Speaker 1: Culture is really important and effects how we think about people.
Speaker 1: It's next how we treat one another. You know, it
Speaker 1: does affect the issues around tangible things like wealth inequality,
Speaker 1: because it affects, you know, how people advance, how they're
Speaker 1: viewed in the workplace, how they're evaluated. Tina Chen is
Speaker 1: on a mission to change workplace culture, to ensure that
Speaker 1: women have safe, dignified, and fair places to work and
Speaker 1: succeed that they get equal pay and opportunity in a
Speaker 1: setting that's free of sexual harassment. Tina's doing that as
Speaker 1: president and CEO of Times up the movement that started
Speaker 1: in two thousand seventeen and help put the issue of
Speaker 1: sexual harassment on the nation's front burner. I'm Kim Azareli,
Speaker 1: and this is Seneca's one hundred Women to Hear. We're
Speaker 1: bringing you one hundred of the world's most inspiring and
Speaker 1: history making women. You need to hear. Tina Chen is
Speaker 1: a force of nature, a longtime advocate on behalf of
Speaker 1: women and girls. Formerly, she was assistant to President Obama,
Speaker 1: Executive Director of the White House Council on Women and Girls,
Speaker 1: and Chief of Staff to First Lady Michelle Obama. Recently,
Speaker 1: Tina sat down with Carol and Tasted, Group President North
Speaker 1: America for PNG, and Dianna Bass, Vice President Global Diversity,
Speaker 1: Equality and Inclusion for PNG. Their talk was featured in
Speaker 1: our special six part series Getting to Equal. Listen and
Speaker 1: learn why Tina Chen is one of Seneca's one hundred
Speaker 1: women to hear. Tina, thank you for being here. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's a real pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me, Tina.
Speaker 1: Let's start with what Time's Up is and why it
Speaker 1: was started. You know, you were there from the beginning,
Speaker 1: as you co founded the Times Up Legal Defense Fund
Speaker 1: back in tell us about all of that. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, there was this moment in October when,
Speaker 1: thanks to the reporting of the New York Times and
Speaker 1: the New York magazine UM, the stories about Harvey Weinstein
Speaker 1: cracked wide open. And what happened was women all of
Speaker 1: a sudden realized they weren't alone up until that point.
Speaker 1: So many of these women who were survivors of sexual
Speaker 1: harassment in the entertainment business thought they had suffered alone.
Speaker 1: Because actually that's one of the part of what I
Speaker 1: call the proditors playbook, right, which was to keep people
Speaker 1: silent and siloed from one another, so that the full
Speaker 1: dimensions of the problem were unknown. Um and spontaneously, these
Speaker 1: women started gathering in l a in late October just
Speaker 1: to come together to support one another, having realized they
Speaker 1: weren't alone. But to their credit, they very quickly turned
Speaker 1: their personal pain into action. They wanted to figure out
Speaker 1: what could they do, recognizing they were women of privilege
Speaker 1: with platforms that would affect women in other industries and
Speaker 1: help them. And I happened to be in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: A lot of my life is just being in the
Speaker 1: right place at the right time. You just never know.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that became clear that we
Speaker 1: needed to do was to create some mechanism to lawyers
Speaker 1: to help defend these women because the other part of
Speaker 1: the predators playbook was playing itself out. And that was
Speaker 1: as women started speaking up using the hashtag me too
Speaker 1: that Toronto Burke had launched several years earlier. Was they
Speaker 1: were getting threatened with defamation lawsuits, because that's what used
Speaker 1: to happen. If you spoke out, you were going to
Speaker 1: get sued, you know, by the predator, and that could
Speaker 1: have shut the whole thing down. It also became clear
Speaker 1: to me something as a lawyer, I did not know,
Speaker 1: and that was although you can get attorney's fees in
Speaker 1: Title seven cases for sexual harassment, you can't get it
Speaker 1: if you're a low wage worker, right because your wages
Speaker 1: are so low, so the recovery is so low. So
Speaker 1: if you are a victim of sexual harassment as a
Speaker 1: restaurant worker, as a farm worker, you can't get somebody
Speaker 1: to take your case. And so we needed, you know,
Speaker 1: that legal defense fund for them. So I'm really proud
Speaker 1: that the National Women's Law Center took it on. But
Speaker 1: the part of Times Up that I'm now you know,
Speaker 1: the president CEO of his our advocacy you know, and
Speaker 1: impact lab research arm of the movement to really you know,
Speaker 1: expand to the work that we're doing. And what we're
Speaker 1: doing is number one, continuing to focus on survivor justice
Speaker 1: always right, supporting survivors when they speak up, like the
Speaker 1: Harvey Weinstein survivors during the Weinstein trial. But we also
Speaker 1: know we don't want to just keep dealing with the aftermath, right,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't want to just be in a
Speaker 1: world where we're picking up the pieces right after sexual
Speaker 1: harassment occurs, you know, to really keep sexual harassment from happening.
Speaker 1: You have to deal with all the structural barriers that
Speaker 1: are keeping women from having safe, fair and dignified work.
Speaker 1: You know, that are keeping us from having fully inclusive
Speaker 1: workplaces where women and people of color and lgbt q
Speaker 1: A and disabled workers can fully thrive and move up
Speaker 1: the scale. We know, if it workplaces are more inclusive,
Speaker 1: they are safer, right, and um, you know, we need
Speaker 1: to then therefore address all those such structural barriers. So
Speaker 1: it is things like pay equity and paid leave and
Speaker 1: fair hiring and promotion practices and the whole panoply of
Speaker 1: structural barriers in our work places. And so that's our
Speaker 1: mission is to you know, also work force safere and
Speaker 1: dignified work through changing you know, um, people, company and laws,
Speaker 1: so you know, really you know, addressing you know, public policy,
Speaker 1: addressing companies and private policy, and addressing you know, our
Speaker 1: culture and what we can do broadly in our world
Speaker 1: with people. It's so important, that's so important, Tina, and
Speaker 1: I really appreciate the fact that you talk about fixing
Speaker 1: the structural issues. We talk about it in our language
Speaker 1: as fixed the system, but it is about getting at
Speaker 1: much more breadth of what happens in the workplace, and
Speaker 1: so i'm you know, there's such a significant impact to
Speaker 1: the workplace, particularly workplaces where harassment and um it is
Speaker 1: part of the culture. Can you talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about that. Oh, it's an important question. I mean when
Speaker 1: you when sexual harassment is happening, that's a symptom. It's
Speaker 1: a symptom of a toxic workplace. Right. Once you get
Speaker 1: to the point you know of um, you know, actual
Speaker 1: sexual assaults happening in the workplace, you've really got something
Speaker 1: very broken, you know, within a workplace. And let's be clear,
Speaker 1: sexual harassment occurs on a spectrum. You know, we talk
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of attention to the Harvey
Speaker 1: Weinstein or the less Moon vez you know, types of
Speaker 1: actual criminal sexual assault that we're happening in those cases.
Speaker 1: But harassment isn't just that. It's also you know, the
Speaker 1: more subtle verbal you know, harassment that occurs, you know,
Speaker 1: based on someone's gender, or based on someone's race or disability.
Speaker 1: You know, the cutting jokes, right, the belittling that happens.
Speaker 1: You know that then there's also sort of an escalation
Speaker 1: that looks like it's favorable. The I like what you're wearing,
Speaker 1: and how about some drinks, and then let's go on
Speaker 1: a business trip. And you know, you know, if at
Speaker 1: each moment, none of as a manager, you don't stop that,
Speaker 1: you don't address those microaggressions and those lesser forms of harassment,
Speaker 1: you wind up with a workplace that's s related all
Speaker 1: the way to a place that's unsafe, and that affects
Speaker 1: your entire workplace. Right, it's not just the fact that
Speaker 1: the women have to suffer it. They're not as productive,
Speaker 1: they're not able to bring their full selves to the workplace.
Speaker 1: They will leave your workplace, so you're gonna lose your talent,
Speaker 1: will have high turnover rates. Um. You know, there's also
Speaker 1: the bullying that's not even sexual at all, you know,
Speaker 1: toxic workplace culture, and that's not even illegal. But the
Speaker 1: legal the bar for let bad behavior is really low.
Speaker 1: When you lose, you use the legal definitions because things
Speaker 1: like just the equal opportunity bullying, the guy who yells
Speaker 1: at everyone and throws telephones of people's heads, it's not illegal.
Speaker 1: And in fact, the winning defense in sexual harassment cases
Speaker 1: is to say, oh, I don't just harass women, I
Speaker 1: harass everybody. And if you had rass everybody. You win,
Speaker 1: you win the sexual harassment case. But I was unbelievable,
Speaker 1: right I would submit. If you're and you all round,
Speaker 1: cup you know you're running a company right as managers,
Speaker 1: that's probably not the workplace you want, right, that is
Speaker 1: not the kind of thriving, productive workplace that you want
Speaker 1: to have. UM And and so that's why you've got
Speaker 1: to address culture, workplace culture, you know, broadly, because that's
Speaker 1: what we're trying to fix, UM and all of these
Speaker 1: other ways in which you make sure you have a
Speaker 1: diverse and inclusive culture. UM is part of it how
Speaker 1: you bring people who are diverse into the workplace, but
Speaker 1: then also how people treat one another in the workplace. UM.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure you all know this. UM is that
Speaker 1: tone of the top manners, right, you know, it starts
Speaker 1: at the top of a company. You know, and I've
Speaker 1: been saying to CEO is that I've talked with, Look,
Speaker 1: this is every bit is important right now, how you
Speaker 1: fix your culture as your new technology is right or
Speaker 1: the latest real estate investment you're gonna make is a
Speaker 1: company because your workforce is your talent. And you know
Speaker 1: right now, you know the other thing that happens or
Speaker 1: the negative enforcement from the Harvey Wednstein moment was all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, companies realized, oh, there's risk here, right.
Speaker 1: It's not just something that's kind of like a nice
Speaker 1: to do for my employees thing. If I don't pay
Speaker 1: attention to culture. There's huge enterprise risk here. Um. And
Speaker 1: I think that was a motivator for companies to start changing.
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting. One of the things that we
Speaker 1: talk a lot about is that, you know, in this
Speaker 1: work you have to really hold two realities. And one
Speaker 1: reality is that most men don't harass women, and the
Speaker 1: other reality is that most women do not lie about
Speaker 1: their experience of harassment or hostile work environments. I mean,
Speaker 1: both of those things are true. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: peeling back the layers of the complexity of this issue
Speaker 1: in the workplace is really difficult. Research tells us that
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right, that is a very small percentage, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, somewhere less than ten percent of men are
Speaker 1: you know, the people who are committing of the sexual solve.
Speaker 1: And the problem there is there were pe defenders, like
Speaker 1: when you tend to do this once, you tend to
Speaker 1: do it over and over again. Which is why it's
Speaker 1: so important as employers too catch that right so that it
Speaker 1: it doesn't happen over and over. And that's why that
Speaker 1: this this sort of silence that grew up around silencing
Speaker 1: survivors and not talking about it in a company and
Speaker 1: not people you know, employment actions being taken in secret,
Speaker 1: so you didn't know who was a sexual harasser and
Speaker 1: they could move to another part of the company, for example,
Speaker 1: because it wasn't identified. You know, um creates the problem
Speaker 1: and perpetuates it. And you're absolutely right. I get the
Speaker 1: question all the time about what about false reporting? Right?
Speaker 1: And again, what we know from the sexual sault field,
Speaker 1: and there's been study after study to try to demonstrate,
Speaker 1: you know, false reporting, and nobody has been ever able
Speaker 1: to document anything higher than a seven to rate of
Speaker 1: false reporting, right, because think about it, people, what you
Speaker 1: have to go through as a survivor, why would you
Speaker 1: just make that up and bring it forward? Right? And
Speaker 1: and so the vast majority of women who raise these claims,
Speaker 1: you know, aren't lying about it. And but here's the system.
Speaker 1: We don't we believe at times up it isn't believe
Speaker 1: all survivors. That's not our call, you know, it is
Speaker 1: survivors need to be heard and they're you know, what
Speaker 1: they're saying needs to be taken seriously and there doesn't
Speaker 1: need to be due process. You know, we're not saying
Speaker 1: don't investigate and don't come out with a conclusion at
Speaker 1: the end. And as a conclusion at the end is
Speaker 1: it didn't happen, well, then okay, Joe, But we need
Speaker 1: a fair process where those survivors, you know, story was
Speaker 1: taken seriously and investigated, not just simply dismissed or swept
Speaker 1: under the rock, which is what typically happens. Have you
Speaker 1: seen any impact during the pandemic of either increased or
Speaker 1: decrease impact of harassment, hostile work environment experiences of women?
Speaker 1: You know, remember harassment doesn't require physical presence, right, And
Speaker 1: I think the misnomer is harassment is only happening when
Speaker 1: I get you in the hotel room. That's not that's
Speaker 1: maybe the far end of the extreme, but harassment can
Speaker 1: happen and Zoom calls right, you know what people what what? What? People?
Speaker 1: You know are people who are shut down when they speak. People,
Speaker 1: whether they're called you know, belittaling names, are treated like
Speaker 1: they don't have you know, they aren't you know, a
Speaker 1: serious participant in the Zoom meetings. We've heard stories of
Speaker 1: women who are getting you know, harassed by their you know,
Speaker 1: um uh manager because they're calling them at three o'clock
Speaker 1: in the morning, making all sorts of demands on them,
Speaker 1: you know, over the phone, or again belittle ng their work,
Speaker 1: work product and their conduct. Um So, Yes, harassment can
Speaker 1: happen remotely. It's harder for managers to spot. It's one
Speaker 1: of the things that prompted us actually, in this moment
Speaker 1: of crisis, to put out something called the Times of
Speaker 1: Guide to Equity and Inclusion during Crisis, which folks can get.
Speaker 1: You know, you can text the word leaders to three
Speaker 1: zero six four four to get open source free copy
Speaker 1: of the guide downloaded. Don't forget that when you're working remotely.
Speaker 1: Not everyone's home space is a safe space, right so
Speaker 1: the domestic violence Hotline has seen increases in calls, you know,
Speaker 1: with everyone can find in the home, it's not always
Speaker 1: a safe space for everyone, and employers should be thinking
Speaker 1: about that too. We'll be back after this break, Tina,
Speaker 1: this is such a fascinating conversation. I want to pivot
Speaker 1: a little bit, and we want to shift a discussion
Speaker 1: to the issue of pay equality. Can let's talk about
Speaker 1: what you're seeing right now for women in the area
Speaker 1: of pay equality. Well, we just did a survey actually
Speaker 1: at Times UP. We did a a national survey with
Speaker 1: Triestadham and Perry and hum Research, you know, UM, to
Speaker 1: find out what people are thinking about pay equity during
Speaker 1: a pandemic, during an economic crisis. I was heartened because
Speaker 1: it showed that over an overwhelming majority of both men
Speaker 1: and women, so we're talking about overall in the survey
Speaker 1: of men even agreed that addressing pay equity even during
Speaker 1: our crisis is a critical, important UM priority that we
Speaker 1: all need to address. UM. It's very different because I
Speaker 1: lived through the last Great Recession in the White House,
Speaker 1: right and working you know, on the White House counsel
Speaker 1: on Women and Girls. And what we found back then
Speaker 1: was people just thought they just wanted a job, you know,
Speaker 1: in issues of pay equity and paid leave, we're just
Speaker 1: personal issues for me to figure out, not public policy
Speaker 1: issues for legislators or something for my manager and my
Speaker 1: employer to figure out. And that has shifted in the
Speaker 1: last decade where people now recognize that these issues of
Speaker 1: the structural barriers for working families are issues that we
Speaker 1: all need to care about. Employers need to care about,
Speaker 1: public policy makers need to care about. Um. And that
Speaker 1: really showed on in our in our survey. But you know,
Speaker 1: the downside was, you know, the huge impact that paying
Speaker 1: equalities having, especially on black women and Latin X women.
Speaker 1: You know a majority of Latin X women in our
Speaker 1: survey don't have two hundred dollars in their bank account
Speaker 1: right now. They are struggling to just make ends meet. Um. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you know that that goes for you know, like
Speaker 1: forty percent of black women UM. And meanwhile that that's
Speaker 1: twelve percent of white men are experiencing that. And you know,
Speaker 1: we also asked, you know, what what would it take
Speaker 1: right what do you need to succeed in your job?
Speaker 1: And pay quality, you know, was one. They also know
Speaker 1: that they're not getting pay equity because of race discrimination
Speaker 1: and gender discrimination. UM. You know, we've you know, got
Speaker 1: majorities of black and brown women who are saying they
Speaker 1: had to leave jobs because of race and gender discrimination
Speaker 1: that was occurring. Um. And they also point the way
Speaker 1: to the things that we need and it's all of
Speaker 1: the system fixes that we've been talking about. They need
Speaker 1: jobs that include paid leave and paid sick leave, you know,
Speaker 1: and better promotion practices, um. And those are the things.
Speaker 1: So you know, even in a pandemic moment, even in
Speaker 1: an economic crisis, what we're trying to say to companies
Speaker 1: is this is the opportunity to build your company back better,
Speaker 1: you know, build our economy back better. Um, make sure
Speaker 1: that we are more resilient for the future, because if
Speaker 1: we are, you know, this is a time when you've
Speaker 1: actually stripped your company down. Right, if you furloughed everybody,
Speaker 1: then re examine your pay policies and start bringing people
Speaker 1: back into jobs where the pay inequity has been fixed.
Speaker 1: You know. So there's an opportunity in this horrible crisis,
Speaker 1: and that is I've been lining you know, what we're
Speaker 1: going through to like stripping our economy if it was
Speaker 1: a house down to the bare foundations. Right, everything is
Speaker 1: out of the house because everything is broken, and the
Speaker 1: opportunity has to build our structures back better. Right when
Speaker 1: build and incorporate in them the things that we need.
Speaker 1: You know that I think about paid sickly. I've been
Speaker 1: talking a lot about paid sickly as an example of this.
Speaker 1: You know, we are one of you know just a
Speaker 1: handful of countries around the world that does not have
Speaker 1: some form of national paisically policy. Well, what if we
Speaker 1: and then we had to scramble right to put an
Speaker 1: emergency one into the CARES Act. I think what it
Speaker 1: would have been if we had had one, If we
Speaker 1: had a national paisically policy going into the pandemic, If
Speaker 1: businesses had been able to already build that cost into
Speaker 1: their business plan, if workers knew they had paidsickly to
Speaker 1: take so they could stay home if they were sick
Speaker 1: without risking their job or their paycheck or their family
Speaker 1: member was sick. You know, think how much better we
Speaker 1: would have been and we could be right now in
Speaker 1: managing this pandemic. And I would suggest to all of
Speaker 1: the business leaders who are listening, you do not have
Speaker 1: to wait for Congress to act. In Congress is acting slow,
Speaker 1: or your state legislature. You can set the policies in
Speaker 1: your company that are more forward leaning and forward looking.
Speaker 1: And I would suggest if you do that right now,
Speaker 1: you are the business that's going to come out of
Speaker 1: the pandemic quicker, come out of the recovery quicker, and
Speaker 1: will be more resilient and ready for the next crisis,
Speaker 1: because we know another one will come eventually, and you
Speaker 1: will be able to build your business back better and more,
Speaker 1: you know, stronger, with more talent that is deeply invested
Speaker 1: in your business. You're absolutely right, Tina senecas one hundred
Speaker 1: women to hear will be back after the short break.
Speaker 1: I want to go back to pay equality through that
Speaker 1: same lens. It's so important that pay equality also be
Speaker 1: seen as an issue by both women and men. It
Speaker 1: has to become the minimum standard for companies looking at gender, race,
Speaker 1: disability and more. And there's a related topic which sets
Speaker 1: an even higher standard, and that is wealth equality, which
Speaker 1: is starting to be a broader conversation around the world.
Speaker 1: Wealth equality is about the amount of wealth that women
Speaker 1: and men accumulate over their careers. It relies on having
Speaker 1: women get equal access to higher paying fields and higher
Speaker 1: paying jobs, and it requires all of us to look
Speaker 1: at our total talent bull when we're making advancement decisions.
Speaker 1: Otherwise those disparities remain at every level, and then the
Speaker 1: compounding impact of that creates a significant wealth gap for
Speaker 1: women versus men a p And we've declared that we
Speaker 1: want to have fifty fifty representation at all levels of
Speaker 1: our company and representation of multicultural individuals in the US.
Speaker 1: We are working hard to ensure that we have women
Speaker 1: equally represented in the highest paying roles, whether that's leading
Speaker 1: a business unit, leading a technical center, or a manufacturing plant.
Speaker 1: And I'm really proud to share that today forty percent
Speaker 1: of our managers are women. Over of our C suite
Speaker 1: executives or women, and of our dependent directors on our
Speaker 1: board are women. Well. Un familiar with the work of PNG,
Speaker 1: and you you all have been doing a great job.
Speaker 1: I mean you've been intentional about it and put the
Speaker 1: working and that's what it requires. That is what it requires.
Speaker 1: Intentionality is word we use so often. And as we've
Speaker 1: also said so many times, we know that women are
Speaker 1: highly effective, proven leaders, and we need to ensure that
Speaker 1: we give them that equal opportunity to lead. And in fact,
Speaker 1: on that note, Tina, I'd love to hear about the
Speaker 1: campaign you've started at Times Up, which is called we
Speaker 1: Have Her Back. So we launched you know, we have
Speaker 1: her Back in August, right as Vice President Biden was
Speaker 1: a speculation about who would he pick as his VP
Speaker 1: nominee was happening, and myself and several other of my
Speaker 1: you know, women women leaders that I know, we feel
Speaker 1: like we've been to this movie before. We knew what
Speaker 1: was coming, right, and we could see it even before
Speaker 1: our nominee was picked. The kind of misogynistic and also
Speaker 1: racial slurs and suggestive language, UM that we're being used.
Speaker 1: And you know, we kind of decided we weren't going
Speaker 1: to sit quietly anymore about that, UM, and so we
Speaker 1: launched you know, we have her Back in August hashtag
Speaker 1: we have her Back. Interestingly, we co wrote myself and
Speaker 1: several other women leaders co wrote a memo to news
Speaker 1: editors UM just the weekend before Senator Harris was picked
Speaker 1: as a VP nominee, and we sent it out that
Speaker 1: that Friday morning, the weekend before before there was a nominee, saying,
Speaker 1: you know, we know he's going to pick a woman.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing you should watch out for in your reporting.
Speaker 1: Don't call her ambitious. Don't focus on her clothes or
Speaker 1: what she looks like, or what her husband did you know,
Speaker 1: or her personal pass and lo and behold twenty four
Speaker 1: not twenty four hours later, The New York Times ran
Speaker 1: a headline about risk corsages and comparing you know, like
Speaker 1: the last year lead for our a race too. You know,
Speaker 1: did Walter Monde want to bring a risk corsage to
Speaker 1: to Jarre lead for hour when they first met. And
Speaker 1: even worse, l A Times ran a story that compared
Speaker 1: you know, the VP nominee selection process to The Bachelor
Speaker 1: and compared you know, the White House to the Ultimate
Speaker 1: Fantasy Suite. It's like horrific, and they proved the case
Speaker 1: of why we needed we have her back. And they've
Speaker 1: been so many examples since then. And here's the problem though,
Speaker 1: and here's how it relates to what's happening inside your
Speaker 1: company and other companies, is when women leaders are talked
Speaker 1: about like that, we then, you know, there's a reason
Speaker 1: why we haven't been able to crack that highest flass
Speaker 1: ceiling of the presidents of the United States, because that's
Speaker 1: how we talk about women leaders in our political discourse,
Speaker 1: and therefore we don't see women leaders as being able
Speaker 1: to occupy the highest homics. But it's not just that,
Speaker 1: you know, political discourse is so permanent, you know, it
Speaker 1: is the reason why not only can you not see
Speaker 1: a woman as president of the United States or vice
Speaker 1: president of the United States, you don't see R. S.
Speaker 1: CEO of your company or a director of your company.
Speaker 1: You don't see her as a district manager at that level.
Speaker 1: You know, the server and a restaurant who aspires to
Speaker 1: be the manager of a restaurant. The restaurant owners don't
Speaker 1: see her in that way because we are getta culturated
Speaker 1: to thinking of women not as women leaders, but as
Speaker 1: contestants on The Bachelor. And that's why we did this.
Speaker 1: And it's so deep. I have to say, right, this
Speaker 1: is this is so much the social norms, and that's
Speaker 1: why we want we have our back. We're trying to
Speaker 1: call it out, not to do cancel culture. It's not
Speaker 1: that is to get people to recognize the coded terms,
Speaker 1: the language they're using, and push back against it and
Speaker 1: don't let that be part of your decision making process,
Speaker 1: whether it's voting or trying to figure out who's gonna
Speaker 1: be the next manager in your company. That's exactly right, Tina.
Speaker 1: You know, I want to go back to the perception
Speaker 1: and language we use about women. You were talking about
Speaker 1: this earlier, but it's not just about the vice president
Speaker 1: to race, and it's not just about one woman. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're so numb to the language that's used in the
Speaker 1: media and online and in everyday conversations that we don't
Speaker 1: even hear it anymore. I just had to pause on
Speaker 1: that for a moment, you know. I I keep saying
Speaker 1: to Caroline, I'm just so mad, and I don't know
Speaker 1: who I should be mad at. You don't know why
Speaker 1: you're mad because it's just coming from all sorts of
Speaker 1: places and you can't even identify where it's coming from. Right.
Speaker 1: I had an activist one described that we're all living
Speaker 1: in a soup, right, and when you're in the middle
Speaker 1: of the soup, you sort of can't see it, right,
Speaker 1: and it can't taste it, and you don't know where
Speaker 1: the flavors are coming from, but they're surrounding you, right.
Speaker 1: You know, you need to sort of pull back from
Speaker 1: the soup and taste it and be able to understand
Speaker 1: what's going on. And that's what we're trying to do
Speaker 1: with we have our back, is at least peel back
Speaker 1: that veil of what's the subtle signals that are affecting
Speaker 1: our culture. You know, culture is really important. It affects
Speaker 1: how we think about people. It's affects how we treat
Speaker 1: one another. You know, it does affect the issues around
Speaker 1: UM tangible things like wealth inequality that we started talking about,
Speaker 1: because it affects, you know, how people advance, how they're
Speaker 1: viewed in their workplace, how they're evaluated, you know, Tina.
Speaker 1: The other thing that I want to just go back
Speaker 1: to for a moment is your comments earlier about the
Speaker 1: importance of national sickly, the importance of parental leave, the
Speaker 1: importance of flexibility in our policies that applies equally and
Speaker 1: gets used and adopted equally by men and women, because
Speaker 1: it also broadens that opportunity for men to play a
Speaker 1: bigger role at home with family, with childcare, with schooling,
Speaker 1: with homework, with dental appointments, whatever the case might be.
Speaker 1: And and that's another big important part of this because
Speaker 1: the more that we can broaden the role and the
Speaker 1: norm for men, it also has a positive impact for women.
Speaker 1: You know, we have to start seeing UM women UH
Speaker 1: women's leadership as as something that is highly effective and
Speaker 1: something we should expect. We have to begin to see
Speaker 1: that men washing dishes, or diapering babies or taking kids
Speaker 1: to school in the morning is also the norm that
Speaker 1: we should come to expect. And these policies are an
Speaker 1: important part of that as well. Oh, it's interesting you
Speaker 1: mentioned that when I was in the White House, you know,
Speaker 1: we had a huge working Families agenda that we did
Speaker 1: and we worked on and we actually had the first
Speaker 1: ever White House someone on Working Families um And in
Speaker 1: one of the lead up events to that large summit
Speaker 1: we had, there were so many events on specific issues,
Speaker 1: and one of them was on men on stay at
Speaker 1: home dad's you know, and the support that they need.
Speaker 1: There was a Mets player who actually took two days
Speaker 1: off and missed a game or two because for the
Speaker 1: birth of his son, and was roundly supported by the Mets,
Speaker 1: by the way in White j League Baseball, but roundly
Speaker 1: criticized on sports radio right And we brought him in
Speaker 1: to talk about it, and there was there's a whole
Speaker 1: group of men who just were mazed and that they
Speaker 1: were at the White House talking about this. But the
Speaker 1: other thing that was striking is that we had some
Speaker 1: child psychologists, you know, a guy from Yale who came
Speaker 1: in and talked about the fact that it's demonstrated that
Speaker 1: if men are involved with their children, you know, in
Speaker 1: the zero to three range of their lives, that has
Speaker 1: lifelong effects. You know, on child development, on child achievement.
Speaker 1: Absolutely and you were absolutely right. These need to be
Speaker 1: policies that are parental leave, not maternal leave, you know,
Speaker 1: and men need to take it right. So the other
Speaker 1: thing about tone at the top is we need leaders
Speaker 1: at the top of the business to set the tone
Speaker 1: in the business to take the leave. When we build
Speaker 1: safer and dignified work, we're building it for everyone, for
Speaker 1: everyone to succeed. You know. We had a conversation with
Speaker 1: Eve Rodsky uh the author of a book called fair Play,
Speaker 1: and one of the things that we talked about with
Speaker 1: her on paid paternity leave is that not only is
Speaker 1: that really healthy for families, it's healthy for men UM.
Speaker 1: Their outlook is better. But we also connected it back
Speaker 1: into the workplace that men who take paid paternity leave,
Speaker 1: paid parental leave come back into the workplace and have
Speaker 1: much greater empathy for men that are in that cycle
Speaker 1: as well, like they understand now what that all means, UM.
Speaker 1: And so I think in the world of creating workplaces
Speaker 1: that work for everyone at break when when they come
Speaker 1: back in UM, that is also helpful for the women
Speaker 1: that they're working with who are going through childcare leave
Speaker 1: as well. Oh, absolutely, and you know, and it is
Speaker 1: an ongoing thing, so it's not just durven leave moment. Right,
Speaker 1: We're not experiencing a moment where schools are closed. So
Speaker 1: what were are we doing during the day for kids
Speaker 1: if you've got school aged kids. But it's also of
Speaker 1: elder care, you know, if they're if they're sick, um,
Speaker 1: and yourself self care. So caregiving really needs to get
Speaker 1: broadened and defined. And I am terribly worried, you know,
Speaker 1: that we are in a new caregiving crisis with this
Speaker 1: pandemic where you know, women are now opting out of
Speaker 1: the workforce because they have no choice, so there's no
Speaker 1: access to free or affordable childcare, and we I'm deeply
Speaker 1: concerned that we will lose you know, all the progress
Speaker 1: we've made on women's labor force participation where we're now
Speaker 1: fifty in the labor force, that during the course of
Speaker 1: this pandemic, we're going to lose that. You know, I
Speaker 1: want employers to start thinking about if you've got a
Speaker 1: lot empty space now, because you're only bringing half your
Speaker 1: workforce back to the office, maybe use an empty space
Speaker 1: so child aged school age kids can come to their
Speaker 1: school work. You know, one floor down from mom or dad,
Speaker 1: you know, so that mom and dad can actually come
Speaker 1: into the office. I mean, I think we need to
Speaker 1: start getting a little disruptive and a little creative in
Speaker 1: how we deliver caregiving in this country, and how do
Speaker 1: we support the wages of these essential workers who are
Speaker 1: our caregivers and who are predominantly women. We're taking the
Speaker 1: house down to the foundation and building it differently, building
Speaker 1: it in a new way. Again, I'm moving to a
Speaker 1: slightly new topic here, But another industry that can probably
Speaker 1: use a reset is tech. Right. Tech drives everything we do,
Speaker 1: everything we touch, but it also has this huge gender gap.
Speaker 1: You know, I have a computer science degree, and I
Speaker 1: think there were more women graduating from computer science when
Speaker 1: I graduated in the eighties than there are today, which
Speaker 1: is a crazy stat right, And we need women in tech.
Speaker 1: We need women helping to design the products, the systems,
Speaker 1: and the world that we live in. Um there's a
Speaker 1: fun fact. PNG has the highest the nation's highest average
Speaker 1: rate of women credited with inventions, as determined by the
Speaker 1: number of patents that they've been assigned. Now, women inventors
Speaker 1: at PNG had a filing rate I think it's about
Speaker 1: which is higher than institutions and companies like M I, T, Microsoft, Amazon, um,
Speaker 1: you know, and we make we make Tied and Pampers
Speaker 1: and DoD you know. But one of the reasons our
Speaker 1: female inventor rate is so high is that of our
Speaker 1: employees working in research and development are women. And when
Speaker 1: you have diversity and invention, you get these products and
Speaker 1: applications that work for all people. So you know, these
Speaker 1: reset moments are so important. Well. Absolutely, they used to
Speaker 1: complain it was a pipeline problem. I don't actually think
Speaker 1: it's a pipeline problem anymore. With increasing numbers of women
Speaker 1: with computer science backgrounds who are out there, they just
Speaker 1: are leaving, you know, and they're leaving because of the culture, right,
Speaker 1: the broa culture. And we've seen a lot of that,
Speaker 1: um that happens. And I've addressed startups and I said, look,
Speaker 1: you're a startup, but you need to actually invest in
Speaker 1: this right way, because what happens with these startup companies
Speaker 1: is hr isn't invested in you know, by the by
Speaker 1: your angel investor. You're just dealing with the product and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden you are big and international
Speaker 1: and you get thousands of employees and a terrible culture
Speaker 1: that does not support women or anyone who is different,
Speaker 1: and then it affects your your product because you know,
Speaker 1: there's all the stories, for example about face recognition, right,
Speaker 1: and face recognition being sort of completely sort of you know,
Speaker 1: not recognizing black people, not really fully recognizing women. But
Speaker 1: tech folks like to think, oh, you know technology is neutral, right,
Speaker 1: It's just the algorithms. But the algorithms got written by people, right,
Speaker 1: and with people's biases, you know, built into it. It's
Speaker 1: the same thing with women's heart disease not being nice, right,
Speaker 1: because everything's been built on the examples of male heart disease.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many places that it's present, and
Speaker 1: it's so important that we that we get women represented
Speaker 1: so that our world can be a better place for
Speaker 1: all of us. So, Tina, this has been such a
Speaker 1: great conversation, and I want to go back to one
Speaker 1: other thing that we talked earlier and just put it
Speaker 1: into words. What's bothering me so much about the corsage
Speaker 1: comment and then the Bachelor comment is that it's just
Speaker 1: such a microaggression against all women and it keeps happening. Well,
Speaker 1: it is because, as you know, the three of us
Speaker 1: are women who grew up in business, right and you
Speaker 1: know I was. I was a corporate litigator for twenty
Speaker 1: three years before I went to the White House and
Speaker 1: loved it. And yet there were all those micro aggressions
Speaker 1: every day that she had to sort of deal with.
Speaker 1: The you know, I remember I had I had jurors
Speaker 1: who would tell me after a jury trial, you know,
Speaker 1: we were so surprised you spoke English, so or you know,
Speaker 1: being mistaken for the corporate reporter, you know, when the
Speaker 1: depositions starts. So we have all of those things. So yeah,
Speaker 1: So Tina, we just have one final question for you,
Speaker 1: if you could leave our listeners with one final thought
Speaker 1: to remember. Tell us what you're hopeful about right now?
Speaker 1: What makes you get up in the morning and do
Speaker 1: the important work that you're doing. Well, let me acknowledge
Speaker 1: it's a tough time, right. I think it still remains
Speaker 1: a very tough time for all of us, you know,
Speaker 1: during this unprecedented pandemic moment. So it's it's tough. I've
Speaker 1: been experiencing some of the toughness of of being isolated.
Speaker 1: You know that many of us are experiencing. Um. But
Speaker 1: I will tell you what gives me hope and keeps
Speaker 1: me up is the enthusiasm and the activism that's out there.
Speaker 1: You know, I think people are rising to the occasion, um,
Speaker 1: to this moment. This is a transformational moment, and you know,
Speaker 1: it was thrust upon us, you know, um, by by
Speaker 1: nature and and it's a global transformational moment. And it
Speaker 1: as an opportunity for us to seize that moment and
Speaker 1: you know, make a turn for the good, you know,
Speaker 1: and not go back to an old status quote that
Speaker 1: wasn't working for so many people, but to build really
Speaker 1: a new future, and new economic future, a new workplace future,
Speaker 1: um and and so that that I'm thrilled by that
Speaker 1: opportunity that we have, and I'm thrilled by the energy
Speaker 1: that I see in so many sectors to do it. Tina,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. This has been such a fun conversation.
Speaker 1: That's been a real joy. Gosh, Tina, such fantastic work
Speaker 1: you're doing. Thank you. It's so good to know that
Speaker 1: a bold advocate like Tina Chen is working on behalf
Speaker 1: of fairness and equality for women. Here are some of
Speaker 1: the things that really resonated with me from the conversation. First,
Speaker 1: combating sexual harassment is part of a wider fight for
Speaker 1: dignity and safety at work. As Tina says, sexual harassment
Speaker 1: is actually a symptom of a toxic workplace, of something
Speaker 1: very broken that needs to be fixed, and a healthy
Speaker 1: workplace is something that every woman and man is entitled to.
Speaker 1: It's all about how people treat one another. For companies,
Speaker 1: that's just as important as installing new technology or making
Speaker 1: a real estate investment. Finally, while the pandemic has presented
Speaker 1: us with many challenges, including a crisis and caregiving, it's
Speaker 1: also fostered a spirit of activism and engagement. The pandemic
Speaker 1: has stripped our institutions down to their foundations, and now,
Speaker 1: as Tina says, we have an opportunity to build them
Speaker 1: back in a more inclusive way. Tune in next Thursday
Speaker 1: to hear about our next featured woman and discover why
Speaker 1: she's one of Seneca's one hundred Women to Hear. Seneca's
Speaker 1: one hundred Women to Hear is a collaboration between the
Speaker 1: Seneca Women Podcast Network and I Heart Radio, with support
Speaker 1: from founding partner png G. If you like what you
Speaker 1: heard on the show, rate and review it on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1: We hope you'll join us for our next episode of
Speaker 1: one hundred Women to Hear, where we can all listen,
Speaker 1: learn and get inspired. Have a great day.