Speaker 1: Today's quote is from a Wall Street Journal piece by
Speaker 1: Betsy Morris called why does Zoom exhaust you? Science has
Speaker 1: an answer. She says, communication is an exquisite interplay of talk, gestures, movement,
Speaker 1: and timing between people that scientists call synchrony. This complex
Speaker 1: interaction is so basic that researchers who discovered it between
Speaker 1: adults later found it happens in newborns and infants movements
Speaker 1: synchronize with the speech of its caretaker as early as
Speaker 1: the first day of life. The synchrony found in face
Speaker 1: to face communication is possible over video in ideal circumstances,
Speaker 1: According to a yet unpublished dissertation by Jinging Han, who
Speaker 1: recently received a doctorate in Media Arts and Sciences from
Speaker 1: Indiana University, but she too finds zoom to be exhausting.
Speaker 1: She suspects that's because human are driven to achieve synchrony
Speaker 1: and work hard cognitively to achieve it. On zoom quote,
Speaker 1: we are working very hard to synchronize with each other,
Speaker 1: she says, and that will be the next phase of
Speaker 1: her research. Working hard there you go. Welcome to Permission
Speaker 1: to Speak, the podcast about how we talk and how
Speaker 1: we get ourselves heard with me. Samar Be. Today's guest
Speaker 1: is a lease Hogue. She is a lifelong activist and
Speaker 1: organizer with a true gift for making big, abstract ideas
Speaker 1: feel like really personal and really human. For the last
Speaker 1: seven years, she's been the president of NEY Oral Pro
Speaker 1: Choice America, which is the other massive organization alongside UH
Speaker 1: Planned Parenthood that advocates for reproductive justice at the national level.
Speaker 1: UH Near all by the Way has tripled its membership
Speaker 1: under her leadership to two point five million people, and
Speaker 1: it's been front and center at the fights to reunite
Speaker 1: families at the border, which is something that we talked
Speaker 1: about in this interview UH the Kavanaugh hearings where she
Speaker 1: literally over text was giving me my marching orders here
Speaker 1: in l A. And I mean obviously in the fight
Speaker 1: to push back against this insane wave of abortion bands
Speaker 1: at the state level over the last few years. She
Speaker 1: also made history when she spoke about her own abortion
Speaker 1: on the stage of the Democratic National Convention, in which
Speaker 1: obviously I asked her all about here. I wanted to
Speaker 1: have a lease on because she is a friend, but
Speaker 1: she is a powerhouse, an inspiration and honestly a true leader.
Speaker 1: When we are so desperate or I maybe I'm so
Speaker 1: desperate for someone to look up to. I mean, right,
Speaker 1: we talk very specifically about how to find hope, like
Speaker 1: not fake hope in our somewhat dystopian crisis. Um. How
Speaker 1: she thinks about public speaking, which for any activists or
Speaker 1: would be activists listening in or politicians coming up her perspective, Uh,
Speaker 1: totally blew my mind. And we also talked about her
Speaker 1: new book that just came out, The Lie That Binds
Speaker 1: about how abortion became such a Whig issue anyway, I mean,
Speaker 1: the answer has to do with a conference call that
Speaker 1: changed everything. Fun fact, Alice is married to John Neffinger,
Speaker 1: who I had on the podcast back in March. So
Speaker 1: this is my first permission to speak power couple of guys. Uh.
Speaker 1: And the second fun fact Elise and I met through
Speaker 1: some mutual friends when I was living in d C
Speaker 1: for this summer two years ago. Uh, dialect coaching gal
Speaker 1: Gado on the new Wonder Woman movie, which we like,
Speaker 1: took over the city and we're shooting, you know, everywhere. Basically,
Speaker 1: what I'm trying to say is that my version of
Speaker 1: our nation's capital is all about Wonder Woman. Etil's hoag Uh.
Speaker 1: Which feels pretty synonymous. This is the last UM, I
Speaker 1: kind of wanted to ask you first, Um, the question
Speaker 1: that you've been asking of what are you doing to
Speaker 1: stay sane? Um? You know what, it sounds silly. Um.
Speaker 1: Partly what we've been doing to say stay sane is
Speaker 1: a lot of family dance parties. UM. My kids are
Speaker 1: really into family dance parties. And then, UM, I make
Speaker 1: sure that I schedule at least at least one meeting
Speaker 1: a day that is not on zoom, that is only
Speaker 1: on phone, so I can get an hour of walking
Speaker 1: around outside in a day at least. Do you do
Speaker 1: you feel like you think differently while you're walking, Like,
Speaker 1: do those conversations end up going differently? Yes? I do.
Speaker 1: I think that. Um. You know, like change of scenery
Speaker 1: and change of perspective is actually crucially crucially important in
Speaker 1: the ability for us. You know, we all get in ruts,
Speaker 1: we all sort of tell ourselves the same stories, and
Speaker 1: it's really hard to change that. So any sort of
Speaker 1: difference in our external environment will will catalyze differences in
Speaker 1: our internal sort of monologue, and that's really important to
Speaker 1: make sure. I don't know, Also, it sounds like both
Speaker 1: of those things, um have to do with physically moving
Speaker 1: as well. And there's something about like the you know,
Speaker 1: the deep wisdom of our bodies that we sometimes forget
Speaker 1: when we're sitting all day well, and I think we
Speaker 1: forget how deeply connected our voice is to the rest
Speaker 1: of our body, right that we cannot actually have a
Speaker 1: powerful voice if we have a body that doesn't feel powerful,
Speaker 1: how whatever that means to us. You know, people have
Speaker 1: different abilities do that in different ways. But we have
Speaker 1: to be focused on the idea of what makes me
Speaker 1: feel physically powerful, emotionally powerful, spiritually powerful. All of that
Speaker 1: coalesces into how our voice is projected and hurt in
Speaker 1: the world. Well, And not to get like super patriarchy
Speaker 1: from the beginning, but I think it is a massive
Speaker 1: patriarchal move to try to separate our brains from our bodies.
Speaker 1: I mean, so much of our wisdom does not live
Speaker 1: in our head, and if we think it does and
Speaker 1: only does, then like we're somewhat fucked professionally. I couldn't
Speaker 1: agree with you more. I couldn't agree with you more. Um.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about your Democratic National Convention speech
Speaker 1: in you got on the stage in a stunning reddress
Speaker 1: and said this, this quote that I think has resonated
Speaker 1: with you know, the country for years now. It's not
Speaker 1: as simple as bad girls get abortions and good girls
Speaker 1: have families where the same women at different times in
Speaker 1: our lives, each making decisions that are best for us.
Speaker 1: What was your decision to give that speech? It boiled
Speaker 1: down to, with the platform comes privilege, and therefore I
Speaker 1: have to use this opportunity to speak to my own
Speaker 1: personal experience as emblematic of such a common experience in
Speaker 1: this world. And also not just that these sort of
Speaker 1: things that we're talking about our theory, they're not theory,
Speaker 1: they're deeply, deeply personal. Um. That being said, that was
Speaker 1: a real journey for me. As I tell people, it
Speaker 1: was never on my bucket list to get on a
Speaker 1: stage in front of millions of yours and uh tell
Speaker 1: some of the most innermost personal experiences of my life. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, I look forward to a day where
Speaker 1: nobody has to do that for policy to reflect the
Speaker 1: right ethical and public health outcomes. But um, you know
Speaker 1: I did it. And and the thing that I always
Speaker 1: tell people because it feels important to me is, um,
Speaker 1: it was terrifying, right, Like I don't want people to
Speaker 1: be like, Oh, she's just so brave and courageous that
Speaker 1: she could do that. It was absolutely terrifying. It was
Speaker 1: one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. Um So,
Speaker 1: confronting that fear because I knew that it was an
Speaker 1: opportunity and an imperative for me to do so, has
Speaker 1: been a tremendous growth experience. Um But I don't want
Speaker 1: to leave anyone with the impression that I just sort
Speaker 1: of sauntered up there without fear, completely comfortable in my
Speaker 1: own skin, and gave that speech. Was it scarier like
Speaker 1: in the lead up or in the moment or after?
Speaker 1: Like what was your relationship with that, with that fear?
Speaker 1: How did it move? No, I will say in the
Speaker 1: lead up it was definitely the most scary. And you know,
Speaker 1: like you have the stage and you've convinced yourself that
Speaker 1: you know the privilege and the responsibility pieces there, and
Speaker 1: then you're like, well, if I floob it, it's not
Speaker 1: just me flobbing it, but it's everything I stand for
Speaker 1: and all of that, and you know, I you know,
Speaker 1: I'm in a business where backlash is sort of part
Speaker 1: of the daily experience, but that felt like even greater exposure. UM,
Speaker 1: so I will say, uh, I definitely kept my eyes
Speaker 1: trained on the Texas delegation in the convention hall because
Speaker 1: I'm in Texans and I know where I sort of
Speaker 1: draw my power. It's from my people rooting for me,
Speaker 1: and they were, um and you know, like many things
Speaker 1: when we confront our fears, they turned out to be
Speaker 1: incredibly empowering. And so the aftermath was actually lovely. And
Speaker 1: that what I found is that by exercising my own
Speaker 1: voice that I um in that way, that I catalyzed
Speaker 1: other people wanting to participate in their own ability to
Speaker 1: tell their own stories. And there was a piece on
Speaker 1: Scary Mommy, which is this mothering blog. Um, I know
Speaker 1: you know, but I don't know if your listeners know.
Speaker 1: I love it again, incredibly well read. Um. You know
Speaker 1: about four days after my speech with a mother saying
Speaker 1: I'm a Republican, I had an abortion and I'm tired
Speaker 1: of feeling ashamed of it. I want to use my
Speaker 1: voice to tell my story. And to me, that was
Speaker 1: all the payback I needed, the idea that my voice
Speaker 1: could help catalyze someone else finding their own. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that's why we do scary things. UM. I also met
Speaker 1: you the day that I then walked with you to
Speaker 1: a rally in d C. The summer of first met me,
Speaker 1: I physically met you. I didn't know you through the
Speaker 1: internet little bit before that. Uh. And and it was
Speaker 1: the summer that we all found out about, UM, what
Speaker 1: was going on at the border and the families being separated.
Speaker 1: And I had reached out to attend a rally to
Speaker 1: ask you, you know, as the knower of all things
Speaker 1: in d C. And you said, I'm actually speaking at
Speaker 1: this one. And and I walked with you and your
Speaker 1: kids and then you, I'm sure remember what happened with
Speaker 1: one of your children during during that rally? Do you will?
Speaker 1: You will you tell me what it felt like to
Speaker 1: be doing that? So UM what smarts referring to I
Speaker 1: was speaking at a rally on family separation. UM. I
Speaker 1: often do not take my children to these events, but
Speaker 1: we chose to. My parents were in town, and UM,
Speaker 1: during my speech, my son, who was then and remains
Speaker 1: quite some quite sort of sensitive and empathetic, UM, I think,
Speaker 1: was overcome by the emotion of the crowd and started
Speaker 1: wailing and walked up to me. While I was on
Speaker 1: microphone whiling, and I'm a mom, So I picked him up.
Speaker 1: I comfort him. That's what I do. And um, it
Speaker 1: felt very important to me to acknowledge that momentum again
Speaker 1: as one of privilege, but as one that I felt
Speaker 1: like so many people couldn't relate to, which is, here's
Speaker 1: my son, he's crying, he needs comforting. The simple privilege
Speaker 1: of being able to pick him up and hold him
Speaker 1: and comfort him is something that was being denied to
Speaker 1: so many parents in that moment who were undergoing an
Speaker 1: excruciating and special form of torture and hearing their children
Speaker 1: wail from other rooms and not be able to comfort them.
Speaker 1: And my hope was that that fundamental common experience that
Speaker 1: we all share, regardless of what our political affiliation is,
Speaker 1: regardless of anything, could ground us and what was really
Speaker 1: being lost to that moment, not only for those individual
Speaker 1: parents who are undergoing that torture, but for a collective
Speaker 1: soul as a nation. How did you prepare for that?
Speaker 1: And how do you prepare for these sort of rally
Speaker 1: type speeches that feel like there's an element of sort
Speaker 1: of off the cuff and like bullet points that you're
Speaker 1: used to talking about, But how do you sort of
Speaker 1: collect your mind before these because they're all they're all,
Speaker 1: they're not they don't always have your son in your arms,
Speaker 1: but they all are somewhat emotionally fraught due to the
Speaker 1: nature of your job. It's true, um, and I think
Speaker 1: we all sort of gravitate towards different mediums for communication, right,
Speaker 1: Like the expectation of my profession is that I will
Speaker 1: speak at rallies, I will engage in debates, I will
Speaker 1: go on TV, and those are all different for me,
Speaker 1: and I actually experienced different anxieties around each one of them. Um.
Speaker 1: I am an extreme extrovert. So actually speaking to rally
Speaker 1: crowds is more comfortable to me. Not that I don't
Speaker 1: get nervous. I always get nervous, but it is more
Speaker 1: comfortable to me because I can and real time feed
Speaker 1: on the energy of the crowd, as opposed to being
Speaker 1: locked in a little television studio which is a camera
Speaker 1: trained on you and not knowing what if what you're
Speaker 1: saying is resonating in any way. Um, but you know
Speaker 1: it's it has become really important to me to remember that, um,
Speaker 1: my energy is as important to what the crowd will
Speaker 1: experience as my words. Right, So what I'm projecting in
Speaker 1: terms of my own emotional landscape and emotional experience, UM
Speaker 1: is going to catalyze a response that is probably going
Speaker 1: to supersed the words that are coming out of my mouth.
Speaker 1: And so UM. It's not that words are unimportant, because
Speaker 1: words are very important. And I do prepare, although I
Speaker 1: really don't script out rally remarked because I think there
Speaker 1: is an important element of spontaneity there and um and
Speaker 1: relating to people in real time. But I really think
Speaker 1: you know, when we were fighting Kavanaughs confirmation, and it
Speaker 1: was so long, and it was so hard, and it
Speaker 1: was so painful for so many people. UM, My, my
Speaker 1: preparation was about legitimately, legitimately not faking it, being able
Speaker 1: to express hope, optimism, and um, the sense of power
Speaker 1: that came from being incollective engagement with so many different
Speaker 1: people that would pay dividends beyond this single confirmation. Not
Speaker 1: that the confirmation was unimportant, It was hugely important. But
Speaker 1: I really wanted people to understand because the odds were
Speaker 1: stacked against us, right, that even if we lost the
Speaker 1: vote count on this confirmation, they could never take away
Speaker 1: from us what we had experienced. Through this collective fight
Speaker 1: together and how that would change the landscape of everything
Speaker 1: politically and socially moving forward. And so when I thought
Speaker 1: about my speeches for those rallies, it became hugely important
Speaker 1: to be able to authentically express that two people, because
Speaker 1: when we disengage, when we cease to use our voices
Speaker 1: in our energy in charting out of future of hope
Speaker 1: and optimism, the other side winds. Yeah. And you know, relatedly,
Speaker 1: just for each of us in our own lives, if
Speaker 1: we're not talking about you know, high level events with
Speaker 1: the stakes as high as you're talking about, but just
Speaker 1: literally speaking up for ourselves in a meeting or trying
Speaker 1: to tell people what we do in a way where
Speaker 1: we're actually connected emotionally to how much we care about
Speaker 1: what we do. Uh. There are some lessons there as well,
Speaker 1: in terms of like not going just for teaching people information,
Speaker 1: but for inspiring them that you're that you're talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of thinking differently about what it is
Speaker 1: to communicate that it isn't just words connected to ears,
Speaker 1: but that it's like feelings and humans connect to humans absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what we have. That's our superpower, you know,
Speaker 1: I say this all the time, regardless of whether you
Speaker 1: work in the sort of corporate America or um, you know,
Speaker 1: cultural theater and entertainment or politics like I do. Our
Speaker 1: superpower is the fact that we can inner weave this
Speaker 1: tapestry of voices together. That demonstrates the breadth and depth
Speaker 1: of what it means to center stories of the majority
Speaker 1: in a way that the powers that be who are
Speaker 1: fighting for the status quo and resisting change, they'll never
Speaker 1: have that because their stories are monolithic, their voices are monolithic.
Speaker 1: They're often is passionate in a moment where people are
Speaker 1: crying out for passion to catalyze change. And so we
Speaker 1: should never tamp down our emotions in the ways that
Speaker 1: we tell our stories and use our voices, and by
Speaker 1: the way that in and of itself challenges one of
Speaker 1: the prevailing notions of the patriarchy that emotions are bad, right,
Speaker 1: that um we you know, somehow our emotions make us weaker.
Speaker 1: That that is a story they have fed to us
Speaker 1: for hundreds of years to keep us down. That our
Speaker 1: ability to tap deep into our emotions to channel a
Speaker 1: different future, that is our superpower. We should always use it.
Speaker 1: I mean everything you're saying is making me cry, so
Speaker 1: obviously I'm following you into that future. Um. There's this
Speaker 1: element of public speaking, stereotypically for women, although I know
Speaker 1: many men deal with this too, that when we're up
Speaker 1: on a stage or whatever the metaphor is now, when
Speaker 1: we're all eyes are honest in a zoom meeting. God knows,
Speaker 1: when there's no public to speak in. Um that uh,
Speaker 1: instantly we're worried about ourselves, and this the you know,
Speaker 1: all of the anxieties come up, and often the answer
Speaker 1: is to reconnect to the why why we're speaking and
Speaker 1: the for the for them. Yes, And I wonder if
Speaker 1: this is something that you think about when you're you know,
Speaker 1: up there. It sounds like certainly in terms of getting
Speaker 1: energy from the crowd, but that there's this idea of
Speaker 1: speaking up for those without a voice and very vulnerable positions.
Speaker 1: And then there's also this idea that it's freeing to
Speaker 1: speak to hear our voice when we know it's for others. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's right. I'm you know, at risk of
Speaker 1: being a little bit contrarian. Um. Well, I do understand
Speaker 1: and lean into the privilege that comes with that platform.
Speaker 1: I actually don't really think of it as speaking up
Speaker 1: for other people as much as creating space and hopefully
Speaker 1: incentive for people to speak for themselves. UM. You know
Speaker 1: a little known fact about me is that I'm an
Speaker 1: ecologist by trade, and UM, early on I learned that
Speaker 1: the strongest systems are the ones that actually embraced diversity
Speaker 1: and work together towards a common goal. And so UM,
Speaker 1: the way that I, you know, the way that I
Speaker 1: think about that is how can I UM model for
Speaker 1: people who are reticent to speak the fact that speaking
Speaker 1: up is liberating? Speaking up is actually UM where we
Speaker 1: tap into our greatest power, and then, when offered the stage,
Speaker 1: try and expand that stage for more voices. UM, because again,
Speaker 1: in the collective lies our ultimate strength. I'm also an organizer,
Speaker 1: and so you know, I've I've worked on lots of
Speaker 1: different issues throughout the year's democracy, reform, climate change, human rights,
Speaker 1: and I see, UM working on reproductive freedom is very
Speaker 1: much a part of human rights. UM. But you know
Speaker 1: a lot you know, when people ask me what drives
Speaker 1: me as an organizer, A lot of it is actually
Speaker 1: that incredibly powerful feeling when you see someone who felt
Speaker 1: like they couldn't exercise their own power and their own
Speaker 1: voice actually realize that they can. You know, one of
Speaker 1: the greatest things that we heard coming out of the
Speaker 1: cabin off fight UM was so many people saying, if
Speaker 1: Dr Christine Blasi Ford could use her voice in such
Speaker 1: an incredibly challenging situation, surely I can pick up the
Speaker 1: phone and call voters or knock on doors, even though
Speaker 1: that gives me great anxiety. And one of the things
Speaker 1: I always tell people who choose to engage in canvassing
Speaker 1: for elections is, yeah, it's hard. Knock on that door,
Speaker 1: pick up that phone, make that phone call, and make
Speaker 1: sure that you are telling people why you are doing it,
Speaker 1: because people are going to be motivated by the fact
Speaker 1: that you, who they've never met, is confronting your own fears,
Speaker 1: taking time out of what everybody has as a very
Speaker 1: busy schedule, and spending it this way. So the idea
Speaker 1: of being able to sort of create a contagious effect
Speaker 1: around that excitement and empowering from UM using your voice
Speaker 1: that it's deeply motivating to me. I feel like you're
Speaker 1: on a first name basis with every leader in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. When you think about like sort of the future,
Speaker 1: if you were to talk to somebody who wanted to
Speaker 1: run for office or become a career advocate, what do
Speaker 1: you think is required of their public persona question mark
Speaker 1: term something voice. Uh. In terms of the of of
Speaker 1: what sort of rules are required, it sounds like the
Speaker 1: main one that you're talking about is about connecting to
Speaker 1: our bodies, connecting to our sense of inspiration, the why.
Speaker 1: But I also wonder if we're talking really technically and
Speaker 1: knowing that, um, we had your husband on this show,
Speaker 1: do you have advice for for sort of how to
Speaker 1: think about what it is to scale up these versions
Speaker 1: of ourselves that aren't necessarily like the most you know,
Speaker 1: straight white male versions of ourselves. You know, running for
Speaker 1: office is a really intense experience, as I've observed. I've
Speaker 1: never run for office myself, and you know, to be
Speaker 1: quite frank, it's not an aspiration of mine. UM. I
Speaker 1: think there are all sorts of way to ways to
Speaker 1: find an express power, and you don't have to sort
Speaker 1: of run profice to do that. That being said, I
Speaker 1: am a big fan of people that choose that path
Speaker 1: because we absolutely need great people in um office at
Speaker 1: the state and federal level to affect change. UM. You know,
Speaker 1: I think a know that no from the outset, that
Speaker 1: your entire life is going to be scrutinized, right, and
Speaker 1: in fact find that an empowering experience when I think
Speaker 1: of some of the amazing leaders that have emerged, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, just since Trump, and I could go back
Speaker 1: before that, because I have lots of role models and
Speaker 1: icons who predated Trump, Barbaraly being one of them. But
Speaker 1: you know, if you think about and Alexandra Ocasio Cortez,
Speaker 1: but even Hayley Stevens, who actually shares almost nothing demographically
Speaker 1: or in terms of her district, what I see is
Speaker 1: people who are proud of the lives that they lived,
Speaker 1: bringing their full selves to their election campaign with no apologies.
Speaker 1: And what I think voters respond to is a combined
Speaker 1: sense of authenticity, pride in the way you've lived your life,
Speaker 1: and an openness to hearing their own lived experience and
Speaker 1: welcoming their voices into the debate. And so I just
Speaker 1: really love that idea that instead of sort of shrinking
Speaker 1: and fear that your whole life is going to be
Speaker 1: exposed if you run for office, be like great, we
Speaker 1: all make mistakes, none of us are perfect. In fact,
Speaker 1: that people who decided they were going to run for
Speaker 1: office from the I'm they were five years old and
Speaker 1: lead their whole life carefully. Are the least interesting ones, right?
Speaker 1: And so what does it actually mean to embrace that
Speaker 1: as a positive and empowering thing and use your voice
Speaker 1: as powerfully to talk about the mistakes that you have
Speaker 1: made because we all make them, as well as the
Speaker 1: lessons you've learned and the things you're deeply proud of
Speaker 1: in your life. I think that is really what both
Speaker 1: voters and our country is responding to in this moment um.
Speaker 1: Fucking hell, least so good. We're going to take a
Speaker 1: quick break. Okay, we're back with the least Hope, the
Speaker 1: president of Nayoral Pro Choice America. So we're talking about
Speaker 1: up talk, up speak. What did you wait? Tell tell me,
Speaker 1: tell me real fast. What was it? What was the
Speaker 1: note you got? Or is this repeated notes or this? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean early, I mean early and like well into
Speaker 1: my career. It's a thing that happens where almost exclusively
Speaker 1: white man would be like, oh my god, you're so talented.
Speaker 1: I love working with you, but you should know that
Speaker 1: you do this thing where you sort of like end
Speaker 1: your sentences with a thing that sounds almost like you're
Speaker 1: asking a question and it really undercuts sort of the
Speaker 1: point that you're trying to make. And again, this was
Speaker 1: coming from people that I hugely respect and actually still
Speaker 1: consider friends and professional colleagues. So it wasn't you know,
Speaker 1: in many ways it was shared as I like, here's
Speaker 1: it's it's like, I'm trying to help you, and I
Speaker 1: didn't really have any context within which to process that.
Speaker 1: You know that it's like very typical, as I understand it,
Speaker 1: you're the expert. Um, it's gendered speech, right, like women
Speaker 1: are much more likely to use up talk, and um, therefore,
Speaker 1: is it just does it really undercut your power if
Speaker 1: you do it? Or is it just that's not what
Speaker 1: men do, and so men think it under you know,
Speaker 1: like it's very confusing. And then of course nobody was like,
Speaker 1: so here's what you do about it. So it was
Speaker 1: just a little bit of being like conscious and sub
Speaker 1: self conscious about the fact that it was a deeply
Speaker 1: endemic speech pattern for me and I didn't know how
Speaker 1: to fix it. Yeah, no, and like, look, some of
Speaker 1: some of up speak. Up talk is just habit just
Speaker 1: we've picked it up because the people around us speak
Speaker 1: that way. Because yeah, that is you know, often a
Speaker 1: marker of feminine speech. Uh. And sometimes when we do that,
Speaker 1: it is disconnected from the meaning of the thought and
Speaker 1: it is just habitual in this way where every thought
Speaker 1: goes up and then it is actually harder to hear it,
Speaker 1: you know. So are you taking a picture? Um? And um?
Speaker 1: And so the question is like, you know, a do
Speaker 1: you need to do anything about it? Do we need
Speaker 1: to take out the markers of feminine speech to sound
Speaker 1: more masculine in a masculine dominated world? Eight? It is
Speaker 1: a question. There is not a yes or no answer
Speaker 1: of it is you know, the same for everybody. Um.
Speaker 1: But be is the version that we can look at,
Speaker 1: the version where we're doing we're doing this pattern that's
Speaker 1: actually not helping us communicate as well as we want
Speaker 1: to communicate regardless of gender. If we can ever live
Speaker 1: in a world that is regardless of gender. And also,
Speaker 1: one of the things that I've come to, which is
Speaker 1: sort of why I love what you do, is not
Speaker 1: everybody has to do the same thing, right, so we
Speaker 1: can acknowledge we have lived in for eons a world
Speaker 1: that's dominated by a predominantly white, predominantly male patriarchy, right
Speaker 1: and therefore, um. You know, if your ultimate goal is
Speaker 1: to gain their attention to achieve something, maybe you don't
Speaker 1: focus on fighting the tyranny of the up talk. But
Speaker 1: at the same time you encourage people who do that,
Speaker 1: so that transformation sort of builds on itself, if that
Speaker 1: makes sense. I mean, of course, like the journey that
Speaker 1: I am on, the journey that that many of us
Speaker 1: are on is to um, both make small adjustments that
Speaker 1: don't hurt our soul in the moment in order to
Speaker 1: be heard, and also change the system over time so
Speaker 1: that we don't have to be making these small adjustments
Speaker 1: in the long run and the moment that we get
Speaker 1: any power at all in any spaces that are scary.
Speaker 1: You know, we are in a position, as you talk about,
Speaker 1: of having uh, the privilege of our platform. What can
Speaker 1: we do now to help the next people? I couldn't
Speaker 1: agree with you more. Um, speaking of patriarchy, I want
Speaker 1: to talk about your book The Lie That Binds, and
Speaker 1: I want to start by saying, um that there were
Speaker 1: some amazing blurbs to the book. My favorite is a
Speaker 1: lisser master Monica, who said, um, to all feminists who
Speaker 1: dream of overthrowing the patriarchy start here. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it writing a book, as as you will learn if
Speaker 1: you have not already, UM, an incredibly intense experience. UM
Speaker 1: that real is about putting your voice out there in
Speaker 1: an entirely different way. And it's such a deep emotional,
Speaker 1: end time investment. UM. And you get to the end
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh my god, well everyone hate this,
Speaker 1: will anyone read it? And so UM. You know, the
Speaker 1: process of asking people who you really respect to read
Speaker 1: and blurb your book is really scary. And so I
Speaker 1: was really honored by the fact that some people who
Speaker 1: have really been incredibly formative to my own analysis the
Speaker 1: way that I think about my own role and my
Speaker 1: own voice, agreed to um blurb the book and use
Speaker 1: their own voices to lift mine up. It's just an
Speaker 1: incredibly moving experience. I want to point out another one
Speaker 1: as well. This is Elina Maxwell. She said the book
Speaker 1: is quote an unflinching look at the true origins of
Speaker 1: the right wing obsession with keeping half of the population
Speaker 1: scare quotes in their place. It's totally true. I mean,
Speaker 1: one of the things that we sought to do with
Speaker 1: the book is really exposed the central lie of the
Speaker 1: radical right right. They've gotten away very literally with murder
Speaker 1: through the decades by actually wrapping themselves in this faux
Speaker 1: moral shroud about claiming that they have investment in individual
Speaker 1: outcomes of people's pregnancies, and they don't at all. In fact,
Speaker 1: what that book lays out is a very cynical and
Speaker 1: intentional campaign late actually pretty late in the history of
Speaker 1: legalized abortion to weaponize abortion as a form of oppression
Speaker 1: that would maintain the status quo that they wanted to
Speaker 1: see and use our own ability to reproduce as weapons
Speaker 1: against women pregnant people uh women of color specifically, and
Speaker 1: so um Exposing that lie felt really important to thinking
Speaker 1: strategically about how we move forward because they have gotten
Speaker 1: away with it for a really long time, and in fact,
Speaker 1: just some of the things the book talks about their
Speaker 1: fight actually they mobilized into politics when they were not
Speaker 1: that political. Prior to that, fighting school desegregation, they didn't
Speaker 1: even land on abortion as a thing to talk about,
Speaker 1: much less fight until the late seventies when Roe had
Speaker 1: made abortion legal in all fifty states five years prior,
Speaker 1: and so our ability to actually fight the opposition use
Speaker 1: this moment as one of transformation for racial and gender
Speaker 1: equity lies in really understanding the accurate history of a
Speaker 1: radical right that has gripped the country, UM and having
Speaker 1: that common analysis to be able to move forward, you know,
Speaker 1: in in a spirit together that requires understanding how race
Speaker 1: and gender and sexual orientation and sexual identity and gender
Speaker 1: identity UM is all tied up in their campaign for oppression. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you've said a lot about this need to sort of
Speaker 1: know our history know their history. Uh, And I would
Speaker 1: I'd love you to actually just talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more specifically, Uh, this idea, I mean, I heard you
Speaker 1: say on an interview last week, they're really mad about
Speaker 1: birth control being legal for unmarried women because they were
Speaker 1: sexually empowered. But also this very specific thing that if
Speaker 1: we entered the workplace and did not leave because of
Speaker 1: unintended pregnancies, there goes their power. I think it's true.
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that get sort of
Speaker 1: lost because we have allowed them to write the history
Speaker 1: for so long. And this is an attempt, This book
Speaker 1: is an attempt to reclaim the narrative. UM is ut
Speaker 1: People talk about nineteen seventy three and the decision UM
Speaker 1: in Roe v. Wade as a transformational point and it
Speaker 1: certainly was. And I want to take nothing away from that,
Speaker 1: you know, like actually having legal and safe abortion has
Speaker 1: made a material difference in countless lives, So I don't
Speaker 1: want to take anything away from that. But we failed
Speaker 1: to tell the story of what happened to year before
Speaker 1: when the Supreme Court handed down a decision making birth
Speaker 1: control legal for unmarried women. Right, and so there were
Speaker 1: a couple of different things going on. One was just
Speaker 1: this like absolutute indignation that women could dare to have
Speaker 1: sex for pleasure without the repercussion of potentially getting pregnant
Speaker 1: and being, you know, in a position of changing their
Speaker 1: whole lives to parent, because we as parents know you
Speaker 1: change your whole life to parent. Oh my god, how
Speaker 1: dare women have sex for pleasure? And then complimenting that
Speaker 1: was the sense of like, oh whoa birth control meant
Speaker 1: that women were going into workplace, staying in the workplace
Speaker 1: because they were able to plan their families, and challenging
Speaker 1: the hegemony of power and control that men had enjoyed
Speaker 1: over economic systems for a long time. Right, That they
Speaker 1: were demanding pay equity, Oh my god, they were demanding
Speaker 1: access to c suites and decision making. They were no
Speaker 1: longer just biding their time until they got pregnant and
Speaker 1: entered full time motherhood. They were actually wanting to see
Speaker 1: through their own visions. And this was challenging men's ideas
Speaker 1: of who was in charge in ways that we never
Speaker 1: talked about and we never actually had experience before. And
Speaker 1: so part of understanding the history is understanding why. You know,
Speaker 1: people always expressed surprise to me that these people who
Speaker 1: claimed to be anti abortion also are anti contraception, which
Speaker 1: we saw last week at the Supreme Court or a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago at the Supreme Court. Well, for them,
Speaker 1: it really is truly about women's role in society, and
Speaker 1: if you're not adhering to that, you are jeopardizing their
Speaker 1: strong sense of what's right and wrong, what family looks like.
Speaker 1: And um, god forbid, you might actually educate their women
Speaker 1: about what they could do with their lives that they
Speaker 1: weren't adhering to these rigid beliefs of women's role in society.
Speaker 1: So yes, and um, in many ways it's working and
Speaker 1: has worked. And now that you know, I I look
Speaker 1: at the timeline that's like literally the length of my life,
Speaker 1: and you know, one of the things that that you've
Speaker 1: talked about, and I think one of the ways in
Speaker 1: which you are a leader is to remind us that
Speaker 1: progress doesn't always move forward in this straight line that
Speaker 1: we all want to believe in, that we have to
Speaker 1: actually make it happen, and sometimes it doesn't work, and
Speaker 1: sometimes we backslide. And I wonder specifically about you know,
Speaker 1: part of what I loved about Zerlina's quote up there
Speaker 1: that this is an unflinching look at what the right
Speaker 1: wing has done. Is this unflinching part, because I wonder
Speaker 1: what it is that you do too, you know, handle
Speaker 1: the hope side of your job. How do you, strategically speaking,
Speaker 1: continue to you know, find your reserves well. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: one of the reasons that we wrote so specifically I
Speaker 1: wrote so specifically. Um, you know, I frame this book
Speaker 1: as a collaborative effort because it is of Neral's research
Speaker 1: and analysis. So, you know, one of the reasons that
Speaker 1: we explicitly laid out in the book, the piece about
Speaker 1: the birth control is both because we have to recognize
Speaker 1: the hypocrisy in some of their existing stances, but when
Speaker 1: they chose abortion, which they did on this conference call
Speaker 1: casting about for a new issue to weaponize after previous
Speaker 1: efforts had failed. They gambled, And what they gambled on
Speaker 1: was the idea that there was still sufficient stigma in
Speaker 1: our culture around both women who were sexually empowered and
Speaker 1: willing to say, hey, I want to have sex for
Speaker 1: pleasure and not just to procreate, right, and then this
Speaker 1: very deep idea that if you did get pregnant and
Speaker 1: you chose that carrying that pregnancy to term and becoming
Speaker 1: apparent in that moment was not the thing you most
Speaker 1: wanted to do, that you are selfish and a betrayal
Speaker 1: of women in the most honestly, in the most biblical sense, right.
Speaker 1: And women being called selfish has been a way of
Speaker 1: keeping us down for a very long time. So they
Speaker 1: gambled that those attitudes were so pervasive in society that
Speaker 1: even for an overwhelming number of people who supported legal
Speaker 1: access to a version, they wouldn't want to engage in
Speaker 1: the conversation because if these are deeply held stigmas and
Speaker 1: societal beliefs, and they gambled correctly, right, So essentially they said,
Speaker 1: we're going to move an agenda that is not good
Speaker 1: for or backed by the majority of people in this country,
Speaker 1: and the way that we're going to effectively do that
Speaker 1: is by buying silence, by tapping into these deep stigmas.
Speaker 1: And they gambled correctly, and so part of this book
Speaker 1: is to actually challenge people to reclaim our voices and
Speaker 1: our own stories and shed that stigma and stand in
Speaker 1: our own power. And you asked about my emotional reserves,
Speaker 1: that's what it comes from. It comes from this understanding
Speaker 1: that knowledge can lead to action, that can lead to power.
Speaker 1: Power on behalf of the many and not the few.
Speaker 1: And every time I see us inch closer to that,
Speaker 1: it always starts with breaking the silence, and it always
Speaker 1: fills me up and makes me believe we can have
Speaker 1: exponential effect when we lean into generally conversations, but certainly
Speaker 1: conversations that have held people down for so long. It
Speaker 1: also makes me think that for those of us listening
Speaker 1: who want to challenge ourselves to have more difficult conversations,
Speaker 1: that practically speaking, what we can do to break through
Speaker 1: that discomfort and you know, literally open our mouth and
Speaker 1: literally have sounds come out, is is to tap into
Speaker 1: that same collective power. I think that's totally right, and
Speaker 1: you know, it's transforming the sort of definition of power,
Speaker 1: like traditional patriarchal forms of power, is very monolithic, very homogeneous.
Speaker 1: The idea that one person will go on to be
Speaker 1: president of the United States, which is the most important
Speaker 1: thing you could do, the pinnacle of success. And actually
Speaker 1: I think that's great if people want to do that.
Speaker 1: But power comes from living in community, centralizing the needs
Speaker 1: of the collective, like those are the most durable communities,
Speaker 1: those are the most durable civilizations, Those are the most
Speaker 1: durable ecosystems if you look in nature, and that's the
Speaker 1: That is our challenge in this moment to transform that
Speaker 1: definition and power and weave all of the voices that
Speaker 1: are being surfaced, resonate them, and put them into this
Speaker 1: tapestry that changes our future. I'd like to live in
Speaker 1: that world. We do live in that world. We just
Speaker 1: have to get louder and louder. Exactly. I specifically want
Speaker 1: to call this out that you said um in the book,
Speaker 1: that you hope readers will think about how our own
Speaker 1: personal struggles or discomfort with thinking or talking about abortion
Speaker 1: might be preventing us from quote fully engaging in the
Speaker 1: fight for freedom, racial and gender justice, and democracy that
Speaker 1: lays before us it's this subtle, subtle stuff, right, I
Speaker 1: think it is. I think it very subtle and very sinister.
Speaker 1: And it is also the beauty of it is that
Speaker 1: the first step is simple, right, scary, but simple and
Speaker 1: within our full control to shake off that silence, shake
Speaker 1: off the intimidation, and just respect and listen to our
Speaker 1: own inner voice, make it an outer voice, and then
Speaker 1: share it with other people. Final thought before the break,
Speaker 1: The phrase I wrote down for myself is a hope
Speaker 1: in a dystopia. Um any other advice that you have
Speaker 1: on how to be hopeful? I feel like I turned
Speaker 1: to you all the time when I'm like this horrible
Speaker 1: thing has happened at least, and you like alchymize. So
Speaker 1: I mean, look, I have Dirk days too, and I
Speaker 1: don't want to suggest that I don't. And my sort
Speaker 1: of mantra on my Dirk days is that throughout human civilization,
Speaker 1: as travesty and injustice has been incurred, we have but
Speaker 1: one choice, and it is to fight on the side
Speaker 1: of the righteous or retreat, and retreat is complicity. And
Speaker 1: therefore I just try and make that choice every single day.
Speaker 1: But you know, my optimism comes from talking to so
Speaker 1: many different people who are engaging in so many different
Speaker 1: ways to make this amount of moment of transformation. Whether
Speaker 1: you're challenging your business to be more inclusive, deconstructing peaks,
Speaker 1: speech patterns so that they are more reflective of the
Speaker 1: collective and and diversity, or whether you're fighting in politics,
Speaker 1: it's you know, to me, the inspiration is in acknowledging
Speaker 1: that I just have to do my part. I don't
Speaker 1: have to do the whole thing because there are so
Speaker 1: many amazing people doing their part, and that you know, like,
Speaker 1: justice is a journey, it's not a destination, and it
Speaker 1: is how we live our lives with integrity and consciousness
Speaker 1: that matters, not that we can chalk up any individual victory,
Speaker 1: because there will be victories and there will be setbacks,
Speaker 1: and this is a lifelong journey. I'm literally crying. Um, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take another quick break. Okay, I would love
Speaker 1: to just dive in real fast with the final moments
Speaker 1: I have with you to listen to. Uh, who you
Speaker 1: have brought in for us? Would you tell us please? So? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean, Anna Pressley is one of the most powerful people,
Speaker 1: powerful voices then I have experienced in two decades of
Speaker 1: doing this work. She Um is someone who inhabited her
Speaker 1: whole life and brought to bear her lived experience and
Speaker 1: the lived experience of her constituents to win a race
Speaker 1: that quite honestly nobody wanted her to run in the
Speaker 1: first place, and in doing so has really transformed the
Speaker 1: conversation and the dynamics in Congress, certainly about reproductive freedom
Speaker 1: and justice, but about how we think about individuals um
Speaker 1: and their dignity in every aspect of life. It's just
Speaker 1: been an honor to work with her. And she's a
Speaker 1: phenomenal leader who is going to just rise, Rise, Rise, amazing.
Speaker 1: And I pulled just the clip where she reveals her
Speaker 1: alopecia and UM, and I want to I want to
Speaker 1: just play this for everybody. This is my official public revealing.
Speaker 1: I'm ready now because I want to be free from
Speaker 1: the secret and the shame that that secret carries with it.
Speaker 1: And because I'm not here just to occupy space, I'm
Speaker 1: here to create it. I think I honest decision to
Speaker 1: be public about her condition of alopecia was such. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was an act of courage, but it was an
Speaker 1: act of truthful honesty, and it makes her the powerful
Speaker 1: leader that she is that, Um, you know, one of
Speaker 1: the things I really took from that decision and take
Speaker 1: from her generally as inspiration is this idea that if
Speaker 1: we live in secret shame, we are writing our own power,
Speaker 1: no matter what it's about. And so her decision, which
Speaker 1: to me was like, she's beautiful no matter what, like
Speaker 1: no one should feel like they have to hide a
Speaker 1: medical condition, but I know, felt very um you know,
Speaker 1: important and challenging. To her was spoke volumes about our
Speaker 1: self acceptance and the power that comes from self acceptance. UM.
Speaker 1: So I take that to her every day because I
Speaker 1: have things I don't like about myself, and um, I'm
Speaker 1: sure they're affecting me at a much greater scale when
Speaker 1: I refused to speak openly about them. She is an
Speaker 1: amazing leader. I feel so lucky to get to work
Speaker 1: with her. And on a really technical level, this is edited.
Speaker 1: It's lightly edited, but the camera just stays steady for
Speaker 1: large parts of it while she just thinks, literally thinks
Speaker 1: on camera. She picks her words. She you can you
Speaker 1: can tell she's doing that process that we all do
Speaker 1: and we're in our most comfortable state where we try
Speaker 1: on an idea out loud and then we feel does
Speaker 1: that feel right? Let me let me you know adjust.
Speaker 1: That is a wildly brave thing to do, especially when
Speaker 1: it's something that's really vulnerable, and it is something it
Speaker 1: is what will make everybody fall in love with us.
Speaker 1: But we have to trust that we can do that
Speaker 1: in real time. I totally agree. I totally agree. I'm
Speaker 1: so glad you're lifting her up in this moment on
Speaker 1: your show. Thank you, Thank you for bringing her in. Um, Alice,
Speaker 1: I know you're a busy woman and you have to go.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for spending this time with us.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I have totally loved it. So are
Speaker 1: you are? You are not just a coature of superheroes.
Speaker 1: You are actually a superhero. So um, thank you for
Speaker 1: all you do. Thank you, my love. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go cry now. Um by love. Thank you
Speaker 1: to Alise for joining me. You can find out more
Speaker 1: about her and her new book in the show notes
Speaker 1: or on our website Permission to Speak pot dot com.
Speaker 1: I'm doing I do lives every Thursday, you guys, so
Speaker 1: join me over at Permission to Speak pod on Instagram.
Speaker 1: It's Q and a style, so please feel free to
Speaker 1: put me on the spot. I dare you as always
Speaker 1: send me d M s at Permission to Speak pod
Speaker 1: on Instagram or submit through the website and let me
Speaker 1: know what is going on with your voice. For upcoming
Speaker 1: mail bag episode coming at you. Thank you to Sophie
Speaker 1: Lichterman and the team at iHeart Radio and all of you.
Speaker 1: We're recording this podcast at various locations around Los Angeles
Speaker 1: on land that is the historic gathering place for the
Speaker 1: Tongva indigenous tribe, and you can visit us d a
Speaker 1: C dot us to learn more about honoring native land.
Speaker 1: Permission to Speak is a production of Heart Radio and
Speaker 1: Double Vision executive produced by Katherine Burt Canton and Mark Canton.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, listen on the
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