June 22, 2016 • 62 mins
In June 2016, the White House Council on Women & Girls brought together 5,000 changemakers from all over the country for the first-ever United State of Women summit. But it wasn't the first gathering of its kind. Cristen and Caroline discuss the inspirational highlights of the summit and trace its origins to the 1977 National Women's Conference that put long overdue human rights front and center.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Vie Wilson, and
we're the co host of Stuff You Missed in History Class.
We are a history podcast that tries to look at
the things that maybe we're overlooked in your history classes,
maybe not covered in as much detail, or frankly, maybe
covered in a way that was not accurate. New episodes
come out every Monday and Wednesday on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify,
(00:22):
or anywhere else that podcasts can be listened to. Welcome
to Stuff Mom Never Told You. From House Toupports dot com. Hello,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline.
(00:44):
And last week Caroline and I were so honored to
attend the first ever White House Summit on the United
State of Women, so we wanted to devote an episode
to tell y'all all about this mass sive event that
we went to. It really was massive, unexpectedly so I
(01:05):
didn't really know what to expect. Looking at uh their
website and all the promotional stuff for the event, I
knew it was going to be amazing. I knew there
were gonna be some incredible women there um covering some
very important topics to women today and really to our
modern society today. Um, but imagine my surprise when I
(01:27):
showed up and there were five thousand people there. Yeah.
So this was organized by the White House Council on
Women and Girls, whose whole mission is to quote unquote
empower women's voices so that our priorities are considered in
every agency and in every one of the administration's policies
(01:49):
and programs and pieces of legislation we should support. Which
is great. So with the Obama administration on its way out, um,
the counsel on Women and Girls invited five thousand women
and a few men to the Washington, d C. Convention
Center for this summit that really covered every single women
(02:16):
in gender relevant issue that you could think of. Yeah,
it was really heartening to see the degree of intersectionality
included in this conference. Not only did virtually every person
on stage recognize the tragedy that had happened in Orlando
just a few days prior to the summit, but issues
(02:39):
of race, class, sexual orientation, gender, uh, socioeconomics, all of
these issues were touched on. Because what I was so
happy to see was that everyone involved, it seems, recognizes
that you can't make lasting and significant change without all
of us coming to other and so that was something
(03:01):
really beautiful to see at this conference. Also, I might
have cried when Obama talked. Yeah, President Obama gave one
of the most inspiring and tear jerking speeches of my
hands hurt from clapping his presidency. And as soon as
he left, of course, as as typically happens at mostly
(03:25):
women conferences, there was a rush for the bathroom and
standing in line, all of these women from all around
the country and all different backgrounds and from all different
types of places, whether it's nonprofits or um corporations, media, etcetera,
(03:46):
where almost stunned by what had been set in terms
of seeing the President of the United States delivering such
a directly feminist and intersectionally feminist talk that didn't feel
like it was just kind of a boiler plate Yeah,
(04:07):
women deserve equal rights, but actually digging into the legacy
of women um in the United States, and like all
of the activism that has come before us, and we're
gonna get more into some of the rad stuff that
Obama said. But Caroline, one thing that I was surprised
(04:30):
was never mentioned at all at the summit, which was
hailed as a historic moment was the fact that, yes,
it was historic, but it's not the first time this
has happened. Yeah, exactly. There was an important detail left out,
which is that thousands of again mostly women, have converged
(04:51):
before on a national scale to discuss pillars, um a
number of pillars that are important to tackle, including things
like the gender wage gap, domestic violence, reproductive rights, on
and on and yeah. I was also surprised that wasn't
mentioned at all, not even as an inspiration or like,
(05:12):
you know, in the spirit of the seventies. Here we
are again today in this giant conference room, because you know,
the White House loves just being all like spirit of
the seventies. Y'all. Obama is a real groovy dude. He is, well,
he is. Seriously though, he's a groovy It's true. Um. So,
(05:34):
for the first half of the podcast, we do want
to offer that historical context of the nineteen seventy seven
National Women's Conference, which is at the seminal moment in
second way feminism that I have a hunch a lot
of folks aren't aware of. And then the second half
of the podcast, we're going to turn our focus back
(05:56):
to the summit that Caroline and I just came back
from too. Kind of see how that you compare and
maybe give us a benchmark of where we've come from
and what progress we've made since then. So let's go
back in time. Let's their bell bottoms and fringed vests
(06:17):
and our glorious steinhum Aviator sunglasses. I know I should
have worn my my flares today, missed opportunity. That's what
I say every day. But the great thing about podcasting, Caroline,
is that it's all theater of the mind. That's right.
You can imagine us in our vests and bell bottoms. Yes,
(06:38):
and I'm not gonna like a cool belt to the
big big belt buckle to. I don't know if that
was something they did in the seventies, but I'm sure no.
I know for a fact that people did wear belts.
Oh yeah, excellent, you know everything, Caroline, It is amazing.
Real side note, speaking of seventies belts, I actually do.
I also know that people were belts in the seventies
(07:00):
because I found a belt of my dad's when I
was a kid from way back in the day that
had his name in blazoned on it. I know. I'm like,
I need to get one of those for me my dad.
I grew up with my dad wearing a very specific
fancy belt. It was leather and it had things carved
into it. I don't know what he did with it.
(07:21):
I wonder if he had to get rid of it,
like he had to get rid of his white leisure suit.
Sally r I p also listeners surprised this isn't an
episode about women's summits, but rather our dad's belts collections.
So that's that's not strange. Um. Now, before we get
to nineteen seventy seven and that National Women's Conference in
(07:44):
Observance of International Women's Year, which is it's full and
rather clunky official name, we've got a hot back a
couple of years to nineteen seventy five, when the United
Nations get things started by declaring seventy five International Women's Year.
It's kind of funny to me that they were like, yeah,
(08:06):
seventy five, it's International Women's Year. Oh wait, like gender
equality is so non existent, let's make it a whole decade.
I feel like it's just easier to ignore when you
stretch things out like that, like less of a concentrated punch, Oh, well,
that's a year. That's a very brief time to accomplish things.
(08:28):
And let's let's stretch it out to a decade. We'll
just tell them it's an honor of women, but really
it just means we have to do less and we're
just going to do a slow fade as we get
into the eighties for ten years. Yeah, and so in
seventy five, isn't this the same year? Didn't we talk
about International Women's Year in our episode on the strike
in Iceland? Yes, we did, Yeah, and there was it
(08:51):
might have been in seventy five, or maybe it was
in seventy nights. Sometime in the middle late seventies. There
was a similar women's strike in the US as well.
So ladies were getting fed up with some stuff. So
I mean studio so to speak, so putting it lightly right. So,
in nineteen five, as part of International Women's Year, US
(09:12):
President four Gerald Ford created the National Commission on the
Observance of International Women's Year. So, you know, not getting
creative with the title, uh to quote, promote equality between
men and women. Good on you, Ford, seems seems like
a basic thing. Yeah, it's good. Why not create a commission?
Good place to start to promote. Uh now, if we
(09:36):
then jumped to seven, you know, I can't tell you
what necessarily happened in those two years, what tangible things
came out of Ford's commission. But then Jimmy Carter is
elected ultimate caught a peanut farm from Georgia. Um. Carter
(09:57):
gets into office and he wants to do another commission
on women. So he creates a new National Commission on Women,
and he appoints state Representative Bella Absock, who is a
Democrat from New York, to co chair this new commission.
And if you haven't heard of Bella Absick before, she
(10:19):
is one of the primary leaders of Second Way feminism.
And she always wore a signature hat and she was
a real firebrand. So she always looks like she's about
to go on an exploration, which I appreciate, Yes, yes
she does. And she made it on the cover of
Life magazine sometime around then, which you know, it was
(10:42):
like a close up of her, you know, mid speech,
looking yes, like she was maybe about to strike out
on a trail somewhere. Um with her signature I believe
it was a red hat with Life magazine proclaiming like
Women's equality and feminism. This thing is happening. Um and
she was like a big deal because she was actually
in the government, so she had more, you know, leverage
(11:03):
to try to make some of these changes, these more
gender equitable changes happen. And in the process of that,
she successfully sponsored a bill to hold this national women's conference,
and Congress allocated five million dollars for state and national
meetings open to women over sixteen. I can't even imagine.
(11:25):
I mean, I can imagine this gathering happening. I can
imagine because we literally were just a part of it.
I can imagine thousands of women and a couple of
dudes coming together and talking about gender equity and feminism
and intersectionality. Um. I cannot, However, in today's political climate,
(11:45):
imagine Congress being like, yeah, here's a couple of mill
have at it, ladies, figure out this equality thing. Yeah,
do your thing. Hang out. Well. It was huge news
because this was the first and only up until this
White House summer. We just came back from the first
and only national women's conference sponsored by the federal government.
(12:10):
All right, and so here's how it went down. Here's
what happened. It wasn't just like a quick one off, like,
let's have a meeting and we're going to fix society,
because obviously Kristen and I still have a podcast where
we're talking about issues that have not been resolved. So
between February and July of nineteen seventy seven a very
groovy time for sure. Between about a hundred and thirty
(12:31):
and a hundred and fifty thousand women across this fine
country attended fifties six state meetings to elect National Conference
delegates and debates sixteen resolutions suggested by the National Commission
on the Observance of International International Women's ear See. I
can't even I can't even say. Yeah, it's quite a mouthful,
(12:53):
so many words. Why don't they have an acronym but
they probably do. I mean I could make it um.
But yeah, they elected just over two thousand delegates. So
I love the Caroline that there were many conferences leading
up to this conference, which probably had to do with
the non existence of websites and Twitter. You gotta get
(13:15):
everybody on board. But also it's during this era to
the second way of feminism. I mean, we were all
about meeting in person anyway, no website, no websites. You
gotta get together and you've got to vote people in.
And uh, it was noted in one of our sources.
I think it might have been over at PBS, because
there's a whole documentary about this called Sisters of Seventies seven,
(13:38):
and uh it noted that around twenty percent of the
state elected delegates were not feminists. Yeah, and they were
mostly from states that would not ratify the r A. Yes,
so a lot of states in the South, as you
might imagine. Um, so you have all these mini meetings
(13:58):
and then the two thousand and five official delegates who
are chosen. So this national conference a ka Nikola. Sure, yeah,
was tasked with formulating and passing a national plan of
action based on state level recommendations. I mean it is
(14:20):
a very bureaucratic process. Sure, and yet these were still
only to be suggestions. Of course, these were not official policy,
as we see again this year with the State of
Women's Summit and the Council on Women and Girls. These
are all suggestions. These are not official policies. We would
love them to be official policies. She says aggressively. Well,
(14:42):
you know what else was aggressive, Caroline? What the final
plan that these Sisters of seventies seven came up with um.
They highlighted twenty six different planks, as they called them,
centered on right, hold on, here we go, centered on
get ready for laundry, list, time, arts and humanities, domestic violence,
(15:06):
or as they called it back in the day, battered women,
women owned businesses, child abuse, child care, credit, disability education
entitled nine, getting more women into political office, the Equal
Rights Amendment, health insurance, more economic security for so called homemakers,
eliminating insurance, gender bias, including more women in State Department
(15:30):
and the Department of Defense, better representation in media, more
rights for women of color, post incarceration, rehabilitation for female prisoners,
older women, rape because at the time laws did not
recognize marital rape. I mean this is considered. Consider that
(15:51):
for a minute. You also have reproductive freedom, attention to
rural women, lesbian rights, a call for federal agency used
to collect statistics relevant two women. In all of these
different planks, as well as welfare and poverty. That's a
lot of planks. You could put a floor down with that,
(16:12):
or build a ship, but you can build a whole
whole menstrul hut with all those with all those planks. Wow,
we could work from home, and our she shed menstreul
Hut with all those planks. I'm sheltering under equality. I
love it. Caroline. I'm honestly kind of surprised that there
(16:35):
wasn't some kind of some kind of some some sort
of feminist edifice built at this event, because it was
so ceremonial and symbolic, like these sisters of seventy seven
took this conference so seriously. And I don't mean to
sound mocking at all. It's just it was just a
(16:57):
really really big deal. I mean, like a big style
big deal exactly. That's what I was gonna say. It's
like the freaking feminist Olympics. Because on September twenty nine,
seventy seven, they lit a torch at Seneca Falls. And
Seneca Falls is significant because it was the site of
America's first women's rights convention back in eighty eight, and
(17:18):
they ran it relay style all the way to Houston,
which was where the conference was taking place. Right. They
didn't just yeah, they were just like we're done, well,
we're in Houston. Uh well when in Houston, I don't know,
sit sit on the highway, I guess, um. Yeah, And
Maya Angelou even wrote a new Declaration of Sentiments to
(17:41):
accompany this event, and that torch did not just get
thrown off the side of a highway in Houston, thank goodness.
It was presented at the conference to first ladies Rosalind Carter,
Ladybird Johnson, and Betty Ford to officially open the national conference.
I love that all the first ladies. Yeah, and apparently
(18:02):
they each got up and spoke about their lives as
individual women and not solely as the wives of prominent
politicians as the media usually framed them. Well, I think
what I love even more thinking about that image of
all of those first ladies together, those big names in
(18:22):
the American government, I mean second wave feminism. These women
were considered so radical, they were considered almost anti American,
anti family for a lot of the very common sense
reforms that they were seeking, I mean, the idea of
making it easier for women to go to work and
make a paycheck and still have quality childcare. That was
(18:44):
slammed his anti family. And so to have these first
ladies there in solidarity, I mean, I think that speaks
volumes well. And as one of the papers I was
looking at um noted, this was really the first time
that second wave feminism was put on such a public platform,
(19:04):
Like a lot of people around the country had never
seen anything like this before. Um. I mean, and even
though you did have some anti feminists in the crowd,
and you you certainly had women like Philish Laughley leading
the charge outside protesting their Phillists, their quote unquote anti
family platforms. Um. It was considered a real victory moment
(19:30):
for a feminist and also to a sign of progress
for how far they had come in the diversity of
the crowd and the diversity of the planks, addressing not
just upper middle class white women's needs, but also recognizing uh, lesbians,
women of color, women with disabilities, and so forth. Right,
huge deal because so often when you hear about second
(19:53):
wave feminism, especially if you're not breaking it down and
talking about all the nitty gritty stuff in the movement,
you tip qickly tend to hear it referred to as
an upper class white women's movement that has left out
so many people of color, people of different socioeconomics standing.
So the fact that there were so many different types
of women at this conference was a huge milestone. Now, Caroline,
(20:14):
there were five thousand people in that convention center last week.
Imagine though in nine there were twenty thousand women at
that conference, Imagine the bathroom lines of that one. Oh wow,
oh and we should also can we take a quick okay,
so um, people who follow us on Instagram at stuff
(20:38):
mom never told you probably already know this, but one
highlight of the United States Women's Summit was that you
had the women's restroom and then the other restroom was
designated all genders, and it was It was fantastic because
A totally kept the lines manageable. And I intentionally used
(21:03):
the all genders restroom um both times, just because I
kind of wanted to see how other women would react
to using, you know, what would normally be the men's restroom,
but also react to how um the few men in
at the conference reacted. And the women were like, it
was like no difference whatsoever. And I caught like the
(21:26):
terrified bases of a couple of men there who just
you could tell they just weren't entirely sure if it
was okay that they were in there too, And of
course someone were like, no, it's fine, it's all genders,
no big deal. Yeah, there were baskets of tampons and
pads on the bathroom counters. Yeah, calling for an end
to the tampon text and for for free tampons. Well,
(21:47):
so it's interesting now is so that was all downstairs
because I also used that bathroom. While I used I
used all the bathroom, so many bathrooms. Um, but upstairs
at the conference center, it didn't have one of the
bathrooms I went to, at least did not of the
same sign outside that designated women and then all gender.
And so the women are obviously very good at following
(22:09):
directions because there was this huge line outside the women's room,
and of course no line for the men's room. And
I just I was sitting there because I was waiting
for you after one of our sessions, and I was
sitting there watching and I watched the like victorious liberation
moment as this woman was like, screw this, I'm going
into the men's room. And there was a male janitor
(22:31):
standing outside the bathroom and he goes, oh, no, no,
no no, because I guess he hadn't gotten the memo.
Uh huh. And she was like she basically did the
talk to the hand motion and just walked right on
in there. And he I looked at the guy and
he he just shrugged and was like, I don't I
don't know what to do with these women. Man, the
(22:51):
revolution starts at the toilet, right, So back to nine
seven though where Who knows what the bathroom situation there was.
What if there were all gender bathrooms? Probably not. I
hope they had enough snacks. Oh man, that's a big
concern for me, snacks. Um. We wanted to note though,
(23:11):
that some of the organizers of this huge event UM
include and Richards, who would go on to become the
governor of Texas, who was a huge feminist UM and
her daughter, Cecile Richards is the president of Planned Parenthood
now Gloria Steinem. Of course, Gloria steam was also at
(23:32):
the White House summit last week, Hispanic civil rights leader
Carmen Delgada Voutel, and many others. And like the state meetings,
there were debates over all of these planks and how
they were going to hash out this final plan, and
(23:53):
some of the planks were just, you know, unanimously agreed on.
Oh wait, only one was unions. Only one received unanimous support,
and that was an end to discrimination in consumer credit practices.
Several others received a majority of support, but that was
the only unanimously supported ones. But there were others that
were super hotly debated, and you can probably guess which
(24:17):
ones they were. Abortion and lesbian rights in particular aroused
the most debate. UM. But I did notice that domestic
violence was ended up being one of the most important
topics that they talked about, So that was probably something
huge that came out of this conference. Um. And and
(24:38):
also huge too, even though not everyone agreed on reproductive
rights and on the recognition of people of different sexual
orientations of the you know, the LGB community at this time,
because I don't even think the t was really even
recognized by this point, um, But it was still a
major moment of inclusion for women of color in particular. Yeah.
(25:02):
Jane Hickey, discussing this moment in history in the PBS
documentary Sisters of seventy seven, said, I don't believe that
Anglo women had heard directly expressed those sorts of frustrations
from other women who were Mexican American or Puerto Rican
American latina's ever before. I mean, like we said, this
is the this was such an inclusive moment in this
(25:23):
second way feminist movement. Yeah, and women of color. They're
criticized the American Women's movement, you know, helmed by a
lot of upper middle class white women, like say a
Bitty for Dan for overlooking their interests and intersectionalities. And
they had a captive audience really for the first time ever.
(25:43):
Like Hickey said, Um, So this huge conference happens and
they agree on all of these planks and as a result,
in ninety eight, President Carter establishes the National Advisory Committee
for Women based on those conference recommendations, and again Bella
Abzug is put installed as the chairperson for it. I'm
(26:05):
glad we're finally getting our names for things to be
a little shorter, whittling it down so now it's just
naa naka um. And in also the Senate approved a
three year extension for the e r A ratification because
at the time they were still three states short of
(26:26):
getting it ratified. Unfortunately, the three year extension would not
be long enough because the r A has still not
been ratified. But that's for another podcast at another time.
So the question is, though, did it make a difference,
did this symbolic mass gathering of women and mostly feminists
(26:49):
make any kind of impact in Washington and beyond. Can
we say, is that an answer? Yeah, I think is
kind of the answer. I think it helped, ibviously get
the conversation started. I mean, how could it not. You've
got all of these meetings on the local, state, and
now national level. So it did for sure open some dialogue.
(27:10):
But it's not that we got significant lasting policy changes
out of it across the board. Yeah. I mean you
also have to remember how few and still but even fewer,
women were in Congress at the time, and a lot
of male legislators seemed to approach the conference as like,
(27:31):
you know what, let's just give him five million dollars,
let them have their little thing. Um. I forget who
was saying this, um, but there was the perception by
some male politicians that it was going to be a
tea party. Yeah. And I mean, so while it didn't
have huge policy effect, necessarily necessarily, it did have a
(27:54):
very beneficial psychic effect, for lack of a better word,
for a lot of women involved. Anna Quinlin, who covered
the conference as it was happening, has looked back and
said that the meeting did obliterate the two walls that
have always divided women and made them blame themselves for
their own lack of status, isolation, and silence. So those
(28:15):
meetings because again no websites, no website, website none, not
even geo cities website, not even not even a live
journal in the house. Um, I mean, we've seen what
Twitter hashtag activism can do. So just imagine back in
the day, these women are finally able to really talk
(28:37):
to each other on this level about these hugely important issues.
And so of course that's a powerful moment to realize, Okay,
I'm not alone. Look at how many thousands of other
women want to talk about this. So while Congress made
little to no effort to enact any of those twenty
six action plan points that they hashed out, Gloria Steinem
(28:59):
and others saw the glass half full. So Steinham once said,
quote the all too familiar voting and money concentrations in
this country often allowed the right wing to stop us
at the government asking Daddy level. But we were and
still our strengthened enormously the populist global bottom up doing
it for yourselves level. So it seems like, in a way,
(29:22):
the outcome of it was not necessarily um and energizing
from the top down, but rather from the bottom up
at the grassroots level of like, okay, well we're all
together here, and clearly we're just gonna have to keep
working for all of these things that need to happen, right.
And part of why women would still have to band
(29:42):
together to try to make these changes happen is because
in nineteen nine, Carter ends up dismissing Absag from the
National Advisory Committee on Women NAQUA after she'd repeatedly criticize
the White House for cutting funding to social programs while
amping up military arry spending. And so basically the straw
(30:03):
that broke the camel's back in this situation is that
this commission then issued a critical press release of the
White House and their policies. Yeah, so once the press
release was found out about Carter kicks absuck out um.
And already the tension had been growing because Bella Abzug
(30:25):
and her fellow commission members like felt increasingly ignored because
they were would request meetings with the President and they
would kind of be put off and put off and
put off. And after President Carter dismisses Abzug from her position,
more than half of the remaining committee members resigned in
(30:46):
protest um. And this whole incident is what Glory Steinham
nicknamed the Friday Night massacre. Wow, it's an intense nickname. UM.
But it's notable that after that, the National Advisory Committee
on Women UM becomes the more reined in sounding President's
Advisory Committee for Women, so essentially explicitly saying, okay, you're
(31:11):
the President's Advisory Committee. You are not to act as
an independent body as absin some of those committee members
have been before by speaking publicly against the administration while
simultaneously working for the administration, which isn't exactly what you're
supposed to do politically. It becomes awkward. Yeah, there's a
lot of stony silence and some meetings awkward throat clearing
(31:39):
like this. But I mean that's still good, right, Like
there's still a President's Advisory Committee. Yeah, yeah, I mean
I think that President Carter was probably very key, you know,
committed to women's rights, pro gender equality. He even recently,
you know, came out with a book all about how
(32:00):
UM gender equality and developing nations is like the key
to peace. But of course the nine eighty Reagan is elected,
so dot dot dot dot. It seems like in only
three short years, the sisters of seventy seven are almost
swept aside um and I and I would like to
(32:21):
leave us at this point, though, with the lasting image
from the Houston conference where it reminds me Caroline of
Beyonce's MTV Music Awards performance from a couple of years ago,
where she had feminists in the background. They're sitting all
these women, twenty women are in this like huge convention hall,
(32:43):
and up on the stage they have women in huge
letters across the curtain and then like the female symbol
on either side of it, um and in in in
a way that that looks so full of hope and promise.
You know, yeah, I mean is in it? I'm I'm
squinting at it right now, isn't it the venus symbol
(33:05):
embedded in a dove? Is that a dove? Like, oh,
you're right, it is a dove. I didn't even notice. Yeah, man,
that's some excellent branding. More symbolism, symbolism on top of symbolism.
But here it is woman. She is having her moment
um and it kind of came and went, but those
(33:26):
issues remained, you know, the activism around all of those
twenty six planks certainly remained, and when we come right
back from a quick break, we want to look at
some similar themes that came up just last week. So,
as Kristin and I have talked about on the podcast
(33:47):
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(35:42):
So before we dive into even more juicy gossip, not
juicy gossip, just stories and like fangirling out over the president.
So before we dive into like how much we loved
attending that summit last week, we've got to go back
to two thousand nine because it was in March two
thousand nine that the President of the United States signed
the Executive Order for the creation of the White House
(36:04):
Council on Women and Girls. Because Obama has consistently been
a huge supporter of advancing the rights and equality of
women and girls, and that executive order from two thousand
nine highlighted issues related to the wage gap, stem participation,
health insurance, violence against women, education, and family leaves. So
(36:26):
really we're still hearing echoes of the nineteen seventies. And
he put Valerie chair It in place as chair and
Tina Chen as the executive director. And these two women
who we heard speak uh this past week, are are fabulous.
They are amazing at championing the causes of this council well.
(36:48):
And one thing that's that is a major contrast to
seventy seven is how Valerie Jarrett is senior advisor to
the President, so she is incredibly powerful in the White House. Um,
and of course, she, like you said, is the chair
of this Council on Women and Girls. And the fact
that this is coming more from a top down, uh
(37:09):
flow of power rather than women in their individual states
getting together to hash things out and then building it
up and trying to present it to the government to
Congress to try to enact some legislation is a sign
of progress, I would absolutely argue. And also the fact
that In that two thousand nine executive order, it emphasized
(37:33):
the need to essentially pay attention to intersectionality, taking into
account concerns of women and girls, including it specifies women
of color and those with disabilities. Although you have kind
of a caveat that the functions of this council are
advisory only, regardless, I think it's clear from attending that
(37:55):
conference though, the summit, that everyone in this administration, granted
they're on their way out, but is on board with
this idea. It's not like they're just paying massively expensive
lip service by holding this massive summit. I mean, these
are these are Paul Or These are ideas that the
President and Vice President and First Lady definitely stand behind well.
(38:18):
And and to like, speaking of the first Lady standing
behind it, you in n you know, you have the
appearance of those three first ladies. UM. Whereas at this
summit last week, Flotas was there, Sheelle Obama being hilarious, fabulous, wise,
et cetera, as per as per usual. UM. But you
(38:39):
also have Vice President Joe Biden, who kicked off the
morning speaking very passionately about violence against women, UM and
UH speaking out against sexual assault, especially sexual assault on
college campuses, you have the president appearing, and in that way,
(39:00):
it seems like there is UM a clear emphasis on
how gender equality is not just a woman's issue, correct, Yeah, totally, absolutely,
a massive focus on how changes to these issues would
not just help and support women, that they would help
and support all of us, because family leave is not
just a woman issue. It's not just a mom issue.
(39:22):
It's a family issue. And and so is violence, equality, pay.
All of these things tie into making our society better,
not just a woman's life better. Yeah, I mean, but
there are still so many echoes of seventy seven. If
you look at the pillars that the White House Summit
(39:43):
on the United States of Women emphasized, which were violence
against women, health and wellness, economic empowerment, entrepreneurship and innovation, education,
civic engagement, and leadership. And we should say that under
each of those pillars there were so so many, you know,
individual topics that were spoken about, so many different UM
(40:07):
organizations UH and NGOs from around the world in the
United States that were showcased and championed UM. But still
we see the recurrent these recurrent issues of Still we
have issues of girls access to education, especially in developing nations. Still,
(40:28):
obviously we have issues with reproductive rights, even here in
our own backyards. We have issues with you know, sexist
barriers to entrepreneurship, the gender wage gap, and on and
on and on. So this summit, as they noted, was
a moment to celebrate progress, but also to remind us
of all the work that we have to continue doing
(40:49):
into the future. Yeah, and I mean, I, for one,
was uh so glad to hear Joe Biden speaking on
violence against women, especially especi actually after the role he
played in the Anita Hill situation with Clarence Thomas that
we covered in our Anita Hill watched it, Yeah, how
(41:10):
he botched it? And so I mean that that warms
my cold dead heart that people can change, and that
he can then passionately speak on the topic and encourage
others to follow suit. Yeah, I mean, like, and I
agree that it is great to hear the vice presidents
saying all those things. But I was sitting there wanting
to yell out so badly what about Anita Hill. Oh sure,
(41:30):
That's what I was thinking the whole time, because people
can change, But it would be, oh how incredible it
would be if if it weren't such political suicide to
take responsibility for things in that realm that you speak
so passionately about, like you know, a sexual harassment, sexual violence,
to take responsibility for when you messed up? Can you
(41:52):
imagine if he had said, like I mean, that would
have brought my cold, dead heart entirely back to life.
If he had said, you know, I realized that I
aid this role in this situation and that I messed
it up, and I should have done this and this,
and I'm sorry. And what an opportunity to do it,
because yes, you're in front of five thousand women, but
also Carrie Washington, star of you know, the Confirmation biopic
(42:17):
um on HBO that she I think executive produced as well,
was also in attendance and looking ps hashtag flawless so good,
I mean, Kristen and I, uh it was, and we
were blocked. We couldn't get to her. We wanted to
interview her guys like creepy you know, like uh, stealthy
photos of her on my phone because and I know
(42:42):
this might sound weird, Caroline, but rarely am I in
such close proximity to such stunning beauty. And I didn't
realize she was in this small press room that we
were in when we when we first walked in and
I turned around, and as a fan of Scandal who
has a major lady crush on Olivia Pope, like did
(43:02):
a double take and just lost all of my words
and started kind of flailing my hands a little bit
until I realized like where I was and that I
needed to chill out. Yeah, and then to look over
and see Carrie Washington in deep conversation with Billy Jane King.
It was like, can I just, oh God, can I
just be one of Billy Jane King's sneakers so that
(43:24):
I can have access to this conversation. Uh, but you know,
I mean I'm not I'm not creepy or anything. Um,
but yeah, I was fabulous. So were there any sessions
or speakers that especially made an impression on you? Yeah? Um. MIKHAELA. Olmer,
who's the eleven year old founder and CEO of Me
(43:48):
and the Bees Lemonade, which you can get at fine
grocery stores near you. Uh, was fabulous. Um. I what
was I doing at eleven? I mean, nothing impressive really,
probably trying to draw in the lines of my coloring books.
But MICHAELA. Is heading up her own company, not only
because you know, she wants to make really delicious lemonade
(44:13):
and wants to be a you know, a badass entrepreneur kid,
a kid entrepreneur, but she wants to do it to
save the bees. She was stung by two bees in
a week and was like, screw the bees. I hate
them and I'm scared of them. And then she realized
she learned about what was happening in our world because
the bees are dying, the colony collapse disorder, and she
(44:35):
was like, I can do something this this kid, I
mean And this all started when she was much younger,
like four or five. But anyway, she was in diapers.
She yes, she was in utero, and she's like, Mom,
we've got to do something. I'm getting stung by all
these bees in here. Why are there so many bees
in your uterus um? I think that is a hysterical
uterus um. But this is a there's a transition here
(45:00):
because I loved hearing from Michaela as a young entrepreneur
who's so driven and level headed and clearly just amazing
and comfortable speaking in front of five thousand people. But
Michaela introduced the president of the United States when he
got up and spoke, and I you know, I I
did not expect to go to this conference, the summit
(45:22):
and say that the president was my favorite speech was
my favorite segment because there were so many amazing women
and amazing things being discussed, and important topics being discussed.
But for our countries, and I mean I talked about
this on social media because it was so overwhelming. But
for our country's first black president to get up on
stage and proudly shout the names of so many important
(45:45):
women in our country's history who have shaped this country
and shaped it for the better, I mean my mind
was blown with the awesomeness. I mean he even gave
a shout out to Polly Murray and Ruth Bader Ginsburg
in the same breath. And I mean I gave a
hoot from the back when he when he said Polly
(46:09):
Murray's name. By the time he got to Rosa Parks,
I was crying. I was crying. It was amazing. And
he didn't just mention Rosa Parks like one thing about
yeah the speech, he wasn't just name checking. He was
also contextualizing. So he described Rosa Parks as a quote
civil rights leader with the eye of a strategist in
(46:30):
the heart of a warrior, which is like, yes, she
absolutely was, because a lot of times Rosa Parks is
condensed just down to a tired woman who just wants
to take a seat on the bus, when in fact
she had been working for the Double A CP for years. Um.
And at the end when he quoted Audrey Lord saying
that this is a story we're gonna keep telling to
(46:51):
our girls so that they'll see that they too are
America confident and courageous and in the words of Audrey Lord,
deliberate and afraid of nothing. Fist pumping man. And yeah,
does see your president quoting Audrey Lord. And then also
before that, um, quoting Shirley Chisholm. Um was even though
(47:12):
I realized that we we walked out of the convention
back into quote unquote reality, and um, a very fraught
time politically, it was a nice moment to have. Yeah, yeah,
and um he also said, and Kristen posted this on
our Instagram. Uh, and I don't remember he posted to
(47:34):
our Facebook or not, but he definitely said this is
what a feminist looks like. Yeah, that's how he kicked
off and like, obviously I'm too old to have ever
seen the Beatles, but the reaction of five two oh,
thank you, I am much too old to have seen
those quote unquote mop tops um if it really, I
(47:56):
felt like it was the closest I'd ever been to
a Beatles concert because these women were listen it all
different kinds of women, all different kinds of women and
men just losing it um and two D the day
seeing Oprah interview Michelle Obama was uh, kind of unreal.
(48:19):
But what I love is that Oprah, who is self
aware and hilarious, definitely did her Oprah voice in introducing
Michelle Obama. So unfortunately all of us did not get cars. No,
but I definitely steel clapped with excitement because they are
amazing women and the fact that I watched them in
(48:41):
the same room speak to each other was incredible. And uh,
they have plans to go shopping, So that's another time
I wish I were someone sneaker and I could accompany
them on their on their adventures. Well, of course, seeing
celebs like Oprah, Uh one of another one of my
(49:02):
lady crushes, Connie Britton, Morriska Hargete and others on stage
was very exciting on on multiple levels. A of course,
to see celebrities, but also to see celebrities championing causes
that we talked about on stuff but I've never told
you all the time. For instance, Riska harget a Um
is very vocal against domestic violence. Connie Britton was introducing
(49:27):
Cecil Richards, you know, Planned Parenthood President Um. But that
morning it was Jaha Decoy, who's the founder of Safe
Hands for Girls, who left the biggest impression on me
because she started the first youth led movement against female
genital mutilation in Gambia. And not only did she speak
(49:50):
openly about the female genital mutilation that she experienced when
she was very, very young, but of course she also
spoke out against it and talked about I think she said,
just like Beyonce, she's going to keep making lemonade out
of her lemons, and she has devoted her life to
(50:10):
ending this practice. And that's the kind of stuff that
inspires me so much, because it's like, yeah, Connie Britton,
I love your hair and you're beautiful. But to hear
a woman who had probably very little resources to start
out with, who is now on stage selected by the
(50:32):
White House to speak before all of these women about
this incredibly important work that she's doing that probably makes
a lot of people uncomfortable to hear about because it
is such a specific and graphic form of violence against women. Um.
I was inspired and also just happy to see that
(50:54):
that was part of the conversation that day, that it
wasn't just fluff of like a celebrity bringing out, you know,
a feel good message education for girls, Like, of course
we need education for girls, but there are like real
hard issues that we need to confront, not just in
the US but around the world. Yeah. I thought that
(51:14):
was such a strong point of the summit and that
you know, they had these big speakers come out, you know,
Joe Biden spoke for an hour, but then after each
big quote unquote speaker, they did bring out a handful
of on the ground activists who have been fighting for
(51:34):
these causes as part of their life's work. And so I, yeah,
I was also absolutely inspired by Dirck Ray, who leads
the Safe Hands for Girls movement, which is there to
fight female general mutilation but also to support survivors. And
speaking of survivors, you had survivors of sexual assault, of
transgender discrimination, of racism, of all of these different issues
(52:01):
coming up to champion causes, but also openly share about
the discrimination and sometimes outright violence that they faced. Yeah,
and some people that we heard from UH, from the
It's on Us campaign, which is to end campus sexual
assault and violence. UM encouraged the audience to take the
(52:21):
pledge on their website to commit to keeping both women
and men safe and not just be a bystander who
ignores the very real problem of sexual assault and violence
on campuses, which of course is a huge issue that
people are talking about more and more now. And so
it was people like this who were really working to
(52:43):
bring visibility to these issues and not just have it,
like you said, be a feel good, fluffy celebrity conference,
but have it encourage and inspire people to take real
action outside once they left. And that's the question though,
like will we will this inspire real world action? UM?
(53:06):
Will it have maybe a more significant political impact than
that ninete still significant UM National Women's Conference, Because these
kinds of events that you and I get to go
to sometimes are very inspiring when you are there in
(53:27):
the room and you are surrounded by all of these people,
but then you kind of pull back a little bit
and you see like, oh, there are a lot of
like corporate entities here. Oh, there are a lot of
celebrities here. Oh there are a lot of not necessarily
in this case, um, but in other cases like oh
there's there's a lot of just like swag here, Like
what are what is all of this really amounting to?
(53:50):
I mean, I think that it's it's a nice moment
for the Obama administration and particularly that White House Counsel
and women, Women and Girls, which who knows if it
will be around with the next administration for them to
you know, kind of pass along that torch, so to speak. Um,
but I but I do want The skeptical side of
(54:12):
me wonders like is it going to make a difference?
But while the cynical side of me questions whether it
will make any tangible difference in the lives, particularly of
marginalized communities that need these resources and these rights, um
the most, the optimistic side of me says, the fact
(54:34):
that very that it even happened, and how it happened,
and that there were so many celebrities on hand to
openly talk about feminism and gender equality is a sign
that we have moved the needle since nineteen seven that
this isn't just you know, some niche topic that we
recognize that women's rights are human rights. Yeah, and you
(55:00):
mentioned earlier that the difference between this summit and the
one in the seventies was that this was more of
a top down mandate of the White House saying, let's
make a change, let's bring all these people together. And
the more I thought about it over the course of
our conversation, the more I have to say, I'm not
sure that's entirely accurate. I think it's right, but I
think what it is is that the White House, the
(55:24):
the administration is recognizing everyone who is at the bottom
working up, and so it's almost more like a meeting
in the middle that we're finally and I'm hoping that
we can have some magical chemical reaction that happens when
moving from the top down and moving from the bottom
up when they finally meet. Because we do, it feels
(55:46):
like we're having this groundswell of of um awareness about
activism and about issues that that impact women and society,
including men and children as well. UM. But these people
have always been there, These activists have always been working
and pushing and struggling to get new laws passed to
(56:08):
end violence and etcetera, etcetera. And so I think it's
it's not so much from the bottom up or the
top down, but a finally finally coming together. Yeah, and
I'm like forty five minutes late to note this. You're
absolutely right, because most of those five thousand people in
(56:31):
the audience were women from around the country who were
nominated by their communities but also identified by the White
House as being change agents for women and girls in
particular in their hometown. And do you know who one
of those women was who was not able to attend
(56:52):
Our very own Raquel Willis, who was has appeared on
a couple of our Sminty episodes now talking about trans
rights and visibility and media. And she was nominated to
attend and couldn't go. And so I mean, there you go.
That's a wonderful illustration of just a glimpse into who
was in that audience that day. It's people like Riquel
(57:15):
who really fight for rights of people on the ground
every day. She's pushing for change. And so to imagine
kind of gives you chills to think about five thousand
Raquels and and five thousand people who are really working
to to save lives and change the world. So it's
a reminder then to look around our communities of the
(57:38):
people who are doing the work, because they are there,
and if they're not there, you can become a change
change it. And also it underscores the importance of political
participation because if you want people who will continue this
kind of work in the federal government, your got a
(58:00):
vote him in. Yeah, and and call and be obnoxious
to your congress people. Can you text them? I would
vote to just vote. I would vote that you obsessively
call let them hear your voice. No text messages can
get north. I can be very persistent with my emogis UM.
(58:23):
But listeners, UM, this was really great to be able
to share this with you, and we're curious if anyone
listening was also there. UM. There's all sorts of media
coverage about more specifics of the summit um which we
will post in the podcast UM linked to this if
you want to read more about it. But we just
(58:45):
love to know your thoughts. What do you think the
United States of Women is today? Moms Stuff at how
Stuff Works dot Com is our email address. You can
also tweet us at Mom's Stuff podcast or messages on Facebook,
and we've got a couple of messages this year with
you right out. Well, I have a letter here from
Emily in response to our rom com Sidekicks episode. She says, Hey, ladies,
(59:10):
I love your series on rom coms, but I've noticed
that you haven't mentioned any musical so far. There's so
many musicals that are simply rom coms with song and
dance numbers. Mama Mia, Hair Spray and Greece first come
to mind. I thought of this when listening to your
podcast on rom com Besties, when you were talking about
second bananas. The first example to pop into my head
(59:31):
was from Singing in the Rain. In the film, Donald
O'Connor plays Cosmo Brown, who was second banana to main
man Don Lockwood, played by Gene Kelly. All of his
songs are comedic and energetic, such as make Him Laugh
while gene Kelly sings all the crooning Lovey Debbie songs
like Singing in the Rain. Also, when you mentioned the
second banana maybe more effeminate or sexually ambiguous, I realized
(59:54):
that all of the songs Donald O'Connor sings sounds similar
to some of the songs the main lady, Debbie Rental sings.
She does get a few lovey Debbie songs since she
is the main love interest, but she also sings bubblier
songs like good Morning. While they're not comedy pieces, they
are lighter songs used to fluff out the movie much
like make them laugh. It's interesting to me that even
(01:00:14):
the Second Banana songs are effeminate as well. So thank you, Emily.
So I've got a letter here from Liz about our
Sidekicks rom Calm episode, and she writes, I was amazed
that you guys skipped over. She's all that seventeen years
later and that film is still an absolute delight with
some choice sidekicks. We've got Paul Walker as the sexy
(01:00:36):
scumbag second Banana dual Hill, Little Kim, Gabrielle Union and
Usher as the somewhat token Black brons, who have Anna
Paquin and Karen Coulkin as the sibling sidekicks, and one
of the Bash brothers from The Mighty Ducks is a
holy non sexual man friend. The only thing She's All
That is missing is Judy Greer as a clumsy yet
(01:00:57):
relatable teacher. But my personal favorite sidekick is Gabrielle Union
and ten Things I Hate about You. Her transition for
vapid pretty friend to snide kick is cinematic genius, the
likes of which my nine year old self had never seen,
and she quotes Gabrielle Union's characters saying, I know you
can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can
(01:01:17):
you ever just be whelmed? I actually a side note,
I think about that all the time. It's a great quote,
even though I can't help but give Chastity the begrudging
respect she deserves for being the only other freshman who've
got invited to prom. So thanks Liz, and thanks to
everybody who's written into us. Mom Stuff and how stuff
Works dot com is our email address and for links
(01:01:39):
to all of our social media as well as all
of our blogs, videos, and sources. So you can learn
more about the United State of Women and those sisters
of seven two seven. Head on over to stuff Mom
Never Told You dot com for moralns and thousands of
other topics. Is it how stuff Works dot com. Three
Hi, I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Vie Wilson, and
we're the co host of Stuff You Missed in History Class.
We are a history podcast that tries to look at
the things that maybe we're overlooked in your history classes,
maybe not covered in as much detail, or frankly, maybe
covered in a way that was not accurate. New episodes
come out every Monday and Wednesday on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify,
(00:22):
or anywhere else that podcasts can be listened to. Welcome
to Stuff Mom Never Told You. From House Toupports dot com. Hello,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline.
(00:44):
And last week Caroline and I were so honored to
attend the first ever White House Summit on the United
State of Women, so we wanted to devote an episode
to tell y'all all about this mass sive event that
we went to. It really was massive, unexpectedly so I
(01:05):
didn't really know what to expect. Looking at uh their
website and all the promotional stuff for the event, I
knew it was going to be amazing. I knew there
were gonna be some incredible women there um covering some
very important topics to women today and really to our
modern society today. Um, but imagine my surprise when I
(01:27):
showed up and there were five thousand people there. Yeah.
So this was organized by the White House Council on
Women and Girls, whose whole mission is to quote unquote
empower women's voices so that our priorities are considered in
every agency and in every one of the administration's policies
(01:49):
and programs and pieces of legislation we should support. Which
is great. So with the Obama administration on its way out, um,
the counsel on Women and Girls invited five thousand women
and a few men to the Washington, d C. Convention
Center for this summit that really covered every single women
(02:16):
in gender relevant issue that you could think of. Yeah,
it was really heartening to see the degree of intersectionality
included in this conference. Not only did virtually every person
on stage recognize the tragedy that had happened in Orlando
just a few days prior to the summit, but issues
(02:39):
of race, class, sexual orientation, gender, uh, socioeconomics, all of
these issues were touched on. Because what I was so
happy to see was that everyone involved, it seems, recognizes
that you can't make lasting and significant change without all
of us coming to other and so that was something
(03:01):
really beautiful to see at this conference. Also, I might
have cried when Obama talked. Yeah, President Obama gave one
of the most inspiring and tear jerking speeches of my
hands hurt from clapping his presidency. And as soon as
he left, of course, as as typically happens at mostly
(03:25):
women conferences, there was a rush for the bathroom and
standing in line, all of these women from all around
the country and all different backgrounds and from all different
types of places, whether it's nonprofits or um corporations, media, etcetera,
(03:46):
where almost stunned by what had been set in terms
of seeing the President of the United States delivering such
a directly feminist and intersectionally feminist talk that didn't feel
like it was just kind of a boiler plate Yeah,
(04:07):
women deserve equal rights, but actually digging into the legacy
of women um in the United States, and like all
of the activism that has come before us, and we're
gonna get more into some of the rad stuff that
Obama said. But Caroline, one thing that I was surprised
(04:30):
was never mentioned at all at the summit, which was
hailed as a historic moment was the fact that, yes,
it was historic, but it's not the first time this
has happened. Yeah, exactly. There was an important detail left out,
which is that thousands of again mostly women, have converged
(04:51):
before on a national scale to discuss pillars, um a
number of pillars that are important to tackle, including things
like the gender wage gap, domestic violence, reproductive rights, on
and on and yeah. I was also surprised that wasn't
mentioned at all, not even as an inspiration or like,
(05:12):
you know, in the spirit of the seventies. Here we
are again today in this giant conference room, because you know,
the White House loves just being all like spirit of
the seventies. Y'all. Obama is a real groovy dude. He is, well,
he is. Seriously though, he's a groovy It's true. Um. So,
(05:34):
for the first half of the podcast, we do want
to offer that historical context of the nineteen seventy seven
National Women's Conference, which is at the seminal moment in
second way feminism that I have a hunch a lot
of folks aren't aware of. And then the second half
of the podcast, we're going to turn our focus back
(05:56):
to the summit that Caroline and I just came back
from too. Kind of see how that you compare and
maybe give us a benchmark of where we've come from
and what progress we've made since then. So let's go
back in time. Let's their bell bottoms and fringed vests
(06:17):
and our glorious steinhum Aviator sunglasses. I know I should
have worn my my flares today, missed opportunity. That's what
I say every day. But the great thing about podcasting, Caroline,
is that it's all theater of the mind. That's right.
You can imagine us in our vests and bell bottoms. Yes,
(06:38):
and I'm not gonna like a cool belt to the
big big belt buckle to. I don't know if that
was something they did in the seventies, but I'm sure no.
I know for a fact that people did wear belts.
Oh yeah, excellent, you know everything, Caroline, It is amazing.
Real side note, speaking of seventies belts, I actually do.
I also know that people were belts in the seventies
(07:00):
because I found a belt of my dad's when I
was a kid from way back in the day that
had his name in blazoned on it. I know. I'm like,
I need to get one of those for me my dad.
I grew up with my dad wearing a very specific
fancy belt. It was leather and it had things carved
into it. I don't know what he did with it.
(07:21):
I wonder if he had to get rid of it,
like he had to get rid of his white leisure suit.
Sally r I p also listeners surprised this isn't an
episode about women's summits, but rather our dad's belts collections.
So that's that's not strange. Um. Now, before we get
to nineteen seventy seven and that National Women's Conference in
(07:44):
Observance of International Women's Year, which is it's full and
rather clunky official name, we've got a hot back a
couple of years to nineteen seventy five, when the United
Nations get things started by declaring seventy five International Women's Year.
It's kind of funny to me that they were like, yeah,
(08:06):
seventy five, it's International Women's Year. Oh wait, like gender
equality is so non existent, let's make it a whole decade.
I feel like it's just easier to ignore when you
stretch things out like that, like less of a concentrated punch, Oh, well,
that's a year. That's a very brief time to accomplish things.
(08:28):
And let's let's stretch it out to a decade. We'll
just tell them it's an honor of women, but really
it just means we have to do less and we're
just going to do a slow fade as we get
into the eighties for ten years. Yeah, and so in
seventy five, isn't this the same year? Didn't we talk
about International Women's Year in our episode on the strike
in Iceland? Yes, we did, Yeah, and there was it
(08:51):
might have been in seventy five, or maybe it was
in seventy nights. Sometime in the middle late seventies. There
was a similar women's strike in the US as well.
So ladies were getting fed up with some stuff. So
I mean studio so to speak, so putting it lightly right. So,
in nineteen five, as part of International Women's Year, US
(09:12):
President four Gerald Ford created the National Commission on the
Observance of International Women's Year. So, you know, not getting
creative with the title, uh to quote, promote equality between
men and women. Good on you, Ford, seems seems like
a basic thing. Yeah, it's good. Why not create a commission?
Good place to start to promote. Uh now, if we
(09:36):
then jumped to seven, you know, I can't tell you
what necessarily happened in those two years, what tangible things
came out of Ford's commission. But then Jimmy Carter is
elected ultimate caught a peanut farm from Georgia. Um. Carter
(09:57):
gets into office and he wants to do another commission
on women. So he creates a new National Commission on Women,
and he appoints state Representative Bella Absock, who is a
Democrat from New York, to co chair this new commission.
And if you haven't heard of Bella Absick before, she
(10:19):
is one of the primary leaders of Second Way feminism.
And she always wore a signature hat and she was
a real firebrand. So she always looks like she's about
to go on an exploration, which I appreciate, Yes, yes
she does. And she made it on the cover of
Life magazine sometime around then, which you know, it was
(10:42):
like a close up of her, you know, mid speech,
looking yes, like she was maybe about to strike out
on a trail somewhere. Um with her signature I believe
it was a red hat with Life magazine proclaiming like
Women's equality and feminism. This thing is happening. Um and
she was like a big deal because she was actually
in the government, so she had more, you know, leverage
(11:03):
to try to make some of these changes, these more
gender equitable changes happen. And in the process of that,
she successfully sponsored a bill to hold this national women's conference,
and Congress allocated five million dollars for state and national
meetings open to women over sixteen. I can't even imagine.
(11:25):
I mean, I can imagine this gathering happening. I can
imagine because we literally were just a part of it.
I can imagine thousands of women and a couple of
dudes coming together and talking about gender equity and feminism
and intersectionality. Um. I cannot, However, in today's political climate,
(11:45):
imagine Congress being like, yeah, here's a couple of mill
have at it, ladies, figure out this equality thing. Yeah,
do your thing. Hang out. Well. It was huge news
because this was the first and only up until this
White House summer. We just came back from the first
and only national women's conference sponsored by the federal government.
(12:10):
All right, and so here's how it went down. Here's
what happened. It wasn't just like a quick one off, like,
let's have a meeting and we're going to fix society,
because obviously Kristen and I still have a podcast where
we're talking about issues that have not been resolved. So
between February and July of nineteen seventy seven a very
groovy time for sure. Between about a hundred and thirty
(12:31):
and a hundred and fifty thousand women across this fine
country attended fifties six state meetings to elect National Conference
delegates and debates sixteen resolutions suggested by the National Commission
on the Observance of International International Women's ear See. I
can't even I can't even say. Yeah, it's quite a mouthful,
(12:53):
so many words. Why don't they have an acronym but
they probably do. I mean I could make it um.
But yeah, they elected just over two thousand delegates. So
I love the Caroline that there were many conferences leading
up to this conference, which probably had to do with
the non existence of websites and Twitter. You gotta get
(13:15):
everybody on board. But also it's during this era to
the second way of feminism. I mean, we were all
about meeting in person anyway, no website, no websites. You
gotta get together and you've got to vote people in.
And uh, it was noted in one of our sources.
I think it might have been over at PBS, because
there's a whole documentary about this called Sisters of Seventies seven,
(13:38):
and uh it noted that around twenty percent of the
state elected delegates were not feminists. Yeah, and they were
mostly from states that would not ratify the r A. Yes,
so a lot of states in the South, as you
might imagine. Um, so you have all these mini meetings
(13:58):
and then the two thousand and five official delegates who
are chosen. So this national conference a ka Nikola. Sure, yeah,
was tasked with formulating and passing a national plan of
action based on state level recommendations. I mean it is
(14:20):
a very bureaucratic process. Sure, and yet these were still
only to be suggestions. Of course, these were not official policy,
as we see again this year with the State of
Women's Summit and the Council on Women and Girls. These
are all suggestions. These are not official policies. We would
love them to be official policies. She says aggressively. Well,
(14:42):
you know what else was aggressive, Caroline? What the final
plan that these Sisters of seventies seven came up with um.
They highlighted twenty six different planks, as they called them,
centered on right, hold on, here we go, centered on
get ready for laundry, list, time, arts and humanities, domestic violence,
(15:06):
or as they called it back in the day, battered women,
women owned businesses, child abuse, child care, credit, disability education
entitled nine, getting more women into political office, the Equal
Rights Amendment, health insurance, more economic security for so called homemakers,
eliminating insurance, gender bias, including more women in State Department
(15:30):
and the Department of Defense, better representation in media, more
rights for women of color, post incarceration, rehabilitation for female prisoners,
older women, rape because at the time laws did not
recognize marital rape. I mean this is considered. Consider that
(15:51):
for a minute. You also have reproductive freedom, attention to
rural women, lesbian rights, a call for federal agency used
to collect statistics relevant two women. In all of these
different planks, as well as welfare and poverty. That's a
lot of planks. You could put a floor down with that,
(16:12):
or build a ship, but you can build a whole
whole menstrul hut with all those with all those planks. Wow,
we could work from home, and our she shed menstreul
Hut with all those planks. I'm sheltering under equality. I
love it. Caroline. I'm honestly kind of surprised that there
(16:35):
wasn't some kind of some kind of some some sort
of feminist edifice built at this event, because it was
so ceremonial and symbolic, like these sisters of seventy seven
took this conference so seriously. And I don't mean to
sound mocking at all. It's just it was just a
(16:57):
really really big deal. I mean, like a big style
big deal exactly. That's what I was gonna say. It's
like the freaking feminist Olympics. Because on September twenty nine,
seventy seven, they lit a torch at Seneca Falls. And
Seneca Falls is significant because it was the site of
America's first women's rights convention back in eighty eight, and
(17:18):
they ran it relay style all the way to Houston,
which was where the conference was taking place. Right. They
didn't just yeah, they were just like we're done, well,
we're in Houston. Uh well when in Houston, I don't know,
sit sit on the highway, I guess, um. Yeah, And
Maya Angelou even wrote a new Declaration of Sentiments to
(17:41):
accompany this event, and that torch did not just get
thrown off the side of a highway in Houston, thank goodness.
It was presented at the conference to first ladies Rosalind Carter,
Ladybird Johnson, and Betty Ford to officially open the national conference.
I love that all the first ladies. Yeah, and apparently
(18:02):
they each got up and spoke about their lives as
individual women and not solely as the wives of prominent
politicians as the media usually framed them. Well, I think
what I love even more thinking about that image of
all of those first ladies together, those big names in
(18:22):
the American government, I mean second wave feminism. These women
were considered so radical, they were considered almost anti American,
anti family for a lot of the very common sense
reforms that they were seeking, I mean, the idea of
making it easier for women to go to work and
make a paycheck and still have quality childcare. That was
(18:44):
slammed his anti family. And so to have these first
ladies there in solidarity, I mean, I think that speaks
volumes well. And as one of the papers I was
looking at um noted, this was really the first time
that second wave feminism was put on such a public platform,
(19:04):
Like a lot of people around the country had never
seen anything like this before. Um. I mean, and even
though you did have some anti feminists in the crowd,
and you you certainly had women like Philish Laughley leading
the charge outside protesting their Phillists, their quote unquote anti
family platforms. Um. It was considered a real victory moment
(19:30):
for a feminist and also to a sign of progress
for how far they had come in the diversity of
the crowd and the diversity of the planks, addressing not
just upper middle class white women's needs, but also recognizing uh, lesbians,
women of color, women with disabilities, and so forth. Right,
huge deal because so often when you hear about second
(19:53):
wave feminism, especially if you're not breaking it down and
talking about all the nitty gritty stuff in the movement,
you tip qickly tend to hear it referred to as
an upper class white women's movement that has left out
so many people of color, people of different socioeconomics standing.
So the fact that there were so many different types
of women at this conference was a huge milestone. Now, Caroline,
(20:14):
there were five thousand people in that convention center last week.
Imagine though in nine there were twenty thousand women at
that conference, Imagine the bathroom lines of that one. Oh wow,
oh and we should also can we take a quick okay,
so um, people who follow us on Instagram at stuff
(20:38):
mom never told you probably already know this, but one
highlight of the United States Women's Summit was that you
had the women's restroom and then the other restroom was
designated all genders, and it was It was fantastic because
A totally kept the lines manageable. And I intentionally used
(21:03):
the all genders restroom um both times, just because I
kind of wanted to see how other women would react
to using, you know, what would normally be the men's restroom,
but also react to how um the few men in
at the conference reacted. And the women were like, it
was like no difference whatsoever. And I caught like the
(21:26):
terrified bases of a couple of men there who just
you could tell they just weren't entirely sure if it
was okay that they were in there too, And of
course someone were like, no, it's fine, it's all genders,
no big deal. Yeah, there were baskets of tampons and
pads on the bathroom counters. Yeah, calling for an end
to the tampon text and for for free tampons. Well,
(21:47):
so it's interesting now is so that was all downstairs
because I also used that bathroom. While I used I
used all the bathroom, so many bathrooms. Um, but upstairs
at the conference center, it didn't have one of the
bathrooms I went to, at least did not of the
same sign outside that designated women and then all gender.
And so the women are obviously very good at following
(22:09):
directions because there was this huge line outside the women's room,
and of course no line for the men's room. And
I just I was sitting there because I was waiting
for you after one of our sessions, and I was
sitting there watching and I watched the like victorious liberation
moment as this woman was like, screw this, I'm going
into the men's room. And there was a male janitor
(22:31):
standing outside the bathroom and he goes, oh, no, no,
no no, because I guess he hadn't gotten the memo.
Uh huh. And she was like she basically did the
talk to the hand motion and just walked right on
in there. And he I looked at the guy and
he he just shrugged and was like, I don't I
don't know what to do with these women. Man, the
(22:51):
revolution starts at the toilet, right, So back to nine
seven though where Who knows what the bathroom situation there was.
What if there were all gender bathrooms? Probably not. I
hope they had enough snacks. Oh man, that's a big
concern for me, snacks. Um. We wanted to note though,
(23:11):
that some of the organizers of this huge event UM
include and Richards, who would go on to become the
governor of Texas, who was a huge feminist UM and
her daughter, Cecile Richards is the president of Planned Parenthood
now Gloria Steinem. Of course, Gloria steam was also at
(23:32):
the White House summit last week, Hispanic civil rights leader
Carmen Delgada Voutel, and many others. And like the state meetings,
there were debates over all of these planks and how
they were going to hash out this final plan, and
(23:53):
some of the planks were just, you know, unanimously agreed on.
Oh wait, only one was unions. Only one received unanimous support,
and that was an end to discrimination in consumer credit practices.
Several others received a majority of support, but that was
the only unanimously supported ones. But there were others that
were super hotly debated, and you can probably guess which
(24:17):
ones they were. Abortion and lesbian rights in particular aroused
the most debate. UM. But I did notice that domestic
violence was ended up being one of the most important
topics that they talked about, So that was probably something
huge that came out of this conference. Um. And and
(24:38):
also huge too, even though not everyone agreed on reproductive
rights and on the recognition of people of different sexual
orientations of the you know, the LGB community at this time,
because I don't even think the t was really even
recognized by this point, um, But it was still a
major moment of inclusion for women of color in particular. Yeah.
(25:02):
Jane Hickey, discussing this moment in history in the PBS
documentary Sisters of seventy seven, said, I don't believe that
Anglo women had heard directly expressed those sorts of frustrations
from other women who were Mexican American or Puerto Rican
American latina's ever before. I mean, like we said, this
is the this was such an inclusive moment in this
(25:23):
second way feminist movement. Yeah, and women of color. They're
criticized the American Women's movement, you know, helmed by a
lot of upper middle class white women, like say a
Bitty for Dan for overlooking their interests and intersectionalities. And
they had a captive audience really for the first time ever.
(25:43):
Like Hickey said, Um, So this huge conference happens and
they agree on all of these planks and as a result,
in ninety eight, President Carter establishes the National Advisory Committee
for Women based on those conference recommendations, and again Bella
Abzug is put installed as the chairperson for it. I'm
(26:05):
glad we're finally getting our names for things to be
a little shorter, whittling it down so now it's just
naa naka um. And in also the Senate approved a
three year extension for the e r A ratification because
at the time they were still three states short of
(26:26):
getting it ratified. Unfortunately, the three year extension would not
be long enough because the r A has still not
been ratified. But that's for another podcast at another time.
So the question is, though, did it make a difference,
did this symbolic mass gathering of women and mostly feminists
(26:49):
make any kind of impact in Washington and beyond. Can
we say, is that an answer? Yeah, I think is
kind of the answer. I think it helped, ibviously get
the conversation started. I mean, how could it not. You've
got all of these meetings on the local, state, and
now national level. So it did for sure open some dialogue.
(27:10):
But it's not that we got significant lasting policy changes
out of it across the board. Yeah. I mean you
also have to remember how few and still but even fewer,
women were in Congress at the time, and a lot
of male legislators seemed to approach the conference as like,
(27:31):
you know what, let's just give him five million dollars,
let them have their little thing. Um. I forget who
was saying this, um, but there was the perception by
some male politicians that it was going to be a
tea party. Yeah. And I mean, so while it didn't
have huge policy effect, necessarily necessarily, it did have a
(27:54):
very beneficial psychic effect, for lack of a better word,
for a lot of women involved. Anna Quinlin, who covered
the conference as it was happening, has looked back and
said that the meeting did obliterate the two walls that
have always divided women and made them blame themselves for
their own lack of status, isolation, and silence. So those
(28:15):
meetings because again no websites, no website, website none, not
even geo cities website, not even not even a live
journal in the house. Um, I mean, we've seen what
Twitter hashtag activism can do. So just imagine back in
the day, these women are finally able to really talk
(28:37):
to each other on this level about these hugely important issues.
And so of course that's a powerful moment to realize, Okay,
I'm not alone. Look at how many thousands of other
women want to talk about this. So while Congress made
little to no effort to enact any of those twenty
six action plan points that they hashed out, Gloria Steinem
(28:59):
and others saw the glass half full. So Steinham once said,
quote the all too familiar voting and money concentrations in
this country often allowed the right wing to stop us
at the government asking Daddy level. But we were and
still our strengthened enormously the populist global bottom up doing
it for yourselves level. So it seems like, in a way,
(29:22):
the outcome of it was not necessarily um and energizing
from the top down, but rather from the bottom up
at the grassroots level of like, okay, well we're all
together here, and clearly we're just gonna have to keep
working for all of these things that need to happen, right.
And part of why women would still have to band
(29:42):
together to try to make these changes happen is because
in nineteen nine, Carter ends up dismissing Absag from the
National Advisory Committee on Women NAQUA after she'd repeatedly criticize
the White House for cutting funding to social programs while
amping up military arry spending. And so basically the straw
(30:03):
that broke the camel's back in this situation is that
this commission then issued a critical press release of the
White House and their policies. Yeah, so once the press
release was found out about Carter kicks absuck out um.
And already the tension had been growing because Bella Abzug
(30:25):
and her fellow commission members like felt increasingly ignored because
they were would request meetings with the President and they
would kind of be put off and put off and
put off. And after President Carter dismisses Abzug from her position,
more than half of the remaining committee members resigned in
(30:46):
protest um. And this whole incident is what Glory Steinham
nicknamed the Friday Night massacre. Wow, it's an intense nickname. UM.
But it's notable that after that, the National Advisory Committee
on Women UM becomes the more reined in sounding President's
Advisory Committee for Women, so essentially explicitly saying, okay, you're
(31:11):
the President's Advisory Committee. You are not to act as
an independent body as absin some of those committee members
have been before by speaking publicly against the administration while
simultaneously working for the administration, which isn't exactly what you're
supposed to do politically. It becomes awkward. Yeah, there's a
lot of stony silence and some meetings awkward throat clearing
(31:39):
like this. But I mean that's still good, right, Like
there's still a President's Advisory Committee. Yeah, yeah, I mean
I think that President Carter was probably very key, you know,
committed to women's rights, pro gender equality. He even recently,
you know, came out with a book all about how
(32:00):
UM gender equality and developing nations is like the key
to peace. But of course the nine eighty Reagan is elected,
so dot dot dot dot. It seems like in only
three short years, the sisters of seventy seven are almost
swept aside um and I and I would like to
(32:21):
leave us at this point, though, with the lasting image
from the Houston conference where it reminds me Caroline of
Beyonce's MTV Music Awards performance from a couple of years ago,
where she had feminists in the background. They're sitting all
these women, twenty women are in this like huge convention hall,
(32:43):
and up on the stage they have women in huge
letters across the curtain and then like the female symbol
on either side of it, um and in in in
a way that that looks so full of hope and promise.
You know, yeah, I mean is in it? I'm I'm
squinting at it right now, isn't it the venus symbol
(33:05):
embedded in a dove? Is that a dove? Like, oh,
you're right, it is a dove. I didn't even notice. Yeah, man,
that's some excellent branding. More symbolism, symbolism on top of symbolism.
But here it is woman. She is having her moment
um and it kind of came and went, but those
(33:26):
issues remained, you know, the activism around all of those
twenty six planks certainly remained, and when we come right
back from a quick break, we want to look at
some similar themes that came up just last week. So,
as Kristin and I have talked about on the podcast
(33:47):
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(35:42):
So before we dive into even more juicy gossip, not
juicy gossip, just stories and like fangirling out over the president.
So before we dive into like how much we loved
attending that summit last week, we've got to go back
to two thousand nine because it was in March two
thousand nine that the President of the United States signed
the Executive Order for the creation of the White House
(36:04):
Council on Women and Girls. Because Obama has consistently been
a huge supporter of advancing the rights and equality of
women and girls, and that executive order from two thousand
nine highlighted issues related to the wage gap, stem participation,
health insurance, violence against women, education, and family leaves. So
(36:26):
really we're still hearing echoes of the nineteen seventies. And
he put Valerie chair It in place as chair and
Tina Chen as the executive director. And these two women
who we heard speak uh this past week, are are fabulous.
They are amazing at championing the causes of this council well.
(36:48):
And one thing that's that is a major contrast to
seventy seven is how Valerie Jarrett is senior advisor to
the President, so she is incredibly powerful in the White House. Um,
and of course, she, like you said, is the chair
of this Council on Women and Girls. And the fact
that this is coming more from a top down, uh
(37:09):
flow of power rather than women in their individual states
getting together to hash things out and then building it
up and trying to present it to the government to
Congress to try to enact some legislation is a sign
of progress, I would absolutely argue. And also the fact
that In that two thousand nine executive order, it emphasized
(37:33):
the need to essentially pay attention to intersectionality, taking into
account concerns of women and girls, including it specifies women
of color and those with disabilities. Although you have kind
of a caveat that the functions of this council are
advisory only, regardless, I think it's clear from attending that
(37:55):
conference though, the summit, that everyone in this administration, granted
they're on their way out, but is on board with
this idea. It's not like they're just paying massively expensive
lip service by holding this massive summit. I mean, these
are these are Paul Or These are ideas that the
President and Vice President and First Lady definitely stand behind well.
(38:18):
And and to like, speaking of the first Lady standing
behind it, you in n you know, you have the
appearance of those three first ladies. UM. Whereas at this
summit last week, Flotas was there, Sheelle Obama being hilarious, fabulous, wise,
et cetera, as per as per usual. UM. But you
(38:39):
also have Vice President Joe Biden, who kicked off the
morning speaking very passionately about violence against women, UM and
UH speaking out against sexual assault, especially sexual assault on
college campuses, you have the president appearing, and in that way,
(39:00):
it seems like there is UM a clear emphasis on
how gender equality is not just a woman's issue, correct, Yeah, totally, absolutely,
a massive focus on how changes to these issues would
not just help and support women, that they would help
and support all of us, because family leave is not
just a woman issue. It's not just a mom issue.
(39:22):
It's a family issue. And and so is violence, equality, pay.
All of these things tie into making our society better,
not just a woman's life better. Yeah, I mean, but
there are still so many echoes of seventy seven. If
you look at the pillars that the White House Summit
(39:43):
on the United States of Women emphasized, which were violence
against women, health and wellness, economic empowerment, entrepreneurship and innovation, education,
civic engagement, and leadership. And we should say that under
each of those pillars there were so so many, you know,
individual topics that were spoken about, so many different UM
(40:07):
organizations UH and NGOs from around the world in the
United States that were showcased and championed UM. But still
we see the recurrent these recurrent issues of Still we
have issues of girls access to education, especially in developing nations. Still,
(40:28):
obviously we have issues with reproductive rights, even here in
our own backyards. We have issues with you know, sexist
barriers to entrepreneurship, the gender wage gap, and on and
on and on. So this summit, as they noted, was
a moment to celebrate progress, but also to remind us
of all the work that we have to continue doing
(40:49):
into the future. Yeah, and I mean, I, for one,
was uh so glad to hear Joe Biden speaking on
violence against women, especially especi actually after the role he
played in the Anita Hill situation with Clarence Thomas that
we covered in our Anita Hill watched it, Yeah, how
(41:10):
he botched it? And so I mean that that warms
my cold dead heart that people can change, and that
he can then passionately speak on the topic and encourage
others to follow suit. Yeah, I mean, like, and I
agree that it is great to hear the vice presidents
saying all those things. But I was sitting there wanting
to yell out so badly what about Anita Hill. Oh sure,
(41:30):
That's what I was thinking the whole time, because people
can change, But it would be, oh how incredible it
would be if if it weren't such political suicide to
take responsibility for things in that realm that you speak
so passionately about, like you know, a sexual harassment, sexual violence,
to take responsibility for when you messed up? Can you
(41:52):
imagine if he had said, like I mean, that would
have brought my cold, dead heart entirely back to life.
If he had said, you know, I realized that I
aid this role in this situation and that I messed
it up, and I should have done this and this,
and I'm sorry. And what an opportunity to do it,
because yes, you're in front of five thousand women, but
also Carrie Washington, star of you know, the Confirmation biopic
(42:17):
um on HBO that she I think executive produced as well,
was also in attendance and looking ps hashtag flawless so good,
I mean, Kristen and I, uh it was, and we
were blocked. We couldn't get to her. We wanted to
interview her guys like creepy you know, like uh, stealthy
photos of her on my phone because and I know
(42:42):
this might sound weird, Caroline, but rarely am I in
such close proximity to such stunning beauty. And I didn't
realize she was in this small press room that we
were in when we when we first walked in and
I turned around, and as a fan of Scandal who
has a major lady crush on Olivia Pope, like did
(43:02):
a double take and just lost all of my words
and started kind of flailing my hands a little bit
until I realized like where I was and that I
needed to chill out. Yeah, and then to look over
and see Carrie Washington in deep conversation with Billy Jane King.
It was like, can I just, oh God, can I
just be one of Billy Jane King's sneakers so that
(43:24):
I can have access to this conversation. Uh, but you know,
I mean I'm not I'm not creepy or anything. Um,
but yeah, I was fabulous. So were there any sessions
or speakers that especially made an impression on you? Yeah? Um. MIKHAELA. Olmer,
who's the eleven year old founder and CEO of Me
(43:48):
and the Bees Lemonade, which you can get at fine
grocery stores near you. Uh, was fabulous. Um. I what
was I doing at eleven? I mean, nothing impressive really,
probably trying to draw in the lines of my coloring books.
But MICHAELA. Is heading up her own company, not only
because you know, she wants to make really delicious lemonade
(44:13):
and wants to be a you know, a badass entrepreneur kid,
a kid entrepreneur, but she wants to do it to
save the bees. She was stung by two bees in
a week and was like, screw the bees. I hate
them and I'm scared of them. And then she realized
she learned about what was happening in our world because
the bees are dying, the colony collapse disorder, and she
(44:35):
was like, I can do something this this kid, I
mean And this all started when she was much younger,
like four or five. But anyway, she was in diapers.
She yes, she was in utero, and she's like, Mom,
we've got to do something. I'm getting stung by all
these bees in here. Why are there so many bees
in your uterus um? I think that is a hysterical
uterus um. But this is a there's a transition here
(45:00):
because I loved hearing from Michaela as a young entrepreneur
who's so driven and level headed and clearly just amazing
and comfortable speaking in front of five thousand people. But
Michaela introduced the president of the United States when he
got up and spoke, and I you know, I I
did not expect to go to this conference, the summit
(45:22):
and say that the president was my favorite speech was
my favorite segment because there were so many amazing women
and amazing things being discussed, and important topics being discussed.
But for our countries, and I mean I talked about
this on social media because it was so overwhelming. But
for our country's first black president to get up on
stage and proudly shout the names of so many important
(45:45):
women in our country's history who have shaped this country
and shaped it for the better, I mean my mind
was blown with the awesomeness. I mean he even gave
a shout out to Polly Murray and Ruth Bader Ginsburg
in the same breath. And I mean I gave a
hoot from the back when he when he said Polly
(46:09):
Murray's name. By the time he got to Rosa Parks,
I was crying. I was crying. It was amazing. And
he didn't just mention Rosa Parks like one thing about
yeah the speech, he wasn't just name checking. He was
also contextualizing. So he described Rosa Parks as a quote
civil rights leader with the eye of a strategist in
(46:30):
the heart of a warrior, which is like, yes, she
absolutely was, because a lot of times Rosa Parks is
condensed just down to a tired woman who just wants
to take a seat on the bus, when in fact
she had been working for the Double A CP for years. Um.
And at the end when he quoted Audrey Lord saying
that this is a story we're gonna keep telling to
(46:51):
our girls so that they'll see that they too are
America confident and courageous and in the words of Audrey Lord,
deliberate and afraid of nothing. Fist pumping man. And yeah,
does see your president quoting Audrey Lord. And then also
before that, um, quoting Shirley Chisholm. Um was even though
(47:12):
I realized that we we walked out of the convention
back into quote unquote reality, and um, a very fraught
time politically, it was a nice moment to have. Yeah, yeah,
and um he also said, and Kristen posted this on
our Instagram. Uh, and I don't remember he posted to
(47:34):
our Facebook or not, but he definitely said this is
what a feminist looks like. Yeah, that's how he kicked
off and like, obviously I'm too old to have ever
seen the Beatles, but the reaction of five two oh,
thank you, I am much too old to have seen
those quote unquote mop tops um if it really, I
(47:56):
felt like it was the closest I'd ever been to
a Beatles concert because these women were listen it all
different kinds of women, all different kinds of women and
men just losing it um and two D the day
seeing Oprah interview Michelle Obama was uh, kind of unreal.
(48:19):
But what I love is that Oprah, who is self
aware and hilarious, definitely did her Oprah voice in introducing
Michelle Obama. So unfortunately all of us did not get cars. No,
but I definitely steel clapped with excitement because they are
amazing women and the fact that I watched them in
(48:41):
the same room speak to each other was incredible. And uh,
they have plans to go shopping, So that's another time
I wish I were someone sneaker and I could accompany
them on their on their adventures. Well, of course, seeing
celebs like Oprah, Uh one of another one of my
(49:02):
lady crushes, Connie Britton, Morriska Hargete and others on stage
was very exciting on on multiple levels. A of course,
to see celebrities, but also to see celebrities championing causes
that we talked about on stuff but I've never told
you all the time. For instance, Riska harget a Um
is very vocal against domestic violence. Connie Britton was introducing
(49:27):
Cecil Richards, you know, Planned Parenthood President Um. But that
morning it was Jaha Decoy, who's the founder of Safe
Hands for Girls, who left the biggest impression on me
because she started the first youth led movement against female
genital mutilation in Gambia. And not only did she speak
(49:50):
openly about the female genital mutilation that she experienced when
she was very, very young, but of course she also
spoke out against it and talked about I think she said,
just like Beyonce, she's going to keep making lemonade out
of her lemons, and she has devoted her life to
(50:10):
ending this practice. And that's the kind of stuff that
inspires me so much, because it's like, yeah, Connie Britton,
I love your hair and you're beautiful. But to hear
a woman who had probably very little resources to start
out with, who is now on stage selected by the
(50:32):
White House to speak before all of these women about
this incredibly important work that she's doing that probably makes
a lot of people uncomfortable to hear about because it
is such a specific and graphic form of violence against women. Um.
I was inspired and also just happy to see that
(50:54):
that was part of the conversation that day, that it
wasn't just fluff of like a celebrity bringing out, you know,
a feel good message education for girls, Like, of course
we need education for girls, but there are like real
hard issues that we need to confront, not just in
the US but around the world. Yeah. I thought that
(51:14):
was such a strong point of the summit and that
you know, they had these big speakers come out, you know,
Joe Biden spoke for an hour, but then after each
big quote unquote speaker, they did bring out a handful
of on the ground activists who have been fighting for
(51:34):
these causes as part of their life's work. And so I, yeah,
I was also absolutely inspired by Dirck Ray, who leads
the Safe Hands for Girls movement, which is there to
fight female general mutilation but also to support survivors. And
speaking of survivors, you had survivors of sexual assault, of
transgender discrimination, of racism, of all of these different issues
(52:01):
coming up to champion causes, but also openly share about
the discrimination and sometimes outright violence that they faced. Yeah,
and some people that we heard from UH, from the
It's on Us campaign, which is to end campus sexual
assault and violence. UM encouraged the audience to take the
(52:21):
pledge on their website to commit to keeping both women
and men safe and not just be a bystander who
ignores the very real problem of sexual assault and violence
on campuses, which of course is a huge issue that
people are talking about more and more now. And so
it was people like this who were really working to
(52:43):
bring visibility to these issues and not just have it,
like you said, be a feel good, fluffy celebrity conference,
but have it encourage and inspire people to take real
action outside once they left. And that's the question though,
like will we will this inspire real world action? UM?
(53:06):
Will it have maybe a more significant political impact than
that ninete still significant UM National Women's Conference, Because these
kinds of events that you and I get to go
to sometimes are very inspiring when you are there in
(53:27):
the room and you are surrounded by all of these people,
but then you kind of pull back a little bit
and you see like, oh, there are a lot of
like corporate entities here. Oh, there are a lot of
celebrities here. Oh there are a lot of not necessarily
in this case, um, but in other cases like oh
there's there's a lot of just like swag here, Like
what are what is all of this really amounting to?
(53:50):
I mean, I think that it's it's a nice moment
for the Obama administration and particularly that White House Counsel
and women, Women and Girls, which who knows if it
will be around with the next administration for them to
you know, kind of pass along that torch, so to speak. Um,
but I but I do want The skeptical side of
(54:12):
me wonders like is it going to make a difference?
But while the cynical side of me questions whether it
will make any tangible difference in the lives, particularly of
marginalized communities that need these resources and these rights, um
the most, the optimistic side of me says, the fact
(54:34):
that very that it even happened, and how it happened,
and that there were so many celebrities on hand to
openly talk about feminism and gender equality is a sign
that we have moved the needle since nineteen seven that
this isn't just you know, some niche topic that we
recognize that women's rights are human rights. Yeah, and you
(55:00):
mentioned earlier that the difference between this summit and the
one in the seventies was that this was more of
a top down mandate of the White House saying, let's
make a change, let's bring all these people together. And
the more I thought about it over the course of
our conversation, the more I have to say, I'm not
sure that's entirely accurate. I think it's right, but I
think what it is is that the White House, the
(55:24):
the administration is recognizing everyone who is at the bottom
working up, and so it's almost more like a meeting
in the middle that we're finally and I'm hoping that
we can have some magical chemical reaction that happens when
moving from the top down and moving from the bottom
up when they finally meet. Because we do, it feels
(55:46):
like we're having this groundswell of of um awareness about
activism and about issues that that impact women and society,
including men and children as well. UM. But these people
have always been there, These activists have always been working
and pushing and struggling to get new laws passed to
(56:08):
end violence and etcetera, etcetera. And so I think it's
it's not so much from the bottom up or the
top down, but a finally finally coming together. Yeah, and
I'm like forty five minutes late to note this. You're
absolutely right, because most of those five thousand people in
(56:31):
the audience were women from around the country who were
nominated by their communities but also identified by the White
House as being change agents for women and girls in
particular in their hometown. And do you know who one
of those women was who was not able to attend
(56:52):
Our very own Raquel Willis, who was has appeared on
a couple of our Sminty episodes now talking about trans
rights and visibility and media. And she was nominated to
attend and couldn't go. And so I mean, there you go.
That's a wonderful illustration of just a glimpse into who
was in that audience that day. It's people like Riquel
(57:15):
who really fight for rights of people on the ground
every day. She's pushing for change. And so to imagine
kind of gives you chills to think about five thousand
Raquels and and five thousand people who are really working
to to save lives and change the world. So it's
a reminder then to look around our communities of the
(57:38):
people who are doing the work, because they are there,
and if they're not there, you can become a change
change it. And also it underscores the importance of political
participation because if you want people who will continue this
kind of work in the federal government, your got a
(58:00):
vote him in. Yeah, and and call and be obnoxious
to your congress people. Can you text them? I would
vote to just vote. I would vote that you obsessively
call let them hear your voice. No text messages can
get north. I can be very persistent with my emogis UM.
(58:23):
But listeners, UM, this was really great to be able
to share this with you, and we're curious if anyone
listening was also there. UM. There's all sorts of media
coverage about more specifics of the summit um which we
will post in the podcast UM linked to this if
you want to read more about it. But we just
(58:45):
love to know your thoughts. What do you think the
United States of Women is today? Moms Stuff at how
Stuff Works dot Com is our email address. You can
also tweet us at Mom's Stuff podcast or messages on Facebook,
and we've got a couple of messages this year with
you right out. Well, I have a letter here from
Emily in response to our rom com Sidekicks episode. She says, Hey, ladies,
(59:10):
I love your series on rom coms, but I've noticed
that you haven't mentioned any musical so far. There's so
many musicals that are simply rom coms with song and
dance numbers. Mama Mia, Hair Spray and Greece first come
to mind. I thought of this when listening to your
podcast on rom com Besties, when you were talking about
second bananas. The first example to pop into my head
(59:31):
was from Singing in the Rain. In the film, Donald
O'Connor plays Cosmo Brown, who was second banana to main
man Don Lockwood, played by Gene Kelly. All of his
songs are comedic and energetic, such as make Him Laugh
while gene Kelly sings all the crooning Lovey Debbie songs
like Singing in the Rain. Also, when you mentioned the
second banana maybe more effeminate or sexually ambiguous, I realized
(59:54):
that all of the songs Donald O'Connor sings sounds similar
to some of the songs the main lady, Debbie Rental sings.
She does get a few lovey Debbie songs since she
is the main love interest, but she also sings bubblier
songs like good Morning. While they're not comedy pieces, they
are lighter songs used to fluff out the movie much
like make them laugh. It's interesting to me that even
(01:00:14):
the Second Banana songs are effeminate as well. So thank you, Emily.
So I've got a letter here from Liz about our
Sidekicks rom Calm episode, and she writes, I was amazed
that you guys skipped over. She's all that seventeen years
later and that film is still an absolute delight with
some choice sidekicks. We've got Paul Walker as the sexy
(01:00:36):
scumbag second Banana dual Hill, Little Kim, Gabrielle Union and
Usher as the somewhat token Black brons, who have Anna
Paquin and Karen Coulkin as the sibling sidekicks, and one
of the Bash brothers from The Mighty Ducks is a
holy non sexual man friend. The only thing She's All
That is missing is Judy Greer as a clumsy yet
(01:00:57):
relatable teacher. But my personal favorite sidekick is Gabrielle Union
and ten Things I Hate about You. Her transition for
vapid pretty friend to snide kick is cinematic genius, the
likes of which my nine year old self had never seen,
and she quotes Gabrielle Union's characters saying, I know you
can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can
(01:01:17):
you ever just be whelmed? I actually a side note,
I think about that all the time. It's a great quote,
even though I can't help but give Chastity the begrudging
respect she deserves for being the only other freshman who've
got invited to prom. So thanks Liz, and thanks to
everybody who's written into us. Mom Stuff and how stuff
Works dot com is our email address and for links
(01:01:39):
to all of our social media as well as all
of our blogs, videos, and sources. So you can learn
more about the United State of Women and those sisters
of seven two seven. Head on over to stuff Mom
Never Told You dot com for moralns and thousands of
other topics. Is it how stuff Works dot com. Three
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