Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stuff.
Speaker 1: I never told your production of I Hiart Radio's House
Speaker 1: Stuff works. For today's classic, we wanted to spotlight another
Speaker 1: podcast that we think you might enjoy, called Modern Rules,
Speaker 1: and that's Rules as an r U h L E.
Speaker 1: S As in Stephanie Rules, UM, who has done a
Speaker 1: lot of work outside of MSNBC, but you've probably seen
Speaker 1: her on MSNBC. UM. She talks about all kinds of
Speaker 1: things that we we talk about on this show, like feminism,
Speaker 1: big one, masculinity, privilege, political correctness, the me too movement, UM,
Speaker 1: social media, and faith and moral leadership. So if you're
Speaker 1: interested in checking that out, please do UM. And for
Speaker 1: this our classic episode, something that kind of ties into
Speaker 1: that uh and is also pretty important right now. It's
Speaker 1: very timely, is awhere are the women in political campaigns?
Speaker 1: And uh, I feel like we're we're working on something
Speaker 1: around this as well about women in politics in general
Speaker 1: and what that looks like today. And so keep your
Speaker 1: ear out for that one. Yeah, keep your your handcuffed
Speaker 1: to your ear. And when you hear the notification like
Speaker 1: a and then it's not that one, but it will
Speaker 1: be eventually I'm sorry. I'm building a whole story in
Speaker 1: my head. Um, But in the meantime, we hope you
Speaker 1: enjoy this classic episode. Welcome to Stuff Mob Never Told
Speaker 1: You from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline And this
Speaker 1: week could be considered a House of Cards week on
Speaker 1: Stuff Mom Never Told You. Today we're talking about campaign strategists. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because typically when you hear from a campaign strategist or
Speaker 1: about one, it's usually a dude. Yeah, and so why
Speaker 1: is that? Why is that? Um? And speaking of House
Speaker 1: of Cards, before we get into women in political campaigning
Speaker 1: and strategy, can we just take a moment to talk
Speaker 1: about uh, Corey Lewandowski, who to me is Doug Stamper
Speaker 1: on House of Cards. I R L will tell the
Speaker 1: people who he is, Okay, So besides being a real
Speaker 1: life Doug, he is a real life Doug. People who
Speaker 1: have not seen House of Cards are just so confused
Speaker 1: right now. Um. So, Uh, Corey Lewandowski is Donald Trump's
Speaker 1: campaign manager and he's been extremely visible throughout the whole campaign. Um.
Speaker 1: I would say that he's been the most visible campaign
Speaker 1: manager partially because he was charged with simple battery of
Speaker 1: former Bright Bart reporter Michelle Fields. Um. The charges have
Speaker 1: since been dropped. But he is what you would expect
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's campaign manager to be. I mean, he's opinionated,
Speaker 1: he's pretty, let's say, rough and tumble. I like, how
Speaker 1: diplomatic you're being. Well, this is all about campaign strategy
Speaker 1: and spin. So Carolina trying to like really just get
Speaker 1: into the spirit of it. Yeah, but didn't he like
Speaker 1: he pushed her, right, Yeah. I watched the security footage
Speaker 1: you can see it online, and he grabs her and
Speaker 1: pulls her away. I mean it's kind of hard to
Speaker 1: see what exactly went down, but um, yeah it was.
Speaker 1: I mean just just the very idea of that happening
Speaker 1: seemed just I'm a stranger than fiction. Although we can't
Speaker 1: like this political season, we should just expect stuff like
Speaker 1: that to be happening, you know. I Mean it's almost
Speaker 1: like on like low on the list of bizarro things
Speaker 1: that have happened so far. I know, just the the
Speaker 1: day before we came into the studio to record this podcast,
Speaker 1: Baynard referred to Ted Cruise as Lucifer in the flesh,
Speaker 1: like things are just so weird politically like things are
Speaker 1: so weird, and instead of focusing on the people out
Speaker 1: front like Ted Cruz, Carlie Furina, Donald Trump, et cetera,
Speaker 1: we wanted to pull back the curtain and look at
Speaker 1: the political machinery because obviously, with all the money but
Speaker 1: now goes into political campaigning, there's so much background work
Speaker 1: to hone messages and optics and events, and you have
Speaker 1: when you look at the gender breakdown of who does
Speaker 1: what behind the scenes of political campaigns, you have um
Speaker 1: a little pocket where women are are um welcomed, and
Speaker 1: then the rest of it. It's pretty tough for a lady.
Speaker 1: It can be pretty tough for a lady to branch
Speaker 1: out in in the strategy realm. But first I wanted
Speaker 1: to take a look at people behind the scenes in general,
Speaker 1: so campaigns staffers, because I'm sure a lot of you
Speaker 1: saw that big Jezebel piece that was looking at how
Speaker 1: men and women in campaign staffs are paid and how
Speaker 1: many are employed, and overall the numbers are pretty pretty bad.
Speaker 1: Uh So, this again is coming from Jezebel, and the
Speaker 1: the campaign with the highest paid discrepancy between men and
Speaker 1: women was Ted Cruz. Uh. Male employees make an average
Speaker 1: of twenty more than female employ ways in that campaign.
Speaker 1: The now defunct Rubio campaign actually paid women the best.
Speaker 1: They made on average just more than five thousand dollars
Speaker 1: more than male staffers. And of ten of the ten
Speaker 1: highest paid staffers on the sadly defunct Rubio campaign, which
Speaker 1: a lot of people BT dubs in the primaries are
Speaker 1: still voting for Rubio over Casic. For instance, UM six
Speaker 1: for female. Six out of ten on the Rubio highest
Speaker 1: paid staffer list were female. Not so for Bernie. He
Speaker 1: is literally the only candidate who has no women in
Speaker 1: his top ten highest paid employees. But he has paid
Speaker 1: the women in his campaign equitably. In fact, on average
Speaker 1: they're making a little under one thousand dollars more than
Speaker 1: the men. And then if we look at Hillary Clinton,
Speaker 1: men and women were making essentially the same amount, and
Speaker 1: of her ten highest paid staffers, uh, sixer dudes for
Speaker 1: our ladies, um, one of them being Whoma Aberdeen, who's
Speaker 1: one of the biggest names really in political campaigning period.
Speaker 1: She's Hillary's chief of staff and her campaign's vice chairwoman. Um.
Speaker 1: And she also was on Call your girlfriend not that
Speaker 1: long ago, which was uh interesting to hear. I mean,
Speaker 1: like I'd never She's been featured in a number of magazines,
Speaker 1: um in profiles and obviously his gotten a lot of
Speaker 1: attention because her husband is Anthony Weener. Um. But it
Speaker 1: was it was nice to hear whom I have just
Speaker 1: kind of off the cuff conversation as off the cuff
Speaker 1: as a chief of staff can be. Yeah. And I
Speaker 1: love knowing that she started working for Hillary as an
Speaker 1: intern at the White House in so she's been with
Speaker 1: her a long time. Um. And if you look at Trump,
Speaker 1: out of his ten highest paid staff members, seven or
Speaker 1: men and three or women. Uh. And women on average
Speaker 1: make three thousand dollars less than men their male counter.
Speaker 1: It's for the Trump campaign and John Kasik is actually
Speaker 1: the only candidate who has a female campaign manager. Her
Speaker 1: name's Beth Hanson. And actually Mike Huckabee two did too,
Speaker 1: he hired his daughter, but you know he's long gone
Speaker 1: as well, I mean from the campaign right, not from
Speaker 1: from Earth correct? Okay, um uh yeah. I find it
Speaker 1: so ironic that k Sick has the lone woman campaign manager,
Speaker 1: Beth Hanson, because his policies regarding women, as he's been um,
Speaker 1: Ohio governor, have not been so Lady friendly again, you're
Speaker 1: being so diplomatic. Um. So he oversaw massive shutdowns of
Speaker 1: abortion providers in the state. He passed two thousand thirteen
Speaker 1: budget to defund Planned Parenthood while mandating ultrasounds. Um. And
Speaker 1: in an interview with Beth Hansen in lm agazine, the
Speaker 1: interviewer asked, like, what she thought about when k Sick
Speaker 1: essentially shut down um a young woman's question in one
Speaker 1: of his events by saying, oh, look, I don't I
Speaker 1: don't have any tickets to the Taylor Swift concert. And
Speaker 1: and L Magazine was understandably like, okay, Like, how do
Speaker 1: you answer to that? How can you say that your
Speaker 1: candidate is still like a woman friendly person? And she
Speaker 1: was like, well, you know, he has young daughters, he
Speaker 1: has teenage daughters, and he's just you know, I think
Speaker 1: it was just like he was trying to be funny,
Speaker 1: and I mean, it was just like spin spin spin spin. Um.
Speaker 1: But apparently she's been she's been with him for quite
Speaker 1: a while as well. Um. But if we look at
Speaker 1: the gender breakdown in terms of UH numbers, just like
Speaker 1: of staffers, every campaign minus Hillary Clinton's has employed significantly
Speaker 1: more men than women, which does reflect just the roader
Speaker 1: trend in politics. But for sure I was heartened to
Speaker 1: see that Hillary Clinton, the one woman running for president,
Speaker 1: did hire or has hired more women on her staff
Speaker 1: than men. Yeah, and we will and it's not just Hillary.
Speaker 1: We will talk about that aspect of women in politics
Speaker 1: here again in a little bit. But you know, the
Speaker 1: whole skewing male thing obviously has been going on for
Speaker 1: for a minute. The political consulting field itself rose to
Speaker 1: prominence in the nineteen seventies and eighties. This is when
Speaker 1: you start to see the professionalization of people working on campaigns,
Speaker 1: and of course consulting that sort of encompasses a broad
Speaker 1: range of positions, everything from campaign managers to people who
Speaker 1: were just consulting on like media appearances and things like that.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of a broad range of positions. Um,
Speaker 1: it was in that we see the first ever female
Speaker 1: campaign manager, Susan Estric. She was hired to run Democrat
Speaker 1: Michael Dukakis's bid for president back then in the eighties.
Speaker 1: But also, didn't she get it. She was kind of
Speaker 1: the runner up. Oh yeah, she was not the first choice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the dude he wanted to hire was I don't know,
Speaker 1: other otherwise engaged washing his hair. Um. In two thousand
Speaker 1: four Mary Beth k Hill, John Kerry's campaign manager, was
Speaker 1: the only woman in that role UH for that presidential race.
Speaker 1: And in eleven, according to often quoted Rhetger's political science
Speaker 1: professor Kelly ditmar Uh, she was looking at political consultants,
Speaker 1: which again that encompasses strategists, polsters, ad makers, managers, media advisors, UH,
Speaker 1: people who were working in top firms on senatorial and
Speaker 1: gubernatorial races those years eleven, and she found that about
Speaker 1: seventy of consultants with strategic influence were men, but a
Speaker 1: higher number of women were working on Democrat at campaigns
Speaker 1: than on Republican ones. And that's like you see that
Speaker 1: every year, almost in every type of race, at every
Speaker 1: level of government, that more women are working for the Democrats,
Speaker 1: more women are in the higher levels of those consulting
Speaker 1: firms who work with Democrats. Yeah. So in two thousand
Speaker 1: and fourteen, for instance, among key Senate races, six percent
Speaker 1: of GOP campaigns had female managers versus of Democratic campaigns.
Speaker 1: And that was something that met Romney's former deputy campaign
Speaker 1: manager manager called disturbing in terms of the lack of
Speaker 1: senior level women. Yeah, I mean so basically, when you
Speaker 1: are reading articles about women in consulting in campaign strategy,
Speaker 1: you just hear a couple of names over and over again,
Speaker 1: some of like the o g women consultants and strategists,
Speaker 1: and Republicans for instance, had poster Linda duvol Operative, Maria Cino,
Speaker 1: and of course consultant Mary Madaline who she's almost more
Speaker 1: famous for being married to James Carvel. They of the
Speaker 1: opposite political ends of the spectrum. And for the Democrats
Speaker 1: back in the day, you had media group gurus like
Speaker 1: Mandy Grenwald and Don Legwin's and posters Salinda Lake and
Speaker 1: Diane Feldman. Not to mention, superstar strategist and one of
Speaker 1: my favorite Twitter presence is Donna brazil Yeah. I was
Speaker 1: telling Caroline before we came in the studio to record
Speaker 1: that Donna Brazila is one of the only things that
Speaker 1: I really enjoy about watching CNN during elections, and she
Speaker 1: is a political force to be reckoned with. Not to mention,
Speaker 1: she's made history. Um so, she worked on every presidential
Speaker 1: campaign from nineteen seventy six to two thousand and when
Speaker 1: she ran Al Gore's two thousand campaign, Pane she became
Speaker 1: the first African American man or woman to manage a
Speaker 1: presidential campaign. Um, and I love this fact about her.
Speaker 1: She first got involved in politics when she was nine
Speaker 1: years old, working to elect a city council member who
Speaker 1: promised to build a playground in her neighborhood, which immediately
Speaker 1: made me wonder, like, was that Leslie Nope from Parks
Speaker 1: and Wreck, because it would how perfect would that be? Um?
Speaker 1: I know that's impossible because Leslie Nope is not real technically, Um,
Speaker 1: it could be. In my heart, it could be totally
Speaker 1: based on that story about Donna Brazil, who she did
Speaker 1: right in a memoir that for nearly my entire life,
Speaker 1: my mother worked as a maid. Never in her wildest
Speaker 1: dreams did she imagine that her daughter would gropp to
Speaker 1: influence national politics or manage a presidential campaign. And I
Speaker 1: mean it's funny that I wonder if she's sort of
Speaker 1: downplaying it, because clearly this woman is determined and single minded,
Speaker 1: and even from the age of I like, was clearly
Speaker 1: a little politician who was able to affect change. And
Speaker 1: speaking of her, though, women of color have been intimately
Speaker 1: involved in grassroots political organizing since the reconstruction and early
Speaker 1: civil rights eras with people like I. T. B. Wells
Speaker 1: and Mary Church Terrell and Mary McLoud Bethoon UM who
Speaker 1: were instrumental in the National Association of Colored Women that
Speaker 1: was highly invested in UM activating women within black communities
Speaker 1: to organize and get out and vote UM so that
Speaker 1: they could you know, elect officials that would have their
Speaker 1: needs in mind. UM and segueing though into today's more
Speaker 1: establishment political machines has not surprisingly been harder not just
Speaker 1: for women of color but for people of color in general.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned, Caroline that Donna Brazil is so sing
Speaker 1: go minded. If we look at the night Michael Dukakis campaign, Uh,
Speaker 1: this totally reinforces and UM just goes to show how
Speaker 1: how single minded she truly is. So essentially, like, not intentionally,
Speaker 1: the campaign siloed its top tier operatives onto a separate
Speaker 1: floor in their campaign headquarters UM, which mostly meant that
Speaker 1: all the white dudes were up top and everyone else
Speaker 1: was on the bottom. And Brazil and Mignon Moore were
Speaker 1: field directors at the time, and those two plus Susan
Speaker 1: Rice stormed upstairs, claimed a conference room on the top
Speaker 1: floor and put a sign on the door that said
Speaker 1: Colored Girls, we shall not be moved. And essentially, from
Speaker 1: that moment, this group of women, these political consultants calling
Speaker 1: themselves the Colored Girls, have become this DC force that
Speaker 1: if you hope to get elected on you know, for
Speaker 1: any national campaign, like, you gotta have dinner with them.
Speaker 1: They hold these like regular dinners, and essentially candidates come
Speaker 1: in and they grill them, basically making sure that they
Speaker 1: are keeping communities of color and mind, because it's like
Speaker 1: if if they don't like you, you're probably not going
Speaker 1: to get elected. Yeah. Well, just like do CAUCUSUS headquarters
Speaker 1: weren't intentionally segregated along race or gender lines. I mean
Speaker 1: that that could stand in for all of politics. Politics
Speaker 1: aren't necessarily intentionally segregated along those lines, but they often are.
Speaker 1: And so you have women like Brazil and the rest
Speaker 1: of the Color Girls group that form this influential contingent
Speaker 1: of women of color who are able to advise candidates
Speaker 1: and remind them gently or not that you can't forget
Speaker 1: that the Democratic base rests on the vote of not
Speaker 1: just white men, but people of color and women. And
Speaker 1: so if you want to make it in this town,
Speaker 1: like you've got to be able to think outside of
Speaker 1: your own bubble. Well, yeah, and it's African American women's
Speaker 1: vote in particular. Um. But one more thing about that campaign,
Speaker 1: It is surprising that that even happened because, like you
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, Susan Estric was the campaign manager. It's like
Speaker 1: sus s what happened. Um. But today the group of
Speaker 1: color Girls, which they still refer to themselves as UM,
Speaker 1: has expanded to include a few more women, including Reverend
Speaker 1: Leady Daughtry and consultant Yolanda H. Caraway UM and also
Speaker 1: the d n C General counts old Tina Flourne. And
Speaker 1: in a New York Times profile of this group, a
Speaker 1: number of politicians spoke to their influence, including Howard Dean,
Speaker 1: who said, quote, they're very rare Washington insiders who understand
Speaker 1: the rest of the country. Um. And this whole thing
Speaker 1: speaks to why looking at who is behind the scenes
Speaker 1: in these political campaigns matter, because if you only have
Speaker 1: white men or also white women who are crafting your platforms, essentially,
Speaker 1: then there probably aren't going to necessarily take an intersectional
Speaker 1: approach to policymaking. Yeah, exactly, And that's why Tana Bui
Speaker 1: points out in Asian American Policy Review that the campaign
Speaker 1: staff needs to reflect constituent diversity. And she also points
Speaker 1: out that you might have training programs if you want
Speaker 1: to work on campaigns or in strategy. You know, there
Speaker 1: might be a training program that's just general or ones
Speaker 1: you know, specifically geared toward women, but there's nothing really
Speaker 1: out there for people of color who want to step
Speaker 1: up and work with campaigns and be that voice for
Speaker 1: other populations that want to see themselves represented well and
Speaker 1: in conversations about the gender gap within UM like our
Speaker 1: elected officials. I think that this part of the pipeline,
Speaker 1: the background political consulting and strategists and campaign managers, that
Speaker 1: aspect of the pipeline is something that I know I
Speaker 1: didn't think about before reading up for this podcast. We
Speaker 1: just think of, oh, well, we just need more women
Speaker 1: to stand up and be willing to be candidates. But
Speaker 1: this is an integral part of getting more women in
Speaker 1: office too, UM And that's something that Boy underscores in
Speaker 1: terms of the pipeline issue that if you do not
Speaker 1: training and empower more women of color to enter into
Speaker 1: political strategy and have influence in that realm, than the
Speaker 1: pipeline is still going to be leaky. Yeah, And what
Speaker 1: I didn't realize before preparing for this episode is that
Speaker 1: when women are working in campaigns in strategy or consulting
Speaker 1: or whatever, they tend to be concentrated in fundraising, which
Speaker 1: I had no idea. And this information is coming from
Speaker 1: Katie Or from k qe D and Abby Rappaport from
Speaker 1: The Texas Tribune. Uh So, basically, forever women have been
Speaker 1: barred from those higher level strategic positions in campaigns. And
Speaker 1: while they're more likely to be registered voters and grassroots organizers,
Speaker 1: they are way less likely to rise to those elite levels.
Speaker 1: So what is the deal? Why are these women like
Speaker 1: shuttled off to fundraising positions? Well, first of all, this
Speaker 1: reflects a broader trend of women in nonprofits, of it
Speaker 1: being more acceptable for women to be in the upper
Speaker 1: ranks of nonprofit organization that's just fundraising and raising money
Speaker 1: versus to help others to help up exactly the whole
Speaker 1: altruism thing, versus something that's considered far more masculine in
Speaker 1: terms of being in the war room of campaign strategy.
Speaker 1: So um, Rappaport and Or talked to a number of
Speaker 1: women who are consultants and also fundraisers and politics, and
Speaker 1: they essentially compiled the laundry list of all of these
Speaker 1: presumably female friendly work responsibilities that we hear over and
Speaker 1: over again in terms of many pink collar jobs. So
Speaker 1: you have the whole thing of altruism, of humility and
Speaker 1: putting others first. You're raising money not for yourself but
Speaker 1: on behalf of this candidate and for the community at law,
Speaker 1: which reminds me of our conversation with Gina and Ashley
Speaker 1: from recruit Her when we talked about negotiating and how
Speaker 1: it seems to for salary and how it seems to
Speaker 1: be so much more acceptable for a woman to um
Speaker 1: negotiate for a higher salary for someone else or based
Speaker 1: in logic around helping others. So yeah, same exact thing,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the women, as both a positive
Speaker 1: and a negative, said that the duties that come along
Speaker 1: with fundraising, like event planning, sending out invitations, and playing
Speaker 1: hostess are traditionally women oriented tasks, and as Susan Lily,
Speaker 1: a Republican consultant, put it, these tasks typically fall on women,
Speaker 1: whether it's in politics or a wedding well, and the
Speaker 1: whole idea too that it's detail oriented work um, and
Speaker 1: and therefore appealing to women and therefore something that women
Speaker 1: do better than men is something that we have heard
Speaker 1: also applied to a lot of other sectors as well. UM.
Speaker 1: Not to say that, like, don't you tell me the
Speaker 1: women are detail oriented? I am so sloppy, right, But
Speaker 1: it's the whole thing of like, are you saying that
Speaker 1: being detail oriented and a planner is only a woman thing? Exactly?
Speaker 1: Exactly um? And then there's a whole socialization aspect of it. Um.
Speaker 1: This was something that Amy Boone, who started her own
Speaker 1: consulting firm before moving over to the Texas Democratic Trust,
Speaker 1: talked about, saying, from the time where little girls, we
Speaker 1: are conditioned to not really be the ones raising our hands.
Speaker 1: So again it's that that fun fundraising is feminine. Who
Speaker 1: knew exactly? And then Boone went on to explain that
Speaker 1: it's possible that women are just getting pigeonholed. She said
Speaker 1: that it's common when a woman shows up to work
Speaker 1: on a campaign without much experience and without much confidence,
Speaker 1: this senior staff just tend to push her over into
Speaker 1: a junior fundraising role where she can do things like
Speaker 1: just stay behind the scenes planning, making phone calls, planning
Speaker 1: parties and stuff like that, just basically assistant role stuff.
Speaker 1: And so if that's the position that you're placed in
Speaker 1: and you do want to advance, well you're probably just
Speaker 1: going to continue advancing up that fundraising ladder. But despite
Speaker 1: the fact that women are the overwhelming majority in fundraising,
Speaker 1: if nowhere else in campaign strategy, they're still not typically
Speaker 1: the ones making the decisions because, as Ditmark points out,
Speaker 1: you might be in fundraising and you might be bringing
Speaker 1: in all of this cash money, but that's not a
Speaker 1: like clear cut strategic role the way that being, for instance,
Speaker 1: a campaign manager or a media spokesperson would be. And
Speaker 1: in a very blatantly sexist kind of way. Um, some
Speaker 1: campaigns are simply nervous about putting women in charge of
Speaker 1: strategy because it does violate gender norms in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways if we think of campaigns as going to war,
Speaker 1: as many political consultants do. And this was something that
Speaker 1: Anne Urban, who began professional campaign work for Republicans way
Speaker 1: back in nineteen She said, I think there's an old
Speaker 1: school conservative, good old boy inclination to go with a
Speaker 1: guy because it's too rough and tumble to be a woman. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I mean that goes hand in hand with the
Speaker 1: pigeonholing thing and just pushing a woman off into fundraising.
Speaker 1: If you just assume that someone who doesn't look like
Speaker 1: you is only going to be good at one thing,
Speaker 1: or she's not going to be good at what the
Speaker 1: thing you're good at, then how like who's going to
Speaker 1: break that barrier? Because if you're just operating on assumptions
Speaker 1: about what a woman is cut out for. And I
Speaker 1: think that the likability factor plays into this as well,
Speaker 1: um where you see women who might be in those
Speaker 1: more strategic roles shot calling likelier to be dismissed as bitches. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so a lot of the women that were interviewed,
Speaker 1: we're talking about how you know a lot of successful
Speaker 1: women in campaigning and campaign strategy and consulting have to
Speaker 1: be comfortable with that. You have to be okay with
Speaker 1: getting called a bit because it's inevitable. And one woman
Speaker 1: pointed out like a lot of women just aren't comfortable
Speaker 1: with that, and especially when you're starting out, and so
Speaker 1: that could also get you hamstrung from progressing at the
Speaker 1: ladder in strategy. And then you have the optics issue
Speaker 1: because a you have um the idea that an attractive
Speaker 1: woman is going to be better at raising money because
Speaker 1: who doesn't want to give cash to a beautiful woman?
Speaker 1: Where At a campaign manager who's going to be on
Speaker 1: the road with a candidate, especially if that candidate is male,
Speaker 1: if you have a lady traveling alongside him, then might
Speaker 1: that raise some eyebrows about how close their relationship really is.
Speaker 1: And that's something too that is not exclusive to political consulting,
Speaker 1: but really, I mean workplaces at large where it's like,
Speaker 1: it's fine if all the guys go out for a
Speaker 1: happy hour um after work, but if a lady wants
Speaker 1: to tag along, then then people might get a little nervous.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, and so one of the quotes that really
Speaker 1: sort of I had to read a couple of times
Speaker 1: to make sure that I was reading it correctly was
Speaker 1: from that Republican consultant Susan Lily, who said, uh, male
Speaker 1: candidates don't need to be traveling with a young, attractive female.
Speaker 1: I can give the wrong impression even though there's nothing
Speaker 1: really wrong with it. So kind of giving into just well,
Speaker 1: tongues will wag, so we better just not do it.
Speaker 1: You better just avoid it. Um. But there's I mean
Speaker 1: so many other aspects of why women get tripped up
Speaker 1: trying to pursue jobs in strategy and consulting. Uh. But
Speaker 1: of course, these are things that we see in so
Speaker 1: many other professional fields, and we will get right back
Speaker 1: into them when we come back from a quick break.
Speaker 1: So there was this series of interviews that some researchers
Speaker 1: conducted with consultants back in two thousand three, and they
Speaker 1: found that those consultants, men and women alike, believed that
Speaker 1: women in consulting political consulting face different rules of the game,
Speaker 1: so to speak, including having to work twice as hard
Speaker 1: to be successful in the business, not being taken as
Speaker 1: seriously or seen to be as credible by candidates and
Speaker 1: the political parties as the men folk, and having to
Speaker 1: be careful about being too aggressive in their marketing and
Speaker 1: approach to business. So these are not just like think
Speaker 1: peace writers talking about this stuff. These are the consultants
Speaker 1: themselves talking about the perceptions of women among themselves, among
Speaker 1: their own ranks. And it seems like that aggressive penalty
Speaker 1: comes up over and over again when you hear from
Speaker 1: women in this field. Um, Liz Shatter and Powell, who's
Speaker 1: the VP of political Strategies with Bates, Niem and Ink,
Speaker 1: which is a democratic direct mail and issue advocacy consulting firm,
Speaker 1: said that you have to be aggressive to rise to
Speaker 1: the position as an executive director of a committee or
Speaker 1: a partner in a consulting firm, which, again you have
Speaker 1: that socialization aspect. This is a behavior that women are
Speaker 1: socialized from young ages, often against UM, even though many
Speaker 1: people in the field embrace it. UM. And you also
Speaker 1: have the issue of you know, the Doug stampers, the
Speaker 1: men in power who might not be so keen on
Speaker 1: giving them a leg up. Yeah, and then a huge
Speaker 1: factor UM in the field, just like it is comes
Speaker 1: up any time we talk about women who are alive
Speaker 1: and having children. Is the whole family and parenting aspect
Speaker 1: because if you whether you're a working mom or a
Speaker 1: stay at home mom, uh, you're socially expected to be
Speaker 1: there for your children and your family more than you're
Speaker 1: expected to be at work. It's the whole mommy tracking
Speaker 1: issue We've talked about before and Uh. Angela Faulkner, who's
Speaker 1: a Republican direct mail consultant, told the Publication Campaigns and
Speaker 1: Elections that she felt huge stigma as a mom and
Speaker 1: full time consultant, especially when she was traveling overseas for clients.
Speaker 1: She talked about how early in her career she actually
Speaker 1: felt resentment from other women. Not dudes, not dudes calling
Speaker 1: her out I'm calling her about mom, but resentment from
Speaker 1: other women who were questioning her decision to work in
Speaker 1: Venezuela's recall election rather than stay home with her children. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she said, when people talk about family values, it's usually
Speaker 1: based on a stable home environment, and many conservatives feel
Speaker 1: that a stable home environment requires a mother that isn't
Speaker 1: required to travel. UM and the the child care aspect
Speaker 1: also reminds me of a Glamour magazine piece that we
Speaker 1: read profiling UM women in the current election, And one
Speaker 1: thing that Huma Aberdeen said was if Hillary is elected,
Speaker 1: what she's going to do the very next day is
Speaker 1: turn off her phone and spend the day with her son,
Speaker 1: making him pasta and taking him out for ice cream,
Speaker 1: which I was like, can I come over a UM,
Speaker 1: But it kind of drives home, like I was reminded
Speaker 1: reading that, like, oh, yeah, you probably do not get
Speaker 1: to see your kid all that often because it is
Speaker 1: a twenty four seven job. Yeah, it does make me
Speaker 1: think of how how could Doug be a father, I
Speaker 1: mean a side stampers of cards, Doug stamper on house
Speaker 1: of cards, Like how could he be let alone? All
Speaker 1: of the you know, personality court, sociopathy. Yeah, well that too, um.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's it's hard across the board to
Speaker 1: make time for family or social life or anything when
Speaker 1: you are working in a political campaign. That goes without saying,
Speaker 1: but it turns out that those grueling schedules can make
Speaker 1: certain jobs more difficult than others. For instance, media consultants
Speaker 1: typically end up with the hardest schedules of any operatives
Speaker 1: because you know, I mean it makes sense. You've got
Speaker 1: to respond rapidly if something happens. If Donald Trump says
Speaker 1: yet another thing about women are Muslims, You've got to
Speaker 1: have your phone on to be able to respond, and
Speaker 1: plus you've got nearly constant travel. And so that, according
Speaker 1: to a lot of female operatives interviewed, is one of
Speaker 1: the reasons that they're likely fewer women in media than
Speaker 1: in places like polling, fun raising or direct mail. So
Speaker 1: yet again, for many women in this industry, there is
Speaker 1: that double standard forced choice of motherhood versus career, and
Speaker 1: how are you going to make the two work together.
Speaker 1: And obviously there are plenty of women who are doing
Speaker 1: just that, But the issue is that men typically do
Speaker 1: not face the same kind of decision making, right, And
Speaker 1: I mean, it turns out, when we hinted at this earlier,
Speaker 1: that party affiliation is definitely a factor. According to a
Speaker 1: study in the Journal of Political Marketing from eleven, they
Speaker 1: wrote that women consultants tend to work for democratic firms
Speaker 1: consulting firms more often than Republican led ones, and that
Speaker 1: women led firms were more likely to be hired by
Speaker 1: democratic rather than Republican candidates. And so basically this study
Speaker 1: echoed prior studies that found that not only are more
Speaker 1: women consultants Democrats, but Democratic consulting firms are more likely
Speaker 1: to have women named as partners, and so as a result,
Speaker 1: Democratic candidates are more likely to hire consulting firms with
Speaker 1: women partners. It's like gender politics math literal gender politics. Well, yeah, exactly, Well,
Speaker 1: and I wonder if that kind of partisanship in this
Speaker 1: issue goes to what Angela Faulkner, who was that Republican
Speaker 1: direct mail consultant, talked about in terms of UH Conservatives
Speaker 1: having a very distinct perception of family values. That's often
Speaker 1: a top conservative platform, and family values often when it
Speaker 1: comes to when you look through the Republican lens um
Speaker 1: often involves a woman at least closer to home. But
Speaker 1: I mean it's not like women aren't out there doing
Speaker 1: it for themselves. They are. There are more women these
Speaker 1: days leading campaigns, leading superpath X, and heading up consulting firms.
Speaker 1: One thing I didn't expect, I guess I should have
Speaker 1: expected it is that it's actually really hard to find numbers.
Speaker 1: You know, Kristen and I love citing stats. It's like
Speaker 1: our favorite thing. We love to give you percentages, but
Speaker 1: it's hard to find clear cut percentages and stats when
Speaker 1: you're dealing with so many private firms and behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: uh makeups and breakdowns of demographics, which again I mean
Speaker 1: like ridiculous that that is the case in something that
Speaker 1: lives and breathes by data. But of course, I mean
Speaker 1: it's data and also image, so there's only select data
Speaker 1: that you would probably want visible to the public. Um.
Speaker 1: But you do have more women who are starting their
Speaker 1: own consulting firms, and it's not just democratic women. You
Speaker 1: have Katie Packer, Gauge, Ashley O'Connor and Christine Matthews who
Speaker 1: got together and founded the Republican focused firm Burning Glass
Speaker 1: US Consulting UM, because the Democratic narrative about the GOP
Speaker 1: has been the whole war on women. So these three
Speaker 1: consultants got together and we're like, you know, this whole
Speaker 1: tone deafness issue that a number of Republican candidates have
Speaker 1: had when it comes to women is something that we
Speaker 1: could really focus on. And the whole Burning Glass aspect
Speaker 1: of their name comes from the idea that they're going
Speaker 1: to be so laser focus, like it's like a sunbeam
Speaker 1: that could burn through the glass. I think I got
Speaker 1: that right, basically, Yeah, exactly. But according to Sarah Brewer,
Speaker 1: who's the former associate director of the Women in Politics
Speaker 1: Institute an American university, UH found through her research that
Speaker 1: female political consultants often work twice as long in the
Speaker 1: field before starting their own firms than men do. And
Speaker 1: the speculation around that, I mean, there's a couple of
Speaker 1: reasons that could be one. And you need obviously kind
Speaker 1: of a fat rolodex of clients and connections to start
Speaker 1: your own thing, and if you are not in a
Speaker 1: client contact heavy position, it's harder to make those direct connections. Uh.
Speaker 1: There's also the thing that we've seen so often when
Speaker 1: we talk about women or really any minority group, uh,
Speaker 1: in a professional capacity, that there's often this need to
Speaker 1: feel that you have to work harder to prove yourself.
Speaker 1: And that makes it sound like you just internalized that
Speaker 1: and feel like you have to do that. But often
Speaker 1: people around you, I guess in this case it would
Speaker 1: be the white guys and working in the campaign expect
Speaker 1: you to work harder. Well. And I mean the very
Speaker 1: fact that Burning Glass Consulting received a New York Times
Speaker 1: profile an interview by Amanda Hess insulate all of this
Speaker 1: media coverage because it was three Republican women, you know,
Speaker 1: forming this consulting firm, I think speaks to how you
Speaker 1: of this. This is kind of a rarity. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, and especially when it comes to Republican consulting,
Speaker 1: right exactly. Um, But INLVE, women ran more than half
Speaker 1: of the thirteen most competitive Democratic Senate campaigns, and that
Speaker 1: year women were also in charge of two key campaign committees,
Speaker 1: the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Speaker 1: But uh, those are both back to being headed by dudes,
Speaker 1: So it's not like a permanent change. Um. And again
Speaker 1: that increase in women operatives has been stronger on the
Speaker 1: Democratic side, and in twelve on the Republican side, there
Speaker 1: was just one female manager working on those top thirteen
Speaker 1: most competitive Senate races. So as we are seeing slowly
Speaker 1: but surely the numbers of women in political campaigning increasing,
Speaker 1: the question is why is this happening? Um? So it
Speaker 1: could have to do with an influx of money into
Speaker 1: and the professionalization of campaigns, which creates more opportunities for consultants. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, the way that political campaigns are funded have
Speaker 1: has been a major issue on the Democratic side of
Speaker 1: the presidential race this year. Um. And you also have
Speaker 1: a deeper bench of female operatives who have gradually risen
Speaker 1: to the top, not to mention an increasing focus and
Speaker 1: just general acknowledgement that female voters win elections. I mean,
Speaker 1: women essentially are the people who decide who at least
Speaker 1: gets to the White House. Yeah. And another big aspect
Speaker 1: of this is the proliferation, like dandelions on your front yard,
Speaker 1: of super PACs. And those super PACs offer men or
Speaker 1: women more job flexibility and and schedule fle stability. Than
Speaker 1: working directly for candidates. And that's so that's attractive to
Speaker 1: anyone male or female who has a family or you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like seventeen cats, like whatever, you know,
Speaker 1: or like a bocci ball league on the weekends, like
Speaker 1: whatever you want to do to make your life more rewarding,
Speaker 1: you would have a little bit more time for it.
Speaker 1: And Alexandria lap who's the executive director of the House
Speaker 1: Majority Pack, says, yeah, I'm not getting a call at
Speaker 1: eleven pm from the D Triple C chair of Congressman
Speaker 1: so and so you answer to your donors, but it's
Speaker 1: different than answering to a politician. And super Packs, by
Speaker 1: the way, in case you are not familiar, it's their
Speaker 1: job to raise and spend a ton of money, but
Speaker 1: they can't donate money directly to candidates. So there is
Speaker 1: that layer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, there is that layer
Speaker 1: of separations. So, yeah, you're not answering directly to like
Speaker 1: an angry candidate or an angry campaign manager who wants
Speaker 1: to talk to you in the middle of the night.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, what if Doug Stamper called you in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night, chilling. I don't think i'd answer
Speaker 1: I don't have the the exact numbers in front of me,
Speaker 1: But in terms of women of color and political activism,
Speaker 1: there's also been an exponential um influx of packs forming
Speaker 1: specifically to um engage those groups. I mean, for instance,
Speaker 1: you have Rosario Dawson's co founded Voto Latino UM and
Speaker 1: all sorts of groups like that that have risen in
Speaker 1: just I mean the past five ten years. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: politically you kind of have to fight fire with fire,
Speaker 1: and by fire I mean cash. Money's lots and lots
Speaker 1: of cash moneys, like a Scrooge McDuck pool of money
Speaker 1: to buy ads that's not directly contributing to a politician.
Speaker 1: But politics, I know, I know, I just I hate it.
Speaker 1: I was thinking today actually, when we were preparing to
Speaker 1: come into the studio, Like I looked out the window
Speaker 1: wistfully and I just thought, God, I would kill for
Speaker 1: candidates who were just humans, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Like you can like and respect a candidate all you
Speaker 1: want all day long, and like get caught up in
Speaker 1: the idealism and believe what he or she says and
Speaker 1: be behind them, But God, I would feel so much
Speaker 1: better if candidates were just like, yeah, you know this
Speaker 1: thing over here sucks like well, I mean, I think
Speaker 1: some of that is due to the fact that we
Speaker 1: are a two party system, so you have, you know,
Speaker 1: like two people who are going for like such a
Speaker 1: diverse yeah, massive group of people. Yeah. I was just
Speaker 1: so when Baynard called Chris Lucifer in the flesh, I
Speaker 1: was just like, that is I'm not even a Republican.
Speaker 1: Was that the realist moment for you? So far? That
Speaker 1: was a campaign that one of the realist moments? And
Speaker 1: I was like, God, that's refreshing. Well. And one thing
Speaker 1: we you know, haven't even gotten into and and don't
Speaker 1: have time to is the rise of the kind of
Speaker 1: superstar political manager like a Karl Rove. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think that he's probably the most intense example of that.
Speaker 1: I mean that that man has really, in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways, um changed American culture. I mean, he's responsible,
Speaker 1: I think, for a vast majority of the conservative political
Speaker 1: climate right now. Well. Yeah, and even with Karl Rove,
Speaker 1: though you had Karen Hughes, I think only temporarily. I
Speaker 1: don't think she was with George Bush for the long haul.
Speaker 1: She had worked with him back in Texas UM and
Speaker 1: worked with him on one, if not both, of his
Speaker 1: election presidential election campaigns. Um, so you did have a
Speaker 1: woman sort of like in the wings behind row. But
Speaker 1: for all of his puppet mastering, Karl Rove gets both
Speaker 1: the credit and the blame for all of the stuff
Speaker 1: that happened in George Bush's presidency. Well, and he's positioned
Speaker 1: himself in that way too, because I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know that I've ever seen Karen Hughes on television before,
Speaker 1: but when you have Karl Robe all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's that's one thing we were reading about two
Speaker 1: is like how in this modern era you do have
Speaker 1: people like Mary Magdalene and James Carville, Karl Rove, Donna Brazil,
Speaker 1: people who are political consultants who even like in the
Speaker 1: boom times of the seventies and eighties when they first emerged,
Speaker 1: still we're behind the scenes. And slowly but surely or
Speaker 1: pretty quickly, I guess, they became the talking heads on
Speaker 1: your cable news networks, you know, your columnists in newspapers,
Speaker 1: and they have become celebrities and pseudo politicians in their
Speaker 1: own right. Well. Yeah, speaking of House of Cards, Donna
Speaker 1: Brazil has made two cameos on the show. I mean
Speaker 1: James Carville was in old school. I don't know, like
Speaker 1: that is a fact in my brain that um, I
Speaker 1: wish it could be replaced with something more useful. UM.
Speaker 1: But I mean James Craffel has made so many cameos
Speaker 1: and all sorts of stuff. Um. And but that whole
Speaker 1: thing too, I would attribute going back to old j
Speaker 1: school days, journalism school where Caroline and I first met. Um.
Speaker 1: It's all about the twenty four hour news cycle too,
Speaker 1: so of course they're pulling from the stable of people
Speaker 1: who are really good about talking politics and also spinning
Speaker 1: and kind of you know, uh, shooting from the hip
Speaker 1: with Wolf Blitzer, Yeah who. I once flew in a
Speaker 1: plane with Um and he was carrying a garment bag
Speaker 1: onto the plane and it was monogrammed with his wolf initials,
Speaker 1: and I was hoping it would just be like an
Speaker 1: airbrushed picture of a wolf. God. I wish, I wish, um,
Speaker 1: But I think the most surprising thing was that his
Speaker 1: beard was almost translucent. Strange. I thought you were going
Speaker 1: to say it was like a fake sand of b
Speaker 1: that was tied on behind his ears. Also, I wish,
Speaker 1: but I want your your wolf Blitzer. Um. I was
Speaker 1: on a plane with Kathleen Sebelius, one time former head
Speaker 1: of Health and Human Services. We made eye contact when
Speaker 1: there was a really annoying woman talking on her cell phone.
Speaker 1: Kathleen I waved to her, um, anyway, if you're listening,
Speaker 1: shout out, um So anyway, it's kind of obvious and
Speaker 1: goes without saying. And in Kristen you already touched on
Speaker 1: this earlier in the podcast that if you don't represent
Speaker 1: the population in your campaign, in your strategy, like, it's
Speaker 1: obviously going to ding you because you're not going to
Speaker 1: be able to fully get the picture of your electorate.
Speaker 1: And dip Marcus, can you imagine? Um ditmar writing about
Speaker 1: this says you have to be able to understand how
Speaker 1: to speak to all voters, including hello, over of the population,
Speaker 1: which is women voters, and she points out as if
Speaker 1: she needs to that listen, you guys. There is value
Speaker 1: in women's experiences and women's voices, and that value can
Speaker 1: be applied to shaping policy. Okay, of course I agree
Speaker 1: with all of that, of course, but we have a
Speaker 1: massive glaring exception to the idea that you will get
Speaker 1: dinged at the polls. If you don't know how to
Speaker 1: speak to all voters, and that would be the runaway
Speaker 1: success of one Donald J. Trump, formerly drump But he
Speaker 1: yet well, yeah, but he's not doing well in the
Speaker 1: polls with women, right, but he's still the as of
Speaker 1: the time that we are recording this podcast. Who knows
Speaker 1: what will have changed when this episode publishes. He's the
Speaker 1: presumptive Republican nominee and it doesn't matter. He doesn't even
Speaker 1: he doesn't need women. I mean, granted in the general election,
Speaker 1: I would be surprised if it didn't come back to
Speaker 1: haunt him. Um. But it it's I mean, the the
Speaker 1: American electorate also is so um. I don't I don't
Speaker 1: know how a good word to describe it. It's so
Speaker 1: polarized at this point, it's so extremely polarized that unfortunately,
Speaker 1: you can make excluding certain people's rights and liberties, including
Speaker 1: not only um women, but also Muslims in the case
Speaker 1: of the Trump campaigns, and really anyone who's not wearing
Speaker 1: a Make America Grade Again hat and not wearing it ironically. Um,
Speaker 1: but that you can, you can do that and unfortunately succeed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but like you said, I mean, he's a runaway success
Speaker 1: with a very specific demographic. He would not, I don't
Speaker 1: think do very well in the general against Hilary or Bernie.
Speaker 1: We'll see fingers hell. I mean at this point though, UM,
Speaker 1: And I'm really curious to hear from our listeners outside
Speaker 1: of the US about all of this too, because I'm
Speaker 1: sure it just looks like nonsense happening. It is it is.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't, I don't. I can't even make
Speaker 1: any predictions at this point. No. I asked my father
Speaker 1: who he was voting for, and uh, he just kind
Speaker 1: of looks at me, because he and I do not
Speaker 1: talk politics, and he just looked at me and he said,
Speaker 1: I'll be voting for Kasik after the contested uh nomination.
Speaker 1: So but I mean, that's another interesting example of you
Speaker 1: can not have women's best interest at heart. But if
Speaker 1: you keep quiet about how you feel about women as
Speaker 1: opposed to Donald Trump, well maybe Beth Harden, his campaign manager,
Speaker 1: has had something to do with that. Who knows exactly. UM,
Speaker 1: But of course it's not these aren't do desirable outcomes,
Speaker 1: you know, we would like to see UM people elected
Speaker 1: who do UM value women, UM, not just as like humans,
Speaker 1: is like beautiful objects, like Donald Trump has but as um,
Speaker 1: you know, people who should be kept in mind when
Speaker 1: making and passing policy. And that is one reason why
Speaker 1: we need to give a massive shout out to Emily's List,
Speaker 1: which is a political action committee for pro choice Democratic
Speaker 1: female candidates. Um. If you don't know who they are,
Speaker 1: go look them up. Um they're terrific. Um. And just McIntosh,
Speaker 1: who works with them, agrees that. I mean, it's simply
Speaker 1: a practicality to have women working in your campaign. She says,
Speaker 1: by having women and leadership roles, you're going to have
Speaker 1: more needed perspectives about messaging, reaching voters, all of that.
Speaker 1: When she was speaking to Vocative, Well, what I thought
Speaker 1: was so interesting and telling. Remember that two thousand three
Speaker 1: consultant study that I mentioned a little while ago. Yes, yes, rewind.
Speaker 1: If you don't on your tape deck, your podcast tape deck, rewind.
Speaker 1: This comes out on cassettes, right Yeah, well how yeah,
Speaker 1: people order them on those. Um you remember those like
Speaker 1: cassette services like Columbia, like Titus Andromeda Schmidt subscribed to exactly. Um.
Speaker 1: So you know they talked to a bunch of consultants,
Speaker 1: male and female, and seventy of the women they talked to,
Speaker 1: and just thirty percent of the men believed that women
Speaker 1: brought a unique perspective to the campaign and that this
Speaker 1: perspective could be used strategically to win elections. So interesting,
Speaker 1: because then, if you don't believe that women have a
Speaker 1: unique perspective, and you are accustomed to hiring and promoting
Speaker 1: people who are like you, why why would you make
Speaker 1: a special effort to bring women in Yet again, I
Speaker 1: feel like this is just a microcosm of issues that
Speaker 1: we see across industries right well, which is why so
Speaker 1: many women interviewed in the articles that we read for
Speaker 1: this episode cited the importance of mentors who can help
Speaker 1: guide you through those gender expectations, through those mind field,
Speaker 1: those political mind fields, and the importance of women helping
Speaker 1: and hiring other women. It's not uncommon, according to a
Speaker 1: lot of the women we read uh for women in
Speaker 1: campaigns and consulting firms to band together, at least within
Speaker 1: their own parties and commit to helping bring up promising
Speaker 1: young women that live Chatter and Powell, who we cited earlier,
Speaker 1: encourages female candidates and female oriented packs to work only
Speaker 1: with female consultants. And it's worth noting that women candidates do,
Speaker 1: in fact, tend to hire more women to work on
Speaker 1: their campaigns than male candidates do, and she says if
Speaker 1: we don't help our own, we will never be successful
Speaker 1: at tearing down walls. Um She said that in one
Speaker 1: campaign that she was working on, a male staff member,
Speaker 1: a Democratic male staff member, told her that he she
Speaker 1: couldn't run one of his top Senate campaign races because quote,
Speaker 1: I was female and none of his candidates would take
Speaker 1: orders from a woman. That's that's my eloquent response to that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so um Pal also writes that women can at
Speaker 1: least be there for each other to help encourage one
Speaker 1: another to stick it out. She says women are way
Speaker 1: more likely than men in this field of work to basically,
Speaker 1: I mean, for lack of a better word, and I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna use the buzzword, but lean out when they
Speaker 1: decide that they want a quote unquote real job that
Speaker 1: will afford them some free time to have a family
Speaker 1: or whatever. Um and So she envisions pal and visions
Speaker 1: this landscape where you have training seminars that are exclusively
Speaker 1: for female operatives, given exclusively by female consultants that would
Speaker 1: then after the fact offer a consistent stream of mentoring
Speaker 1: support to help women stick it out, or really just
Speaker 1: to help women plan their career trajectories in whatever political
Speaker 1: direction they want to go. Yeah, I mean it's an
Speaker 1: exhausting job. I can only imagine UM getting into this field. So, um,
Speaker 1: I'm curious to hear if there are any listeners who
Speaker 1: are currently campaigning for UM for candidates right now, or
Speaker 1: who have done so in the past, who can give
Speaker 1: us more feet on the street insights into this. And
Speaker 1: before we get into listener mail, I want to quickly
Speaker 1: correct myself. Um, just a minute ago, when we were
Speaker 1: mentioning Kimmy Schmidt, I refer to Titus Andromedas. His name
Speaker 1: is Titus Andromedon. Tins Andromedas is actually a band that
Speaker 1: I used to listen to all the time. So listeners,
Speaker 1: don't don't worry. Don't worry. I know, I know. Um. So,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to make that a very important point clear. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I was our I was just envisioning. I didn't even
Speaker 1: hear you finish that because I was just envisioning tied
Speaker 1: us breaking that tape and having so um. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: just I just assumed you said it correctly. Well, listeners,
Speaker 1: now we want to hear from you. Mom Stuff at
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot Com is our email address. You
Speaker 1: can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or messages
Speaker 1: on Facebook. And if by chance you know Donna Brasilt
Speaker 1: pullease send her our best. And we've got a couple
Speaker 1: of messages this year with you right now. Well, I
Speaker 1: have a letter here from Sarah in response to our
Speaker 1: episode on the comfort women of World War Two. She says,
Speaker 1: I was surprised to discover a bit of my own
Speaker 1: family history. My grandfather is a renowned cardiologist now, but
Speaker 1: got his start as a brigade surgeon in the Army
Speaker 1: during World War Two in the Pacific Theater. For most
Speaker 1: of my life he never ever talked about the war. However,
Speaker 1: as I've gotten older I'm thirty two and have since
Speaker 1: enlisted in the Air Force, he felt comfortable enough telling
Speaker 1: me bits and pieces about his service. Shortly after the
Speaker 1: war ended, my grandfather was in Japan trying to prevent
Speaker 1: epidemics from breaking out among the troops. One of his
Speaker 1: duties while there was apparently delousing the women high ranking
Speaker 1: military officers slept with. I never realized quite what that
Speaker 1: meant until right now. That's such a terrible position to
Speaker 1: be in. I guess I now know why he never
Speaker 1: wanted to talk to me about that job in particular.
Speaker 1: Thanks for the clarity, and thanks for everything you ladies do.
Speaker 1: I listen to your podcast all the time. Well thanks,
Speaker 1: Sarah So. I gotta let her here from Lena offering
Speaker 1: some clarifications and corrections about that episode. Um so So,
Speaker 1: she says, we, referring to Koreans, aren't just upset about
Speaker 1: the comfort women issue. Japan to date has never actually apologized,
Speaker 1: and they continue to refuse to do so. The last
Speaker 1: so called apology was more of a we're sorry you
Speaker 1: went through that. In recent years, Japan tried to eliminate
Speaker 1: a monument to comfort women from various countries, including Korea,
Speaker 1: the Philippines, China, and other countries. And she goes on
Speaker 1: to say, I get the things happened and need to
Speaker 1: be discussed, but depicting Korean culture as one where men
Speaker 1: would prostitute their own daughters honestly makes it sound like
Speaker 1: you're trying to reduce the seriousness of what Japan did
Speaker 1: in numerous countries. As you mentioned, one of the worst
Speaker 1: things these women face post war was a social shame
Speaker 1: of their experience and the ways in which they were
Speaker 1: severely abused. Being raped wasn't always seen as a sign
Speaker 1: that you were a victim and will take care of you.
Speaker 1: They were tainted, so everything they went through shouldn't be minimized.
Speaker 1: China in particular shouldn't be forgotten. Their government and people
Speaker 1: have been extremely active in pushing for apologies and some
Speaker 1: sign that they might not repeat the same acts if
Speaker 1: given the chance. Korea's government has let us down, and
Speaker 1: China's government has continued to pursue numerous issues. I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to be harsh, and I love all of your
Speaker 1: podcast us. I found time and again that your research
Speaker 1: on numerous Asian issues has been extremely well done. This
Speaker 1: just happens to be a particularly sore spot that isn't
Speaker 1: just a problem for former quote unquote comfort women. A
Speaker 1: term that really needs to die anyway. It was created
Speaker 1: by Japan specifically to try to tone down the horrific
Speaker 1: nature of what was done to them. So thank you
Speaker 1: for writing in Lena, and thanks to everybody who's written
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