have been you know,
the major players and covering the presidential election turned out
to all be part of the problem me to perpetrators.
(23:01):
Right still, and there's some remarkable women wanted being Rebecca
Tracer with New York Magazine, who is just writing the
hardest hitting stuff. I really love her um analysis where
she's really connecting the dots around UM, people sort of
coming out and speaking out with a public voice. Um,
why more women are running for office? You know, the
(23:22):
connections of all of this around power and that when
there's a sense of powerlessness, um, you you have nothing
else to lose. And so yep, I'm going to speak publicly. Yep,
I'm gonna you know, share with thirty million followers that
I too was sexually harassed or assaulted. UM. And yes,
I've decided to run for office, even though this is
something I never thought I would do in my career.
(23:43):
It really comes back to owning the power in the
in women's voices and the and just sort of the
ability to speak up because people did. People weren't really
doing that before, right, Like if you if these if
you had these stories, you maybe didn't feel like you
could come forward and people that I think in I
think it's all connected the idea that women are feeling like,
(24:04):
you know what, I can run for office, I can
make a change, and feeling empowered in that way. It's
connected to this whole me too thing. Women are saying,
you know what, I've got a story to hell and
I'm going to tell it and people are gonna listen.
I think they're all interconnected with this idea that women
are finding their voices and finding their power and speaking
up and we're being listened to and being heard, and
we're taking what's ours in a way that we haven't
(24:26):
in the past. And especially true to me is this
difference between how Anita Hill was treated leading up to
with that trial against Clarence Thomas. Right, Anita Hill was
cast aside. Quite frankly, she was not treated fairly, and
that was the beginning of sexual assault in the workplace
in the political domain, being put on the national stage,
(24:49):
and yeah, it led to a year of the Woman,
but those numbers were easy to double because they were
so low. So I wonder given the very powerful difference
in the public response to women's stories and women sharing
the reality of the persistent climate of harassment and assault
(25:12):
that women have to deal with, now that we're actually
being taken seriously and not cast aside, do you feel
like we're going to see major differences. Do you feel
like more women are running because they feel like, hey,
they have nothing to lose, or be that they're more
likely to be listened to now than ever before. A
(25:33):
few things one, more women are definitely going to run,
but that's also means that more women are going to lose.
So what we have to remember is that these in
these crowded primaries, we have to make sure that we're
not just giving the nomination in a particularly democratic primary
to some pro aggressive right. So when there's two or
three really qualified women, Um, I'm thinking of this woman
(25:54):
Linda Webber in New Jersey who's running, who definitely had
a crowded primary. I'm not sure people about out since
I last talk to her, But you know, these young
I worked on the Obama campaign, I came back home.
I want to run for office. Crap. Meanwhile, like you know,
thirty year residents, small business owner, feminist, like definitely most
qualified person. And then what we see is the local
parties saying I'm gonna like I'm gonna wait out the primary.
(26:17):
That's we need to hold the parties accountable to that
when they are qualified women in a crowded primary. So
that's one of the things we can do before like
November elections come up. Um, I think the number of
donations going to women candidates is going to rise. I
would you know, I love me some Emily's List, but
I would be definitely putting that money directly to candidates
because you know, emilss Lis is also an old dog,
(26:39):
been around a long time, and they're going to take
safer bets, and so we have to really be looking
at long shot candidates and directly contributing to their campaigns. Um,
And they've been a little slow around some talented women
of color where you know, I think they're going to
get better in twenty with putting the money there. So
if we're smart about um, you know, finding folks, you know,
(27:00):
states that we care about and making sure that we're
directly donating to those women. UM. But I think where
you're going to see huge surge and where vote rerunly
does specializes is local and state office. I think you're
gonna see state legislatures have you know, three or four
maybe six percentage point bumps and the number of women
who are in those legislatures. UM. I think you're going
to see more women's commissions in the fifty states, or
(27:23):
you know, bipartisan commissions. At the state legislative level. I
think you're going to see more women lead state legislatures
as you know, majority leader or as Speaker of the
state House. And that's where you actually get to then
look at policy and a state like Colorado that has
something close to fifty women in the legislature. One of
our alumni is actually the Speaker of the House. Um,
(27:45):
young Latino lawyer, super dynamics, you should run for higher
office soon. That's where you see things like paid equity
getting past. That's where you see you know, this ten
point legislative plans that are good for women and families.
Because there's a tipping point when you see more women
at the local level, and that's where we're going to
get to innovate. So I would also encourage folks to
look at who's running for your state, ledge who's running
(28:06):
for your city council, and making sure that you're giving
them the ten bucks you donations too. I love it.
So let's say you have a listener out there who
is listening she's so fed up how things are going
down in her community, she wants to run for office.
What would you tell her? Sure, one, go to vote
Run Lead dot org. The UM we have something called
(28:28):
the ninety Day Challenge, which if you've never been in
politics before, or even if you have a little bit
of you know, civic experience. The ninety Challenge was written
by local elected officials and the Vote Run Lead Network,
and it gives you thirty actions to take in ninety days.
So it's like getting out and meeting your community, having
a conversation with um you know, political people, starting your
own Twitter account, coming researching what your top issues are,
(28:50):
and if you can tackle like two thirds of that list,
you are going to build your political capital within your
community by you know, letting folks know you're interested in running.
Or you can also write an email that says I'm
interested in public service. Can I have a coffee with you.
So it's a it's a roadmap for I r L
like politics is in real life. So this ninety challenge
is free on our website if you don't know what
(29:11):
you're going to run for yet, We've got also more
local elected to talking about what office should I run for?
So if this is what I care about, these are
the issues that are important to me, where do those
issues get legislated? You know, it might be that you
want to be on a commission and get an appointment
because of your you know, you're looking at your life
and you're kind of busy, um, and you can't make
it back and forth to the capital, you know, whatever
(29:31):
it may be. So we've got to think about two
workshops that are free online, What office should I run for?
And the nine D D Challenge that are great for
people who want to just get their brain moving and say, okay,
I'm thinking about running and thinking about running. Um, if
you know you're running and you want to runeen, we've
got like campaign plans for running in ten that maps
out of timeline for you. You know, what's a campaign
(29:53):
finance plan, which is kind of the thing that trips
up a lot of folks. That's where this legal stuff happens.
So both of those resources are also available, and everything's
up boat really dot org, backslash learn awesome. And you've
got an event coming up this month, right in on
the anniversary of the Women's March. Am I remembering that correctly?
That's right January. We're going to be in New York
(30:14):
City with hopefully a couple hundred women and just that
for women who want to run as well as women
who want to support other women. And we're gonna be
talking about sex, politics and power and this connection between
the mood to movement and political participation, and um, hopefully
Senator Gillibrand will be there, Rebecca Treyster will be there.
Um and you know, just giving folks after the probably
(30:34):
very cold march. Yeah, giving folks. You know, come have
a glass of wine, some hot chocolate, get warm, get
some food, and get connected to other remarkable women in
your network. You know, this reminds me a lot of
my time as a community organizer working on behalf of
the Obama administration back in two thousand nine. After really
being trained by Obama's campaign and getting some training from
(30:58):
martial gans, we were able to and really equipped with
the skills to create power structures, to create power structures
and community organizations that would outlast us. And one of
the things I will remember the most about my time
about two years I spent organizing across the state of
Rhode Island is that when I left, some of my
(31:21):
neighborhood team leaders women mind you, ran for office on
the local level and one upsetting an incumbent Democrat in
the process, and one of my other neighborhood team leaders
ran her campaign. And there is nothing like that ripple
effect of seeing women in male dominated spaces harnessing their power,
(31:42):
growing their power and influence, and making that connection between
the issues that they want to make progress on and
their ability to grow their power and be a part
of that change. So I'm so excited and so motivated
to hear of all the work that Vote Run Leader
is doing on the local level, especially UM and I
can attest to the resources you provide UM as being
(32:03):
some of the best that's out there. So thanks for
the work you're doing on this front, er, and it's awesome,
Thank you, thank you, And I want to let you
guys in on a little secret. It's not that hard
to run prop I used to say that the talent
pool is shallow. Yeah, and there's the reality, right like
amateur Hour. If you don't show up, if if if
the right people don't show up, someone will Totally. That
(32:26):
reminds me. One of my favorite stories out of the
last election cycle was the story of a woman who's
elected official had made a joke about the women's march
and he said something like, oh, are they walking to
make me a sandwich? Or these women can sure you
used a walk to lose some weight, and that that
one joke angered her so much that she ran against
(32:47):
him and one so these stories of the small little
thing where you know, it's just that one crystallizing moment
where you're like, I'm gonna unset maybe you could. Yeah,
I love it. Yeah, Actually, Bennett from Jersey right exactly.
So such a that was my favorite story of That's
one of the best stories. It really is so good. Well,
(33:08):
thank you so much for having me. You both are
doing awesome work and I'm really excited to be part
of this podcast. Thank you so much, Aaron. And for
folks who want to keep up with your Twitter feed,
where might they find you on the twitters at Aaron
Ballardi and at Vote Rerun Lead, we are so fired
up and ready to run basically or at least ready
to donate to your campaign's mindy listener, if you're running
(33:29):
for office in your community this year, there is good
reason to be optimistic, to be fired up, and to
make this the year of the Woman, and perhaps the
year of you the woman, to run for office or
support your local girl gang and doing so. I actually
want to close this out. In the words of Barbara
(33:49):
Boxer herself, who's since retired from the Senate, but pen
this excellent op ed for USA Today in comparing two
thousand eighteen to the nine to iteration of the Year
of the Woman. Here's what she writes, quote, So why
am I hopeful that this time may be different? Because
it feels different, mainly because the majority of Americans believe
(34:12):
the victims the Senate race in Alabama were Democrats, Republicans
and independent voters said no to an accused molester sent
shock waves through the body politic. The firing of many
private sector powerful men in the news and entertainment industries
is more proof. The resignation of politicians is even more proof.
(34:33):
She goes on to say it is time to end
this epidemic that has been hurting people for far too long.
We can do this. As Martin Luther King Jr. Said
in nineteen sixty three, the ultimate measure of a man
is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience,
but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
(34:55):
And this is one of those times. Two thousand and eighteen,
we have a choice to make as a country. We
have a choice as women in this country as to
whether we can tolerate sitting on the sidelines one more time.
I don't know if any of y'all have buyer's remorse
after last election cycle, but I certainly do. And I
(35:16):
want to be a more active member of my community,
whether it's getting out and organizing and knocking on way
more doors, donating to campaigns of local women who are running,
or running myself someday. Who knows, But I want to
see this community get out vote at a minimum, or
really make sure that women are being elected in the
(35:38):
highest offices of the land and are very backyard local
offices too. I couldn't agree more. I hope that somebody
out there listening is called to action because we need y'all.
If anyone's ever told you you know you should run
for office, I hope that this really speaks to you
and makes you think, yeah, maybe I should, because just
like Aaron said, maybe it turns out it's a lot
(36:00):
more easy than you might be thinking. Maybe there's actually
tool kids and support for you out there. And if
you're thinking that way, we really want to hear from you.
Let us know. Will you be running for office? Have
you always wanted to run for office? Is there a
woman in your life that you wish would run for
office because you'd make a really good public office holder.
Let us know on Instagram at stuff I've Never Told You,
on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast, or a good old
(36:21):
fashioned email at mom stuff at how stuff works dot
com
Hi, This is Annie, and this is Pridget, and you're
listening to stuff mom never told you, and we have
an update for you today on the Year of the Woman.
Year of the Woman. It's actually good news this time.
(00:27):
Oh good. That's always fun. Women are winning big in
primaries all over the country. I don't know if it's
too soon to actually declare this the Year of the Woman,
but it's looking pretty good. Of the ninety two women
who participated in the eight primaries back in early June,
at least thirty six of them have emerged victorious. Women
are likely to be elected as governor for the first
(00:49):
time in Iowa and South Dakota, and for the first
time in nearly five decades in Alabama, according to gender
Watch two eighteen, a project of the Center for American
Women in Politics at Rutgers University. Women are also poised
to make significant progress in house races. Iowa, for example,
mayle like its first ever congresswoman, and New Mexico mail
like the country's first Native American congresswoman, Deb Holland. More
(01:11):
than five women have so far filed to run for
office and primaries this year, according to the Center for
American Women in Politics and that number represents a jump
from most of the women running our Democrats, although one
third of Republican women running have also won their races.
And here are just a few. Stacy Abrams won her
primary for Georgia governor, besting Stacy Evans. If she went,
(01:33):
she'll be the first black female governor in the United States. Yeah.
I had another great person to mention this, Alexandra Occacio Cortes.
So just less than a year ago, the twenty eight
year old was working at a bar in New York,
actually above the of OZ Human Rights organization offices, and
my friend would go there all the time and see her,
so shout after her working in the bar below of
OZ um. But she was just twenty eight working in
(01:55):
a bar, had never run for public office before, and
she ran and won her primary in New York Sporting District.
She took down longtime Rep. Joe Crowley, who had not
had a primary challenger in fourteen years. So that is huge.
I mean that's a big deal. Yeah, he played a
Bruce Sperence. He is born to run such an interesting
(02:16):
he was born to lose. Was just kidding, just kidding.
She's the first woman of color to run in the district,
which encompasses parts of Queens and the Bronx, and she
also won in a landslide. She won fifty seven point
five percent of the vote, while Crowley had just forty. Yeah,
she's kind of a rad lady. She's a socialist, and
she has a super progressive platform, including medicare for all
and canceling all student debt. And I wanted to include
(02:38):
her because I think, if you're thinking you want to
run for office, but you don't have the experience, the money, whatever,
think about Alex She was working in a bar less
than a year ago and had no experience running for office,
and she ran on a real lefty progressive platform and
she won her primary. Yeah, so she can do it. Yeah,
you can do It's inspiring stuff. Let's hope that this
(03:00):
does prove to be the Year of the Women, and
we have many more stories like this to tell in
the future, but in the meantime, we thought we'd give
you this update. And today I am so excited to
(03:21):
ask a prediction question as we look at the new
year we're rolling out before us, will especially the election cycle,
produce another so called Year of the Woman. That's the
compelling question we want to dare I say unpack today
and we're gonna be joined by a friend of mine,
(03:42):
a really awesome guest too, you'll hear from later this episode.
But first, let's talk about what that means. The Year
of the Woman. What is that? Perhaps you've heard this
term thrown around and perhaps you know that it refers
to nineteen two women trip hold their numbers in the Senate,
which sounds awesome until you look at the fact that
(04:04):
we went from having to senators as women serving out
of one U S senators to a whopping six and
actually Barbara Boxer Pennant op ed for USA today that
kind of looked back almost sheepishly on nine two being
called the Year of the Woman. I mean, she was
part of the Year of the Woman in ninety two
when she and Haanne Feinstein became the first two female
(04:27):
senators elected for many one state. And yes, she acknowledges
they triple their numbers in the Senate, but going from
two to six out of hundred is not exactly something
to brag about. Looking back on it, she says, calling
ninety two the Year of the Woman was an overstatement
and after much hype, everyone focused on other things. I
(04:47):
can see how you would be really really excited thinking, Yeah,
we were going to do this, this is our time,
and then being like, what happened, y'all? I thought this
was our year? Like we went from a small number
to another small number, and so of feeling a little
bit underwhelmed. That's why I really really hope that actually
will be a resurgence of the Year of the Woman.
And there's reason to draw a parallel there as well.
(05:10):
Despite its modesty, the Year of the One in ninety
two was still historic. And what's interesting in terms of
looking at the parallels of today is that it followed
Professor Anita Hill going public with her story of humiliation
and verbal abuse at the hands of her then boss,
Clarence Thomas during his confirmation hearings to become a sitting
(05:35):
member of our Supreme Court, and looking at movements like
me too, it does seem like a similar trajectory where
we are following this wave of women speaking out about
their experiences with sexual misconducts and men in powerful positions,
and if you look at the last primary and election cycle,
it does seem mike a little bit of a hopeful
moment for a reckoning power. It's like a powder kick.
(05:57):
And what's interesting is today the hash a me two
is demonstrating that we are actually listening to and believing
women who are speaking out about this stuff, as opposed
to Anita Hill's case, which did lead to the confirmation
of Clarence Thomas being a member of our Supreme Court,
almost like the commander in chief of ours that we
have at the moment being ushered into the halls of
(06:19):
power just by bragging about sexual assault and back into
the senators who were grilling Professor Hill and really producing
kind of a character assassination. During the Clarence Thomas trials,
they prohibited three other women from testifying who would have
corroborated Anita's story and treated her with disrespect from both
(06:41):
sides of the aisle. That led to understandable outrage and
anger on behalf of a lot of women on a country,
which led to that historic, though modest doubling in. And
doesn't that feel like the powder keg and the moment
of reckoning that we're in right now, of righteous anger
provoking revolution. God, I hope so, because we've been waiting
(07:06):
for long enough. I'm really hoping this is the moment
that women all stand up and use our powerful voices,
and those voices are heard and believed and listened to exactly. Sadly,
the number of women who have been holding public office
is held pretty steady in recent years, barely breaking the
mark even though we represent obviously fifty plus percent of
(07:28):
the US population. But a lot of experts agree that
the conditions are ripe for a significant increase in two
thousand and eighteen, especially as more politicians are forced to
step down or retire amid the growing me too movement.
We've already seen four congressmen announced plans to retire or
(07:49):
not seek reelection following allegations, and that doesn't even include
Senator Al Franken, who immediately stepped down whether or not
he really wanted to write. Yeah, What this really says
to me is something I've been getting on my high
horse about on the show a lot, which is that
we need more women and less men to have these
kinds of things be combated. And I really hope that
this is the reckoning a moment where more women start saying, hey,
(08:12):
maybe give us a chance for a while to see
if we can do a better job of running the stuff,
because all these men can't seem to keep it in
their pants long enough to even get the chance to
a lot of experts are seeing more women throther hat
into the ring and plan to run for office this
year than ever before. And it's not just Democrats that
we're talking about here. First time Republican and Libertarian women
(08:33):
candidates are also jumping into the mix. In fact, Republicans
launched an effort back in two thousand twelve that's focused
on specifically electing more women. It's called the Right Women,
Right Now Program, and since the initiative was started, three
GOP women have been elected. So we know that the
(08:54):
numbers are far imbalanced when it comes to women's equal
representation in this country and looting. On the local level,
only of state legislators are women. So we want to
take a closer look at not only how the conditions
are even better now than they were in ninety two
for more women to get elected on the local and
(09:16):
federal level, but some of the organizations behind equipping women
with the skills to run for public office and win.
And we're going to talk to our good friend Aaron
Valarti from Vote Run Lead after this quick break and
a word from our sponsors and We're back and we
(09:40):
are so excited to be joined by Aaron Valarti, the founder, CEO,
and executive director of Vote Run Lead, a national nonprofit
leveraging technology and training to accelerate the number of women
across the political spectrum in civic and political leadership. Aaron,
thank you so much for joining us for today's conversation.
Thank you. So As Bridge and I are looking at eighteen,
(10:04):
we are asking ourselves, is this going to be another
Year of the woman? Alaho allah Post, Anita Hill, how
do you think this year is shaping up in terms
of the women you're training to run for office and
get more engaged in politics. I think the Year of
the Woman has a lot of similarities to what we're
going to see in eighteen, but I think there's some
(10:26):
unique comparisons that we also need to be aware of.
One of the first things that happened was that there
were tons and tons of open seats, meaning that women
weren't running against incumbents. They were actually running against, you know,
someone who was also probably running for that seat for
the first time. So there's a huge advantage there and
that's something we need to really look at closely in
our democracy. How many actually open seats are there going
(10:49):
to be. Now, jerrymandering and redistricting is critically important because
that has actually made seats really safe. We're in incumbents
are getting reelected over and over again, and an incumbent
is someone who's just sitting in that seat and as
eligible to run again. So that's one of the things
that's a big differentiator is that they're likely aren't going
to be the same number of open seats. So you
are beginning to see some serious retirements happen UM, and
(11:11):
that will help. So you know, I've been kind of
hilariously doing a national call to men to retire, so
they can go right ahead and retire. That'd be really great.
It will really help us with repeat. But in the
you know a lot of similarities in the sense that
women are piste off and they're looking around and going,
how did we get these systems this way in which
you know, we're not able to get justice, in which
(11:32):
people are getting away with things that um are slowing down,
our careers, are keeping us under you know, a thumb.
And when it comes to public policy, and they're seeing
power UM and they're looking at politics again in a
way that says, hey, I can do that, UM, And
that's I think what saw. So you won't see the
same jumps which were like doubling and tripling doubling in
the Senate, but that was only like something like to
(11:54):
six or eight, right, so you're not going to go
to forty. UM, so you won't see the same kind
of percentage jumps, but you will, I think see UM
a larger increase also in the number of women of
color who are running for Congress and UM. You know
that was something that was a positive coming out of
the elections, was also the number of women of color
and in Congress and in the Senate. I'm curious, why
(12:15):
do you think that is. I've been so so excited
to see more women of color and what feels like
a more inclusive political climate. Why do you think that is?
Why do you think that's been part of this moment?
Two reasons. I think that women of color are stepping
up in a way that UM. One, the March was
a very visible, um and honest assessment where the leadership
(12:39):
of the women's movement like skipped a generation. So we
went from the sort of you know, glorious dynam era
to all of a sudden we had women in their
twenties and thirties running this movement, women like Todd of
the digital team for the March on Washington, the Women's
March last year, And the generational stuff is huge, Like
the the younger women just get it in a different way. Um.
(13:02):
Maybe it's because, you know, we were raised by different moms.
Maybe it's just culturally we've seen a lot more like
women and women of color and TV and films. You know,
I don't know, there's a lot of reasons for it,
but like we are just coming at this like, yep,
we got this, trust us, we can do it. Yeah,
we know it's going to be hard, you know, and
I'm going to bring along this like diverse coalition with me.
So I think there's really something about that generational shift
(13:24):
where we kind of miss that in like feminist literature
about young women, and we know this about millennials. You
we're much we have much more diverse groups of friends,
were open to you know, more much more open to
gay marriage before our you know, older counterparts. Um. And
I think women's organizations are also getting a good kick
in the butt to say nope, you know you have
I've got to see a diverse board. I've got to
(13:44):
see a diverse team around inclusion of women of color.
This cannot be just like one of the things that's
part of your you know, talking points. It's got to
be deeply ingrained in your strategy. UM. Groups like the
Miss Foundation are only funding women of color led organizations
and it's awesome, UM and it makes for we We
know this from you know, thirty years of research that
(14:05):
diverse bodies actually make better leadership decisions. And I think
the women's community is taking that to heart. I love
that so much, and I just I completely agree. And
I've been thrilled to see not even just in electoral politics,
but like you were saying, in the advocacy space, in
the media space, kind of a willingness to pass the
mic two younger women, women of color, at trans women.
(14:26):
I was so so pumped in the last Virginia primary
Dana Carome the first trans woman to win, Like that
was a huge, huge thing. And I unders been so
thrilled to see that this generation a feminist is saying,
our feminism is inclusive, Our feminism includes women of color,
Our feminism includes women that have been traditionally marginalized and
(14:47):
we are going to go forward with a very inclusive
and diverse coalition and kick some mass I wonder what
your take is on the Alabama Senate race then, because
whereas it was exciting to see Roy Moore, basically a
child molester, accused child molester, go down in a state
(15:08):
like Alabama despite the full support and endorsement of a
lot of the Republican infrastructure and are sitting president, but
when you look at the exit polls, when you look
at the numbers white women, just like they have supported
Donald Trump, We're very comfortable, frankly supporting a candidate like
(15:29):
Roy Moore, And had it not been for women of color,
that's how that election would have shaken out. So I wonder,
you know, are we going to see in women as
any kind of a cohesive voting block across racial lines,
or is it really white women who are still not
necessarily um voting based on gender issues at all. I
(15:53):
think that that second part is true, Emily, that you
have you still have whole generations and whole groups of
women who do not see power in womanhood and they
are they see power in partisan politics. They see power
in their husband's identities, you know, around his economic well
being um, the attachment to the family UM. And you know,
(16:16):
as we we do a lot of work in rural communities.
And the good news is there's a lot of amazing
feminist women in rural communities and they are doing this
really quiet social justice work that is just keeping their
communities together, which is fantastic. The hard part is is
that there's no feminist dialogue out there without them like
cutting new ground. Um. And so you are, you have
(16:38):
these women who are surrounded by and given tons of
messages that are like, you know, how dare you vote
for Hillary Clinton? Your You know, I got emails that
were like my mom can't tell my dad she's voting
for Hillary Clinton. UM. That you know, it's just and
so when you do an assessment of your personal power,
your woman power is not even making top five. Um.
(16:59):
And so we've got to figure out how we and
I think the Me Too movement is part of this.
It's like, how we really make sure that feminism and
this movement is including those women, although sometimes we want
to like shake them right in a way that's like
what's going on? Um? Because once I think we start
to put some cracks there, you know, you saw which
(17:20):
was awesome. The head of the Young Republicans, which is
a woman, she bowed out pretty quickly about not endorsing
roy More and that the you know, she could no
longer she said that publicly. She went out on Twitter
for that um And so I'm also really curious about
what would it take to get some younger Republican women's
and young Republican women of color. I know we're working
on this, trying to figure out how they, you know,
(17:41):
reshape the party from the inside out. So we've got
to make sure that when we're talking about diversity and
inter sexual illness of this movement, that we're also you know,
taking a look at some of our conservative sisters and
saying where can we you know, where can we align
and where is it that I can help bring you along?
Because I just think like you will be more powerful
in this sisterhood. I love it. I love that too. Yeah.
(18:04):
I would like to think that child molestation I'll be
like the legend. But in my mind I was like, oh,
what woman could support this? And I remember watching like
an interview of all these older women saying things like, oh,
I would have been thrilled if that was my daughter. Yeah,
I mean, I think comes in the craziest like we
(18:24):
gotta just let them go, Like there's no we're not
going to get them. You know, there's a certain percentage
of folks where you like, no, if we firmly disagree
on you know, predatory child molestation and behavior, so we're
gonna have to draw the line there. There's probably not
a lot of room for us to work together. I
like that as a tactic, knowing where there's not even
a reason to sort of expend your energy trying to
(18:47):
flip these people to get them on our side, knowing
where it's a lost cause, and saying there actually are
people on the right that we it's worked it to
start building some coalitions and some intersections with but then
also knowing when that is not gonna happen. That's what
I love about the work you're doing with Vote, Run,
Lead Right. You are a nonpartisan organization, is that correct? Yeah?
(19:08):
And and having trained more than twenty six thousand women
to run for political office, You've got a huge diverse
program running in urban and rural parts of our country.
And I think that's a really important perspective to bring
to this conversation. I want to talk about how you
teamed up with she should run and Marie Claire tell
(19:30):
us about the research you did together in serving seven
and fifty potential women candidates to learn more about what
they're looking for in reclaiming some of their power in
in this election cycle. What was really fun when when
Reclaire approached vote re lead and she should run on
why women you know, why millennial women want to run
(19:50):
for office? Is? Um what really actually ran a bunch
of Twitter ads to make sure that we were getting
outside of our you know, email lists of women who um,
you know might already be inclined to run. So close
to half of the women or I think it's a
little more than half of the women were thinking about
running before before the November sixteen election, So there was
(20:12):
this sort of like inspiration they were thinking about it.
It was on their mind. Um, they strongly believe that
more women, that there is a gendered component to leadership,
that more women make a difference. Um, you know, they're
they're pretty evenly split around like the motivation, like some
have been asked to run by others, but they just
don't like the direction that the country is going in
and they totally like overwhelming it was close, like just
(20:35):
hands down field that women are not treated well in
public life, so they know they're stepping into an environment
where they're not going to get a fair shake, you know.
But what I thought was probably the most interesting of
this was money. Of them said, what's kind of the
biggest factor for you? Like are you tackling issues? You know?
Are you concerned about what your platform might be? And
they said fifty percent of them want to know how
(20:56):
to make a living, which is something that vote rerun
LYAD knows a lot about we where we target a
lot of low income communities and make sure that you know,
not just a long racial and ethnic lines, but that
we're making sure that folks can run for office. You know,
I don't have to be millionaires to do it, um,
And that's you know, how do I make a living?
How do I talk to my boss? You know, I
(21:16):
can't use this campaign finance money for putting food on
the table, But I've got to leave my job every
day at three o'clock to go door knock or to
you know, stand outside the subway at five when rush
hour starts. So really figuring that out, um, about how
we do this and incorporating this into our really busy lives.
So that was one of the more interesting findings for
me coming out of the Reclaire um and I'm so
(21:36):
glad to see me Reclaire and Cosmopolitan and in style,
like all these magazines getting political, which is awesome. We'll
hear more from Aaron after this quick break Edward back,
Let's get right back to Aaron. I remember reading somewhere
(21:57):
that when Trump took office, and I know that y'all
are a bipartisan organization, but when Trump took office, that
it didn't matter if you were a fashion magazine or
a food magazine. All of those things were political now,
and that we really owe it to ourselves as folks
and the media to acknowledge that and say it doesn't
matter if you know, you are a food writer, now
you're a politics writer. And I also think it's important
(22:19):
to acknowledge something that we talked about in our episode
around teen Vogue is that women's magazines have really always
lead the way in fierce political report ng. And it's
not just now that women's magazines are embracing it, but
women's magazines have always sort of been at the forefront
of intersections of you know, not just fashion, glamour, entertainment,
(22:39):
but real hard hitting journalism around politics and you know, activism.
I agree, and I think we're seeing things where it
used to show up in the style section actually showing
up on the front page. Um. And that shift. You know,
even though half of the men who have been you know,
the major players and covering the presidential election turned out
to all be part of the problem me to perpetrators.
(23:01):
Right still, and there's some remarkable women wanted being Rebecca
Tracer with New York Magazine, who is just writing the
hardest hitting stuff. I really love her um analysis where
she's really connecting the dots around UM, people sort of
coming out and speaking out with a public voice. Um,
why more women are running for office? You know, the
(23:22):
connections of all of this around power and that when
there's a sense of powerlessness, um, you you have nothing
else to lose. And so yep, I'm going to speak publicly. Yep,
I'm gonna you know, share with thirty million followers that
I too was sexually harassed or assaulted. UM. And yes,
I've decided to run for office, even though this is
something I never thought I would do in my career.
(23:43):
It really comes back to owning the power in the
in women's voices and the and just sort of the
ability to speak up because people did. People weren't really
doing that before, right, Like if you if these if
you had these stories, you maybe didn't feel like you
could come forward and people that I think in I
think it's all connected the idea that women are feeling like,
(24:04):
you know what, I can run for office, I can
make a change, and feeling empowered in that way. It's
connected to this whole me too thing. Women are saying,
you know what, I've got a story to hell and
I'm going to tell it and people are gonna listen.
I think they're all interconnected with this idea that women
are finding their voices and finding their power and speaking
up and we're being listened to and being heard, and
we're taking what's ours in a way that we haven't
(24:26):
in the past. And especially true to me is this
difference between how Anita Hill was treated leading up to
with that trial against Clarence Thomas. Right, Anita Hill was
cast aside. Quite frankly, she was not treated fairly, and
that was the beginning of sexual assault in the workplace
in the political domain, being put on the national stage,
(24:49):
and yeah, it led to a year of the Woman,
but those numbers were easy to double because they were
so low. So I wonder given the very powerful difference
in the public response to women's stories and women sharing
the reality of the persistent climate of harassment and assault
(25:12):
that women have to deal with, now that we're actually
being taken seriously and not cast aside, do you feel
like we're going to see major differences. Do you feel
like more women are running because they feel like, hey,
they have nothing to lose, or be that they're more
likely to be listened to now than ever before. A
(25:33):
few things one, more women are definitely going to run,
but that's also means that more women are going to lose.
So what we have to remember is that these in
these crowded primaries, we have to make sure that we're
not just giving the nomination in a particularly democratic primary
to some pro aggressive right. So when there's two or
three really qualified women, Um, I'm thinking of this woman
(25:54):
Linda Webber in New Jersey who's running, who definitely had
a crowded primary. I'm not sure people about out since
I last talk to her, But you know, these young
I worked on the Obama campaign, I came back home.
I want to run for office. Crap. Meanwhile, like you know,
thirty year residents, small business owner, feminist, like definitely most
qualified person. And then what we see is the local
parties saying I'm gonna like I'm gonna wait out the primary.
(26:17):
That's we need to hold the parties accountable to that
when they are qualified women in a crowded primary. So
that's one of the things we can do before like
November elections come up. Um, I think the number of
donations going to women candidates is going to rise. I
would you know, I love me some Emily's List, but
I would be definitely putting that money directly to candidates
because you know, emilss Lis is also an old dog,
(26:39):
been around a long time, and they're going to take
safer bets, and so we have to really be looking
at long shot candidates and directly contributing to their campaigns. Um,
And they've been a little slow around some talented women
of color where you know, I think they're going to
get better in twenty with putting the money there. So
if we're smart about um, you know, finding folks, you know,
(27:00):
states that we care about and making sure that we're
directly donating to those women. UM. But I think where
you're going to see huge surge and where vote rerunly
does specializes is local and state office. I think you're
gonna see state legislatures have you know, three or four
maybe six percentage point bumps and the number of women
who are in those legislatures. UM. I think you're going
to see more women's commissions in the fifty states, or
(27:23):
you know, bipartisan commissions. At the state legislative level. I
think you're going to see more women lead state legislatures
as you know, majority leader or as Speaker of the
state House. And that's where you actually get to then
look at policy and a state like Colorado that has
something close to fifty women in the legislature. One of
our alumni is actually the Speaker of the House. Um,
(27:45):
young Latino lawyer, super dynamics, you should run for higher
office soon. That's where you see things like paid equity
getting past. That's where you see you know, this ten
point legislative plans that are good for women and families.
Because there's a tipping point when you see more women
at the local level, and that's where we're going to
get to innovate. So I would also encourage folks to
look at who's running for your state, ledge who's running
(28:06):
for your city council, and making sure that you're giving
them the ten bucks you donations too. I love it.
So let's say you have a listener out there who
is listening she's so fed up how things are going
down in her community, she wants to run for office.
What would you tell her? Sure, one, go to vote
Run Lead dot org. The UM we have something called
(28:28):
the ninety Day Challenge, which if you've never been in
politics before, or even if you have a little bit
of you know, civic experience. The ninety Challenge was written
by local elected officials and the Vote Run Lead Network,
and it gives you thirty actions to take in ninety days.
So it's like getting out and meeting your community, having
a conversation with um you know, political people, starting your
own Twitter account, coming researching what your top issues are,
(28:50):
and if you can tackle like two thirds of that list,
you are going to build your political capital within your
community by you know, letting folks know you're interested in running.
Or you can also write an email that says I'm
interested in public service. Can I have a coffee with you.
So it's a it's a roadmap for I r L
like politics is in real life. So this ninety challenge
is free on our website if you don't know what
(29:11):
you're going to run for yet, We've got also more
local elected to talking about what office should I run for?
So if this is what I care about, these are
the issues that are important to me, where do those
issues get legislated? You know, it might be that you
want to be on a commission and get an appointment
because of your you know, you're looking at your life
and you're kind of busy, um, and you can't make
it back and forth to the capital, you know, whatever
(29:31):
it may be. So we've got to think about two
workshops that are free online, What office should I run for?
And the nine D D Challenge that are great for
people who want to just get their brain moving and say, okay,
I'm thinking about running and thinking about running. Um, if
you know you're running and you want to runeen, we've
got like campaign plans for running in ten that maps
out of timeline for you. You know, what's a campaign
(29:53):
finance plan, which is kind of the thing that trips
up a lot of folks. That's where this legal stuff happens.
So both of those resources are also available, and everything's
up boat really dot org, backslash learn awesome. And you've
got an event coming up this month, right in on
the anniversary of the Women's March. Am I remembering that correctly?
That's right January. We're going to be in New York
(30:14):
City with hopefully a couple hundred women and just that
for women who want to run as well as women
who want to support other women. And we're gonna be
talking about sex, politics and power and this connection between
the mood to movement and political participation, and um, hopefully
Senator Gillibrand will be there, Rebecca Treyster will be there.
Um and you know, just giving folks after the probably
(30:34):
very cold march. Yeah, giving folks. You know, come have
a glass of wine, some hot chocolate, get warm, get
some food, and get connected to other remarkable women in
your network. You know, this reminds me a lot of
my time as a community organizer working on behalf of
the Obama administration back in two thousand nine. After really
being trained by Obama's campaign and getting some training from
(30:58):
martial gans, we were able to and really equipped with
the skills to create power structures, to create power structures
and community organizations that would outlast us. And one of
the things I will remember the most about my time
about two years I spent organizing across the state of
Rhode Island is that when I left, some of my
(31:21):
neighborhood team leaders women mind you, ran for office on
the local level and one upsetting an incumbent Democrat in
the process, and one of my other neighborhood team leaders
ran her campaign. And there is nothing like that ripple
effect of seeing women in male dominated spaces harnessing their power,
(31:42):
growing their power and influence, and making that connection between
the issues that they want to make progress on and
their ability to grow their power and be a part
of that change. So I'm so excited and so motivated
to hear of all the work that Vote Run Leader
is doing on the local level, especially UM and I
can attest to the resources you provide UM as being
(32:03):
some of the best that's out there. So thanks for
the work you're doing on this front, er, and it's awesome,
Thank you, thank you, And I want to let you
guys in on a little secret. It's not that hard
to run prop I used to say that the talent
pool is shallow. Yeah, and there's the reality, right like
amateur Hour. If you don't show up, if if if
the right people don't show up, someone will Totally. That
(32:26):
reminds me. One of my favorite stories out of the
last election cycle was the story of a woman who's
elected official had made a joke about the women's march
and he said something like, oh, are they walking to
make me a sandwich? Or these women can sure you
used a walk to lose some weight, and that that
one joke angered her so much that she ran against
(32:47):
him and one so these stories of the small little
thing where you know, it's just that one crystallizing moment
where you're like, I'm gonna unset maybe you could. Yeah,
I love it. Yeah, Actually, Bennett from Jersey right exactly.
So such a that was my favorite story of That's
one of the best stories. It really is so good. Well,
(33:08):
thank you so much for having me. You both are
doing awesome work and I'm really excited to be part
of this podcast. Thank you so much, Aaron. And for
folks who want to keep up with your Twitter feed,
where might they find you on the twitters at Aaron
Ballardi and at Vote Rerun Lead, we are so fired
up and ready to run basically or at least ready
to donate to your campaign's mindy listener, if you're running
(33:29):
for office in your community this year, there is good
reason to be optimistic, to be fired up, and to
make this the year of the Woman, and perhaps the
year of you the woman, to run for office or
support your local girl gang and doing so. I actually
want to close this out. In the words of Barbara
(33:49):
Boxer herself, who's since retired from the Senate, but pen
this excellent op ed for USA Today in comparing two
thousand eighteen to the nine to iteration of the Year
of the Woman. Here's what she writes, quote, So why
am I hopeful that this time may be different? Because
it feels different, mainly because the majority of Americans believe
(34:12):
the victims the Senate race in Alabama were Democrats, Republicans
and independent voters said no to an accused molester sent
shock waves through the body politic. The firing of many
private sector powerful men in the news and entertainment industries
is more proof. The resignation of politicians is even more proof.
(34:33):
She goes on to say it is time to end
this epidemic that has been hurting people for far too long.
We can do this. As Martin Luther King Jr. Said
in nineteen sixty three, the ultimate measure of a man
is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience,
but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
(34:55):
And this is one of those times. Two thousand and eighteen,
we have a choice to make as a country. We
have a choice as women in this country as to
whether we can tolerate sitting on the sidelines one more time.
I don't know if any of y'all have buyer's remorse
after last election cycle, but I certainly do. And I
(35:16):
want to be a more active member of my community,
whether it's getting out and organizing and knocking on way
more doors, donating to campaigns of local women who are running,
or running myself someday. Who knows, But I want to
see this community get out vote at a minimum, or
really make sure that women are being elected in the
(35:38):
highest offices of the land and are very backyard local
offices too. I couldn't agree more. I hope that somebody
out there listening is called to action because we need y'all.
If anyone's ever told you you know you should run
for office, I hope that this really speaks to you
and makes you think, yeah, maybe I should, because just
like Aaron said, maybe it turns out it's a lot
(36:00):
more easy than you might be thinking. Maybe there's actually
tool kids and support for you out there. And if
you're thinking that way, we really want to hear from you.
Let us know. Will you be running for office? Have
you always wanted to run for office? Is there a
woman in your life that you wish would run for
office because you'd make a really good public office holder.
Let us know on Instagram at stuff I've Never Told You,
on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast, or a good old
(36:21):
fashioned email at mom stuff at how stuff works dot
com
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