Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Author of BOLD & BRAVE: TEN HEROES WHO WON WOMEN THE RIGHT TO VOTE
[0:08]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and this is Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:12]I am thrilled to be here today with Senator Kirsten Gillen Brandt, who is a United States
[0:16]Senator for the State of New York. She was first elected to Congress in 2006,
[0:21]where she served as the representative to the 20th Congressional District of New York.
[0:25]She joined the U.S. Senate in January 2009 at 842, when she was a mother of a young son.
[0:30]She was initially appointed to the Senate by Governor David Patterson, when Hillary Clinton
[0:34]became Secretary of State, leaving the seat unfilled to Senator Gillen Brandt,
[0:38]then ran a special election in 2010 and won. She was re-elected to a six-year term in 2012
[0:44]with 72% of the vote, and is currently running for re-election. She is the author of off-the-side
[0:49]lines, Speak Up Be Fearless, and Change Your World with the forward by Hillary Clinton.
[0:53]She also just wrote a children's book, which is coming out in November 13th,
[0:57]called Bold and Brave 10 Heroes Who Won Women the Right to Vote.
[1:00]A Magna Cum Laude Graduate of Dartmouth that she currently lives in
[1:03]Epsity, New York, and Washington, DC, with her husband and two sons, ages 13 and then.
[1:07]I get that right? 10 and 14? 10 and 14?
[1:10]I keep getting older. Thanks so much for coming on months and have time to reflect.
[1:14]I'm delighted. Thank you for inviting me, of course.
[1:18]So why did you decide to write a children's book? Why this topic and why now?
[1:22]Well, I was asked by a friend of mine who works at the publisher, and I was so excited to be asked
[1:28]because I love the topic of the women who really ran the suffrage movement and what they
[1:33]accomplished and how they accomplished things. And I really felt like it was important to write
[1:39]this book at this time. I really wanted to capture what people were feeling after the election,
[1:45]and the fact that we like to Trump, which has not represented our values as mothers,
[1:50]as daughters, as sisters, and as really undermined women's rights. But I wanted to talk about
[1:55]that women have overcome moments like this. And so talking about each of these women and what
[1:59]they accomplished was something I was really excited to do. How did you pick this election and women?
[2:04]I ran a ton of biographies about the suffragists and what they accomplished. And I picked 10 women
[2:10]who I felt really did something unique and did something particularly brave at the time or
[2:16]particularly bold at the time. And I wanted to represent how widespread the women's suffrage
[2:22]movement was and that the women trying to accomplish this fundamental right for women,
[2:28]the right to vote, all across America, across two generations. If there was a children's book being
[2:33]written in a 50 years from now, who do you think in our generation might be profiled as a side
[2:38]from you as a crusader for women's rights? Well, I think we've had a lot of extraordinary
[2:43]advocacy in the last year or two years across the board on all issues. I think there's a lot of
[2:48]really effective writers right now. Rebecca Tracer, feminist author, writes for New York Magazine
[2:54]and just published a book called Good of Mad, the revolutionary power of women's anger.
[2:59]I also think activists to me to serve has been very provocative and aggressive in coming up with
[3:05]new narratives about what women's rights actually mean and really profound statements. I think
[3:11]Brittany Packnett's doing the exact same thing and has just changed the nature of the debate about
[3:16]why women's empowerment and intersectionality, particularly between sexism and racism, is so
[3:23]important to not only address but to talk about. I also think some of the younger generations
[3:28]do pretty amazing things, the fact that you've got young women like Emma Gonzalez trying to talk
[3:33]about why she believes it's all right to have safe tools and gun violence. There's a lot of
[3:41]women who are working in making campuses safe for sexual harassment and sexual assault and those
[3:47]young women are doing amazing things. So I just think there's a whole generation of women out
[3:53]there who are trying to change things and great authors who are writing about it. And you actually
[3:59]wrote in your book, Off the sidelines in the beginning, you wrote something I thought was really
[4:04]great. You said, so here's my blunt truth. I'm angry and I'm depressed and I'm scared that the
[4:08]women's movement is dead or at least on life support. Women tackle a lot these days about shattering
[4:13]the glass ceiling but we also need to focus on cleaning the so-called sticky floor making sure
[4:17]of women have a chance to rise. Yes exactly how I felt. I wrote that. I feel like since Trump's been
[4:24]elected, I think the women's movement has changed. I think it's been reborn. I think it's been
[4:30]just energized and people are really doing different things. I mean I look at sort of the more
[4:36]traditional activists that have been working in the trenches for a really long time,
[4:40]groups like Planned Parenthood and May route, Lee's Hogue. I mean they've been fighting these battles
[4:46]for a long time, for a decade I'd say. And those women are now bringing a whole new generation
[4:54]of women along with them. And so I think what we're seeing is this emergence of almost a new
[5:00]conversation that's amplifying everything that's been done before but ones that I think are
[5:06]just building on the hard work of what's happened in the generations before us. And that passing
[5:13]of the baton I think has been really, really powerful which is why people like Cecile Richards
[5:19]have carried that baton for a long time and now they're passing it to the next generation of
[5:23]people to continue the work. I think it's meaningful. I grew up thinking about Hillary Clinton
[5:30]and all she accomplished and looking at people who had been in the civil rights movement and
[5:35]then in the women's rights movements of the 70s and 80s. And those women are people that
[5:40]inspired me to do the work I'm doing. And so I just feel like each one of us, you know I always
[5:46]admired Gloria Steinem and thought the battles that she accomplished were extraordinary. I loved
[5:50]reading her book her most recent book about what that was like. But that's what sort of
[5:55]we stand on the shoulders and all those who were working for the last decade, two decades, three
[6:00]decades. And tell me about your own personal family history because I know you were really influenced
[6:05]by your family. You had wrote in the children's book, Bold and Brave, that your great-grandmother
[6:10]Mimi, which is what my kids call my mom. I would have to say that or suit. I'll leave. I didn't mention
[6:14]that right now. She told you all about how she had worked in the factory when all the men went
[6:18]after World Fight in the war and how your grandmother, Polly, founded the Democratic Women's Club in
[6:23]Albany and worked very closely with Mayor Corning. And I like to tell you described their relationship
[6:28]and whatever it may be in the book. And I thought that was, you left a lot of question marks which
[6:33]was entertaining. Anyway, um, and how she would roller skate in the New York State Capitol where
[6:37]she works and that they both taught you to fight what you believe in. Your mom was a black belt
[6:42]and cruddy, which is sort of terrifying. How did their actions shape you and your career, do you
[6:49]think? Well, I grew up with extraordinary role models. My mom was one of the, you know, few women in
[6:55]her law school class, but as one of the women who had a career outside the home, she was a role
[7:01]model for a lot of us. In my generation, five out of six of my best girlfriends growing up all
[7:06]went to law school because that's what my mom did. And she did things differently. She taught me to
[7:12]be bold and to dare to be different. She was the secretary of black belt to Karate. She
[7:17]practiced law. She did a lot of things that women in her generation can often do, which
[7:23]inspired me to not worry about being just like everybody else. And I could charter my own path.
[7:28]My grandmother was interested in politics, the fact that she loved politics and worked on the
[7:32]grassroots level throughout her life. I found very inspiring. She took me to my first campaign
[7:38]headquarters watching a bunch of ladies work on a campaign and stuff envelopes to tell voters
[7:43]that they need to vote and who their candidate was inspired me. I love the fact that she
[7:47]had strong opinions about what to do with your time and how to help people who need your help.
[7:52]She cared deeply about her church and her faith and worked with her church to help the most
[7:58]at risk and most at need people. So they really gave me these core values that we should care
[8:02]about one another and that what you do with your time does matter and that women's voices matter
[8:07]and that making sure women are organized and participating is fundamentally important.
[8:12]So both my mom and my grandmother were the strong role models for me.
[8:16]And so you wrote this amazing memoir. I don't remember what you're supposed to do.
[8:21]I didn't write it. Anyway, you wrote something that I thought was really fantastic in chapter two.
[8:27]If you're like me, you're reading this book because you want to find out how to get where you
[8:30]want to be in your own life by learning how someone else got where they wanted to be in theirs.
[8:35]2014. Thank you. In 2014, sorry. I thought I did all my research. I keep stacks of books next to
[8:41]my nice stand by and about female leaders and always I have one question. How should you do it?
[8:46]Too often, I don't find useful answers and I close the book and know it. I wish I could offer you
[8:50]the perfect parable on how to get from A to B, but I can't. So this is my idiosyncratic story
[8:54]of growing up and building the life I wanted along with a few lessons. I hope someone can use.
[8:59]I mean, you're so relatable and like reading this book. It's like chatting with a friend and
[9:03]here you are in this paragraph. Well, that's what I wanted to create. The book I'm reading
[9:06]right now is bringing Cooper's eloquent range and I love that book so much because she just
[9:12]literally opens her life to you to understand what is intersectionality made in her life and
[9:18]and how she handled racism, how she handled institutional racism, how she handled sexism, how she
[9:24]dealt with in her own community and how she navigates life and I so appreciate that she took the
[9:29]time to write the book because it allows me to live a small slice of her life. You know, what was
[9:35]like in high school? She went to it a predominantly white high school, how did her friends treat her
[9:40]had that make her feel and so I could have a window into her life which allows me to be a better
[9:45]legislator and allows me to be a better leader and to understand what other people's lives are
[9:51]like and that's what I tried to do in my book. I just wanted to tell a young woman or a woman of age
[9:57]and you know some of the challenges that I've faced.
[10:00]How I dealt with them, some I won, some I lost, but how do you deal with adversity, how do you manage your life as a mom and as a
[10:08]personal work full-time outside the home and how do those two things fit together? How do you do good center?
[10:14]How do you do good parent? All my life is much easier than a lot of people who work
[10:19]10, 15, 20 hours a day because I have a lot more flexibility and so I talk about that too that
[10:24]you know I have the benefit of a husband who has a flexible schedule and I have the benefit of
[10:28]running my own office so I can set my hours if I need to on a given day. So it's just I think
[10:35]biographies in general are so helpful because you just want to learn how someone else figured it out
[10:41]and that's why I wrote the Bold and Brave book for young children. I wanted young kids to see
[10:46]these are women who sacrificed everything to do what was right, to do what was needed,
[10:50]to do what was important at the time and because of those sacrifices and because of their bravery
[10:56]we now have a voice in politics, we can only vote but we can run for office and we can run
[11:02]for you know Senate, we can run for president, we can run for anything and have a say in
[11:08]our community's lives and that that's important and because of these women's sacrifices now
[11:13]every young girl who reads this book will know I can be anything when I grow up and I can
[11:17]change anything when I grow up and I can make the world better. So that's fairing I feel like
[11:21]they're fairing. You know in the world it's like I'm like so empowered. So by the way this book is
[11:26]so beautifully illustrated how did you end up teaming up with um myra Kalman for this. So it was a
[11:32]little bit of serendipity and good karma. We had an event at the Brooklyn Museum and a woman who
[11:38]was the director there and pastor neck we were just talking about this children's book I was
[11:43]about to do and she said well you know I know a lot of children's book illustrators I said you
[11:47]do I said we haven't chosen ours yet and she said yes she said my best friend's myra Kalman
[11:53]and I nearly fell over because myra Kalman is the illustrator I wanted but I didn't think she
[12:00]should be available because she's considered a fine artist and wouldn't necessarily do this
[12:05]children's book and because of and she introduced us and myra signed on within a week and it was
[12:11]so exciting and so as you can see as you look through the illustrations they make the book I mean
[12:17]they bring these characters to life and as these young women who did extraordinarily hard things
[12:25]so amazingly well and her illustrations I think is what allow a child to not only see themselves
[12:33]in these stories but imagine themselves in doing these great things too. I like how you included
[12:38]details of this person you used to wear this type of thing. Yeah this is a reality I love for
[12:43]yeah because well I that was something that myra put into the book she said listen she said
[12:48]you need small facts that kids can relate to about each person like think of one thing that could
[12:54]be interesting so that's why I include the story of my grandmother who liked to roller skate
[12:58]on the marble floors in the state Capitol when she was a secretary is a 20-something-year-old
[13:04]because that was the story my mom told me that I thought was really interesting and funny
[13:07]and so that was the picture that myra decided to paint about my grandmother. That's great it's
[13:12]perfect timing for this book. Can't wait to have all my kids. I only went to one so far.
[13:18]In addition to the book office guidelines you have a whole organization of the sidelines where
[13:22]and the website where you list all sorts of ways for women to get involved not just women but
[13:27]young girls from every age whatever in whatever way you can be politically active or just
[13:33]helping other people and you know focusing on just accomplishing great things for the community
[13:38]and you even had a podcast or a well cut off the sidelines. I saw you had like six or seven
[13:43]episodes but happened to that. So we I think we're gonna renew it. What it began to be for me was a
[13:49]book club and I was always reading books with the young women that I work with and they pick a book
[13:56]that was all the rage and we'd all read it and talk about it and I thought we should just do this
[14:01]for off the sidelines and we should pick books by female authors and talk to the author about
[14:05]their book and why they wrote it and I really loved it. So I think we will renew our podcast idea
[14:11]because I listen to a lot of podcasts and I like podcasts so it's a great way to get a
[14:16]creative conversation about why women's voices matter and why being engaged in our elections matter.
[14:22]So I may I may renew it excellent. You have made tackling economic issues facing young
[14:29]families a key focus of your legislative agenda. You fought for universal pre-K,
[14:34]affordable high quality daycare, equal pay for equal work and national paid family and medical
[14:39]youth. Can you just tell me a little more in general about your passion for improving the lives
[14:44]of young families in this way and also just how does it feel like give me an example maybe of when
[14:49]you've accomplished me found out that one of the things you were working so hard on accomplishing
[14:54]getting past like the 9-Eleven. What does that feel like to you? Well a lot of my job is
[15:02]advocacy and I talk to my constituents. I travel around my state a lot and I go to all 62 counties
[15:09]but the stories that I heard from those first responders were so crushing how they were losing
[15:14]everything they loved because they did the right thing. They came to ground zero day after day
[15:18]week after week month after month and unfortunately are now quite ill a lot of first responders
[15:24]are have cancers and they desperately need health care and so I was propelled into that advocacy
[15:31]because their stories were just so gripping and so urgent and I wanted to make sure every one
[15:36]of my colleagues in the Senate understood what was at stake that these are men and women who
[15:41]raised up towers when everybody else was coming down that the hard work afterwards and were
[15:45]exposed to horrible toxins when the towers fell and so when you can actually accomplish something
[15:51]for them I just know that I'm doing my job well that that's what my job's about helping people
[15:56]making a difference in people's lives and protecting them and defending them and speaking for them
[16:02]and even when I'm not successful I still know I'm doing the right thing if I'm carrying someone
[16:06]story with me if I'm telling someone's biggest hurdle worry impediment challenge and trying to
[16:13]change it or fix it or make it better and so a lot of times I hear from women and that's why
[16:18]I often work on issues that affect families lives overwhelming because a lot of women we focus on
[16:24]are my children happy healthy this is what they're going to good do they have access to clean air
[16:30]and clean water you know my young son has asthma what do I do about that how can I change that
[16:35]so they're real worries I mean I only got involved in trying to solve the marijuana crisis to
[16:41]actually get it to get American medical marijuana in my state and in this country decriminalize
[16:46]marijuana because I heard stories you know hearing from a mom's child has Jervais syndrome
[16:51]who has a hundred seizures a day knowing that anyone grown mom's seizure could end their life
[16:56]and knowing that she has to go to a state that has legal marijuana to buy it and then brings it
[17:00]home and has to test it to make sure it's the right amount that's absurd it should be a medicine
[17:05]that's available to everyone and then hearing from mothers about sons who are rested because they
[17:10]have a small amount of marijuana in their pocket the fact that black or brown people in this
[17:15]city of New York City are ten times more likely to be arrested for marijuana position even though
[17:20]the usage rate is the same regardless of your race that really breaks my heart and so it's how
[17:26]I get involved in a lot of issues but simple things like having national paid leave or the only
[17:30]industrialized country in the world that doesn't have paid leave and hurts workers and it hurts
[17:35]our economy and particularly overwhelm's caregivers who are often women not being able to be
[17:40]with a newborn not being able to be with a parent when they're dying not being able to be with a
[17:43]sick child or a sick spouse those are real life things that happen every day to everybody
[17:49]and so not having paid leave means that a lot of women they have to make that tough choice between
[17:55]doing their job providing for their family or being with their loved one when they are needed
[17:59]and if you have to make that choice for a lot of women they just quit their jobs and if you don't
[18:04]have vacation days or sick days and sometimes you're only option and then you know every time they
[18:08]wrap on they wrap on back was less than you already less pay and that's the sticky floor that they
[18:14]cannot get off the sticky floor they cannot get out of those low wage jobs and it's why two
[18:19]thirds of minimum wage earners are women so I do a lot on the economic things like national paid
[18:25]leave equal pay for equal work affordable daycare universal pre-K higher minimum wage would all
[18:32]overwhelmingly help women in the workplace and the US economy because seven out of ten moms are
[18:37]working and four to ten moms are primarily your sole wage earners and their families
[18:41]as a mom of four kids I feel like I should give you a hug right now I would like to thank you
[18:46]so much everyone I mean what you're doing is so it's just like having a team captain out there
[18:52]sort of fighting for all of us and it's just so amazing I love how in the book also you talked
[18:57]about your squash food and how she had made you in college played the number two rank even though
[19:03]I was not ready that I was not ready that you learned that but she made me that's why I wasn't
[19:08]a win necessarily to push myself and to not be afraid to lose and to play my absolute best even
[19:15]if I was going to be crushed and it really didn't help I'm not afraid to lose and I'm not afraid
[19:19]to take on tough challenges that might take years to accomplish that's why these stories about
[19:24]suffrage is so important Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Katie Stanton never got to see the right
[19:29]to vote on either doing Harriet Tubman or Sir George Ruth but they worked on it their whole
[19:33]lives to make a difference and so it took the next generation to carry the baton just across
[19:38]that finish line and their own ways of shaking things up that's why I loved your first question
[19:43]about who the suffragists of today who are those great civil rights leaders of today and for a
[19:49]lot of these younger women coming up they're doing extraordinary things and they're doing and
[19:54]saying things that would not have been said in the last generation would not have been done in the
[19:58]last generation so
[20:00]I do think it's true that each one of us built on the legacy of those who come before us and it matters immensely.
[20:06]So I want to ask some more questions about being a mom and a senator.
[20:11]I understand you have more flexible schedule, you can control your hours more, but how does it work?
[20:16]Are you the kind of mom who's like, are you able to go to all the soccer games?
[20:20]Do you want to do that stuff? Do you have like, how do you balance it all?
[20:24]Like, are you doing homework with the kids at night?
[20:26]Yeah, yes, yes, yes. I want to like, I want to like a visual, so I'll give you the slice of life.
[20:31]So as a mom and a public servant, I decided very early on that my focus was going to be, how did you both well?
[20:42]And building my work life around the needs of my family.
[20:47]And so my day job is different than most of their senators.
[20:50]You know, I go to different things, I schedule myself differently,
[20:54]but it's because I have young kids and I really want to be present.
[20:57]So in the morning, I will make dinner.
[20:58]I actually mean the morning, I'll make breakfast for Henry of the O.
[21:02]I will get them ready for school, I'll bring them to school.
[21:05]I would then go to work and so I might not get to work till nine o'clock,
[21:10]which, you know, a lot of my colleagues will get to work at eight o'clock or seven o'clock
[21:13]because they like to have those morning things.
[21:14]I don't take morning meetings very often.
[21:16]If I need to, I will make sure nonsense and charge and you will, you know,
[21:20]do the children's routine for them with them.
[21:23]And then I'll go to work and go to hearings.
[21:26]You know, maybe with constituents, do all the work of a senator vote.
[21:30]And then I try to leave in time to pick the kids up from school.
[21:33]And so I would typically leave by five o'clock,
[21:36]pick up the kids from school, bring them home, make them dinner.
[21:38]And then if I'd even vote or even meetings, I would leave after that.
[21:41]And when they were little, you know, it was really important, books and bed
[21:44]because that's the time is really a lot of you home.
[21:46]And so I had this one circumstance when I first got elected,
[21:50]or first appointed to the Senate, I was nursing Henry
[21:52]was only six months when I was first appointed.
[21:55]And the floor staff of the U.S. Senate said,
[21:57]well, you need to sit in the chair and preside over the Senate
[22:00]between five and seven.
[22:02]And I couldn't do five to seven because that's when I was nursing.
[22:05]I was only nursing twice a day at that point because he was six months
[22:08]so I nursed in a morning before work and then I would nurse if I'm clock.
[22:12]And I couldn't explain to these 20-something-year-old staffers
[22:16]that I need to breastfeed between five and seven.
[22:19]There's no chance not going to breastfeed
[22:21]because not only is it physically very difficult not to breastfeed
[22:24]on your schedule, but I need to be with that moment.
[22:27]And so I said, I just need a different time.
[22:29]I'll do two hours, but I just kind of have two hours during the day
[22:31]or two hours later at night.
[22:33]And they were persistent just and no, you have to take the time
[22:35]or give it, so I had to take it into my own hands.
[22:37]And I just called all my other junior senators who had to preside
[22:41]as well and traded times with them.
[22:44]And so Mark Udall was really the night in shining armor
[22:48]at that moment because he said, of course,
[22:50]you know, take my nine and times.
[22:53]They're great.
[22:54]And so I got to open the Senate at night 30,
[22:56]which I really loved.
[22:57]And it was all because the male colleague really was kind
[23:00]and thoughtful and said, of course, I'll change with you.
[23:02]The other challenges I've had in my this particular job
[23:05]and balancing is when the boys were younger
[23:08]and they were in daycare before a school
[23:10]and daycare pick up was between five and six
[23:13]and you really had and tool actually pick up between five and six.
[23:16]But when they were little it was harder
[23:18]because I had to vote during that time.
[23:21]And so I would pick them up and, you know,
[23:24]but Theo was little.
[23:25]He'd come with me to the house chamber for I had Henry
[23:28]and he was, you know, five.
[23:30]And so he'd like to vote for all this house members
[23:33]and in the house, you vote by sticking your ID card
[23:36]into a voting machine where you push,
[23:38]yay, nay, or present.
[23:40]And so Theo would ask all the other congress members,
[23:42]can I do your vote?
[23:43]And so he pushed me on a degree and he hit a blast.
[23:45]And they used to have this room in the back
[23:47]where you could get hot dogs and peanut butter,
[23:49]like sandwiches and yogurt and ice cream.
[23:51]And so there was many evenings when Theo would have dinner
[23:54]with me between five and six because they just happened
[23:56]to call those between five and six often that year.
[23:58]It was just all the time.
[24:00]So Theo came with me to vote for that hour
[24:02]because I had to give him a daycare.
[24:04]Over time in the Senate, those were as often,
[24:06]but when I had a little Henry,
[24:07]I'd have to pick him up for daycare
[24:09]and he couldn't be left alone
[24:11]because he's a little kid.
[24:12]Like you can't leave a baby or a toddler, you know,
[24:15]alone, unattended and he can't bring children
[24:18]onto the Senate floor.
[24:19]Whereas the house floor, you could bring children
[24:21]onto the floor.
[24:22]And so I would have to sometimes just have Henry
[24:25]in my arms or when he was a toddler in my hand
[24:28]and I'd have to lean into the door of the Senate
[24:31]to vote from the chamber door
[24:34]because I couldn't let go of his hand.
[24:36]As he got older, I used to leave him in Harry Reid's office
[24:39]which was when he was the minority leader
[24:41]and the majority leader.
[24:42]It's right off the Senate floor.
[24:43]It's now Chuck's office.
[24:44]So I'd ask the or Henry or both
[24:46]to sit right here while mommy runs in their votes.
[24:48]The good news is we now have more senators who have newborns
[24:52]and one of the things that Tammy Duckworth did was make sure
[24:55]she could bring an infant on the Senate floor.
[24:58]Now the permission's only good while they're in infants
[25:01]which is ridiculous, but it's progress.
[25:03]It's better than they may not be able to bring Henry
[25:06]on the floor when I needed to.
[25:07]So Tammy's accomplished that for the next mom,
[25:09]the size of the Senate.
[25:11]You worked up until like the day I did.
[25:14]I was in a house hearing and it was the arm services hearing
[25:18]where you mark up the yearly arm services authorization bill.
[25:22]And it's usually like a nine to midnight thing.
[25:25]And so I said to the chairman, I will sit till 9 p.m.
[25:28]because I know by 9 p.m. I'll be just dead.
[25:31]And so I sat there all day and I was so uncomfortable
[25:34]and I was having all these pains and I was just plowing through it
[25:37]and I finally just left at nine and I went home
[25:40]to bed and shared up my water broke that night.
[25:42]So it was definitely some early labor pains.
[25:46]I meant somewhere they gave you a standing ovation.
[25:48]So I brought Henry back to the floor a few weeks later
[25:51]since I had to see section.
[25:52]I waited till I felt comfortable.
[25:54]And so a few weeks later I had a vote that I wanted to vote on.
[25:57]And so I brought Henry back and Speaker Pelosi gave me one minute
[26:01]to introduce Henry to the house members.
[26:03]It was very exciting.
[26:04]So I brought Leonard.
[26:05]I was a little worried.
[26:06]He was going to spit all over me.
[26:07]But he didn't.
[26:08]He was very well behaved.
[26:09]He slept through the whole thing.
[26:10]He said he should try to push that through as a law that all,
[26:13]you know, places of work to give a woman a standing ovation.
[26:16]She comes back.
[26:17]Well, I hadn't seen it.
[26:19]Next on your agenda for you.
[26:20]I was only in the fifth member of Congress
[26:22]and we're going to have a baby well in office.
[26:24]So they hadn't seen one.
[26:25]They hadn't seen a young mom and a baby no while
[26:28]so they thought it was worth clapping for.
[26:30]I agree.
[26:31]And hopefully in this new election, when we flip the house,
[26:34]we're electing a lot more young women to the house.
[26:37]And even the Senate.
[26:38]Yeah.
[26:39]If you're since then, I'm running for the Senate as a young woman.
[26:41]So we have a lot of opportunity, which I'm very excited about.
[26:44]Are you getting more than women this election?
[26:46]Are you women?
[26:47]I'm very hopeful.
[26:48]I'm very hopeful.
[26:49]I've been traveling not only around my state talking to folks,
[26:52]but the number of people who are turning out at town halls
[26:56]to protest coming to Washington to do the women's marches,
[27:00]coming to Washington to protest Judge Kavanaugh.
[27:03]There's a lot of thousands and thousands of women who are on fire
[27:05]because they are so concerned about the future of this country,
[27:08]particularly under President Trump.
[27:10]But you're also seeing women when it laid to run for office.
[27:12]And so you have more women running now than ever before in the history of ever.
[27:15]You have new advocacy organizations.
[27:18]One young woman created a group called Run for Something.
[27:21]And they have seen unbelievable participation.
[27:24]Thousands of people participating wanting to run campaigns,
[27:28]run for office, and exponential increase.
[27:31]And she created that out of nothing when she saw what happened in the election.
[27:35]She just wasn't going to sit and do nothing.
[27:37]She decided I'm going to fight back.
[27:39]And that's what she accomplished.
[27:41]So you're seeing it across the board with what Amanda Lipen did,
[27:44]but also you see it in the number of women running for office.
[27:47]Groups like Higher Heights doubled the number of African-American women running for Congress.
[27:51]Traditional groups like Emily's List, exponential increases.
[27:54]They would be working with 1,000 candidates at this point in the cycle.
[27:57]They're working with over 40,000 candidates right now.
[28:00]And you have over 200 women running alone for Congress right now who are running as nominees at their party.
[28:06]So you're just going to see different players list.
[28:08]And that transformation is going to help the country.
[28:10]Because we'll focus on issues that maybe haven't been top 10 issues,
[28:13]like Pinkley for Universal Pre-K or Affordable Care.
[28:16]So things that really would help the economy grow and help all families.
[28:20]I think the lens that they will bring to their job will be different.
[28:23]And that will be good for outcomes.
[28:26]I feel like there's this maybe misconception that you lose your sense of privacy once you lose running sort of public office.
[28:33]And that as a woman, if you were to run, would you be able to protect the privacy of your kids or your family?
[28:40]I feel like that the more in the public eye you get, the more vulnerable you become.
[28:47]Do you have you found that to be an issue at all?
[28:49]No, I don't feel more vulnerable.
[28:51]But for a lot of women, they might not have worn for office because they don't like the negativity of campaigns.
[28:56]They don't like the constant bickering and just the whole job of being elected leaders seem so adversarial.
[29:03]And most women like to do things by consensus.
[29:05]They like to bring people together.
[29:07]And so I think they've traditionally avoided running for office for those reasons.
[29:10]But I think because the nature of this moment is so intense and so frightening.
[29:14]And that the country is going in exactly the wrong direction on so many issues.
[29:18]I mean this crisis just continues to divide the country, wants to build a wall, wants to, you know, keep out Muslims, wants to find moral equivalencies where there are none in Charlottesville.
[29:27]World stand up to wait to premise doesn't do the right thing in terms of our transgender troops and wants to not allow them to serve.
[29:35]I mean, he just keeps dividing this country on every line.
[29:38]I think that's particularly offensive to a lot of women and disturbing.
[29:41]And so they're willing to run.
[29:42]They're willing to be the one that will run overturned, you know, who controls the house of representatives.
[29:47]Control, you know, they'll return who controls the Senate.
[29:50]And they're local school boards and they're local elections.
[29:52]And so they're running across the board.
[29:54]And I've been to, you know, a dozen states and seen incredible local candidates running.
[30:00]to help them be successful. It was one of the reasons why I found it off the
[30:03]sideline six years ago because I just wanted to ask more women to participate to
[30:07]create that call to action to say I need you to vote and each of you to run and
[30:11]need you to support other women who are willing to run and through our
[30:14]office silence efforts we've raised over seven million dollars for
[30:17]with the candidates. Everything and there have been whispers that you've
[30:21]denied that you are thinking of running for president 2020. Well I'm just
[30:25]focused on Senate that's something I could think about later but I really
[30:29]believe that everyone should be focused on this election right now
[30:32]because if we're not we're going to miss the opportunity to really hold
[30:35]President Trump accountable and actually create a bulk word against the
[30:38]worst things he wants to do. And just a personal question just to end.
[30:42]So you have all this stuff going on in your life and with your kids and your
[30:46]family. Do you get any time for yourself? Do you get to like work out
[30:51]and get your hair like do you do get to do any of those basis on
[30:54]things like other women like how does this so how does it have my mom
[30:58]time which I've decided long ago was really important to sanity and so I
[31:03]like to work out I have a group of ladies that I work out with I have a
[31:07]little text group called exercise ladies and my best friends and I
[31:11]get to work out with them most mornings so we all sign up for different
[31:15]classes but I do pilates and I do biking classes and like biking classes
[31:20]I found a new group of people to play tennis with I play tennis once in a while
[31:23]once a week I ask like to play squash need to find some more squash partners soon
[31:28]but I stay fit and so I do an hour each morning usually six a.m. though
[31:32]because I you know that's when my family still sleeping so I just
[31:36]leave my house like 5.45 and go to a class come back at seven and then I make
[31:40]breakfast for everybody so I do that and then I try to find time with my
[31:44]husband we try to get away once in a while at least for a night or two
[31:48]you know every few months we'll find time but I do try to keep that time
[31:53]protected on Saturdays I almost always the last several years
[31:57]it's reserved just for the boys and we just I've had Saturdays I like to go
[32:00]watch their soccer games watch their baseball games
[32:03]and maybe see a girlfriend for breakfast or something after our
[32:07]last last so that's the way to my girlfriends are important to me and I've got
[32:11]girlfriends all over my state from great girlfriends in New York
[32:14]City's great girlfriends in upstate New York and Albany
[32:17]and then with girlfriends in DC so those groups of women keep me
[32:21]saying and then I also spend time in my faith it's another thing that I use to
[32:26]keep me centered in Washington I do Bible studies a couple times a week
[32:30]with women and men who are senators mostly Republicans
[32:33]and then I try to go church on Sundays that keeps me sane as well
[32:38]sounds like you've gotten this whole thing figured out.
[32:40]I really think that's a good one and every year I make different
[32:44]you know we find this and what is necessary to keep me whole this year
[32:49]because life changes and your kids change and they get older and you've got to
[32:52]meet their needs in a different way so I think every era of big
[32:57]parent is different I now have a teenager
[33:00]it was 14 in high school it's very different
[33:03]Henry's 10 and you know he's in fifth grade so he's just entering middle
[33:06]school with all those challenges and so my kids need
[33:09]different things for me so I try to really meet them where they are
[33:13]and be the best mom I can be
[33:17]well thank you so much for coming on momstone her time to read books this is so
[33:20]interesting for me and I'm so inspired by you and
[33:24]thankful for all the things that you do for
[33:26]for women not just women women and men everywhere it's really fantastic thank you
[33:30]for everything thank you appreciate it of course
[33:32]thanks to Ryan and Steve at Text Your Sound for the audio editing and mixing
[33:36]thanks for listening