June 29, 2016 • 47 mins
When Anne-Marie Slaughter left the U.S. State Department to spend more time with her family and declared, "Women can't have it all," she faced both resentment and gratitude. In a conversation with the foreign-policy analyst, Cristen and Caroline explore the important role of supporting paid and unpaid caregivers as part of the work toward equality.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, I'm Chuck and I'm Josh and we're the host
of Stuff You should know the podcast. That's right, And
if you're into understanding cool and unusual and seemingly ordinary
and even boring things that are made interesting, you should
check us out. Please and thank you. We're on iTunes, Spotify,
Google Play Music, anywhere you get podcasts. Welcome to Stuff
(00:24):
Mom Never Told You. From how stup works dot com. Hello,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline.
And Caroline, I gotta be honest with you. I experienced
some stuff Mom Never told you. Interview Envy last week
(00:44):
when you got to talk to Anne Marie Slaughter. Yeah,
Anne Marie Slaughter is amazing. Um. I tend to not
be very intimidated by celebrities, by politicians by oh you're Elizabeth,
We're you know Elizabeth because we hang out all the time. Yeah,
that's the secret there. Um. But around Amory Slaughter, I
(01:07):
clammed up and became a total stuttering fool. I felt
like I felt like I blew it up in my mind.
I'm sure. Um, But she is an author, she's a
former diplomat. She worked under Hillary Clinton in the State Department. Um,
she has an incredible background as a leader, and now
she is the CEO of the New America think tank,
(01:30):
which is a nonpartisan organization that's basically seeking to change
the world. No big deal. Um, But I got to
the Office of New America in New York after the
you and I had gone to the United State of
Women's Summit in Washington, d C. Where a Marie Slaughter
spoke on a panel about caregiving with uh Sminty all
(01:54):
Star fave I Gin Poo. She of support the caregivers
efforts in this country and abroad. And uh Amory Slaughter
swept into the office and it's again blewn up in
my head and I just saw like Disney birds floating
around her because I have such great admiration for this woman. Yeah,
(02:15):
I love how these are the kinds of stuff I've
never told you. Celebrities we have. I mean, obviously there's Beyonce,
and then we also have like foreign policy wonks like
Ann Marie Slaughter and she I'm so glad that you
got to talk to her because um, she, as she
says in her interview, um is a foreign policy expert,
(02:37):
not a gender expert. But it just so happens that
she went viral in with this Atlantic magazine article that
a lot of stuff I've never told you listeners may
have read or have heard about, headlined why women still
can't have it all? And it really broke the internet
(02:58):
before Kim Kardashian came around and Marie Slaughter, my friends,
broke the Internet. I feel like that is such a
much more worthy breaker of the Internet. Uh, not to
get not to get all pitting women against each other.
We're not here to do that well, And that's something
Anne Marie Slaughter knows well. The whole media pitting women
(03:21):
against women. Yeah, because if you aren't familiar with Slaughter's
work as a diplomat, or if you're not familiar with
her work in the Atlantic, she's also written in so
many other places. She's written several forwards for several fantastic books. Um, yeah,
you might know her simply from the media and the
(03:42):
blogosphere pitting her against Cheryl Sandberg. I mean literally, when
you google the two women's names together, the suggested search
that pops up is Anne Marie Slaughter versus Cheryl Sandberg.
And that seems that seems silly. Why are two high
powered women we've never seen this before, two high powered
(04:03):
women being pitted against each other. And then really not um,
but basically, uh, Anne Marie Slaughter's philosophies. I keep saying
her full name because she is a celebrity to me, Uh,
not such a strong name, to a strong, wonderful name. Um.
Her philosophies have definitely evolved over time, as she her
(04:25):
philosophies about women in the workplace, about caregiving, gender roles,
these things have evolved, and uh, they don't put her
in line with Cheryl Sandberg's philosophy of leaning in. But
of course the media is so reductionist. So in addition
to pitting Amory Slaughter versus Cheryl Sandberg, it was then
(04:48):
framed as oh, this is you know, lean in versus
lean out, which it's not at all, And it does
a disservice to a lot of the complexity and nuance
that Slaughter has proposed in a lot of her writing. Um.
And as a millennial feminist, listening to the conversation you
had with her, I also I found it really instructive
(05:14):
to hear the experience of a woman who was blazing
through academia all the way to you know, being the
dean of Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International
Affairs and previously being at Harvard Law School. This woman
at the top of her game, Um, dealing with similar
(05:34):
workplace issues that we still talk about, but approaching them
in with a different feminist philosophy, which I don't want
to get into because I don't want to spoil what
she's going to talk about. UM, but I think it's
easy for us to sometimes forget how things were not
so long ago. Yeah, and the different responses that women
(05:58):
of different generations and back hounds have had to both
lean in and to Slaughter's own philosophies, because I mean,
at their core, their philosophies are not that different. It's
helping women advance, getting women into those high paying jobs,
or just getting women into the workplace in general. But
(06:18):
whereas Cheryl Sandberg is arguing that women need to do
the leaning in, they need to take it upon themselves
to act in certain ways and and basically behave in
certain ways and take certain actions in the workplace, uh,
Slaughter's philosophy falls more along the lines of yeah, but
also the whole system is essentially broken. Yeah, we've got
(06:41):
to change the workplace, and especially with the work she's
doing now changing our entire approach to the caregiving economy,
whether that's childcare or elder care. And one thing that
jumped out to me that she said in talking about
um just her the nutshell of her approach to advancing
women in gender equality in the workplace, because this isn't
(07:02):
just about women, this is about men too. Is allowing
people to be ambitious, but also emphasize that there's a
choice of the direction that you go with that ambition.
So should we should we hear from Anne Marie Slaughter
now now that we should, we should we have her
introduce herself. Absolutely, no one does it better. It's true,
(07:26):
um An Marie Slaughter. I am the president and CEO
of New America, and I'm a Meredith Professor of Princeton University.
And I say that because I was an academic for
twenty two years as a law professor and a dean
of a foreigner policy school. I now run New America,
which is a linkedic and what we call a civic enterprise,
(07:48):
which means essentially an organization that tries to make the
world a better place by thinking up new solutions from
the top down and by finding people who are creating
good solutions from the bottom. So, Caroline, we are going
to hear so much more about those proposed solutions and
the people involved in this uh for the next half
(08:11):
hour or so. But before we get into all of
the work that she's doing and all the work that
needs to be done for caregivers. UM, let's get the
Ryl Sandberg issue, maybe not out of the way, but
for people who might be curious about it. As we were, Um,
you asked her how she felt about UM, sort of
(08:34):
the media narrative around that, right, Yeah, I asked her
about Yes, not only the media narrative, but just also
too if she could explain further the differences between her
approach and Sandberg's approach to this workplace equality issue. Why
didn't the show Can't Have It All? Went went up
online on the Atlantic website on the landsday night in
(08:57):
June plenty. Weel and I was in Scotland and with
my family trying to do work and vacation the same time.
I arrived back on Friday two days later, and there
I am on the front page in the New York Times,
Cheryl Sandberg versus me and of course that was the
resistantly and it defined that in the debate, even though
(09:22):
I think both Cheryl and I tried very hard not defeated.
So she never wanted to be on any kind of
panel with me. She didn't ever want to be seen,
you know, debating me, even though that's what the media wanted. Uh.
And I've come out of a culture of academic debate,
so I like debating, but I don't worry about it.
But I think in retrospection, I've been very smart to
(09:42):
do that as don't feed that. That's not wherever we
want to go. We don't want cat fights. Um. And
I did in that original article say that in her
talk at Barner, which gave drives the lean in that
I thought there was a note of approached that it
was essentially saying, if you have to lean in, and
(10:05):
I was saying, hey, WHOA, I have leaned in harder
than anybody. And I'm not as hard as anybody. I know,
I'm not harder, but as hard, and yet sometimes life happens.
And I don't think lean in means you sacrifice your
child for your job, if that's the way you see
that choice. And I certainly at that point thought this
(10:26):
is just a job. Other people can be director of
policy planting. No one else can be my teenager's parroc.
No one else wants to be my teenager part, even
if I could convince them. And he's making choices that
could define the rest of his life. So what kind
of person am I? Not just what kind of parent,
but what kind of person am I? Who puts my
ambition ahead of my child in that setting? That's not
(10:46):
the person I want to be. UM. But I then
you know, I've talked to lots of people. I've talked
to Cheryl. If you look at her book and my book,
there's far more overlap than than contention. We both want
women to take a seat at the table and lean
in and raise their hand and speak out and be recognized.
(11:10):
We both want that absolutely, and we both want much
better policies for supporting working family. UM. Where we differ
is partly just on emphasis. I think that because powerful,
wealthy women have dominated this debate, we have focused and
(11:33):
I include myself not nearly as wealthy, but still a
lot of standards of the nation. UM, we focus on
our issues, That's the point. In the Atlantic part. We
focus on our barriers, and now what I want to
say is I want to lend my voice and my
thinking too to a different frame, because we're not going
(11:58):
to get to general quality unless we address this whole spectrum.
So it's emphasis. I think it is also um, you know,
she she isn't the head of a major corporation, and
I think it is harder for major corporations to push
for policies that will cost business money. And I'm not.
(12:20):
I write a nonprofit, so I can say although it
costs monet no profit a lot to offer the policies
I offer, still I'm not. I'm not a bit of
billion dollar corporation. And so so I think in terms
of we agree more than we disagree. If we disagree,
(12:43):
it's going to be in the details. But mostly it's
just a difference of emphasis. And in that sense, I
think we're very complimentary because I want her out there
pushing women the way she's pushing women. But I want
to be able to say to all those women, uh
who find themselves and increasingly men who find themselves saying
(13:05):
I'm ambitious, but I've got a choice here. I want
to say that those people, yet you know there are choices,
and it's not your fault and you can't always do
it and that's okay, That's what life is about, and
we need to be helping you navigate those choices rather
than telling you whether they don't exist, or just saying, well,
(13:26):
you should your career. And I don't mean to insinuate
that Cheryl Sandberg's insights are not valuable, that len in
cannot serve as a valuable tool. It absolutely can. But
I think that hearing from someone like Slaughter with her
own lived experiences, someone who has allowed her life experiences
(13:48):
to shape her evolution, is so important as well. Um.
But moving on from len In and philosophical differences, I
wanted to jumpstart the rest of our interview by asking
Slaughter what prompted her to write her last book, Unfinished Business. Well, Inn,
(14:08):
I had been working as the director of Policy planing
for Secretary Hillary Clinton, and I left that position after
two years to go home because I had a teenage
son who was having an incredibly rocky adolescence and was
making bad choices, and his father and I wanted to
both be there. I wrote an article on that experience
in twelve called Why Women Still Can't Have It All,
(14:31):
which temporarily broke the Internet. The great surprise to be
atlantic to me and I think too many other women
who thought this is not news. But it hit a
generational wave that led to a commitment to write a book,
which I hadn't intended to do. I'm a foreign policy expert,
(14:51):
I'm not a gender expert. But the reaction to that
article was so great, and I got hundreds and hundreds
of emails and letters from women and men telling me
their stories. So I agreed to write this book, thinking
I am going to lift up these voices. And then
along the way I started really thinking about what has
(15:13):
to change to get to gender equality. I'm an academic,
I think bitch uh, and really concluded we need a
different path to finish the business of the women's movement.
So that's where unfinished business comes from. Okay, And so
(15:34):
what is that look like? Who's a longer path? Well,
it starts by saying we've we've done really well on
breaking down the barriers to let women be men in
the sense that I grew up wanting to be like
my father. My mother was a homemamber, my father was
(15:55):
a lawyer. It was clear if you were going to
be uh, somebody of value and worth. In the world
of the sixties, seventies, early eighties, you were going to
be like your father. So opening up the world of
competition to women, the world of careers, the world of
earning a living, the world of power and money. That's
what we've found, and we've still got a ways to go. Obviously,
(16:15):
I mean that lean in would be as important as
it is if we weren't still working on women to
be confident enough and to remove the barriers of discrimination
and subconscious bias to to get women too formerly male jobs.
So that parts that's the first half of the revolution.
(16:36):
But along the way, we completely devalued traditional women's work,
the work of care, right, the work of not investing
in yourself but investing in others, whether those are your
children or your parents, or anyone who needs help and support.
You might have a ill or disabled family member, or
you may have perfectly healthy family members. They need support
(16:58):
and so that work. By devaluing it, we left women
with two jobs and then with one. And when women
take time out to do the work of care, they
drop off. Not only the economically their work is not recognized,
but socially they are devalued. So the second part of
(17:18):
the revolution is to revalue the work of care and
to say, wait a minute, just because women traditionally did
it doesn't mean it's not incredibly important, and then to
open it to men, so it's it's a complimentary You know,
we need competition and read when we need care, caregiving,
and we need both of those for both women and men.
(17:40):
So men have got to be not just along for
the ride as allies and helpers, which is the way
we think of it when we say women want to
be like men and then should help us. This is like, no,
I look at my sons and I expect them to
be need parents at some point in their marriages, if
their wives or husbands who knows, uh need it, just
(18:01):
in a way that I would look at a daughter
that way. I expect men and women to be equally
responsible for family work. Well, so why is it in
our cultures are why why do you devalue care getting?
Is it just because it's traditionally a women's role, I
think so? Well, that and because it doesn't earn money,
(18:21):
so particularly in the United States, I think with the
world over, it's the valued as women's work and men
are in charge. Women have the children so I've been
expected to raise the children. Although if you go far
enough back in time, you actually get to villages where
men and women were hunter gatherers and they altar care
of the children. That it's much more egalitarian world. But
(18:44):
now you're going to back thousands of appends of thousands
of years. Uh. In contemporary society around the world, it's
women's work that is a huge problem. I think in
in capitalist society, particularly in the United States, were and
particularly now. You know, over my lifetime we've become far
more money obsessed than we were in the seventies and eighties.
Hard for younger people to know that. But I just
(19:07):
watched my own profession of law. I used to be
a profession. It turned into a business. It turned into
a business where it was all about who could get
the most clients and earn the biggest fortunes. So in
that world, Uh, any work that doesn't earn money is
not gone. And care is both right um and also
it's uh it's less visible work. We're in a me
(19:34):
culture and we need Facebook. Can the work of cares
the work of investing in others? I mean, I say
it's not only a mother because a professor for many
years I took enormous fraud with what my students did,
and I used to often think, well, I don't care.
Maybe no one will ever read an article I wrote
after I die, or even in five years. But my
(19:55):
students will go on to do great things. And that's
an injured rent achievement. Where we're in a society, it
is much more about directly to them right exactly. Well,
so who right now is working to elevate carrigeters. What
role is your organization, Langue? I think the care movement
(20:17):
is gathering Stein. It's astounding. I couldn't have written this
book in because I didn't believe this. I really thought,
you know, my father was important as a lawyer, my
mother was important as an artist, but not as a homemaker.
Now I see it very differently, and over that time,
you know, they've an organizations working for a long time,
like Family Values at work with l A Bravo, the
(20:38):
whole paid family leave movement, that the work of Eigen
Poo and the National Domestic Workers Coalition, and now carrying
a Russian generations. So you're starting to see this gather Stein.
You're seeing Hillary Clinton make this a huge part of
her platform. I mean she is totally focused on how
we support caregiver. The Alham administration focusing on working families
(21:03):
and how we support working families. So it is it
is suddenly gathering steam. I think. Also, we're in the
midst of what you know Igenboo calls an elder boom
right where my generation is aging and you may not
have children, but you have to have parents. And your
parents are going to retire or half retired and are
(21:26):
not they don't have retirement savings. The vast majority of
American retirees cannot support their retirement, which means now we're
starting to think about elder care and most you know,
how different generations support each other. So the care movement
is coming. And my own organization, New America has what
(21:47):
we call the Better Life Lab that focuses on care
in issues and um family and social policy issues generally.
And then UH and we and care dot Com and
I Jin who's carrying across generations, are launching a who
Cares coalition to raise the value of care? So what
(22:08):
what a party? What's that strategy? But so there are
multiple pieces. One is the fair Care Pledge, So it
is a extraordinary that we pay the people who care
for our children the same amount we pay people to
mix our drinks, park our cars, and walk our dogs
roughly nine dollars an hour. That's that's well below minimum
(22:30):
wage in various places. They're not Uh, they are not
protected by just basic wage and our protections, like you
could have them work sixteen hours without paying over time.
So you start the fair care pledges. I will pay
somebody caring for my parents or my children anyone else
if a fair wage, I will. I will have decent
(22:52):
working conditions. Any of us can do that. We also
be government policy right because the problem is that lots
of people would like to pay their caregivers more, but
it's a choice between you know, their livelihood and the
caregivers livelihood. And childcare caught for two kids costs more
(23:13):
than the cost of bread in all fifty states. So
there's a personal piece the fair care pledge. There's advocating
for paid family lead and Secretary Clinton has a proposal
that no family should act to pay more than ten
percent of their income for childcare. I hope that will
extend elder care. Uh. There will be a corporate piece
in terms of corporations who can really support care and
(23:35):
then their storytelling, Right, you don't. This is what's closest
to our hearts, cares about our loved ones, and we
need to elevate those stories of forcing a woman to
choose between her job and her child, or a man
between his job and his child or his parents, and
(23:55):
bring that into national consciousness. Caroline, We've got some big
news for the small screen. On July. Mr Robot is
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(24:18):
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(24:41):
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Mr Robot returns Wednesday July at ten nine Central only
on USA Network. So if you're looking for something to
(25:01):
binge on this summer, head on over to USA Network
on ly and tune in to Mr Robots. Have you
seen um with you know when you wrote your article
in twee twelve after you wrote your book. I'm interested
(25:23):
in the generational differences in the responses and to your
work and care today. My regional article, I think it
was fair to say, was broadly welcomed with enormous enthusiasm
by younger women, not all, but the vast majority, and
(25:48):
rejected and intensely disliked by many of the most successful
women of my generation. For reasons I understand. They felt
that I was betraying what they and the generation ten
years ahead of me had worked so hard for it
that by kind of pulling aside the curtain and saying,
(26:10):
you know, I'm a really successful woman who's had a
great career, and I can't make this work. Want to
face with a choice between a teenage son and my career.
And if I, who have every advantage under the sun,
can't do this and I'm very ambitious, we need to
rethink this. They worried it was too soon that this
immediately gives employers and leaders ammunitions saye see, we've told
(26:36):
you all along. Women and the undy are going to
choose their families over their career. You shouldn't hire them.
You shouldn't expect them to do the same thing. So
young but younger women felt like, wait a minute. Of course,
we're just as good as any man. Of course we're
going to be equal, and this is just reality, and
you need to we need to talk about it openly.
(26:57):
You know this. The fact is we're stuck. We been
women at the leaders in a good industry, in aband industries,
it's like five percent. So younger women really felt like,
thank you for being honest. I think many many older women, again,
particularly those who are in careers, felt like that honesty
(27:21):
may be true for you, it's not true for us.
And you're in paralleling the gains of the movement. And
then there's a whole group of women who never get
to talk. Who are the women who have stepped out
or taken a part time job or deferred promotion for
their their children, And they were enormously grateful. They are.
I always seen women who went to business school look
(27:42):
around the audience. If you think back to your business
school clients, at least two thirds are missing. And those
women are the women who couldn't make it work through
no faults of their own. It's not their ambition, it's life.
And why those women were very grateful. But those women
get heard from, right And then yeah, there's so many
(28:03):
layers in terms of sts and different backgrounds, and yes,
and you know they also their horses also are often
lifed out. So have you heard from some of these
women who aren't in business schools for they are working
three separate jobs. Yes, so so it's interesting and again
there needs to be a divide. So I'm part of
(28:25):
the I think my original article it was frankly aimed
at a very small slice of women. I said in
the article, I'm writing to the Atlantic readership. This is
not the women who are working three jobs. This this
is women who more orless look like me, and they
have careers like me. And so I knew that, and
(28:46):
of course, nevertheless I critique for it. But that's okay,
and that's that's fine. I think what I've come to
think is that the frame of that article was wrong,
because it never to believe when we focus on having
it all or even women advancing, we're looking in a
(29:07):
narrow slice. I mean with that that lens says how
many women are in the fortune, that's the metric grond Zoon. Well, okay,
that best will be two women and the women who
aspired to that. That's a very small slice the care frame.
And this is again thinking very hard over three years
(29:30):
is much more amenable to a coalition of all women
because we have too few women at the top and
far too many at the bottom. And those women at
the bottom are at the bottom because they are saddled
with caregiving and bread women both they are single mothers
that look, look at your statistics, and so thinking about
(29:52):
care and supporting care that is much more likely to
focus not on removies up conscious bias that prevent women
from being promoted at the top, and much more on
things like paid family leave and access to high quality
elder care and child care and flexible work that mean,
you know, women who are trying to get their kids
(30:14):
to school and uh take care of them when they
get sick. And also we're a living can do so.
So I now you know, I am never going to
be the leading spokeswomen for you know, caregivers in the
way that I gin Poots, which is one reason why
we've allied together. But I believe strongly that the women's
(30:37):
movement now has to speak for all women and that
is much more about care policy than confidence. Right, Absolutely,
what are just so our audience is clear, what's hyper forces?
Are the other ads in terms of an apptates in
of these policies? Why haven't they happen sooner? Why? Why
is there sundays us well focus on care? And basically
(31:01):
what do we have to do to push it through?
And is it this policy that we have to turn
around or as an attitudes as well? It is certainly both.
And it's complicated because there have been women all along,
since very early in the feminist movement who said waiting.
What's holding women back is the second shift? Right? Marlen Ashat,
(31:23):
We've all written the second shift with three decades ago, right,
And so it's this is not new and they've always
been women saying we have got to focus on issues
like paid leave and childcare. In nineteen seventy one, Richard
Nixon almost signed a bill that passed both majority both
(31:44):
houses of Congress by bi parties and majorities for universal childcare.
It's just you imagine what would have been like is
that he happened in nineteen seventy one, But he didn't,
and then a couple of things happened. He didn't because
it became a right left issue. It became a moral
majority issue that you know, universal child care was socialism
(32:05):
and it was anti women because it was it was
insisting that women go to work and you know, give
the care of their children over to others. And it
became a Christian issue. It got tangled up in the
cultural war with politics, which was very bad. But also
then again, and I was one I know about what
I'm talking about. Women like me who wanted to make
(32:27):
it and be equal to men would touch those kinds
of gender issues with a ten foot pole. We were
gonna be like men. So we would focus on discrimination
in the workplace. We'd focused on closing the pay gap,
but care issues, all of that smacked of essentially stereotypes
(32:48):
and was the kind of went work we were walking
away from. So then you that worked family balanced, But
that was all about time management. You know, I hear,
how could a manager you are seeing two to full
time jobs in the one day when you're competing with
men who are only doing one of those jobs. Sure,
(33:08):
there's a small slice of just extraordinary women who make
it work and who have a huge amount of health.
But that's just not the standard we should be holding
all women too. And what is happening now is it
a growing number of women like me who have been
in the kind of career women confidence feminism camp are
(33:35):
now embracing a much more holistic care perspective. And certainly
you're seeing that as women politicians get elected. That's in
part because the votes are much more around care issues
than they are around confidence issues. And that's because I
think also we're seeing this is an economic and social
(33:57):
issue that are you know, we're riving women out of
the workforce because they can't make it work. If it's
more expensive to pay for child care, then somebody's gonna
stay home, and that somebody's going to be still much
more likely a woman. Uh. And it's also very bad
for our families and for the next generation. You know,
we've we're reaping the costs of not having parents, fathers
(34:22):
just as much as mother's able to spend the time
they need not only with their young kids, but with
their teenagers. Well, so who his serient rite, what countries,
what cultures that societies are doing it right, who can
we love to and say, see, there's a well all
the Nordic countries, which is that's where we always go.
(34:43):
But the Nordic countries are important because they're you know,
they are highly competitive economies. They're not France. The Nordic
countries Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland. They've figured out how to
be highly innovative and the films like one of the
great centers some protech innovation world. Sweden too. They've figured
(35:04):
out how to how much more flexible economies. They are
not state uh governed and restricted economies like like some
of the kind of European countries are. But they have
figured out how to provide uh what I call and
I gin poop call a infrastructure of care right. They
(35:25):
provide muchternity relief and paternity lead. And some of that
paternity lead is mandatory in the sense of its use.
That are losing if a man doesn't take it. Nobody
gets it that you can leave at four o'clock and
do your work later or not do your work. And
they still managed to be highly productive and competitive. They
have high quality care available, some state sponsored, some private.
(35:53):
So those countries really are ahead of us, the French
or way ahead of it in terms of providing fantastic childcare.
You know, parents who live in France for the first
five years of their children's lives, Like, why would you
ever go home? Because three months in you drop your
child off at state sponsored high quality care that ensures
that all kids get the kind of stimulation they need. Uh,
(36:16):
they have you know, home visits that they and and
France is the only one of the the continental European
countries where the birth rate is going up, right, because
they figured out if you make it easier to have kids,
you can in fact increase both your for your birthrate
and women in the labor force. So, but there are
other countries to where, um, you know, Japan interestingly enough
(36:42):
recognizes they desperately need women in the workforce and they
are starting to offer make it much easier for women
to have care alternatives. They of course are an aging
society and their pioneering elder care as well, and then
their their individual countries. In Britain has been great on
things like you have a right to demand flexible work,
(37:04):
that's all right, and so the idea that if you
work part time you're stigmatized none Britain, you know, and
it you know, Britain's an Anglo American competitive economy. There
are way ahead of us on changing cultural attitudes about
men and on working differently. And Anne Marie Slaughter really
(37:33):
does believe that we can break that we can break
with this pattern. And because almost because the United States
is so far behind in its care system, whether that's
paid or unpaid, whether it's child care or elder care,
we are so far behind and have so little infrastructure,
(37:53):
that we really do have the opportunity to leap frog
over some of the these other countries that do have
even if they're much smaller, they do have maternity care
for instance, And we can potentially do great things. We
are an innovative country, We are a country full of
hard working people. We can figure out this whole caregiving system. Yeah.
(38:20):
And and in that she really believes that we can
break down gender stereotypes by you know, kind of eliminating
this idea that women are the natural caregivers and that
men that because that also takes a choice away from
men to you know, men who might want to stay
home or men who might want more flexible schedules. Um.
(38:43):
And that we can achieve equality in caregiving and breadwinning,
which is something we should devote a podcast to. Um
bypassing policies, I mean again, like it's so clear that
she is such an academic, you know, and and again
such a policy wonk because she really sees that as
(39:05):
the way forward. Yeah. The example that she gave in
the rest of our conversation was basically like, look at
these countries, for instance, who never had infrastructure for landline
telephones when they caught up, and when they started building infrastructure,
they didn't like build the old infrastructure for landlines, they
went straight to building cell towers. And so she said,
we have an example, or we have a she said,
(39:28):
we have an opportunity in the US to do that too,
to leap frog the rest of the world. Uh. And
instead of creating leave only for women or only for parents,
the US can now build an infrastructure of paid leave
for anyone people who are caring for children, parents, the sick,
or the disabled in any family. And yeah, like you said,
part of this is breaking down those gender stereotypes around
(39:51):
what it means to be a caregiver, whether that's paid
or unpaid, and what it means to be uh, the
breadwinner and so thank you so much to the brilliant, warm,
amazing and Marie Slaughter for taking the time to talk
with me in New York at her office. And UH,
(40:11):
she and I were both fresh off of getting back
to New York from d C, where we had both
attended the United States of Women's Summit, which was incredible.
I was just there as press, uh she was there
as a speaker, and she was actually on a panel
with I gen poo Um of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. UH.
(40:32):
They spoke together with several other women on a panel
called Valuing Caregiving in the twenty first Century. And at
the summit they announced this coalition called Who Cares, and
it's a coalition that involves Slaughters Organization New America which
helped launch it, alongside care dot Com and uh Poo's
(40:56):
Caring across Generations. And basically what they're doing together is
working to bring attention to that important role that caregiving
does play in both our society in general but specifically
our economy, and just highlighting and supporting that need to
help our parents, our children, and ourselves by making the
caregiving system easier, better by improving the infrastructure around it,
(41:21):
and to learn more about that, you can go to
who Cares dot org. UM. Also, we highly recommend you
follow Anne Marie Slaughter on Twitter because she is very
active um and and drops gems of wisdom all the time.
You can follow her at slaughter a M which is
(41:41):
s l a U g h t e r a M.
And while you're at it, you should also follow high
gen Poo on Twitter because together, I really think that
they're just they're they're already changing the world, um, and
they're going to continue to absolutely And I think Slaughter
Am sounds like an incredible morning show on the radio,
(42:03):
So I love it. I'm you know, Amory. If you
want to carry on like a sound machine or like
a sound effects machine, just you know, or an air horn,
we're on board. I love the podcasters are pitching old
school radio radio station. It's just too good. UM. But
thank you again to Anne Marie, and I can't wait
to hear what our listeners think. UM. You know, are
(42:26):
you trapped in between a rock and hard place of
being in that generation having to care for young children
and also aging parents, UM, and facing a lack of
support from your workplace, from your family, from people around you.
Let us know mom Stuff at how stuff works dot
Com is our email address. You can also tweet us
(42:48):
at mom Stuff podcast or messages on Facebook, and we've
got a couple of messages to share with you before
we head on out. All right, Well, speaking of I
jim Poo Krestin, I have a letter here from Kathy
in response to our change Maker's conversation with I Gimpoo.
(43:09):
She says, Uh, it truly hit home. I heard you
both say that caregiving is a subject you would like
to hit on more in depth as well. I wanted
to suggest you also touch on the subject of children
and young adults that are placed in a caregiver role.
I'm thirty three years old and my mom was diagnosed
with MS right after I was born. My brother and
I were lucky in one way that my dad was
(43:30):
the primary caretaker, but we also had to take on
a caretaker role from my mom as a child. This
was hard. But even harder was when I became a
young adult, having to manage a career, social life, and
having to help out my family. I was having to
deal with things that some people in their fifties and
sixties still had yet to experience with their parents. I
know that this is a subject that many other children
(43:51):
face and an even harder circumstances. I'm also seeing the
effects that caregiving can have on older people, as I
witnessed my dad go from caretaker to now widower and
many struggles that brings. I'm also very inspired to see
what I can do to help make a difference for
others in this position. So thank you, Kathy, and I'm
so glad you enjoyed that episode with I gim Poo,
(44:11):
and I hope that means that you also enjoyed our
conversation today with Amory slaughter Well. I have a letter
here from Robin writing about our episode Feminism for Sale,
in which we talked to Andy Ziezler, who's a co
founder of Bitch Media and also the author of the
recently released We Were Feminists Once. And Robin mentioned that
(44:31):
she works at her university library and was really excited
when the library got a copy in of We Were
Feminist Once, and she writes, reading Ziesler's book and listening
to your conversation has encouraged me to consider my own
foray into feminism. When I started university four years ago,
I didn't identify as a feminist at all I believe.
(44:52):
I told my very feminist roommate that I didn't think
quote those kind of issues were relevant to me, and
I'm surprised her eyes and roll out of her head.
And by the end of my second term, however, I
was writing an essay interrogating patriarchal conceptions of disability in
the bell Jar. And I started taking feminism theory courses
in my second year, and since then much of what
(45:14):
I've written from my classes has looked at gender and sexuality. Now,
a day before I officially graduate, congrats PS. I am
proud to call myself a feminist, but I have to
wonder how much of my own journey has been influenced
by feminism's rising popularity. I had just finished my second
year of university when Beyonce made her feminist statement at
the v m A, and since then it seems as
(45:37):
though my personal declaration has been shared by many celebrities.
I covet those Indis with feminists on their rear. I'm
a sucker for a good, strong female character, and I
sometimes wonder if my decision not to regularly shave my
legs qualifies as a feminist choice, and it's not. I
just think it's a lot of work to get my
leg up in the shower. Well, I like to think
(45:58):
I'm more aware of feminist conversations that have been taking
place out of the limelight. I'm so undeniably influenced by
the rhetoric of marketplace and choice feminism. It's a lot
easier to call oneself a feminist in twenty sixteen while
ignoring political, economic, and social inequalities that continue to persist
around the world. Reading we were feminists once and listening
(46:19):
to wonderful podcast like Sminty remind me to constantly interrogate
my politics and refuse that kind of easy feminism which
doesn't challenge us to remake the world. Lots of love, Robin,
Lots of love back to you, Robin um and and
best of luck as you leave college into I don't
(46:40):
want to call the real world, because college is real,
but into the next step in your in your womanhood
and in your feminism. So with that, listeners, we also
want to hear from you. Mom. Stuff at how stuffworks
dot Com is our email address and for links to
all of our social media as well as all of
our blogs, videos and podcasts with our sources so you
(47:01):
can learn more about caregivers. Head on over to stuff
Mom Never told You dot com for more on this
and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff Works
dot com
Hey, I'm Chuck and I'm Josh and we're the host
of Stuff You should know the podcast. That's right, And
if you're into understanding cool and unusual and seemingly ordinary
and even boring things that are made interesting, you should
check us out. Please and thank you. We're on iTunes, Spotify,
Google Play Music, anywhere you get podcasts. Welcome to Stuff
(00:24):
Mom Never Told You. From how stup works dot com. Hello,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline.
And Caroline, I gotta be honest with you. I experienced
some stuff Mom Never told you. Interview Envy last week
(00:44):
when you got to talk to Anne Marie Slaughter. Yeah,
Anne Marie Slaughter is amazing. Um. I tend to not
be very intimidated by celebrities, by politicians by oh you're Elizabeth,
We're you know Elizabeth because we hang out all the time. Yeah,
that's the secret there. Um. But around Amory Slaughter, I
(01:07):
clammed up and became a total stuttering fool. I felt
like I felt like I blew it up in my mind.
I'm sure. Um, But she is an author, she's a
former diplomat. She worked under Hillary Clinton in the State Department. Um,
she has an incredible background as a leader, and now
she is the CEO of the New America think tank,
(01:30):
which is a nonpartisan organization that's basically seeking to change
the world. No big deal. Um, But I got to
the Office of New America in New York after the
you and I had gone to the United State of
Women's Summit in Washington, d C. Where a Marie Slaughter
spoke on a panel about caregiving with uh Sminty all
(01:54):
Star fave I Gin Poo. She of support the caregivers
efforts in this country and abroad. And uh Amory Slaughter
swept into the office and it's again blewn up in
my head and I just saw like Disney birds floating
around her because I have such great admiration for this woman. Yeah,
(02:15):
I love how these are the kinds of stuff I've
never told you. Celebrities we have. I mean, obviously there's Beyonce,
and then we also have like foreign policy wonks like
Ann Marie Slaughter and she I'm so glad that you
got to talk to her because um, she, as she
says in her interview, um is a foreign policy expert,
(02:37):
not a gender expert. But it just so happens that
she went viral in with this Atlantic magazine article that
a lot of stuff I've never told you listeners may
have read or have heard about, headlined why women still
can't have it all? And it really broke the internet
(02:58):
before Kim Kardashian came around and Marie Slaughter, my friends,
broke the Internet. I feel like that is such a
much more worthy breaker of the Internet. Uh, not to
get not to get all pitting women against each other.
We're not here to do that well, And that's something
Anne Marie Slaughter knows well. The whole media pitting women
(03:21):
against women. Yeah, because if you aren't familiar with Slaughter's
work as a diplomat, or if you're not familiar with
her work in the Atlantic, she's also written in so
many other places. She's written several forwards for several fantastic books. Um, yeah,
you might know her simply from the media and the
(03:42):
blogosphere pitting her against Cheryl Sandberg. I mean literally, when
you google the two women's names together, the suggested search
that pops up is Anne Marie Slaughter versus Cheryl Sandberg.
And that seems that seems silly. Why are two high
powered women we've never seen this before, two high powered
(04:03):
women being pitted against each other. And then really not um,
but basically, uh, Anne Marie Slaughter's philosophies. I keep saying
her full name because she is a celebrity to me, Uh,
not such a strong name, to a strong, wonderful name. Um.
Her philosophies have definitely evolved over time, as she her
(04:25):
philosophies about women in the workplace, about caregiving, gender roles,
these things have evolved, and uh, they don't put her
in line with Cheryl Sandberg's philosophy of leaning in. But
of course the media is so reductionist. So in addition
to pitting Amory Slaughter versus Cheryl Sandberg, it was then
(04:48):
framed as oh, this is you know, lean in versus
lean out, which it's not at all, And it does
a disservice to a lot of the complexity and nuance
that Slaughter has proposed in a lot of her writing. Um.
And as a millennial feminist, listening to the conversation you
had with her, I also I found it really instructive
(05:14):
to hear the experience of a woman who was blazing
through academia all the way to you know, being the
dean of Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International
Affairs and previously being at Harvard Law School. This woman
at the top of her game, Um, dealing with similar
(05:34):
workplace issues that we still talk about, but approaching them
in with a different feminist philosophy, which I don't want
to get into because I don't want to spoil what
she's going to talk about. UM, but I think it's
easy for us to sometimes forget how things were not
so long ago. Yeah, and the different responses that women
(05:58):
of different generations and back hounds have had to both
lean in and to Slaughter's own philosophies, because I mean,
at their core, their philosophies are not that different. It's
helping women advance, getting women into those high paying jobs,
or just getting women into the workplace in general. But
(06:18):
whereas Cheryl Sandberg is arguing that women need to do
the leaning in, they need to take it upon themselves
to act in certain ways and and basically behave in
certain ways and take certain actions in the workplace, uh,
Slaughter's philosophy falls more along the lines of yeah, but
also the whole system is essentially broken. Yeah, we've got
(06:41):
to change the workplace, and especially with the work she's
doing now changing our entire approach to the caregiving economy,
whether that's childcare or elder care. And one thing that
jumped out to me that she said in talking about
um just her the nutshell of her approach to advancing
women in gender equality in the workplace, because this isn't
(07:02):
just about women, this is about men too. Is allowing
people to be ambitious, but also emphasize that there's a
choice of the direction that you go with that ambition.
So should we should we hear from Anne Marie Slaughter
now now that we should, we should we have her
introduce herself. Absolutely, no one does it better. It's true,
(07:26):
um An Marie Slaughter. I am the president and CEO
of New America, and I'm a Meredith Professor of Princeton University.
And I say that because I was an academic for
twenty two years as a law professor and a dean
of a foreigner policy school. I now run New America,
which is a linkedic and what we call a civic enterprise,
(07:48):
which means essentially an organization that tries to make the
world a better place by thinking up new solutions from
the top down and by finding people who are creating
good solutions from the bottom. So, Caroline, we are going
to hear so much more about those proposed solutions and
the people involved in this uh for the next half
(08:11):
hour or so. But before we get into all of
the work that she's doing and all the work that
needs to be done for caregivers. UM, let's get the
Ryl Sandberg issue, maybe not out of the way, but
for people who might be curious about it. As we were, Um,
you asked her how she felt about UM, sort of
(08:34):
the media narrative around that, right, Yeah, I asked her
about Yes, not only the media narrative, but just also
too if she could explain further the differences between her
approach and Sandberg's approach to this workplace equality issue. Why
didn't the show Can't Have It All? Went went up
online on the Atlantic website on the landsday night in
(08:57):
June plenty. Weel and I was in Scotland and with
my family trying to do work and vacation the same time.
I arrived back on Friday two days later, and there
I am on the front page in the New York Times,
Cheryl Sandberg versus me and of course that was the
resistantly and it defined that in the debate, even though
(09:22):
I think both Cheryl and I tried very hard not defeated.
So she never wanted to be on any kind of
panel with me. She didn't ever want to be seen,
you know, debating me, even though that's what the media wanted. Uh.
And I've come out of a culture of academic debate,
so I like debating, but I don't worry about it.
But I think in retrospection, I've been very smart to
(09:42):
do that as don't feed that. That's not wherever we
want to go. We don't want cat fights. Um. And
I did in that original article say that in her
talk at Barner, which gave drives the lean in that
I thought there was a note of approached that it
was essentially saying, if you have to lean in, and
(10:05):
I was saying, hey, WHOA, I have leaned in harder
than anybody. And I'm not as hard as anybody. I know,
I'm not harder, but as hard, and yet sometimes life happens.
And I don't think lean in means you sacrifice your
child for your job, if that's the way you see
that choice. And I certainly at that point thought this
(10:26):
is just a job. Other people can be director of
policy planting. No one else can be my teenager's parroc.
No one else wants to be my teenager part, even
if I could convince them. And he's making choices that
could define the rest of his life. So what kind
of person am I? Not just what kind of parent,
but what kind of person am I? Who puts my
ambition ahead of my child in that setting? That's not
(10:46):
the person I want to be. UM. But I then
you know, I've talked to lots of people. I've talked
to Cheryl. If you look at her book and my book,
there's far more overlap than than contention. We both want
women to take a seat at the table and lean
in and raise their hand and speak out and be recognized.
(11:10):
We both want that absolutely, and we both want much
better policies for supporting working family. UM. Where we differ
is partly just on emphasis. I think that because powerful,
wealthy women have dominated this debate, we have focused and
(11:33):
I include myself not nearly as wealthy, but still a
lot of standards of the nation. UM, we focus on
our issues, That's the point. In the Atlantic part. We
focus on our barriers, and now what I want to
say is I want to lend my voice and my
thinking too to a different frame, because we're not going
(11:58):
to get to general quality unless we address this whole spectrum.
So it's emphasis. I think it is also um, you know,
she she isn't the head of a major corporation, and
I think it is harder for major corporations to push
for policies that will cost business money. And I'm not.
(12:20):
I write a nonprofit, so I can say although it
costs monet no profit a lot to offer the policies
I offer, still I'm not. I'm not a bit of
billion dollar corporation. And so so I think in terms
of we agree more than we disagree. If we disagree,
(12:43):
it's going to be in the details. But mostly it's
just a difference of emphasis. And in that sense, I
think we're very complimentary because I want her out there
pushing women the way she's pushing women. But I want
to be able to say to all those women, uh
who find themselves and increasingly men who find themselves saying
(13:05):
I'm ambitious, but I've got a choice here. I want
to say that those people, yet you know there are choices,
and it's not your fault and you can't always do
it and that's okay, That's what life is about, and
we need to be helping you navigate those choices rather
than telling you whether they don't exist, or just saying, well,
(13:26):
you should your career. And I don't mean to insinuate
that Cheryl Sandberg's insights are not valuable, that len in
cannot serve as a valuable tool. It absolutely can. But
I think that hearing from someone like Slaughter with her
own lived experiences, someone who has allowed her life experiences
(13:48):
to shape her evolution, is so important as well. Um.
But moving on from len In and philosophical differences, I
wanted to jumpstart the rest of our interview by asking
Slaughter what prompted her to write her last book, Unfinished Business. Well, Inn,
(14:08):
I had been working as the director of Policy planing
for Secretary Hillary Clinton, and I left that position after
two years to go home because I had a teenage
son who was having an incredibly rocky adolescence and was
making bad choices, and his father and I wanted to
both be there. I wrote an article on that experience
in twelve called Why Women Still Can't Have It All,
(14:31):
which temporarily broke the Internet. The great surprise to be
atlantic to me and I think too many other women
who thought this is not news. But it hit a
generational wave that led to a commitment to write a book,
which I hadn't intended to do. I'm a foreign policy expert,
(14:51):
I'm not a gender expert. But the reaction to that
article was so great, and I got hundreds and hundreds
of emails and letters from women and men telling me
their stories. So I agreed to write this book, thinking
I am going to lift up these voices. And then
along the way I started really thinking about what has
(15:13):
to change to get to gender equality. I'm an academic,
I think bitch uh, and really concluded we need a
different path to finish the business of the women's movement.
So that's where unfinished business comes from. Okay, And so
(15:34):
what is that look like? Who's a longer path? Well,
it starts by saying we've we've done really well on
breaking down the barriers to let women be men in
the sense that I grew up wanting to be like
my father. My mother was a homemamber, my father was
(15:55):
a lawyer. It was clear if you were going to
be uh, somebody of value and worth. In the world
of the sixties, seventies, early eighties, you were going to
be like your father. So opening up the world of
competition to women, the world of careers, the world of
earning a living, the world of power and money. That's
what we've found, and we've still got a ways to go. Obviously,
(16:15):
I mean that lean in would be as important as
it is if we weren't still working on women to
be confident enough and to remove the barriers of discrimination
and subconscious bias to to get women too formerly male jobs.
So that parts that's the first half of the revolution.
(16:36):
But along the way, we completely devalued traditional women's work,
the work of care, right, the work of not investing
in yourself but investing in others, whether those are your
children or your parents, or anyone who needs help and support.
You might have a ill or disabled family member, or
you may have perfectly healthy family members. They need support
(16:58):
and so that work. By devaluing it, we left women
with two jobs and then with one. And when women
take time out to do the work of care, they
drop off. Not only the economically their work is not recognized,
but socially they are devalued. So the second part of
(17:18):
the revolution is to revalue the work of care and
to say, wait a minute, just because women traditionally did
it doesn't mean it's not incredibly important, and then to
open it to men, so it's it's a complimentary You know,
we need competition and read when we need care, caregiving,
and we need both of those for both women and men.
(17:40):
So men have got to be not just along for
the ride as allies and helpers, which is the way
we think of it when we say women want to
be like men and then should help us. This is like, no,
I look at my sons and I expect them to
be need parents at some point in their marriages, if
their wives or husbands who knows, uh need it, just
(18:01):
in a way that I would look at a daughter
that way. I expect men and women to be equally
responsible for family work. Well, so why is it in
our cultures are why why do you devalue care getting?
Is it just because it's traditionally a women's role, I
think so? Well, that and because it doesn't earn money,
(18:21):
so particularly in the United States, I think with the
world over, it's the valued as women's work and men
are in charge. Women have the children so I've been
expected to raise the children. Although if you go far
enough back in time, you actually get to villages where
men and women were hunter gatherers and they altar care
of the children. That it's much more egalitarian world. But
(18:44):
now you're going to back thousands of appends of thousands
of years. Uh. In contemporary society around the world, it's
women's work that is a huge problem. I think in
in capitalist society, particularly in the United States, were and
particularly now. You know, over my lifetime we've become far
more money obsessed than we were in the seventies and eighties.
Hard for younger people to know that. But I just
(19:07):
watched my own profession of law. I used to be
a profession. It turned into a business. It turned into
a business where it was all about who could get
the most clients and earn the biggest fortunes. So in
that world, Uh, any work that doesn't earn money is
not gone. And care is both right um and also
it's uh it's less visible work. We're in a me
(19:34):
culture and we need Facebook. Can the work of cares
the work of investing in others? I mean, I say
it's not only a mother because a professor for many
years I took enormous fraud with what my students did,
and I used to often think, well, I don't care.
Maybe no one will ever read an article I wrote
after I die, or even in five years. But my
(19:55):
students will go on to do great things. And that's
an injured rent achievement. Where we're in a society, it
is much more about directly to them right exactly. Well,
so who right now is working to elevate carrigeters. What
role is your organization, Langue? I think the care movement
(20:17):
is gathering Stein. It's astounding. I couldn't have written this
book in because I didn't believe this. I really thought,
you know, my father was important as a lawyer, my
mother was important as an artist, but not as a homemaker.
Now I see it very differently, and over that time,
you know, they've an organizations working for a long time,
like Family Values at work with l A Bravo, the
(20:38):
whole paid family leave movement, that the work of Eigen
Poo and the National Domestic Workers Coalition, and now carrying
a Russian generations. So you're starting to see this gather Stein.
You're seeing Hillary Clinton make this a huge part of
her platform. I mean she is totally focused on how
we support caregiver. The Alham administration focusing on working families
(21:03):
and how we support working families. So it is it
is suddenly gathering steam. I think. Also, we're in the
midst of what you know Igenboo calls an elder boom
right where my generation is aging and you may not
have children, but you have to have parents. And your
parents are going to retire or half retired and are
(21:26):
not they don't have retirement savings. The vast majority of
American retirees cannot support their retirement, which means now we're
starting to think about elder care and most you know,
how different generations support each other. So the care movement
is coming. And my own organization, New America has what
(21:47):
we call the Better Life Lab that focuses on care
in issues and um family and social policy issues generally.
And then UH and we and care dot Com and
I Jin who's carrying across generations, are launching a who
Cares coalition to raise the value of care? So what
(22:08):
what a party? What's that strategy? But so there are
multiple pieces. One is the fair Care Pledge, So it
is a extraordinary that we pay the people who care
for our children the same amount we pay people to
mix our drinks, park our cars, and walk our dogs
roughly nine dollars an hour. That's that's well below minimum
(22:30):
wage in various places. They're not Uh, they are not
protected by just basic wage and our protections, like you
could have them work sixteen hours without paying over time.
So you start the fair care pledges. I will pay
somebody caring for my parents or my children anyone else
if a fair wage, I will. I will have decent
(22:52):
working conditions. Any of us can do that. We also
be government policy right because the problem is that lots
of people would like to pay their caregivers more, but
it's a choice between you know, their livelihood and the
caregivers livelihood. And childcare caught for two kids costs more
(23:13):
than the cost of bread in all fifty states. So
there's a personal piece the fair care pledge. There's advocating
for paid family lead and Secretary Clinton has a proposal
that no family should act to pay more than ten
percent of their income for childcare. I hope that will
extend elder care. Uh. There will be a corporate piece
in terms of corporations who can really support care and
(23:35):
then their storytelling, Right, you don't. This is what's closest
to our hearts, cares about our loved ones, and we
need to elevate those stories of forcing a woman to
choose between her job and her child, or a man
between his job and his child or his parents, and
(23:55):
bring that into national consciousness. Caroline, We've got some big
news for the small screen. On July. Mr Robot is
coming back to us A Network for its second season.
That's right. It's been hailed by Rolling Stone, is the
number one show, and named Best Drama by the Golden
(24:18):
Globe and Critics Choice Awards. Mr Robot follows a cybersecurity
engineer who's recruited by the mysterious leader of an underground
group determined to bring down the world's largest corporation. But
when their hack is a success, that consequences are far
greater than they imagined. Following the events of f Society's
five nine hack on multinational company Evil Corps, the second
(24:41):
season will explore the consequences of that attack, as well
as the illusion of control. Starring Rommy Malick and Christian Slater.
Mr Robot returns Wednesday July at ten nine Central only
on USA Network. So if you're looking for something to
(25:01):
binge on this summer, head on over to USA Network
on ly and tune in to Mr Robots. Have you
seen um with you know when you wrote your article
in twee twelve after you wrote your book. I'm interested
(25:23):
in the generational differences in the responses and to your
work and care today. My regional article, I think it
was fair to say, was broadly welcomed with enormous enthusiasm
by younger women, not all, but the vast majority, and
(25:48):
rejected and intensely disliked by many of the most successful
women of my generation. For reasons I understand. They felt
that I was betraying what they and the generation ten
years ahead of me had worked so hard for it
that by kind of pulling aside the curtain and saying,
(26:10):
you know, I'm a really successful woman who's had a
great career, and I can't make this work. Want to
face with a choice between a teenage son and my career.
And if I, who have every advantage under the sun,
can't do this and I'm very ambitious, we need to
rethink this. They worried it was too soon that this
immediately gives employers and leaders ammunitions saye see, we've told
(26:36):
you all along. Women and the undy are going to
choose their families over their career. You shouldn't hire them.
You shouldn't expect them to do the same thing. So
young but younger women felt like, wait a minute. Of course,
we're just as good as any man. Of course we're
going to be equal, and this is just reality, and
you need to we need to talk about it openly.
(26:57):
You know this. The fact is we're stuck. We been
women at the leaders in a good industry, in aband industries,
it's like five percent. So younger women really felt like,
thank you for being honest. I think many many older women, again,
particularly those who are in careers, felt like that honesty
(27:21):
may be true for you, it's not true for us.
And you're in paralleling the gains of the movement. And
then there's a whole group of women who never get
to talk. Who are the women who have stepped out
or taken a part time job or deferred promotion for
their their children, And they were enormously grateful. They are.
I always seen women who went to business school look
(27:42):
around the audience. If you think back to your business
school clients, at least two thirds are missing. And those
women are the women who couldn't make it work through
no faults of their own. It's not their ambition, it's life.
And why those women were very grateful. But those women
get heard from, right And then yeah, there's so many
(28:03):
layers in terms of sts and different backgrounds, and yes,
and you know they also their horses also are often
lifed out. So have you heard from some of these
women who aren't in business schools for they are working
three separate jobs. Yes, so so it's interesting and again
there needs to be a divide. So I'm part of
(28:25):
the I think my original article it was frankly aimed
at a very small slice of women. I said in
the article, I'm writing to the Atlantic readership. This is
not the women who are working three jobs. This this
is women who more orless look like me, and they
have careers like me. And so I knew that, and
(28:46):
of course, nevertheless I critique for it. But that's okay,
and that's that's fine. I think what I've come to
think is that the frame of that article was wrong,
because it never to believe when we focus on having
it all or even women advancing, we're looking in a
(29:07):
narrow slice. I mean with that that lens says how
many women are in the fortune, that's the metric grond Zoon. Well, okay,
that best will be two women and the women who
aspired to that. That's a very small slice the care frame.
And this is again thinking very hard over three years
(29:30):
is much more amenable to a coalition of all women
because we have too few women at the top and
far too many at the bottom. And those women at
the bottom are at the bottom because they are saddled
with caregiving and bread women both they are single mothers
that look, look at your statistics, and so thinking about
(29:52):
care and supporting care that is much more likely to
focus not on removies up conscious bias that prevent women
from being promoted at the top, and much more on
things like paid family leave and access to high quality
elder care and child care and flexible work that mean,
you know, women who are trying to get their kids
(30:14):
to school and uh take care of them when they
get sick. And also we're a living can do so.
So I now you know, I am never going to
be the leading spokeswomen for you know, caregivers in the
way that I gin Poots, which is one reason why
we've allied together. But I believe strongly that the women's
(30:37):
movement now has to speak for all women and that
is much more about care policy than confidence. Right, Absolutely,
what are just so our audience is clear, what's hyper forces?
Are the other ads in terms of an apptates in
of these policies? Why haven't they happen sooner? Why? Why
is there sundays us well focus on care? And basically
(31:01):
what do we have to do to push it through?
And is it this policy that we have to turn
around or as an attitudes as well? It is certainly both.
And it's complicated because there have been women all along,
since very early in the feminist movement who said waiting.
What's holding women back is the second shift? Right? Marlen Ashat,
(31:23):
We've all written the second shift with three decades ago, right,
And so it's this is not new and they've always
been women saying we have got to focus on issues
like paid leave and childcare. In nineteen seventy one, Richard
Nixon almost signed a bill that passed both majority both
(31:44):
houses of Congress by bi parties and majorities for universal childcare.
It's just you imagine what would have been like is
that he happened in nineteen seventy one, But he didn't,
and then a couple of things happened. He didn't because
it became a right left issue. It became a moral
majority issue that you know, universal child care was socialism
(32:05):
and it was anti women because it was it was
insisting that women go to work and you know, give
the care of their children over to others. And it
became a Christian issue. It got tangled up in the
cultural war with politics, which was very bad. But also
then again, and I was one I know about what
I'm talking about. Women like me who wanted to make
(32:27):
it and be equal to men would touch those kinds
of gender issues with a ten foot pole. We were
gonna be like men. So we would focus on discrimination
in the workplace. We'd focused on closing the pay gap,
but care issues, all of that smacked of essentially stereotypes
(32:48):
and was the kind of went work we were walking
away from. So then you that worked family balanced, But
that was all about time management. You know, I hear,
how could a manager you are seeing two to full
time jobs in the one day when you're competing with
men who are only doing one of those jobs. Sure,
(33:08):
there's a small slice of just extraordinary women who make
it work and who have a huge amount of health.
But that's just not the standard we should be holding
all women too. And what is happening now is it
a growing number of women like me who have been
in the kind of career women confidence feminism camp are
(33:35):
now embracing a much more holistic care perspective. And certainly
you're seeing that as women politicians get elected. That's in
part because the votes are much more around care issues
than they are around confidence issues. And that's because I
think also we're seeing this is an economic and social
(33:57):
issue that are you know, we're riving women out of
the workforce because they can't make it work. If it's
more expensive to pay for child care, then somebody's gonna
stay home, and that somebody's going to be still much
more likely a woman. Uh. And it's also very bad
for our families and for the next generation. You know,
we've we're reaping the costs of not having parents, fathers
(34:22):
just as much as mother's able to spend the time
they need not only with their young kids, but with
their teenagers. Well, so who his serient rite, what countries,
what cultures that societies are doing it right, who can
we love to and say, see, there's a well all
the Nordic countries, which is that's where we always go.
(34:43):
But the Nordic countries are important because they're you know,
they are highly competitive economies. They're not France. The Nordic
countries Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland. They've figured out how to
be highly innovative and the films like one of the
great centers some protech innovation world. Sweden too. They've figured
(35:04):
out how to how much more flexible economies. They are
not state uh governed and restricted economies like like some
of the kind of European countries are. But they have
figured out how to provide uh what I call and
I gin poop call a infrastructure of care right. They
(35:25):
provide muchternity relief and paternity lead. And some of that
paternity lead is mandatory in the sense of its use.
That are losing if a man doesn't take it. Nobody
gets it that you can leave at four o'clock and
do your work later or not do your work. And
they still managed to be highly productive and competitive. They
have high quality care available, some state sponsored, some private.
(35:53):
So those countries really are ahead of us, the French
or way ahead of it in terms of providing fantastic childcare.
You know, parents who live in France for the first
five years of their children's lives, Like, why would you
ever go home? Because three months in you drop your
child off at state sponsored high quality care that ensures
that all kids get the kind of stimulation they need. Uh,
(36:16):
they have you know, home visits that they and and
France is the only one of the the continental European
countries where the birth rate is going up, right, because
they figured out if you make it easier to have kids,
you can in fact increase both your for your birthrate
and women in the labor force. So, but there are
other countries to where, um, you know, Japan interestingly enough
(36:42):
recognizes they desperately need women in the workforce and they
are starting to offer make it much easier for women
to have care alternatives. They of course are an aging
society and their pioneering elder care as well, and then
their their individual countries. In Britain has been great on
things like you have a right to demand flexible work,
(37:04):
that's all right, and so the idea that if you
work part time you're stigmatized none Britain, you know, and
it you know, Britain's an Anglo American competitive economy. There
are way ahead of us on changing cultural attitudes about
men and on working differently. And Anne Marie Slaughter really
(37:33):
does believe that we can break that we can break
with this pattern. And because almost because the United States
is so far behind in its care system, whether that's
paid or unpaid, whether it's child care or elder care,
we are so far behind and have so little infrastructure,
(37:53):
that we really do have the opportunity to leap frog
over some of the these other countries that do have
even if they're much smaller, they do have maternity care
for instance, And we can potentially do great things. We
are an innovative country, We are a country full of
hard working people. We can figure out this whole caregiving system. Yeah.
(38:20):
And and in that she really believes that we can
break down gender stereotypes by you know, kind of eliminating
this idea that women are the natural caregivers and that
men that because that also takes a choice away from
men to you know, men who might want to stay
home or men who might want more flexible schedules. Um.
(38:43):
And that we can achieve equality in caregiving and breadwinning,
which is something we should devote a podcast to. Um
bypassing policies, I mean again, like it's so clear that
she is such an academic, you know, and and again
such a policy wonk because she really sees that as
(39:05):
the way forward. Yeah. The example that she gave in
the rest of our conversation was basically like, look at
these countries, for instance, who never had infrastructure for landline
telephones when they caught up, and when they started building infrastructure,
they didn't like build the old infrastructure for landlines, they
went straight to building cell towers. And so she said,
we have an example, or we have a she said,
(39:28):
we have an opportunity in the US to do that too,
to leap frog the rest of the world. Uh. And
instead of creating leave only for women or only for parents,
the US can now build an infrastructure of paid leave
for anyone people who are caring for children, parents, the sick,
or the disabled in any family. And yeah, like you said,
part of this is breaking down those gender stereotypes around
(39:51):
what it means to be a caregiver, whether that's paid
or unpaid, and what it means to be uh, the
breadwinner and so thank you so much to the brilliant, warm,
amazing and Marie Slaughter for taking the time to talk
with me in New York at her office. And UH,
(40:11):
she and I were both fresh off of getting back
to New York from d C, where we had both
attended the United States of Women's Summit, which was incredible.
I was just there as press, uh she was there
as a speaker, and she was actually on a panel
with I gen poo Um of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. UH.
(40:32):
They spoke together with several other women on a panel
called Valuing Caregiving in the twenty first Century. And at
the summit they announced this coalition called Who Cares, and
it's a coalition that involves Slaughters Organization New America which
helped launch it, alongside care dot Com and uh Poo's
(40:56):
Caring across Generations. And basically what they're doing together is
working to bring attention to that important role that caregiving
does play in both our society in general but specifically
our economy, and just highlighting and supporting that need to
help our parents, our children, and ourselves by making the
caregiving system easier, better by improving the infrastructure around it,
(41:21):
and to learn more about that, you can go to
who Cares dot org. UM. Also, we highly recommend you
follow Anne Marie Slaughter on Twitter because she is very
active um and and drops gems of wisdom all the time.
You can follow her at slaughter a M which is
(41:41):
s l a U g h t e r a M.
And while you're at it, you should also follow high
gen Poo on Twitter because together, I really think that
they're just they're they're already changing the world, um, and
they're going to continue to absolutely And I think Slaughter
Am sounds like an incredible morning show on the radio,
(42:03):
So I love it. I'm you know, Amory. If you
want to carry on like a sound machine or like
a sound effects machine, just you know, or an air horn,
we're on board. I love the podcasters are pitching old
school radio radio station. It's just too good. UM. But
thank you again to Anne Marie, and I can't wait
to hear what our listeners think. UM. You know, are
(42:26):
you trapped in between a rock and hard place of
being in that generation having to care for young children
and also aging parents, UM, and facing a lack of
support from your workplace, from your family, from people around you.
Let us know mom Stuff at how stuff works dot
Com is our email address. You can also tweet us
(42:48):
at mom Stuff podcast or messages on Facebook, and we've
got a couple of messages to share with you before
we head on out. All right, Well, speaking of I
jim Poo Krestin, I have a letter here from Kathy
in response to our change Maker's conversation with I Gimpoo.
(43:09):
She says, Uh, it truly hit home. I heard you
both say that caregiving is a subject you would like
to hit on more in depth as well. I wanted
to suggest you also touch on the subject of children
and young adults that are placed in a caregiver role.
I'm thirty three years old and my mom was diagnosed
with MS right after I was born. My brother and
I were lucky in one way that my dad was
(43:30):
the primary caretaker, but we also had to take on
a caretaker role from my mom as a child. This
was hard. But even harder was when I became a
young adult, having to manage a career, social life, and
having to help out my family. I was having to
deal with things that some people in their fifties and
sixties still had yet to experience with their parents. I
know that this is a subject that many other children
(43:51):
face and an even harder circumstances. I'm also seeing the
effects that caregiving can have on older people, as I
witnessed my dad go from caretaker to now widower and
many struggles that brings. I'm also very inspired to see
what I can do to help make a difference for
others in this position. So thank you, Kathy, and I'm
so glad you enjoyed that episode with I gim Poo,
(44:11):
and I hope that means that you also enjoyed our
conversation today with Amory slaughter Well. I have a letter
here from Robin writing about our episode Feminism for Sale,
in which we talked to Andy Ziezler, who's a co
founder of Bitch Media and also the author of the
recently released We Were Feminists Once. And Robin mentioned that
(44:31):
she works at her university library and was really excited
when the library got a copy in of We Were
Feminist Once, and she writes, reading Ziesler's book and listening
to your conversation has encouraged me to consider my own
foray into feminism. When I started university four years ago,
I didn't identify as a feminist at all I believe.
(44:52):
I told my very feminist roommate that I didn't think
quote those kind of issues were relevant to me, and
I'm surprised her eyes and roll out of her head.
And by the end of my second term, however, I
was writing an essay interrogating patriarchal conceptions of disability in
the bell Jar. And I started taking feminism theory courses
in my second year, and since then much of what
(45:14):
I've written from my classes has looked at gender and sexuality. Now,
a day before I officially graduate, congrats PS. I am
proud to call myself a feminist, but I have to
wonder how much of my own journey has been influenced
by feminism's rising popularity. I had just finished my second
year of university when Beyonce made her feminist statement at
the v m A, and since then it seems as
(45:37):
though my personal declaration has been shared by many celebrities.
I covet those Indis with feminists on their rear. I'm
a sucker for a good, strong female character, and I
sometimes wonder if my decision not to regularly shave my
legs qualifies as a feminist choice, and it's not. I
just think it's a lot of work to get my
leg up in the shower. Well, I like to think
(45:58):
I'm more aware of feminist conversations that have been taking
place out of the limelight. I'm so undeniably influenced by
the rhetoric of marketplace and choice feminism. It's a lot
easier to call oneself a feminist in twenty sixteen while
ignoring political, economic, and social inequalities that continue to persist
around the world. Reading we were feminists once and listening
(46:19):
to wonderful podcast like Sminty remind me to constantly interrogate
my politics and refuse that kind of easy feminism which
doesn't challenge us to remake the world. Lots of love, Robin,
Lots of love back to you, Robin um and and
best of luck as you leave college into I don't
(46:40):
want to call the real world, because college is real,
but into the next step in your in your womanhood
and in your feminism. So with that, listeners, we also
want to hear from you. Mom. Stuff at how stuffworks
dot Com is our email address and for links to
all of our social media as well as all of
our blogs, videos and podcasts with our sources so you
(47:01):
can learn more about caregivers. Head on over to stuff
Mom Never told You dot com for more on this
and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff Works
dot com
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