Speaker 1: Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 2: Hey, Bestie's Happy Labor Day.
Speaker 3: We're celebrating the unsung women of the labor movement with
Speaker 3: Jenny Kaplan. She's the CEO and co founder of Wonder
Speaker 3: Media Network and the host of the Womanica History podcast.
Speaker 3: It's Monday, September tewod. I'm Simone Boyce.
Speaker 4: I'm Danielle Robe and this is the bright side from
Speaker 4: Hello Sunshine, a daily show where we come together to
Speaker 4: share women's stories, laugh, learn and brighten your day. On
Speaker 4: my Mind Monday is brought to you by Missus Meyers.
Speaker 4: Clean Day, inspired by the goodness of the garden see money.
Speaker 1: Happy Labor Day.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Same to you, Danielle, Thank you.
Speaker 4: It is the unofficial end of summer and the kickoff
Speaker 4: to fall, and it is on my Mind Monday, which
Speaker 4: is our opportunity to start the week with some fresh perspective. Simone,
Speaker 4: you always pick the best articles. What is on your
Speaker 4: mind today? Me?
Speaker 1: Something good?
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, no pressure at all.
Speaker 3: Okay, I've got one that I would say is a
Speaker 3: companion piece to the episode that you did about viewing
Speaker 3: optimism as a muscle.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: So I came across this article in the New York times,
Speaker 3: and it's headlined how to strengthen your happiness muscle.
Speaker 1: We all need to strengthen our hat.
Speaker 4: That's like, isn't that the goal of everyone's life is
Speaker 4: to just be happy?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I want big happiness gains. That's what I'm about.
Speaker 3: So this article says, our drive to seek happiness is
Speaker 3: a muscle that we can develop, and we do that
Speaker 3: by strengthening what's called our reward sensitivity. So reward sensitivity
Speaker 3: is something that we can dial up by simply training
Speaker 3: ourselves to pay attention to and savor positive emotions. So
Speaker 3: where's your reward sensitivity, Danielle? Like, on a scale of
Speaker 3: one to ten, where do you think you're at?
Speaker 4: I actually have to tell you, I think mine is
Speaker 4: pretty low. I don't often reward myself. I don't feel
Speaker 4: like I deserve it, which is crazy to say out loud,
Speaker 4: that doesn't that's like so awkward. But I'm like a
Speaker 4: power through, push through type of person, and I don't
Speaker 4: often think of rewarding myself.
Speaker 2: Well, you're in luck because I've got some tips for
Speaker 2: you today. Please.
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, do you reward yourself?
Speaker 3: I feel like my reward sensitivity is too high. I'm
Speaker 3: all about the rewards. I'm all about the little treats.
Speaker 3: I need to dial it down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you do like a like a millennial treat.
Speaker 3: I love a millennial treat. I'm all about the treat life.
Speaker 3: I just want life to be one big treat.
Speaker 2: Yea.
Speaker 3: But anyways, I think this article might be helpful for
Speaker 3: you or anyone who feels like they're in the same position.
Speaker 3: So this writer, Jenny Tates. She is a practicing psychologist,
Speaker 3: and she put together a few research back strategies which
Speaker 3: we love to help us do this.
Speaker 2: Here's what she said. She said, one way to boost.
Speaker 3: Your reward sensitivity is by practicing a simple exercise every day,
Speaker 3: like plan one activity per day that will make you
Speaker 3: happy or bring this sense of a complishment.
Speaker 2: And it can be something small.
Speaker 3: Like getting your favorite fancy beverage I'm a beverage queen.
Speaker 3: I love that, or even just facetiming a friend. I
Speaker 3: love the idea of building this into your calendar every day.
Speaker 2: What do you think?
Speaker 1: I love this.
Speaker 4: I actually think it's possibly the only way to make
Speaker 4: it happen. I one time was like, I really want
Speaker 4: to just call my parents more because it's not happening
Speaker 4: in my life, and I had to calendar it and
Speaker 4: then it worked, and it's like, not such a hard lift,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 2: That's so smart.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my parents live down the street and I still
Speaker 3: don't talk to them enough.
Speaker 2: So I need to take a page of of your book.
Speaker 4: Every time you say that, I'm like, Okay, your life
Speaker 4: is everybody loves Raymond.
Speaker 2: It is. My life is literally everybody loves Raymond. My parents.
Speaker 3: I left my leaf flower out on our front porch
Speaker 3: last night so they could come pick it up. Like
Speaker 3: this is this is our suburban dream that really was
Speaker 3: over here.
Speaker 1: Everybody loves Simone and Michael.
Speaker 2: I sure hope. So okay.
Speaker 3: Another tip from this article you can forecast future wins.
Speaker 2: This is so smart.
Speaker 3: So if you're looking at your calendar for the coming
Speaker 3: weeks and you're just overwhelmed with all your obligations, everything
Speaker 3: that you have to do, this article says, pick an
Speaker 3: event that's coming up, and then imagine the best possible
Speaker 3: outcome for that event instead of the worst possible outcome.
Speaker 3: So let's say you're meeting a friend for a workout
Speaker 3: class you don't really want to go your energy's low.
Speaker 3: Instead of dreading it, think to yourself, Wow, this could
Speaker 3: be the best most energizing class ever.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
Speaker 3: You're like you're visualizing a positive outcome for yourself.
Speaker 1: I love this.
Speaker 4: I think our brains are wired sometimes to think about
Speaker 4: what could go wrong instead of what can go right.
Speaker 3: Yes, okay, last one for you. You're gonna love this one.
Speaker 3: Expand your joy vocabulary. So instead of describing our positive
Speaker 3: emotions with predictable over words like fine or good or great,
Speaker 3: using more precise words like serene, exhilarated, inspired, delighted can
Speaker 3: validate and intensify those positive emotions.
Speaker 2: I personally, I love the word delighted.
Speaker 3: It it sparks delight when you hear it, when you
Speaker 3: say it. You know how I feel about the word
Speaker 3: radiant too.
Speaker 4: I was actually gonna mention that because you taught us this,
Speaker 4: that if you say radiant you smile. Delight makes you
Speaker 4: smile too, Yes, Yes, Surprise and delight Yeah.
Speaker 1: I feel like the delight.
Speaker 4: One is maybe the only one I can realistically implement.
Speaker 3: But I'm hereful true, you can do the others. You
Speaker 3: can do it, Danielle. I believe in you.
Speaker 1: It's just so hard to calendar things well.
Speaker 2: I had a delightful time sharing this thought starter with
Speaker 2: you today.
Speaker 4: I was delighted to learn and listen. Thank you so much. Well,
Speaker 4: another thing that delights both of us is talking about
Speaker 4: the significance of women's stories. And today is Labor Day, right,
Speaker 4: and there are so many women's stories that are part
Speaker 4: of the labor movement that we're not familiar with. So
Speaker 4: earlier this summer, for the fourth of July, we talked
Speaker 4: to author Matty Kahn about some unsung women in United
Speaker 4: States history.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so many of our besties loved hearing about those
Speaker 3: stories and those women. So we're excited to keep the
Speaker 3: conversation going today. And here to help us tell their
Speaker 3: stories is Jenny Kaplan. She's the host of the Wollmanica
Speaker 3: History podcast and the CEO and co founder of Wonder
Speaker 3: Media Network. She's going to be joining us right after
Speaker 3: the break, so stay with us. Thanks to our partners
Speaker 3: at missus Myers. You can learn a lot about a
Speaker 3: person by their dish soap. Missus Meyers's collection of household
Speaker 3: products are inspired by the garden and pack up punch
Speaker 3: against dirt and grime. Visit missus meyers dot com.
Speaker 2: Jenny Well Welcome to the bright Side.
Speaker 5: Thank you, thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, It's our pleasure.
Speaker 3: You know, our first impressions of the workforce often come
Speaker 3: from what we see modeled inside our own home. And
Speaker 3: your mom, Kathy Manning, seems like an incredible role model.
Speaker 3: She's actually a US congresswoman representing Greensboro, North Carolina. How
Speaker 3: did she shape your idea of ambition growing up?
Speaker 5: Wow, what a lovely question to start off on.
Speaker 6: I think that growing up, I just always had the
Speaker 6: idea that I could do whatever I really wanted to
Speaker 6: in terms of there being no barrier in terms of
Speaker 6: what I could do based on gender or anything else really,
Speaker 6: which is obviously a very privileged position. But also it
Speaker 6: really came from the idea that I saw what my
Speaker 6: parents were doing and the kinds of things and chances
Speaker 6: that they took, and so I learned from them. I
Speaker 6: also got to see what it looked like to balance
Speaker 6: and family, which is quite a challenge as I now
Speaker 6: know I have a child myself, and got to see
Speaker 6: also what it looks like to go through different phases
Speaker 6: of having a career. My mom was an attorney when
Speaker 6: I was growing up, had a really giant volunteer role
Speaker 6: in national organizations as I got older. And then it
Speaker 6: wasn't until I was in the workforce that my mom
Speaker 6: decided to run for Congress. So I got to see
Speaker 6: a lot of different sort of periods of growth for
Speaker 6: her and see what that could look like for me too.
Speaker 4: So when most people here Labor Day, I think, at
Speaker 4: least growing up, we think of it as just a
Speaker 4: holiday or day off of school or work, But there's
Speaker 4: really so much more behind why we observe it. And
Speaker 4: you've produced an entire series on women who transformed the
Speaker 4: labor movement, both in the US and around the world.
Speaker 4: What did you discover about the work that these women do?
Speaker 6: Totally well, actually, it was just one month of We
Speaker 6: have a daily show called Womanica, and it's a five
Speaker 6: ish minute day daily podcast where every episode is the
Speaker 6: story of a different woman from history who you may
Speaker 6: not know about but should. Every month is themed, and
Speaker 6: this may our theme was workers. So we talked all
Speaker 6: about different women, as you said, who shaped the way
Speaker 6: that we do business today, whether they were union leaders
Speaker 6: or advocates for sex workers, or the accidental fashion Iconomelia Bloomer,
Speaker 6: who made pants really popular for women.
Speaker 5: There's so many.
Speaker 6: Different ways that women have had huge impacts on the
Speaker 6: way that we do work. You know, we spend the
Speaker 6: vast majority of our time at work, and so it's
Speaker 6: important to think about and acknowledge the progress that's been
Speaker 6: made over the past one hundred plus years and also
Speaker 6: the significant progress that still needs to come in terms
Speaker 6: of making the workplace more equitable.
Speaker 4: I was listening to Julia Louis Dreyfus's podcast Wiser than Me,
Speaker 4: the episode with Gloria Steynam a few days ago, and
Speaker 4: Gloria said history tends to be written by the winners.
Speaker 4: Important to have a critical lens through which we view it.
Speaker 4: And it seems so obvious, but I really loved how
Speaker 4: she put it, and I think the winners in labor
Speaker 4: have really been men. And I'm curious to know what
Speaker 4: you discovered about the misconceptions surrounding women's labor and how
Speaker 4: history was recorded during that era.
Speaker 5: A great question.
Speaker 6: All history is certainly framed that way, and I do
Speaker 6: want to acknowledge that there has been significant progress. If
Speaker 6: I think to my own family and the opportunities that
Speaker 6: were available for my grandmother, not just what she was
Speaker 6: allowed to do, but the kinds of jobs that she
Speaker 6: thought were possible for herself. It basically was like two
Speaker 6: things she could do versus then my mom had way
Speaker 6: more opportunities, and I have even more. So I do
Speaker 6: think it's important to acknowledge that there has been progress,
Speaker 6: and that has been because of people who've worked really
Speaker 6: hard to make that happen, like many of the women
Speaker 6: that we highlighted, so I think often the misconceptions that
Speaker 6: we saw over and over again we see in lots
Speaker 6: of different areas are just undervaluing what people are capable
Speaker 6: of from groups that are discriminated against. So be those
Speaker 6: women and especially women of color, people of color. More broadly, like,
Speaker 6: there are many of the stories of people who changed
Speaker 6: the world and changed the way that we work really
Speaker 6: started from you know, no one thought we could do this,
Speaker 6: No one thought I could be I could make a difference.
Speaker 6: People didn't think I was capable of working in this
Speaker 6: kind of field or doing this kind of thing. I
Speaker 6: think the other thing that I learned that certainly is
Speaker 6: not revolutionary to say, but there is so much power
Speaker 6: in group activism. So a lot of the changes and
Speaker 6: a lot of the protections that we have today stem
Speaker 6: from organized labor, from unions, from you know, really grassroots
Speaker 6: movements that made big changes happen over the course of
Speaker 6: a long time and very difficult work. So it's important
Speaker 6: not to I think, I think put too much credit
Speaker 6: on others if they're telling you that, you know, you
Speaker 6: can't do something, because it's the people who move beyond
Speaker 6: that who end up making these giant changes and help
Speaker 6: push all of us forward.
Speaker 3: One of those women who helped push all of us
Speaker 3: forward is Francis Perkins, and she was a significant figure
Speaker 3: inside the FDR administration. How should we remember her?
Speaker 5: So what a lady?
Speaker 6: Francis Perkins was the first woman appointed to the US cabinet.
Speaker 6: She served as FDR Secretary of Labor for twelve years,
Speaker 6: and I think most notably, to try to summarize, because
Speaker 6: she did a lot of things.
Speaker 5: We really did.
Speaker 6: She became Yeah it's really wild, but she was just
Speaker 6: really determined to help solidify worker rights and try to
Speaker 6: make make life a little better for everyone who has work.
Speaker 6: And she was the driving force behind a lot of
Speaker 6: what we all know as sort of new Deal policies. So,
Speaker 6: you know, she had all sorts of different positions and
Speaker 6: then When FDR asked Frances Perkins to be his labor secretary,
Speaker 6: she said he would have to commit to a variety
Speaker 6: of social insurance policies, including unemployment relief, a public works program,
Speaker 6: minimum wage laws, you know what became social security, and
Speaker 6: abolishing child labor. So she really was a driver behind
Speaker 6: all of these things that we now think of as
Speaker 6: hardcore New Deal policies and sort of the backbone of
Speaker 6: our social safety net.
Speaker 4: What do you think was her biggest achievement. I think
Speaker 4: it's hard to.
Speaker 6: Overstate the importance of systems that she put into place
Speaker 6: as part of the New Deal. I mean it's really
Speaker 6: hard to imagine now getting that sort of number and
Speaker 6: that variety of giant social programs past, yeah, that have
Speaker 6: changed the way that we work, have really allowed the
Speaker 6: country to ensure that a lot more people are not
Speaker 6: in incredibly impoverished positions and have the ability to get
Speaker 6: help when they need it. So, I mean, even just
Speaker 6: child labor laws, it's a pretty big deal. Any single
Speaker 6: one of those things would have been huge, But the
Speaker 6: fact that she helped to make the first minimum wage law,
Speaker 6: the first overtime law, you know, these are all really
Speaker 6: giant things and I think Yeah. She also had interesting foresight.
Speaker 6: During World War Two. She really saw how valuable it
Speaker 6: would be for women not to be drafted and instead
Speaker 6: to take over the wartime roles that were left empty
Speaker 6: as evidence that women really should be in the workforce
Speaker 6: more broadly, or should be able to be in the
Speaker 6: workforce more broadly.
Speaker 4: She was pretty unbelievable, and it doesn't come without criticism.
Speaker 4: I've read about how her gender really gotten the way
Speaker 4: of a lot of things during her fight, but she
Speaker 4: never let it stop her. One of the things I
Speaker 4: love about her is that she's from my hometown, Chicago.
Speaker 4: She held a variety of teaching positions at a rival
Speaker 4: high school of mine. She taught chemistry at Lake Forest Academy.
Speaker 4: She was a white collar worker fighting for labor workers' rights,
Speaker 4: which is sort of an interesting juxtaposition. Do we know
Speaker 4: how she became interested in this work initially?
Speaker 6: Yeah, So after she graduated from college, she became really
Speaker 6: interested in work helping the porn unemployed, and she started
Speaker 6: lobbying for workers' rights. And then she witnessed the Triangle
Speaker 6: shirtwaist fire and sort of doubled down on her interest
Speaker 6: to really try to make a difference.
Speaker 3: Wow. Moving on to our next activist, Florence Saint John,
Speaker 3: there really is no discussion of equal pay the kinds
Speaker 3: of conversations that we have today without mentioning Florence and
Speaker 3: her contribution to this issue in the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 2: Would you tell us her story?
Speaker 5: I would love to.
Speaker 6: It's interesting, I think, particularly because Florence's story is so significant,
Speaker 6: and yet it was also largely forgotten for quite a
Speaker 6: long time. So Florence Saint John was a worker at
Speaker 6: General Motors at the Old's Motorwork factory in.
Speaker 5: Lansing, Michigan.
Speaker 6: She was one of three hundred workers at the factory,
Speaker 6: one of thirty women. And the women at that point
Speaker 6: in time when she started working there, they were doing
Speaker 6: all the same work as the men.
Speaker 5: They thought they were being treated the same way.
Speaker 6: And then one day Florence and some other workers were
Speaker 6: playing paycheck poker. They were betting paper checks in the game,
Speaker 6: and Florence noticed that men who were on the same
Speaker 6: shifts as the women, many of whom were actually less
Speaker 6: senior than the women they were playing with, were making
Speaker 6: more money because she could see their paychecks as they
Speaker 6: were betting them. So she tried to take action via
Speaker 6: the union. The managers at GM wouldn't budget. Some of
Speaker 6: them actually said they'd rather not have women on the
Speaker 6: floor at all. Eventually, GM created a specific women's division
Speaker 6: and changed the kind of work that they were given,
Speaker 6: gave them more sort of remedial time asks, separating it
Speaker 6: out specifically so that they could justify paying the women less,
Speaker 6: even though women ended up doing labor intensive work anyway. Then,
Speaker 6: a decade into working at GM, Florence called on a
Speaker 6: couple of well known trial attorneys. Together they gathered twenty
Speaker 6: eight claims from women and filed a lawsuit against GM.
Speaker 6: That was really the first time women banded together legally
Speaker 6: to demand lost wages in this kind of way. The
Speaker 6: lawsuit dragged on. It actually took three years before the
Speaker 6: Michigan Supreme Court even ruled that Florence had standing for
Speaker 6: The lawsuit continued to drag on, and eventually, after a
Speaker 6: long slog, GM was forced to present payroll records and
Speaker 6: the judge ruled in favor of the women, and so
Speaker 6: GM was ordered to pay a little more than fifty
Speaker 6: five thousand dollars to Florence and the twenty eight women,
Speaker 6: which today would be something like three quarters of a
Speaker 6: million dollars. So yeah, it was a really big deal.
Speaker 6: Inspired lots of other wage discrimination lawsuits and all. So
Speaker 6: for the subsequent two decades, twenty one states passed wage
Speaker 6: equity bills. In nineteen sixty three, the US passed the
Speaker 6: Equal Pay Act. It was just a really, really significant
Speaker 6: win for workers.
Speaker 4: We have to take a quick break, but we'll be
Speaker 4: right back with more from Jenny Kaplan. Stick with us,
Speaker 4: and we're back with Jenny Kaplan.
Speaker 3: All right, Next, we're going to talk about Addie Wyatt.
Speaker 3: I think it's really important to note, since we're in
Speaker 3: an audio medium, that this is.
Speaker 2: A black woman.
Speaker 3: She was a labor activist focused on how gender and
Speaker 3: race shaped the idea of what jobs people are qualified for.
Speaker 3: And it sounds like she got herself into some good trouble.
Speaker 3: Would you share what happened?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 6: So, Addie why it's an amazing story. She just got
Speaker 6: involved in so many different ways in pushing civil rights,
Speaker 6: labor rights, women's all the rights, women's rights forward. She
Speaker 6: was just such an credible advocate. She was born in
Speaker 6: Mississippi in nineteen twenty four. When she was six, her
Speaker 6: family moved to Chicago, she sort of by accident became
Speaker 6: a factory floor worker and sort of snuck into a
Speaker 6: typing test instead that was only available to white women.
Speaker 6: And then when she showed up for work, they just
Speaker 6: automatically led her to the factory floor, and she became
Speaker 6: a factory floor worker and actually made more money.
Speaker 5: Doing that than she would have as a typist.
Speaker 6: She joined the United Packing House Workers of America pretty
Speaker 6: quickly and got to see how unions would help protect
Speaker 6: her rights. So, for example, pretty quickly after joining the
Speaker 6: factory tried to hire a white woman in her place,
Speaker 6: and the union used its seniority clause to help keep
Speaker 6: Baddie's job. When she became pregnant with her second child,
Speaker 6: Addie was eligible for up to a year of parental
Speaker 6: leave because of union negotiations. She just really saw the
Speaker 6: value personally of what non discrimination could do, and then
Speaker 6: she just kept rising up the ranks of union leadership
Speaker 6: and became the first black woman elected vice president of
Speaker 6: her local chapter of the UPWA. She kept rising up
Speaker 6: the ranks. She and her husband became pals with doctor
Speaker 6: Martin Luther King Junior, and really helped join and push
Speaker 6: forward the civil rights movement. More broadly, she became an
Speaker 6: ordained minister, She founded a church in Chicago, and eventually,
Speaker 6: in nineteen sixty two, she was appointed to JFK's Commission
Speaker 6: on the Status of Women, serving on as Labor Legislation Committee.
Speaker 5: She just did all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 6: She co founded the National Organization for Women, she co
Speaker 6: founded the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, and she co
Speaker 6: founded the Coalition of Labor Union Women.
Speaker 5: So she was very busy this lady.
Speaker 4: You mentioned that she was a contemporary of doctor Martin
Speaker 4: Luther King junior. Did she marry her civil rights with
Speaker 4: her labor activism?
Speaker 6: With really all of the activists here, I think it's
Speaker 6: important to note it's hard to separate out these issues.
Speaker 6: It's not like you can just fight for workers' rights
Speaker 6: without understanding the way that workers' rights intersect with gender
Speaker 6: rights and race and class and all of the different
Speaker 6: kinds of discriminations that exist intersect with what happens in
Speaker 6: the workplace, because again, it's where we spend most of
Speaker 6: our time. So she certainly used She was an activist
Speaker 6: on all of these different fronts and all of the
Speaker 6: intersectionality that comes with being a real person in the world.
Speaker 3: Finally, the last figure that we'd like to highlight is
Speaker 3: Pat Shrouder and she was actually born in nineteen forty
Speaker 3: and just passed away last year.
Speaker 2: What's her legacy?
Speaker 6: Pat Schroeder was a representative in the US House of
Speaker 6: Representatives for twenty four years and she had just an
Speaker 6: absolutely enormous legacy in terms of the work that she
Speaker 6: did focused on women's and workers' issues while she was
Speaker 6: in Congress, So she had an interesting history, and she.
Speaker 5: Had her pilot's license.
Speaker 6: She went to the University of Minnesota because it's ROTC
Speaker 6: program included aircraft. She then went to Harvard Law School
Speaker 6: and became a lawyer. She was one of only fifteen
Speaker 6: women in a class of more than five hundred people,
Speaker 6: and then married a classmate, moved to Denver and worked
Speaker 6: for the National Labor Relations Board and also as a
Speaker 6: volunteer legal counsel for Planned Parenthood. She then sort of
Speaker 6: had a interlude where she left to raise her family.
Speaker 6: When her husband was on part of a committee of
Speaker 6: Democrats looking for a candidate to challenge the incumbent congress person.
Speaker 6: He came home and was basically like guess whose name
Speaker 6: came up? And it was hers, so she ran for
Speaker 6: Congress and was elected. I think interestingly, a lot of
Speaker 6: the headline read Denver housewife runs for Congress, sort of
Speaker 6: not mentioning the fact that she was a Harvard educated
Speaker 6: lawyer and had significant experience in the workplace too. But
Speaker 6: she won the primary, the general, and was in Congress
Speaker 6: for again twenty four years. When she joined, she was
Speaker 6: just one of fourteen women in the House. She described
Speaker 6: it as a guy gulag, which I think is colorful
Speaker 6: and fun. And she had to deal with all kinds
Speaker 6: of discrimination. As early as during her swearing in, the
Speaker 6: Speaker of the House tried to swear in her husband
Speaker 6: instead of her wow at the actual swearing in ceremony,
Speaker 6: but she made such Despite having to face such challenges,
Speaker 6: she got a lot done. She co founded and co
Speaker 6: chaired the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues. She played a
Speaker 6: key role in getting the Pregnancy Discrimination Act passed, which
Speaker 6: still today prevents employers from dismissing women because they're pregnant
Speaker 6: or denying them maternity benefits. She was vital to the
Speaker 6: Economic Equity Act, the Child Abuse Prevention Act, the Violence
Speaker 6: Against Women Act. She opened military jobs up to women
Speaker 6: also helped to advocate for and pass the Family and
Speaker 6: Medical Leave Act. She I think really represents how there
Speaker 6: are different ways of making a huge difference for people
Speaker 6: in the workplace, whether you are a union activist or
Speaker 6: someone who gets started on the factory floor.
Speaker 5: You know, a teacher, or.
Speaker 6: A congress person or however, there are lots of different
Speaker 6: ways to have an impact, But what happens at work
Speaker 6: affects all of us, and so I think Pat's story
Speaker 6: is really amazing in terms of she she got to
Speaker 6: Congress in a way that beat the odds and then
Speaker 6: managed to be really, really productive while she was there,
Speaker 6: which is a hard thing to do, difficult to imagine
Speaker 6: quite that much happening at this exact moment in Congress.
Speaker 4: I think a lot of times people who push for
Speaker 4: change are in able to actually see the way they
Speaker 4: have changed people's lives because legislation takes a long time.
Speaker 4: She was in Congress for more than twenty years. Do
Speaker 4: you feel like she was able to see the benefits
Speaker 4: that people receive from all of her hard work and
Speaker 4: her labor and her initiatives.
Speaker 6: Even just in the number of her colleagues who were
Speaker 6: women who changed over time, the first show we ever
Speaker 6: produced at Wondermedia Network. The company that I founded was
Speaker 6: called Women Belong in the House with the capital H
Speaker 6: and we. I spoke with many women who've been in
Speaker 6: Congress in different eras for different lengths of time, and
Speaker 6: I think that it has changed in a really significant
Speaker 6: way over time, just in terms of what issues are
Speaker 6: brought up on the floor, the number of people who
Speaker 6: understand what we're talking about here when different congress people
Speaker 6: bring up issues that are particularly relevant for women, for
Speaker 6: people of color, because previously there just was the kind
Speaker 6: of representation that was necessary to bring those issues to
Speaker 6: a point where there was a large amount of consensus
Speaker 6: versus feeling like you're the only person in the room.
Speaker 6: So I think that she certainly would have seen that change.
Speaker 6: And if you think about from nineteen seventy three to now,
Speaker 6: that's a lot of progress has been made in terms
Speaker 6: of protections, particularly for women in the workforce.
Speaker 3: Whenever we do these retrospectives, I think it's really easy
Speaker 3: to feel disconnected from women like this because women dressed differently,
Speaker 3: they carried themselves differently in society. There were so many
Speaker 3: elements of life that were not accessible to them, and
Speaker 3: yet they all believed in this truth that still rings
Speaker 3: true today, which is that racism and sexism are actually
Speaker 3: economic issues. What's your understanding of how that paradigm still
Speaker 3: shows up in society today.
Speaker 6: I think that it's often people try to separate out
Speaker 6: the economy from sort of like kitchen table issues or
Speaker 6: other social issues, when in fact it's all tied together.
Speaker 6: The economy is really just money and how money flows
Speaker 6: in our society, and the discrimination against women, against people
Speaker 6: of color, against all sorts of different kinds of people
Speaker 6: shows up in subtle and not so subtle ways, in
Speaker 6: terms of people being left out of job candidate pools,
Speaker 6: receiving less compensation for the same work, not getting the
Speaker 6: kinds of benefits that other You know, it's all the
Speaker 6: same stuff that we've heard about lots and lots of times.
Speaker 6: It isn't separate. You can't separate out the economy from
Speaker 6: our actual everyday purchasing habits and how we get treated
Speaker 6: at work, how we get paid at work, the kinds
Speaker 6: of initiatives. And I think it sometimes is difficult to
Speaker 6: see because the way that we talk about economic policies
Speaker 6: can be pretty just. The language that's used can be
Speaker 6: more technical sounding than I think it needs to be,
Speaker 6: and that is I think isolating, when in fact, these
Speaker 6: are issues that affect all of us and how we
Speaker 6: can afford to live our lives.
Speaker 2: Jenny, thank you so much for joining us on the
Speaker 2: bright side.
Speaker 5: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Thanks Jenny.
Speaker 3: Jenny Kaplan is the CEO and co founder of the
Speaker 3: Wonder Media Network and the host of Womanica, a podcast
Speaker 3: that tells the stories of women you don't know but should.
Speaker 3: We hope you're having a great long weekend, besties. We
Speaker 3: hope you are choosing yourself, whether that looks like relaxation
Speaker 3: or spending time with the people that you love. Danielle,
Speaker 3: what are you up to today?
Speaker 4: I am not laboring for the first time in a
Speaker 4: long time. I am going to hang out after this.
Speaker 4: I might go watch a TV show, hang out with
Speaker 4: my friends.
Speaker 1: I'm going to unlabor. How about you.
Speaker 3: We are observing the holiday. Very cute, very cute. I
Speaker 3: am in Santa Monica. Actually, we spontaneously just decided to
Speaker 3: do a little staycation and get an airbnb, and we
Speaker 3: don't live anywhere near the beach, so it's so nice
Speaker 3: to just come here and be near the water because
Speaker 3: it's so therapeutic. So I'm going to be chillin' by
Speaker 3: the beach, by the pool and just soaking up this
Speaker 3: CALLI Sun for as long as we can.
Speaker 1: That sounds so relaxing.
Speaker 4: I love that for you and your family, and to
Speaker 4: everybody out there listening, keep enjoying your last days of summer.
Speaker 1: And that's it for today's show.
Speaker 4: Tomorrow, we're talking women in Leadership with CNBC's senior Media
Speaker 4: and Tech correspondent Julia Borston. She's telling us how women
Speaker 4: can leverage the qualities that we already have to succeed
Speaker 4: in the workplace.
Speaker 2: And thank you to our partners at Airbnb.
Speaker 4: Listen and follow the bright Side on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 4: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: I'm Simone Boys.
Speaker 3: You can find me at Simone Boice on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 4: I'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 1: That's ro Bay. We'll see you tomorrow.
Speaker 4: Keep looking on the bright side.