1
00:00:02,840 --> 00:00:04,880
Speaker 1: Hey, fam, Hello Sunshine.

2
00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:08,640
Speaker 2: Today we're celebrating the Red, White, and Royal who's Who

3
00:00:08,880 --> 00:00:13,319
Speaker 2: of women in American history with author and editor Maddie Conn.

4
00:00:13,880 --> 00:00:16,760
Speaker 2: It's Thursday, July fourth. I'm Danielle Robe.

5
00:00:16,520 --> 00:00:19,520
Speaker 3: And I'm Simone Voice, and this is the bright side

6
00:00:19,560 --> 00:00:24,880
Speaker 3: from Hello Sunshine, Simone.

7
00:00:25,000 --> 00:00:26,200
Speaker 1: Happy fourth of July.

8
00:00:27,000 --> 00:00:28,360
Speaker 4: Yes, Happy fourth, Danielle.

9
00:00:28,760 --> 00:00:31,920
Speaker 2: The sun is out, the barbecues are fired up, and

10
00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:35,120
Speaker 2: I'm going to be celebrating with my family in Chicago.

11
00:00:35,640 --> 00:00:39,640
Speaker 3: How are you celebrating your fourth Sun's out? Guns out.

12
00:00:39,880 --> 00:00:43,440
Speaker 3: We're in the pool, we are drinking rose, We're eating

13
00:00:43,640 --> 00:00:46,760
Speaker 3: watermelon and delicious grilled meats.

14
00:00:47,000 --> 00:00:48,280
Speaker 4: That's how we're celebrating today.

15
00:00:48,880 --> 00:00:50,000
Speaker 1: Sounds very similar.

16
00:00:50,120 --> 00:00:52,479
Speaker 2: I think like across the board, lots of people are

17
00:00:52,479 --> 00:00:54,080
Speaker 2: celebrating in a similar way.

18
00:00:54,360 --> 00:00:55,720
Speaker 1: Are you a fireworks person?

19
00:00:56,200 --> 00:00:56,440
Speaker 4: Yeah?

20
00:00:56,520 --> 00:00:59,600
Speaker 3: Actually, we live on a pretty big hill, so we

21
00:00:59,720 --> 00:01:02,560
Speaker 3: have an amazing view of fireworks that are all in

22
00:01:02,600 --> 00:01:05,720
Speaker 3: the valley below us. So we have a pretty great

23
00:01:05,760 --> 00:01:08,679
Speaker 3: spot to watch the fireworks. Oh my god, that's cool.

24
00:01:09,120 --> 00:01:10,640
Speaker 3: We have a tradition. I think I'm going to get

25
00:01:10,640 --> 00:01:12,560
Speaker 3: in trouble for sharing this, but I'm going to share

26
00:01:12,600 --> 00:01:16,959
Speaker 3: it anyways. My dad is so great at setting off fireworks,

27
00:01:17,120 --> 00:01:20,400
Speaker 3: and so sometimes we drive to Wisconsin because it's illegal

28
00:01:20,400 --> 00:01:23,120
Speaker 3: in Illinois, and we cross the border and we get

29
00:01:23,120 --> 00:01:25,959
Speaker 3: some fireworks and he does like a whole show.

30
00:01:26,000 --> 00:01:29,000
Speaker 2: For my family. It was like the highlight of my childhood.

31
00:01:29,040 --> 00:01:30,800
Speaker 2: So I'm hoping he does it this year. It's always

32
00:01:30,800 --> 00:01:32,120
Speaker 2: a surprise. We don't know if he's going to do

33
00:01:32,160 --> 00:01:35,240
Speaker 2: it or not. He sounds like a true American revolutionary,

34
00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:40,720
Speaker 2: and that makes me think of guys like George Washington,

35
00:01:40,800 --> 00:01:43,600
Speaker 2: Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, you know, the founding fathers that

36
00:01:43,640 --> 00:01:46,040
Speaker 2: we usually talk about on days like today.

37
00:01:46,280 --> 00:01:47,680
Speaker 4: Yeah, but there are.

38
00:01:47,560 --> 00:01:51,400
Speaker 3: Some amazing women who have been instrumental in shaping this

39
00:01:51,560 --> 00:01:55,000
Speaker 3: country and we don't talk about them often enough. I

40
00:01:55,000 --> 00:01:57,600
Speaker 3: think of the suffragists, the organizers who got women the

41
00:01:57,680 --> 00:02:00,440
Speaker 3: right to vote in nineteen twenty then help to pass

42
00:02:00,480 --> 00:02:03,280
Speaker 3: the Civil Rights Act in nineteen sixty four. The list

43
00:02:03,360 --> 00:02:03,760
Speaker 3: goes on.

44
00:02:04,160 --> 00:02:07,559
Speaker 2: Researchers estimate that women's stories make up just zero point

45
00:02:07,680 --> 00:02:11,920
Speaker 2: five percent of recorded history. And here at the bright

46
00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:15,200
Speaker 2: Side and at Hello Sunshine, one of our missions is

47
00:02:15,200 --> 00:02:17,680
Speaker 2: to try and change that, because there are so many

48
00:02:17,720 --> 00:02:22,080
Speaker 2: women's stories that are just not prominent in our history books,

49
00:02:22,560 --> 00:02:25,280
Speaker 2: which is why today we're celebrating a few of those

50
00:02:25,320 --> 00:02:28,320
Speaker 2: amazing stories with writer and editor Maddi Cohn.

51
00:02:28,720 --> 00:02:32,000
Speaker 3: Yes, we are giving them their flowers today, and Maddie

52
00:02:32,080 --> 00:02:33,760
Speaker 3: is going to be guiding us through all of it.

53
00:02:33,840 --> 00:02:35,800
Speaker 3: Her work has been published in The New York Times,

54
00:02:35,800 --> 00:02:40,000
Speaker 3: The Washington Post, Vogue, Harper's Bizarre, so many more. She's

55
00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:42,480
Speaker 3: covered women's issues in politics for years, and she's the

56
00:02:42,560 --> 00:02:47,240
Speaker 3: author of Young and Restless, The Girls who Sparked America's Revolutions.

57
00:02:47,520 --> 00:02:49,000
Speaker 3: Welcome to the bright Side, Mattie.

58
00:02:49,240 --> 00:02:50,000
Speaker 5: Happy to be here.

59
00:02:50,680 --> 00:02:56,560
Speaker 2: You've written for publications like The New York Times, Glamour, Vogue, Elle.

60
00:02:57,160 --> 00:03:01,840
Speaker 2: You're so accomplished and so thoughtful, and you love stories

61
00:03:01,960 --> 00:03:06,040
Speaker 2: about women and girls. And I'm really curious as to

62
00:03:06,120 --> 00:03:09,239
Speaker 2: why you were inspired to tell these stories.

63
00:03:09,680 --> 00:03:11,920
Speaker 1: The history of these teenage girls.

64
00:03:12,120 --> 00:03:14,000
Speaker 6: I mean, I think I'm a person who loved being

65
00:03:14,040 --> 00:03:16,680
Speaker 6: a teenage girl. I think a lot of us feel

66
00:03:16,800 --> 00:03:18,840
Speaker 6: like the music that we listened to at that time,

67
00:03:18,919 --> 00:03:21,760
Speaker 6: the clothes that we wore, the things we were obsessed with,

68
00:03:21,800 --> 00:03:24,000
Speaker 6: the friendships that we had are still in some ways

69
00:03:24,040 --> 00:03:25,800
Speaker 6: the most determinative.

70
00:03:25,360 --> 00:03:26,200
Speaker 5: Of our lives.

71
00:03:26,639 --> 00:03:29,600
Speaker 6: I like to think that this book came out at

72
00:03:29,600 --> 00:03:32,840
Speaker 6: exactly the right moment, because it ever so slightly predated

73
00:03:32,880 --> 00:03:35,960
Speaker 6: the Renaissance Tour and the Era's tour. And I think

74
00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:41,280
Speaker 6: anybody who saw what happened to traffic at this point worldwide,

75
00:03:41,800 --> 00:03:45,320
Speaker 6: what happened to hotel reservations, what happened to merch sales,

76
00:03:45,720 --> 00:03:49,040
Speaker 6: can gaze upon the power of teenage girls and cower

77
00:03:49,560 --> 00:03:53,120
Speaker 6: beneath their might. I wanted to write this book because

78
00:03:53,160 --> 00:03:56,120
Speaker 6: I felt like the kind of energy that girls bring

79
00:03:56,120 --> 00:03:58,960
Speaker 6: to what they love was something that had been treated

80
00:03:59,480 --> 00:04:03,080
Speaker 6: as for for so long in mainstream culture. And I knew,

81
00:04:03,200 --> 00:04:05,920
Speaker 6: from having spent time with teenage girls and from having

82
00:04:05,960 --> 00:04:09,960
Speaker 6: been a teenage girl, that actually you could power nuclear

83
00:04:10,040 --> 00:04:13,160
Speaker 6: power plants with what girls can bring to the things

84
00:04:13,160 --> 00:04:14,840
Speaker 6: that they obsess over and care about.

85
00:04:15,880 --> 00:04:19,480
Speaker 3: So for your book, Young and Restless, you recount the

86
00:04:19,560 --> 00:04:23,159
Speaker 3: instrumental role of teenage girls throughout American history, and I

87
00:04:23,240 --> 00:04:25,720
Speaker 3: cannot wait to learn more about these women because I

88
00:04:25,800 --> 00:04:28,640
Speaker 3: am such a history nerd. I've always loved American history.

89
00:04:29,120 --> 00:04:32,080
Speaker 3: Tell us how they were central to the American Revolution.

90
00:04:32,360 --> 00:04:34,040
Speaker 6: I mean, I think that now is the perfect time

91
00:04:34,080 --> 00:04:36,760
Speaker 6: to be talking about their legacy. Obviously, I think that

92
00:04:36,839 --> 00:04:40,599
Speaker 6: there really is no version of American freedom, or the

93
00:04:40,680 --> 00:04:43,240
Speaker 6: kind of liberty that we hope to associate with this

94
00:04:43,279 --> 00:04:46,600
Speaker 6: country and don't always live up to, without the contributions

95
00:04:46,600 --> 00:04:50,200
Speaker 6: of teenage girls. The book does start with the American Revolution,

96
00:04:50,360 --> 00:04:52,880
Speaker 6: because it starts with the founding, and I have to

97
00:04:52,880 --> 00:04:56,440
Speaker 6: say I had pretty low expectations for what role teenage

98
00:04:56,440 --> 00:04:59,200
Speaker 6: girls would have played in that war and in that effort,

99
00:04:59,320 --> 00:05:02,880
Speaker 6: because the category of teenager didn't even quite exist then.

100
00:05:03,279 --> 00:05:05,479
Speaker 6: And I think that we all wouldn't be surprised to

101
00:05:05,480 --> 00:05:08,760
Speaker 6: hear that the expectations for what girls would accomplish or

102
00:05:08,839 --> 00:05:12,279
Speaker 6: offer were not terribly high. But I loved talking to

103
00:05:12,480 --> 00:05:15,760
Speaker 6: academics and librarians and scholars about the various ways that

104
00:05:15,800 --> 00:05:20,520
Speaker 6: girls did contribute. So, whether that was running onto battlefields

105
00:05:20,560 --> 00:05:26,080
Speaker 6: and supplying medication, water, or food to soldiers, or helping

106
00:05:26,160 --> 00:05:29,600
Speaker 6: to raise militias of troops, sometimes to help their fathers

107
00:05:29,720 --> 00:05:32,359
Speaker 6: or to help their brothers, girls were right there on

108
00:05:32,400 --> 00:05:34,080
Speaker 6: the front lines from the very beginning.

109
00:05:34,480 --> 00:05:38,680
Speaker 2: So you write about the Lowell Mill girls for their

110
00:05:38,760 --> 00:05:41,600
Speaker 2: role in the labor movement, and this is after the revolution.

111
00:05:41,800 --> 00:05:43,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, correct.

112
00:05:43,680 --> 00:05:46,120
Speaker 2: So they go on strike and they form the first

113
00:05:46,160 --> 00:05:50,080
Speaker 2: ever union of working women in the United States. Teenage

114
00:05:50,120 --> 00:05:53,600
Speaker 2: girls did this. It's incredible. Can you share the significance

115
00:05:53,640 --> 00:05:54,360
Speaker 2: of this story.

116
00:05:54,600 --> 00:05:57,680
Speaker 6: The Lowell Mill girls were some of the earliest examples

117
00:05:57,680 --> 00:06:00,240
Speaker 6: of girls that I knew belonged in this book. Like

118
00:06:00,240 --> 00:06:03,159
Speaker 6: you said, these were girls who worked in textile mills

119
00:06:03,200 --> 00:06:06,279
Speaker 6: in Massachusetts up and down New England, kind of in

120
00:06:06,279 --> 00:06:09,840
Speaker 6: the eighteen thirties. So they are living with the memories

121
00:06:09,880 --> 00:06:13,160
Speaker 6: of their fathers and grandfathers having fought in the Revolution.

122
00:06:13,680 --> 00:06:18,200
Speaker 6: Definitely have that pioneering American spirit, and they have this

123
00:06:18,279 --> 00:06:21,720
Speaker 6: new role in this country where never before have groups

124
00:06:21,760 --> 00:06:24,159
Speaker 6: of girls worked and lived together in the way that

125
00:06:24,200 --> 00:06:27,080
Speaker 6: they do in these textile mills. And at first it's

126
00:06:27,120 --> 00:06:30,880
Speaker 6: this amazing opportunity. You know, don't want to sugarcoat child labor,

127
00:06:30,960 --> 00:06:34,240
Speaker 6: but it is true that, you know, they got paid

128
00:06:34,279 --> 00:06:37,840
Speaker 6: more than they ever expected to. They were treated with

129
00:06:38,200 --> 00:06:40,400
Speaker 6: a sense of value that they didn't have in their

130
00:06:40,400 --> 00:06:43,120
Speaker 6: family farms where they were mostly coming from. And very

131
00:06:43,240 --> 00:06:47,280
Speaker 6: quickly they learn to appreciate what is being offered to them,

132
00:06:47,320 --> 00:06:50,400
Speaker 6: and also to understand that they're not really earning their

133
00:06:50,400 --> 00:06:52,760
Speaker 6: worth and that conditions are not what they should be,

134
00:06:52,880 --> 00:06:55,720
Speaker 6: and so girls as young as ten or twelve who

135
00:06:55,720 --> 00:06:58,880
Speaker 6: are working in these textile mills band together and basically

136
00:06:58,960 --> 00:07:02,560
Speaker 6: former workers associate, like you said in early labor union,

137
00:07:03,080 --> 00:07:06,160
Speaker 6: to walk off the job. And you have to imagine

138
00:07:06,640 --> 00:07:10,000
Speaker 6: thousands and thousands of young women leaving their posts in

139
00:07:10,080 --> 00:07:12,880
Speaker 6: these textile mills and marching into the streets to call

140
00:07:13,000 --> 00:07:17,240
Speaker 6: for better conditions, fairer wages, with a consciousness too, of

141
00:07:17,280 --> 00:07:20,800
Speaker 6: the fact that even if their aims are not totally achieved,

142
00:07:20,840 --> 00:07:24,000
Speaker 6: it's worthwhile for them to kind of have a show

143
00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:27,960
Speaker 6: of force. And what I love about them is that

144
00:07:28,600 --> 00:07:32,960
Speaker 6: while they weren't successful in achieving everything that they wanted,

145
00:07:33,200 --> 00:07:37,560
Speaker 6: a generation later, several generations later, when second wave feminists

146
00:07:37,600 --> 00:07:41,040
Speaker 6: are looking for examples of girls and women in history

147
00:07:41,080 --> 00:07:43,040
Speaker 6: who did a little bit of what they're trying to do,

148
00:07:43,160 --> 00:07:46,160
Speaker 6: you know, fight for their worth and call attention to

149
00:07:46,760 --> 00:07:50,040
Speaker 6: their contributions, they find the writings of the Lower Mill

150
00:07:50,120 --> 00:07:52,960
Speaker 6: Girls and publish these anthologies of their work. And I

151
00:07:53,000 --> 00:07:57,160
Speaker 6: love the way grown women knew and could appreciate the

152
00:07:57,200 --> 00:07:59,960
Speaker 6: example of teenage girls as a source of inspiration, you know,

153
00:08:00,400 --> 00:08:01,680
Speaker 6: one hundred years later.

154
00:08:01,800 --> 00:08:04,520
Speaker 2: So those writings by the Lowll Mills girls you're talking

155
00:08:04,520 --> 00:08:08,240
Speaker 2: about is a publication called The Lull Offering, and the

156
00:08:08,280 --> 00:08:11,160
Speaker 2: publication was a turning point in American history.

157
00:08:11,600 --> 00:08:15,600
Speaker 6: How so, yeah, Well, first all female newsroom in the

158
00:08:15,680 --> 00:08:16,600
Speaker 6: United States.

159
00:08:16,720 --> 00:08:19,239
Speaker 5: The Low Offering never been done before.

160
00:08:19,800 --> 00:08:23,200
Speaker 6: And as someone who worked at l Magazine and Glamor Magazine,

161
00:08:23,280 --> 00:08:27,360
Speaker 6: I love to see my journalistic forbears shut their stuff

162
00:08:27,400 --> 00:08:29,840
Speaker 6: in The Low Offering, maybe in a subtle way and

163
00:08:29,880 --> 00:08:32,280
Speaker 6: maybe in kind of an unappreciated way. It was a

164
00:08:32,280 --> 00:08:35,320
Speaker 6: place where they didn't have to ask for permission to be,

165
00:08:35,960 --> 00:08:39,000
Speaker 6: you know, not tucked into a corner or given a

166
00:08:39,040 --> 00:08:41,840
Speaker 6: small little bit on the margins, but really take up

167
00:08:41,840 --> 00:08:44,280
Speaker 6: the whole front page and to feel like the things

168
00:08:44,320 --> 00:08:46,840
Speaker 6: that they cared about were important. One of the things

169
00:08:46,880 --> 00:08:50,040
Speaker 6: I love about The Offering is that if you root

170
00:08:50,080 --> 00:08:53,920
Speaker 6: through the archives, you can find these basically money diaries

171
00:08:53,960 --> 00:08:57,160
Speaker 6: that they published, like one hundred and fifty years before

172
00:08:57,679 --> 00:09:01,559
Speaker 6: other publications are tracking women spent. They are doing it themselves,

173
00:09:01,600 --> 00:09:05,240
Speaker 6: talking about saving for education, buying watches, buying pairs of boots,

174
00:09:05,280 --> 00:09:07,760
Speaker 6: and they're writing all of this down. I think that

175
00:09:07,920 --> 00:09:10,839
Speaker 6: what it shows is that from a very early point

176
00:09:10,880 --> 00:09:14,680
Speaker 6: in American history, girls understood that the things that consumed

177
00:09:14,720 --> 00:09:18,160
Speaker 6: them were worth publicizing. And I think if you look

178
00:09:18,200 --> 00:09:21,760
Speaker 6: at the way girls drives culture now and so often

179
00:09:21,800 --> 00:09:24,240
Speaker 6: decide what we think of as cool or worth spending

180
00:09:24,280 --> 00:09:26,720
Speaker 6: our own money on, you can see that there's like

181
00:09:26,760 --> 00:09:28,960
Speaker 6: this incredible history of that going all the way back

182
00:09:28,960 --> 00:09:31,439
Speaker 6: to these labor activists who lived in the eighteen thirties.

183
00:09:31,920 --> 00:09:33,160
Speaker 1: That's so cool, Maddie.

184
00:09:33,200 --> 00:09:35,880
Speaker 2: We're loving all of this history, but we have to

185
00:09:35,920 --> 00:09:36,800
Speaker 2: take a short break.

186
00:09:36,960 --> 00:09:46,400
Speaker 1: Stay with us.

187
00:09:47,960 --> 00:09:50,560
Speaker 4: We're back with author and editor Maddie Kahn.

188
00:09:50,880 --> 00:09:53,040
Speaker 3: Okay, Maddie, I want to talk about women suffer, just

189
00:09:53,120 --> 00:09:56,840
Speaker 3: because when we think of them, names like Susan b Anthony, Elizabeth,

190
00:09:56,880 --> 00:10:00,600
Speaker 3: Katie Stanton come to mind. But you say, maybe Ping

191
00:10:00,720 --> 00:10:03,719
Speaker 3: Hua Lee was actually a trailer blazer that we need

192
00:10:03,760 --> 00:10:05,559
Speaker 3: to know about. Can you share her story?

193
00:10:06,000 --> 00:10:06,160
Speaker 6: Yeah?

194
00:10:06,200 --> 00:10:07,320
Speaker 5: I'm obsessed with Mabel.

195
00:10:07,800 --> 00:10:10,199
Speaker 6: I used to say, like, it's horrible to choose favorites

196
00:10:10,240 --> 00:10:13,280
Speaker 6: among your book children, but I have to say, of

197
00:10:13,320 --> 00:10:15,400
Speaker 6: the stories that have most stayed with me from the book,

198
00:10:15,559 --> 00:10:19,480
Speaker 6: Mabel is up there. Mabel was a Chinese immigrant coming

199
00:10:19,520 --> 00:10:23,120
Speaker 6: to New York at a time where anti Chinese sentiment

200
00:10:23,120 --> 00:10:26,040
Speaker 6: in particular was really high. It was just a very

201
00:10:26,120 --> 00:10:29,720
Speaker 6: xenophobic time, unfortunately, like so much of American history. But

202
00:10:30,000 --> 00:10:32,920
Speaker 6: she was able to move to this country because her

203
00:10:32,960 --> 00:10:36,040
Speaker 6: father was a minister who could get around these really

204
00:10:36,120 --> 00:10:39,720
Speaker 6: draconian anti immigration laws by virtue of being a member

205
00:10:39,720 --> 00:10:41,880
Speaker 6: of the clergy. So he and his wife settled from

206
00:10:42,000 --> 00:10:45,600
Speaker 6: China in New York. They raised Mabel, who was by

207
00:10:45,600 --> 00:10:48,240
Speaker 6: all accounts like a stellar student, went to a very

208
00:10:48,240 --> 00:10:51,880
Speaker 6: illustrious high school, and then went to Barnard as a teenager,

209
00:10:52,160 --> 00:10:56,720
Speaker 6: and she immediately made a name for herself as a

210
00:10:56,760 --> 00:10:59,400
Speaker 6: really outspoken advocate for the women's vote. And it was

211
00:10:59,440 --> 00:11:02,080
Speaker 6: at this time, I'm in American history, where American women

212
00:11:02,400 --> 00:11:05,599
Speaker 6: were beginning to realize that it seemed China would enfranchise

213
00:11:05,640 --> 00:11:06,359
Speaker 6: its women.

214
00:11:06,200 --> 00:11:07,720
Speaker 5: Before the United States did.

215
00:11:08,160 --> 00:11:11,280
Speaker 6: There's a lot of just sort of like political and

216
00:11:11,280 --> 00:11:14,120
Speaker 6: cultural stuff wrapped up in that, but what it meant

217
00:11:14,200 --> 00:11:18,280
Speaker 6: was that people were looking to Chinese women and Chinese

218
00:11:18,280 --> 00:11:20,800
Speaker 6: teenage girls in the case of Mabel, to talk about

219
00:11:20,800 --> 00:11:23,240
Speaker 6: what liberty could look like and what the dawn of

220
00:11:23,280 --> 00:11:26,040
Speaker 6: this new kind of global world order might look like.

221
00:11:26,400 --> 00:11:30,439
Speaker 6: And Mabel, from age fifteen sixteen is giving speeches all

222
00:11:30,520 --> 00:11:33,120
Speaker 6: up and down New York and is very aware in

223
00:11:33,160 --> 00:11:36,000
Speaker 6: a way that I think teenage girls now would recognize

224
00:11:36,000 --> 00:11:38,800
Speaker 6: of the fact that, yes, she absolutely has something to say.

225
00:11:39,120 --> 00:11:41,040
Speaker 6: Yes she is probably smarter than a lot of the

226
00:11:41,040 --> 00:11:43,520
Speaker 6: people that she's talking to, but also she knows that

227
00:11:43,600 --> 00:11:45,680
Speaker 6: part of the reason people are interested in her is

228
00:11:45,720 --> 00:11:48,600
Speaker 6: because she is so young and because she frankly looks

229
00:11:48,640 --> 00:11:51,280
Speaker 6: different than most of the rooms in which she is speaking.

230
00:11:51,360 --> 00:11:54,240
Speaker 6: I think so many women today have had that experience

231
00:11:54,280 --> 00:11:57,680
Speaker 6: of kind of trying to balance internally, am I being

232
00:11:57,760 --> 00:12:00,800
Speaker 6: invited here because of the content of what I have

233
00:12:00,880 --> 00:12:03,040
Speaker 6: to say? Or am I kind of a spectacle that

234
00:12:03,040 --> 00:12:05,640
Speaker 6: people want to look at? And I think Mabel was

235
00:12:05,679 --> 00:12:09,120
Speaker 6: a person who recognized that she had to exploit every

236
00:12:09,200 --> 00:12:12,240
Speaker 6: opportunity that was available to her, even if there were

237
00:12:12,320 --> 00:12:16,640
Speaker 6: some nefarious undertones to why she was getting those opportunities,

238
00:12:16,720 --> 00:12:20,320
Speaker 6: and the response to her was enormous. I think now

239
00:12:20,400 --> 00:12:23,360
Speaker 6: in our current era, it's hard to imagine public speakers

240
00:12:23,400 --> 00:12:26,720
Speaker 6: becoming celebrities, but that is basically what happened to Mabel.

241
00:12:26,840 --> 00:12:29,640
Speaker 6: So there's an editorial about her that I just loved

242
00:12:29,679 --> 00:12:32,559
Speaker 6: where someone who had been at several of her talks

243
00:12:32,600 --> 00:12:36,080
Speaker 6: said that people didn't just leave her speeches moved. They

244
00:12:36,160 --> 00:12:39,520
Speaker 6: left mabelized by her talk. She was that charismatic that

245
00:12:39,559 --> 00:12:43,000
Speaker 6: they invented a whole new word to describe the reaction

246
00:12:43,559 --> 00:12:45,960
Speaker 6: to what she had to say. And yeah, she is

247
00:12:46,000 --> 00:12:50,000
Speaker 6: a person who is not afraid to talk down to

248
00:12:50,320 --> 00:12:54,400
Speaker 6: grown white women who are telling her why things might

249
00:12:54,440 --> 00:12:57,840
Speaker 6: be hard or what the politics might be. She is

250
00:12:58,040 --> 00:13:03,200
Speaker 6: uncompromising in her view of women's enfranchisement. And when actually

251
00:13:03,720 --> 00:13:07,840
Speaker 6: Harriet Stanton Blatch plans one of the biggest women's marches

252
00:13:07,880 --> 00:13:11,319
Speaker 6: of the time in the early nineteen hundreds in New York,

253
00:13:11,520 --> 00:13:14,840
Speaker 6: to have ten thousand people marching up Fifth Avenue, and

254
00:13:14,920 --> 00:13:16,920
Speaker 6: she needs to put someone at the front of that parade,

255
00:13:17,000 --> 00:13:20,280
Speaker 6: she puts Mabel on horseback and Mabel leads thousands and

256
00:13:20,320 --> 00:13:23,600
Speaker 6: thousands of people up Fifth Avenue. She later went on

257
00:13:23,640 --> 00:13:27,000
Speaker 6: to earn a PhD from Colombia, and as a humanities

258
00:13:27,040 --> 00:13:29,000
Speaker 6: person myself, I have to say I find it very

259
00:13:29,000 --> 00:13:31,320
Speaker 6: impressive that she got it in economics, one of the

260
00:13:31,360 --> 00:13:34,200
Speaker 6: first women and Chinese women in America to do so.

261
00:13:34,520 --> 00:13:36,280
Speaker 1: Kon so many firsts.

262
00:13:36,720 --> 00:13:40,520
Speaker 2: I looked up photos of her and she was very chic.

263
00:13:41,280 --> 00:13:43,520
Speaker 2: I know that fashion is not the most important part

264
00:13:43,559 --> 00:13:46,839
Speaker 2: of her story. But she was a very well dressed suffragette.

265
00:13:46,920 --> 00:13:48,960
Speaker 6: I think, actually that's a really good point. One of

266
00:13:49,000 --> 00:13:50,800
Speaker 6: the things that I talked a lot about in this

267
00:13:50,840 --> 00:13:52,840
Speaker 6: book and that I do take really seriously is that

268
00:13:53,080 --> 00:13:54,920
Speaker 6: if you want to find a group of people who

269
00:13:55,000 --> 00:13:57,360
Speaker 6: are going to instantly realize how important it is to

270
00:13:58,040 --> 00:14:02,240
Speaker 6: communicate visually as well as find a group of teenage.

271
00:14:01,880 --> 00:14:04,200
Speaker 5: Girls, they really really get it.

272
00:14:04,360 --> 00:14:07,160
Speaker 6: So from the lower mill girls who tended to wear

273
00:14:07,200 --> 00:14:10,360
Speaker 6: white and wore sashes and hats, through the suffragists who

274
00:14:10,600 --> 00:14:14,400
Speaker 6: also wore white and often wore very coordinated accessories, up

275
00:14:14,400 --> 00:14:16,680
Speaker 6: through Civil Rights, where a dress was a huge part

276
00:14:16,800 --> 00:14:20,280
Speaker 6: of activism. Teenage girls really understand that you're making a

277
00:14:20,320 --> 00:14:22,880
Speaker 6: visual impression first, and I think that we see that

278
00:14:23,080 --> 00:14:25,360
Speaker 6: up until today, So I don't think fashioness besides the

279
00:14:25,360 --> 00:14:27,320
Speaker 6: point at all. I'm sure Mabe would be thrilled to

280
00:14:27,360 --> 00:14:28,920
Speaker 6: hear that you recognized her game.

281
00:14:29,480 --> 00:14:33,200
Speaker 2: I love that, Maddie. Well, you mentioned the Civil Rights movement.

282
00:14:33,280 --> 00:14:36,640
Speaker 2: When we think about pioneering women of that era, the

283
00:14:36,720 --> 00:14:39,240
Speaker 2: name Rosa Parks comes to mind for most people.

284
00:14:39,480 --> 00:14:40,920
Speaker 1: It definitely comes to my mind.

285
00:14:41,680 --> 00:14:43,720
Speaker 2: And in your book you talk about a woman named

286
00:14:43,760 --> 00:14:47,640
Speaker 2: Claudette Colvin, who I hadn't heard of, what was her

287
00:14:47,800 --> 00:14:49,240
Speaker 2: role in the civil rights movement.

288
00:14:49,960 --> 00:14:54,080
Speaker 6: So Claudette is real trailblazer stuff. And just as a

289
00:14:54,120 --> 00:14:57,280
Speaker 6: reminder of how close civil rights is to our current moment,

290
00:14:57,280 --> 00:15:01,160
Speaker 6: Claudette Colvin is still alive. She was in high school

291
00:15:01,240 --> 00:15:03,560
Speaker 6: at the height of the civil rights movement, and nine

292
00:15:03,600 --> 00:15:06,360
Speaker 6: months before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat

293
00:15:06,480 --> 00:15:10,160
Speaker 6: on a Montgomery bus in December nineteen fifty five, Claudette

294
00:15:10,160 --> 00:15:12,480
Speaker 6: Covin refused to give up her seat on a bus

295
00:15:12,480 --> 00:15:15,560
Speaker 6: in Montgomery in March of that same year, and she

296
00:15:16,200 --> 00:15:20,000
Speaker 6: was arrested for it. She was young, fifteen sixteen around

297
00:15:20,040 --> 00:15:23,640
Speaker 6: that time and was kind of I think, shocked to

298
00:15:23,760 --> 00:15:26,160
Speaker 6: be arrested, but had a ton of conviction about what

299
00:15:26,200 --> 00:15:28,440
Speaker 6: she was doing. Had gone into it with a very

300
00:15:28,480 --> 00:15:33,040
Speaker 6: principled stance of feeling like this level of segregation and

301
00:15:33,080 --> 00:15:35,880
Speaker 6: discrimination really could not stand. And what I think is

302
00:15:35,920 --> 00:15:38,120
Speaker 6: interesting is I'm sure there will be people listening to

303
00:15:38,160 --> 00:15:40,680
Speaker 6: this who have heard that name before. I think Claudette

304
00:15:40,680 --> 00:15:43,000
Speaker 6: has risen a little bit in the consciousness, which is

305
00:15:43,000 --> 00:15:45,240
Speaker 6: a great thing and a really important thing. What I

306
00:15:45,320 --> 00:15:47,080
Speaker 6: think a lot of people don't know is that she

307
00:15:47,160 --> 00:15:51,360
Speaker 6: and Rosa Parks were extremely close. Rosa Parks, before her

308
00:15:51,600 --> 00:15:54,240
Speaker 6: stand on the Montgomery bus, was actually the leader of

309
00:15:54,280 --> 00:15:57,800
Speaker 6: the NAACP Youth Council in Montgomery. It was her job

310
00:15:57,840 --> 00:16:00,160
Speaker 6: to mentor young people. And one of the people that

311
00:16:00,200 --> 00:16:02,960
Speaker 6: she really took under her wing, especially after her arrest,

312
00:16:03,080 --> 00:16:07,560
Speaker 6: was Claudette Colvin. History I read for this book where

313
00:16:07,720 --> 00:16:10,400
Speaker 6: as a way of demonstrating how close these two women were,

314
00:16:10,880 --> 00:16:13,720
Speaker 6: the archivists explained that they knew how the other took

315
00:16:13,760 --> 00:16:17,080
Speaker 6: her coffee. I just love that detailed the idea of

316
00:16:17,080 --> 00:16:20,600
Speaker 6: these two women across generations, having obviously so much in

317
00:16:20,640 --> 00:16:24,920
Speaker 6: common beyond their convictions. And you know, months later, when

318
00:16:25,000 --> 00:16:28,120
Speaker 6: Rosa Parks is thinking about what she's going to do,

319
00:16:28,320 --> 00:16:31,600
Speaker 6: she's very much thinking about the next generation and her

320
00:16:31,680 --> 00:16:34,120
Speaker 6: hopes for what the kind of lives that they may have,

321
00:16:34,240 --> 00:16:37,000
Speaker 6: and I have to imagine that she's thinking of Claudette

322
00:16:37,000 --> 00:16:40,320
Speaker 6: Colvin's example. And what's even more interesting to me about

323
00:16:40,360 --> 00:16:42,800
Speaker 6: Claudet is that her story doesn't even end there. So

324
00:16:42,960 --> 00:16:47,040
Speaker 6: after Rosa Parks kicks off Montgomery busboycott, and even though

325
00:16:47,080 --> 00:16:49,960
Speaker 6: Claudette Colvin feels a little sidelined that she is not

326
00:16:50,200 --> 00:16:54,640
Speaker 6: the focus of that kind of protest. She's still aged seventeen,

327
00:16:55,240 --> 00:16:57,800
Speaker 6: decides to be a plaintiff in a case that every

328
00:16:57,880 --> 00:17:01,960
Speaker 6: single man that activist approaches too afraid to participate in

329
00:17:02,480 --> 00:17:03,000
Speaker 6: Brouder v.

330
00:17:03,160 --> 00:17:03,480
Speaker 5: Gale.

331
00:17:03,880 --> 00:17:08,400
Speaker 6: That leads to the ruling that segregated buses are unconstitutional,

332
00:17:08,520 --> 00:17:11,160
Speaker 6: and Claudette is at that point a teenage mom has

333
00:17:11,240 --> 00:17:14,119
Speaker 6: felt really ostracized by a lot of different people. She

334
00:17:14,200 --> 00:17:17,000
Speaker 6: could easily have walked away from this, and she decides

335
00:17:17,000 --> 00:17:19,040
Speaker 6: she's going to go through with it, and she says

336
00:17:19,080 --> 00:17:21,199
Speaker 6: on the stand one of the most iconic lines I

337
00:17:21,200 --> 00:17:24,080
Speaker 6: think in the book, when pressed who put her up

338
00:17:24,080 --> 00:17:25,880
Speaker 6: to this? You know who told her to do this?

339
00:17:26,480 --> 00:17:29,600
Speaker 6: She says, our leader is just we ourselves. And I

340
00:17:29,600 --> 00:17:32,400
Speaker 6: think that speaks to the way that so many teenage

341
00:17:32,400 --> 00:17:35,600
Speaker 6: girls saw themselves across history, a knowledge that no one's

342
00:17:35,640 --> 00:17:38,000
Speaker 6: coming to save you, and if you want to see

343
00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:40,680
Speaker 6: something done, if you want to see change in the world,

344
00:17:40,760 --> 00:17:42,520
Speaker 6: you're going to have to kind of be your own leader.

345
00:17:42,600 --> 00:17:44,720
Speaker 6: And that is what Claudette really symbolizes to me.

346
00:17:45,240 --> 00:17:49,359
Speaker 3: What an incredible story, what an incredible woman. Okay, Maddie,

347
00:17:49,359 --> 00:17:51,640
Speaker 3: it's time for another quick break. But when we come back,

348
00:17:51,720 --> 00:17:53,920
Speaker 3: we want to talk about student rights and the girl

349
00:17:53,960 --> 00:17:57,400
Speaker 3: who helped give students the right to express themselves in

350
00:17:57,440 --> 00:17:58,240
Speaker 3: public schools.

351
00:18:06,640 --> 00:18:08,120
Speaker 1: And we're back with Maddi Khan.

352
00:18:08,680 --> 00:18:11,080
Speaker 3: Maddie, the influence of the Supreme Court is top of

353
00:18:11,119 --> 00:18:14,080
Speaker 3: mind this week, So I want to talk about a

354
00:18:14,119 --> 00:18:17,320
Speaker 3: young woman who's part of Supreme Court history, Mary Beth Tinker.

355
00:18:17,400 --> 00:18:19,680
Speaker 3: She was a student rights pioneer who was part of

356
00:18:19,720 --> 00:18:23,399
Speaker 3: the landmark nineteen sixty nine Supreme Court decision Tinker versus

357
00:18:23,400 --> 00:18:26,919
Speaker 3: des Moines, who decided that students do not quote shed

358
00:18:27,000 --> 00:18:30,960
Speaker 3: their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at

359
00:18:31,000 --> 00:18:34,080
Speaker 3: the schoolhouse gate. So can you tell us more about

360
00:18:34,119 --> 00:18:37,000
Speaker 3: Mary Beth Tinker and how her legacy shows up in

361
00:18:37,080 --> 00:18:38,919
Speaker 3: schools across the country today.

362
00:18:39,080 --> 00:18:41,280
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, let's take it back to fashion, because

363
00:18:41,280 --> 00:18:44,520
Speaker 6: that's really what Mary Beth Tinker's whole protest is about. So,

364
00:18:44,720 --> 00:18:48,240
Speaker 6: Mary Beth Tinker and her siblings are vehemently anti the

365
00:18:48,320 --> 00:18:51,400
Speaker 6: Vietnam War. Like many young people at the time, their

366
00:18:51,440 --> 00:18:54,200
Speaker 6: parents are pacifists. They grow up totally steeped in kind

367
00:18:54,200 --> 00:18:56,800
Speaker 6: of a culture of being opposed to war and bloodshed,

368
00:18:57,200 --> 00:19:00,520
Speaker 6: and together with her brother and a friend, Mary Beth

369
00:19:00,640 --> 00:19:03,920
Speaker 6: decides to wear a black armband to school in protest

370
00:19:03,960 --> 00:19:06,840
Speaker 6: of the war. This is not like some crazy act

371
00:19:06,880 --> 00:19:10,200
Speaker 6: of vandalism. There is no you know, taking over the

372
00:19:10,280 --> 00:19:13,679
Speaker 6: loud speaker. But even the threat of I think a

373
00:19:13,720 --> 00:19:18,359
Speaker 6: girl stepping out of line is so just earthshaking to

374
00:19:18,600 --> 00:19:21,439
Speaker 6: school administrators that they get wind of this plot and

375
00:19:21,480 --> 00:19:25,720
Speaker 6: they quickly pass a resolution against black armbands and say

376
00:19:25,720 --> 00:19:29,280
Speaker 6: that if you wear one for any reason, you'll be suspended.

377
00:19:29,440 --> 00:19:31,879
Speaker 6: So Mary Beth Tinker and her brother and her friends

378
00:19:31,960 --> 00:19:34,080
Speaker 6: show up to school wearing their black armbands. They are

379
00:19:34,119 --> 00:19:37,560
Speaker 6: summarily suspended, and they decide to fight that, you know,

380
00:19:37,600 --> 00:19:39,639
Speaker 6: in court. They decide to bring a lawsuit that they

381
00:19:39,680 --> 00:19:42,360
Speaker 6: should be allowed to express their opinions even in.

382
00:19:42,280 --> 00:19:43,119
Speaker 5: A public school.

383
00:19:43,560 --> 00:19:46,080
Speaker 6: They should be entitled to free speech, just like everybody else.

384
00:19:46,480 --> 00:19:48,720
Speaker 6: And so what ends up happening is, yes, her case

385
00:19:48,760 --> 00:19:51,040
Speaker 6: winds its way to the Supreme Court, and the court

386
00:19:51,119 --> 00:19:54,600
Speaker 6: rules in her favor. It should be this huge victory. Congratulations,

387
00:19:54,640 --> 00:19:57,639
Speaker 6: you are a high school student who has won against

388
00:19:57,680 --> 00:20:01,280
Speaker 6: like the most institutional powers that be in country. But

389
00:20:01,440 --> 00:20:03,120
Speaker 6: when I spoke to her for the book, Mary Beth

390
00:20:03,160 --> 00:20:06,680
Speaker 6: actually said she had been tremendously disappointed because the Vietnam

391
00:20:06,720 --> 00:20:09,800
Speaker 6: War was going on. You know, she had undertaken this

392
00:20:09,880 --> 00:20:13,240
Speaker 6: protest to end the war, not to ratify the rights

393
00:20:13,240 --> 00:20:16,359
Speaker 6: of students to protest. And what was interesting to me,

394
00:20:16,560 --> 00:20:19,120
Speaker 6: and again what I think is sort of the interesting

395
00:20:19,160 --> 00:20:21,240
Speaker 6: part about taking the long view in a book like this,

396
00:20:21,560 --> 00:20:25,080
Speaker 6: is that she was shocked over the years to hear

397
00:20:25,200 --> 00:20:28,320
Speaker 6: from so many young people who said, I'm so glad

398
00:20:28,359 --> 00:20:30,359
Speaker 6: you did what you did, I'm so grateful to you,

399
00:20:30,480 --> 00:20:33,960
Speaker 6: I appreciate you. She never imagined that this case that

400
00:20:34,000 --> 00:20:36,440
Speaker 6: had actually kind of been disappointed to her in the moment,

401
00:20:36,480 --> 00:20:40,040
Speaker 6: would reverberate in this way and grant literally millions of

402
00:20:40,040 --> 00:20:42,359
Speaker 6: school children in this country the right to express their

403
00:20:42,359 --> 00:20:45,200
Speaker 6: own opinions about whatever the Vietnam War of the day

404
00:20:45,359 --> 00:20:48,359
Speaker 6: may be. Now, of course, i'm sure this week, of

405
00:20:48,359 --> 00:20:50,560
Speaker 6: all weeks, it won't surprise anyone to hear that the

406
00:20:50,600 --> 00:20:53,800
Speaker 6: Supreme Court has undercut the Tinker versus des Moines decisions

407
00:20:53,880 --> 00:20:57,120
Speaker 6: several times, and it is not as complete a set

408
00:20:57,119 --> 00:20:59,359
Speaker 6: of rights as we might hope, But it is the

409
00:20:59,480 --> 00:21:02,440
Speaker 6: case that every single student who goes to public school

410
00:21:02,440 --> 00:21:04,840
Speaker 6: in this country has a right to speak their mind

411
00:21:04,960 --> 00:21:08,879
Speaker 6: because of Mary Beth Tinker and even though it didn't

412
00:21:08,920 --> 00:21:11,320
Speaker 6: do exactly what she had hoped it would do. It's

413
00:21:11,359 --> 00:21:14,720
Speaker 6: an incredible legacy and I think again a sign that yes,

414
00:21:14,840 --> 00:21:17,920
Speaker 6: a teenage girl will recognize the power of accessory, and

415
00:21:18,080 --> 00:21:20,120
Speaker 6: it will. It can change the lives of millions.

416
00:21:20,400 --> 00:21:23,520
Speaker 3: So what do you think the future of that legacy

417
00:21:24,200 --> 00:21:28,440
Speaker 3: looks like today? The legacy that Mary Beth cemented regarding

418
00:21:28,680 --> 00:21:32,320
Speaker 3: student rights and activism on campus, because this issue is

419
00:21:32,720 --> 00:21:35,120
Speaker 3: just as relevant today as it was in nineteen sixty nine.

420
00:21:35,240 --> 00:21:36,880
Speaker 6: I think there's always been a sense that young people

421
00:21:36,880 --> 00:21:41,880
Speaker 6: are misinformed. That is pervasive across American history. I think

422
00:21:41,960 --> 00:21:46,240
Speaker 6: what is interesting and what is challenging about this moment

423
00:21:46,480 --> 00:21:50,920
Speaker 6: is that where there was once time for these movements

424
00:21:50,960 --> 00:21:54,399
Speaker 6: to spread by word of mouth, they now spread very

425
00:21:54,480 --> 00:21:57,640
Speaker 6: very quickly on social media. And what that can sometimes

426
00:21:57,720 --> 00:22:02,240
Speaker 6: mean is that you get along with amazing, incredible, inspiring

427
00:22:02,320 --> 00:22:05,560
Speaker 6: protest things that some people would rather not see, or

428
00:22:05,760 --> 00:22:08,720
Speaker 6: you know, people glomming onto movements that maybe we wish

429
00:22:08,760 --> 00:22:11,439
Speaker 6: would not be part of them. But I think that

430
00:22:11,480 --> 00:22:13,919
Speaker 6: if you look back at history, the idea of a

431
00:22:13,960 --> 00:22:16,480
Speaker 6: pure protest or a protest that everyone can get on

432
00:22:16,520 --> 00:22:19,760
Speaker 6: board with is a fallacy. There has always been pushback

433
00:22:19,800 --> 00:22:22,840
Speaker 6: against young people speaking their minds. There have always been

434
00:22:22,880 --> 00:22:25,760
Speaker 6: factions of young people's protests that are more or less

435
00:22:25,800 --> 00:22:29,600
Speaker 6: palatable to the mainstream culture. I think what we need

436
00:22:29,640 --> 00:22:32,720
Speaker 6: to do as a culture is empower young people to

437
00:22:32,800 --> 00:22:35,560
Speaker 6: learn as much as possible, read as much as possible,

438
00:22:35,880 --> 00:22:38,600
Speaker 6: have as much civic literacy as possible, which is a

439
00:22:38,680 --> 00:22:42,320
Speaker 6: huge challenge in the digital age, and then accept that

440
00:22:42,400 --> 00:22:45,040
Speaker 6: they will come to their own conclusions as well. They should,

441
00:22:45,080 --> 00:22:47,240
Speaker 6: as generations of people who have pushed this country to

442
00:22:47,280 --> 00:22:50,840
Speaker 6: be better have done. I think that there needs to

443
00:22:50,920 --> 00:22:54,720
Speaker 6: be openness to the outrage of young people. It has

444
00:22:54,880 --> 00:22:58,399
Speaker 6: only ever made this country better. But I also think that,

445
00:22:58,720 --> 00:23:00,480
Speaker 6: and I think that this came up with so many

446
00:23:00,480 --> 00:23:04,680
Speaker 6: women I spoke to who had themselves been protesters as teenagers,

447
00:23:05,080 --> 00:23:08,679
Speaker 6: a feeling of despair that it also is so hard

448
00:23:08,840 --> 00:23:13,040
Speaker 6: for young people to access reliable information, to understand the

449
00:23:13,080 --> 00:23:15,760
Speaker 6: world around them, to get a sense of who they

450
00:23:15,800 --> 00:23:18,960
Speaker 6: can trust, and the absence of those kinds of institutions

451
00:23:19,000 --> 00:23:21,880
Speaker 6: I think is also a problem. But the idea that

452
00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:25,280
Speaker 6: you're ever going to stifle young people's protest, or that

453
00:23:25,320 --> 00:23:28,359
Speaker 6: you're ever going to shame them into having different sets

454
00:23:28,400 --> 00:23:29,080
Speaker 6: of opinions.

455
00:23:29,440 --> 00:23:31,159
Speaker 5: All of history will prove you wrong.

456
00:23:31,240 --> 00:23:34,680
Speaker 6: I mean, every single detail that is in this book

457
00:23:34,840 --> 00:23:37,920
Speaker 6: begs to differ. I think that we need more speech,

458
00:23:38,160 --> 00:23:40,879
Speaker 6: more dialogue, more conversation, not less of it.

459
00:23:41,320 --> 00:23:42,120
Speaker 4: Amen to that.

460
00:23:42,400 --> 00:23:45,600
Speaker 2: You wrote that girls have pushed this nation and forced

461
00:23:45,640 --> 00:23:49,560
Speaker 2: it to do better, and you've shared with us a

462
00:23:49,600 --> 00:23:53,760
Speaker 2: few of the girls and women that have forced progress

463
00:23:53,840 --> 00:23:57,200
Speaker 2: upon us in an incredible way. Is there a woman

464
00:23:57,359 --> 00:23:59,840
Speaker 2: who is currently pushing the needle and fighting for a

465
00:24:00,040 --> 00:24:02,159
Speaker 2: better world that you think we should know about?

466
00:24:02,359 --> 00:24:04,800
Speaker 6: Oh, my goodness, Oh there are so many. I mean,

467
00:24:04,840 --> 00:24:06,880
Speaker 6: I think the one thing that I want to say

468
00:24:07,000 --> 00:24:09,040
Speaker 6: is that, and I always feel this, and I really

469
00:24:09,080 --> 00:24:12,119
Speaker 6: do feel this, even now with how much fear I

470
00:24:12,160 --> 00:24:14,080
Speaker 6: feel about many things that are going on in the

471
00:24:14,119 --> 00:24:17,240
Speaker 6: world and in this country. Writing a book that starts

472
00:24:17,240 --> 00:24:20,760
Speaker 6: in the seventeen hundreds and ends in the present has

473
00:24:21,200 --> 00:24:23,800
Speaker 6: solidified for me the reality that there is no other

474
00:24:23,840 --> 00:24:26,080
Speaker 6: time period I would rather be living in than right now.

475
00:24:26,440 --> 00:24:29,600
Speaker 6: There is no better time for people like us to

476
00:24:29,680 --> 00:24:31,439
Speaker 6: go back to. And if you think the world is

477
00:24:31,480 --> 00:24:34,160
Speaker 6: bad now, like when you couldn't have your own credit card,

478
00:24:34,240 --> 00:24:37,600
Speaker 6: it was worse when you couldn't have a job and

479
00:24:37,680 --> 00:24:40,400
Speaker 6: not face discrimination on the basis of sex.

480
00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:41,080
Speaker 5: It was worse.

481
00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:43,680
Speaker 6: So I think for all the people who listen who

482
00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:47,280
Speaker 6: feel that hopelessness, I just want to say, time travel

483
00:24:47,359 --> 00:24:49,080
Speaker 6: is not your friend, and you do not want to

484
00:24:49,119 --> 00:24:52,160
Speaker 6: go back to any previous era of American history. Unfortunately,

485
00:24:52,320 --> 00:24:54,399
Speaker 6: this is the best we've got, So we have to

486
00:24:54,440 --> 00:24:57,440
Speaker 6: operate from this place and make the world better from here.

487
00:24:57,520 --> 00:24:59,680
Speaker 6: I would say, in terms of people who inspire me now,

488
00:25:00,119 --> 00:25:02,800
Speaker 6: I think anyone who wants to feel the vitality of

489
00:25:02,800 --> 00:25:04,560
Speaker 6: young people who are trying to make the world a

490
00:25:04,560 --> 00:25:07,640
Speaker 6: better place should spend some time looking at the organization

491
00:25:07,760 --> 00:25:11,280
Speaker 6: Run for Something. It's an organization that Amanda Litman started

492
00:25:11,359 --> 00:25:15,320
Speaker 6: that builds out a progressive bench of candidates on school boards,

493
00:25:15,359 --> 00:25:19,560
Speaker 6: city councils, you know, local districts, state legislatures. I think

494
00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:22,520
Speaker 6: one of the things that we sometimes do as the

495
00:25:22,520 --> 00:25:24,840
Speaker 6: culture is wait for people to hit their forties and

496
00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:28,359
Speaker 6: fifties when they're a congressman or a senator to give

497
00:25:28,400 --> 00:25:32,000
Speaker 6: them the attention that they deserve. She brilliantly recognized that

498
00:25:32,040 --> 00:25:34,719
Speaker 6: we need people to start much earlier than that if

499
00:25:34,760 --> 00:25:36,320
Speaker 6: they're going to be the kind of leaders that we

500
00:25:36,359 --> 00:25:39,080
Speaker 6: need in this country down the line, so I find

501
00:25:39,080 --> 00:25:41,640
Speaker 6: a lot of inspiration there. I would say, I've spent

502
00:25:41,720 --> 00:25:43,639
Speaker 6: so much time over the past few months on the

503
00:25:43,680 --> 00:25:47,640
Speaker 6: phone with people who help women access abortions, who help

504
00:25:47,720 --> 00:25:51,560
Speaker 6: people restore the full range of reproductive choice to their lives.

505
00:25:51,920 --> 00:25:54,080
Speaker 6: I am so inspired by every single person who does

506
00:25:54,119 --> 00:25:57,719
Speaker 6: that work. I think of them truly as angels, and

507
00:25:58,080 --> 00:26:00,960
Speaker 6: I think it's amazing to be reminded that every single

508
00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:03,800
Speaker 6: person has the capacity to just help make one person's

509
00:26:03,840 --> 00:26:05,600
Speaker 6: life a little bit easier and a little bit better.

510
00:26:06,119 --> 00:26:10,040
Speaker 6: And that spirit of us taking care of us, I

511
00:26:10,080 --> 00:26:12,160
Speaker 6: think is what has given me a lot of solace

512
00:26:12,280 --> 00:26:14,040
Speaker 6: in a time where it feels like some of the

513
00:26:14,080 --> 00:26:17,040
Speaker 6: decisions that are being made way above our pay grades

514
00:26:17,080 --> 00:26:18,920
Speaker 6: are just impossible to fathom.

515
00:26:18,960 --> 00:26:21,560
Speaker 3: So well, said Maddie, I'm so glad that you brought

516
00:26:21,640 --> 00:26:23,760
Speaker 3: up that it's so much better to be a woman

517
00:26:23,800 --> 00:26:25,399
Speaker 3: today than it was to be a woman in the

518
00:26:25,440 --> 00:26:28,480
Speaker 3: seventeen hundreds or before that. For me, it wasn't logan

519
00:26:28,600 --> 00:26:31,639
Speaker 3: so good back then. I think about this all the time.

520
00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:35,879
Speaker 3: I think there's so much reason for hope, for optimism,

521
00:26:36,359 --> 00:26:40,800
Speaker 3: and the future is bright. It just keeps getting brighter. Mattie,

522
00:26:40,840 --> 00:26:42,439
Speaker 3: thank you so much for joining us today.

523
00:26:42,960 --> 00:26:44,240
Speaker 5: Oh thank you guys for having me.

524
00:26:44,320 --> 00:26:46,240
Speaker 6: I hope that this gives people a little jolt of

525
00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:47,440
Speaker 6: optimism on.

526
00:26:47,440 --> 00:26:49,840
Speaker 5: Our ambiguous Independence Day.

527
00:26:49,920 --> 00:26:52,560
Speaker 6: But I really do feel that we all have so

528
00:26:52,640 --> 00:26:54,800
Speaker 6: much more power than we think, and I really think

529
00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:57,120
Speaker 6: history is made up by people who realize that they do.

530
00:26:57,400 --> 00:26:58,160
Speaker 1: Thank you for that.

531
00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:02,199
Speaker 3: Mattie con is a writer, editor, and the author of

532
00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:05,800
Speaker 3: Young and Restless, The Girls who Sparked America's Revolutions.

533
00:27:10,600 --> 00:27:11,879
Speaker 1: That's it for today's show.

534
00:27:12,080 --> 00:27:15,280
Speaker 2: Tomorrow, we're celebrating women in the food and wine industry

535
00:27:15,640 --> 00:27:18,640
Speaker 2: ahead of the holiday weekend. We're hearing from Top Chef

536
00:27:18,680 --> 00:27:22,720
Speaker 2: winner turned host Kristin Kish, James Beard, Award winning chef

537
00:27:22,840 --> 00:27:26,760
Speaker 2: Joe Ann Lee Mullinaro aka the Korean Vegan, and Samuel

538
00:27:26,800 --> 00:27:31,119
Speaker 2: Ye Allison Morris Roslin. Listen and follow the bright Side

539
00:27:31,160 --> 00:27:34,360
Speaker 2: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get

540
00:27:34,359 --> 00:27:35,160
Speaker 2: your podcasts.

541
00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:36,320
Speaker 4: I'm Simone Boye.

542
00:27:36,320 --> 00:27:39,760
Speaker 3: You can find me at Simone Boye on Instagram and TikTok.

543
00:27:40,119 --> 00:27:42,880
Speaker 2: I'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok.

544
00:27:43,040 --> 00:27:44,480
Speaker 1: That's ro Bay.

545
00:27:44,920 --> 00:27:49,000
Speaker 3: See you tomorrow, folks. Keep looking on the bright side,