0:01

Hi, I'm Sam Edis and I'm

0:03

Amy Nelson. Welcome to What's Her Story?

0:06

With Sam and Amy. This is a show

0:08

about the world's most remarkable women, their

0:10

professional and personal journeys.

0:13

Together, we'll hear from gold medalists, best

0:15

selling authors, and leaders of the world's most

0:17

iconic brands. Today's

0:21

guest almost needs no introduction. We

0:24

have Glorious dynam I, kind of

0:26

the women's movement journalist and

0:28

activist. Well, we have a lot

0:30

of questions to try to tackle with you. Okay,

0:33

I don't know if I have answers, but I

0:36

feel like you do. Um,

0:39

So, you had a very unusual

0:41

childhood. How did that impact your early

0:43

decisions in adulthood, what job

0:46

to take, where to live? Because

0:49

I'm not sure, of course, but I

0:51

think because I didn't go

0:53

to school that much. I

0:55

don't think I went to school a full year

0:58

until I was in high school. So

1:02

uh. And because my family was traveling

1:04

and so on, that may have contributed

1:06

to the fact that I've never also had

1:09

job. I've always been a freelancer.

1:12

Perhaps I never got accustomed

1:14

to the idea of going to the same place every

1:16

day, so um,

1:20

it's been an advantage for a writer because

1:22

I am accustomed to working at home

1:25

and to an irregular schedule, not

1:27

to mention an irregular paycheck. At

1:30

age ten year, parents separated and

1:32

you became your mom's primary caretaker.

1:35

How do you think that impacted decisions you

1:37

made in your adult life? Well, that's

1:39

deep, you know. Um. I

1:42

think I never wanted

1:44

to become a woman

1:46

alone with a child, which is what

1:48

my mother was. And

1:51

I also think in a way, because I

1:53

had been a caretaker, it

1:55

probably assisted in my feeling

1:58

that I didn't have to have children. I

2:00

didn't need to be a caretaker. Again,

2:03

I'm not sure, but I think so.

2:05

So you talk about growing up in a neighborhood

2:08

where men were valued by what they did

2:10

and women were valued by how they look

2:13

and what their husbands did. Now

2:16

I have to say I live in a neighborhood a lot like that

2:18

today. So why

2:20

does this construct still exists? Has

2:22

it changed? Well, it's changed

2:25

a lot. It's changed a huge,

2:27

huge amount. It's almost unrecognizable

2:30

since the ancient days when I was

2:32

growing up. But it is still

2:34

true that, especially if a

2:36

woman has children, it's very difficult

2:39

for her to make enough money to support

2:41

herself in those children even

2:43

if she wishes to. So

2:46

the traditional dependency

2:50

is way less frequent, but

2:52

it's still present. And it's interesting

2:55

to me that in a categorical

2:57

way, those are the women who

3:00

elected Trump. It was white women

3:02

in the suburbs who were dependent

3:04

on their husband's income, and

3:06

so in a sense, we're voting their

3:09

interests, not their own interests.

3:12

And why if your identity,

3:14

your name, and your income depends

3:17

on someone else, you vote for them.

3:19

So I have to share a personal anecdote with

3:22

you. When I met you

3:24

was at the Maker's Conference in two thousand

3:26

and fourteen, and I

3:28

imagine you have some of these moments in your life where

3:30

you look back on them and you just are mortified

3:33

and embarrassed. And my moment

3:35

of meeting you is one of those in my

3:37

life. And I'll tell you why. It's because I

3:40

asked you to take a picture with me, and

3:42

then I didn't like the way I looked and

3:45

asked you to retake it. And

3:48

I was that so terrible?

3:50

I mean, maybe I didn't like the way I well,

3:53

I just felt like, here you are this

3:55

icon of you know, women's empowerment

3:58

and strength, and I was focusing

4:01

on something so superficial. I was so excited

4:03

to meet you, and I transformed it into

4:05

something so superficial. Well,

4:08

I don't remember it

4:10

in that way. You remember it in that

4:12

way, so you're endowing it with the

4:14

feelings that went into it.

4:16

But it probably was a perfectly

4:19

reasonable request. Well,

4:21

in general, how do you think about beauty?

4:24

I mean, beauty has been such a

4:26

theme in how people talk

4:28

about you, and then when I

4:30

just read your book, The Revolution

4:32

from Within, it really

4:35

seemed like you are this incredible

4:37

intellect and academic and

4:40

a lot of people only see you as this

4:42

beautiful feminist. So how

4:44

do you think of beauty in your life?

4:47

First of all, beauty is

4:51

no credit to us, and also it

4:53

perishes, so it's

4:55

not a good thing to depend on.

4:58

And I certainly resented that in

5:00

the earlier years UM

5:03

when the movement was just getting started,

5:05

and I remember, I mean, the most symbolic

5:08

event for me was that Newsweek magazine

5:11

asked me to pose for a

5:14

cover when they were

5:16

doing their first ever cover story about

5:18

the women's movement, which they thought, oh, maybe

5:20

this little thing is newsworthy, you know, So

5:22

so I said,

5:25

are you kidding me? I'm not going to you know

5:27

one white woman and you know that can't

5:29

that you know that so does not represent

5:33

a movement. And they anyway

5:35

took a photographed

5:38

with a telephoto lens at a rally and

5:41

put me on the cover of Newsweek anyway,

5:43

And I so resented that because I thought

5:46

it was bad for the movement to have a singular

5:48

image. That isn't what a movement is. And

5:51

how do you think about beauty today?

5:54

I don't. One

5:58

of the one of the great things, it's

6:00

the great fan fucking tasting things about

6:02

being old is you don't think about it

6:04

that much. I mean, you you

6:06

know, you you wash and maybe you

6:08

color your hair, you guys it. But

6:12

the idea of being identified

6:14

by how you look is sort of gone.

6:17

You know. It's a prison that starts

6:19

when you're about ten and

6:21

starts to end when you're fifty or

6:24

sixty. So it's

6:26

kind of great, you know, it's free

6:28

at last. You

6:31

wrote that women may be the only group that grows

6:33

more at radical with the age.

6:35

What do you mean by that, Well, it's part

6:37

of what we were just discussing, that

6:40

you're you're pretty much not totally

6:42

out of the beauty prison. I mean, probably

6:44

neither men nor women are totally out of that.

6:46

They're all kinds of men with two pays and

6:49

you know, plastic surgery. So

6:52

but but

6:54

you're you're much more out of it.

6:57

Uh. And you're past the time

7:00

when you if you have been

7:02

identified with a partner or husband's

7:05

uh social identity, you're

7:08

probably past that point. So

7:10

I do think that that women

7:13

over sixty or so, like

7:16

girls before their nine or ten,

7:19

are the most free. So how do we

7:21

break out of that prison between

7:23

the ages of ten and fifty or sixty. How

7:26

do we get past that? Well, I

7:28

think we're encroaching on it, don't you. I

7:30

mean, because uh,

7:32

you know, Marilyn Monroe famously

7:34

thought her life was over at thirty.

7:37

So at least we've we've

7:39

gotten to sixty. Uh.

7:41

And I think I think that little girls

7:44

have been freed, especially

7:46

by athletics. You know, for

7:49

girls to identify with what their

7:51

bodies can do as opposed to

7:53

how their bodies look is huge.

7:56

And there's also getting rid of racism,

7:59

because uh, that's

8:01

profound in this country, and colorism

8:04

used to exist within the black community

8:06

is pretty much gone. So you

8:09

know, we can make a lot of progress

8:11

by just understanding

8:14

that each of us is born as

8:16

a unique miracle that

8:19

could never have happened before and

8:21

could never happen again. You know, one

8:23

of the things you just touch upon. There has recently been a breakthrough

8:26

regarding the awareness of systemic

8:28

racism. Do you think

8:30

the same strikes have been made

8:33

regard regarding gender bias?

8:36

And if not, why not? Uh?

8:40

You know, I think they're not

8:42

exactly different because

8:44

black women are the

8:47

leadership of the women's movement, in part

8:49

because they experienced double

8:52

discrimination and in part because they

8:54

see both kinds of discrimination.

8:57

Even from the very first uh

9:00

public opinion poll that was done

9:02

about women's opinions

9:05

about what was then called the Women's Liberation

9:07

movement, black women were

9:09

more than twice as likely to support

9:11

it as white

9:13

women were. And and look

9:16

at the vote. I mean, I think of

9:19

black women voted for Hillary Clinton and

9:22

pent of white women voted for Donald Trump.

9:24

I mean I resked my case. I

9:27

want to pivot to your career and

9:29

can you talk about the launch of your career in

9:31

your twenties. Well, I never thought

9:33

I was launching a career. I mean I

9:36

didn't the term career didn't for

9:38

for one thing, we were working until we got

9:40

married, because that's it was still the pattern

9:43

of the day that it was more

9:45

following what I cared about. I mean, I

9:48

did notice that when I was writing, it

9:50

was the only time I didn't think I should be doing

9:52

something else. So I was freelancing

9:56

and I was trying to write about what I loved

9:58

and care about cared about, which was not that easy

10:01

in the beginning because women's

10:03

magazines were way more likely. I

10:05

mean, they weren't interested in political

10:07

articles or you know, they had to have articles

10:09

to support their advertisers about, so

10:13

I h profiles was

10:15

really were as far away as I could

10:17

get. What was the first piece

10:20

that you remember being paid for? I

10:22

think it was a piece in the New York Times

10:25

on the up ed page about Barbara

10:27

Walters. I think maybe because she

10:29

had just become the first woman

10:31

on the Today Show who wasn't just serving

10:33

coffee. So how did you start Miss

10:36

Magazine? Well,

10:38

um, I had been

10:40

working at New York Magazine and

10:43

helped to start it, so I

10:46

understood a little bit of how you

10:48

could start a women's magazine. Um

10:52

I I asked a lot of friends to come

10:54

and sit in my living room and see

10:56

how they felt about it because

10:59

they were also men who had been writing

11:01

for a variety of

11:03

publications and especially women's

11:05

magazines, and we were all

11:08

just kind of despairing of

11:10

the women's magazines that existed, not because

11:13

the editors weren't smart, great women,

11:15

they were, but because they

11:17

mainly were called upon for articles

11:20

that supported advertisers. So there

11:22

would be a whole article about hair care,

11:25

even though we know how to shampoo our

11:27

hair, and another

11:29

one about mess Garra and maybe

11:32

a celebrity thrown in there.

11:35

So we looked at Esquire in

11:37

the Atlantic, and I don't know what else existed,

11:39

and we thought, well, you know, why can't there

11:41

be a magazine for women that

11:45

has articles about things

11:47

we actually want to read? Um.

11:51

So, because I was working at New York

11:53

Magazine, I had the luck

11:55

of and the kindness of

11:57

Clay Felker, who was the editor, who

12:00

let us do a sample issue of

12:03

of Miss Magazine with a separate

12:06

cover in in as a bind

12:08

in in New York Magazine and

12:11

then as an independent one shot

12:14

issue, and it was on

12:16

the newsstands. And I remember

12:18

going to traveling to California.

12:21

I was on a television show and

12:23

someone called and said you know, we can't

12:26

find it on the newsstands. And I

12:28

called Clay Felker in a panic, and I

12:30

said, oh, you know, it never got

12:32

here. It never got it. And it turned out it

12:34

had sold out. We had

12:36

we had cover dated its spring in

12:39

case it just was there like a lox

12:42

on the newsstand for a long time. We didn't want

12:44

to be we didn't want to embarrass the movement.

12:47

Uh. And it sold out in eight days.

12:50

So we realized how

12:53

how crucial it was. And we got

12:55

the most extraordinary letters, bags

12:58

and bags full of letters that are now

13:00

residing in the Smith College archive.

13:02

I hope with women saying,

13:05

you know, I feel as if a

13:07

friend came into my house. I

13:10

feel as if I've been alone. But now

13:13

you know, I know that I'm not crazy.

13:15

The system is crazy. How

13:18

did you finance the magazine poorly?

13:25

Well, we had the success of the preview

13:27

issue to go on, and

13:29

so we had uh

13:32

subscribers already, you

13:34

know, that was very important. And

13:37

then because of a

13:39

group then called Warner Communications,

13:42

so they gave us a million dollars

13:44

and so with what

13:47

should have been many times that and

13:49

and the subscribers we had still

13:52

from the new York insert

13:54

we started it and now

13:57

for a quick break. So you

13:59

were engaged your senior year of college and you broke

14:01

it off and this is in the nineteen fifties

14:04

and this is unusual. How

14:06

did you make that decision? Well?

14:09

I just felt that if I got married, it was the

14:11

last decision I would ever make. And

14:14

it wasn't the fault of the man, who was a wonderful

14:16

person and still the handsomest

14:19

person I've ever seen in my life. He looked

14:21

like trying of a cash mary friends,

14:24

very tempting, and he had a way more

14:26

interesting life than I did, which is why

14:28

I had to go to India,

14:31

because I knew that if I

14:33

stayed home and took a job as a researcher

14:35

at Time magazine. In those days, women

14:37

researched and men wrote you could only

14:39

get a job as a researcher, that

14:42

I would be too tempted. And

14:44

I remember walking around New Delhi

14:46

and getting a telegram from him

14:49

saying that this is my last chance

14:51

and unless I was coming home, he was going

14:53

to get engaged to someone else. And

14:55

I remember, you

14:57

know, writing a kind of say

15:00

add but congratulatory telegram

15:02

to him, you know, We do these things

15:04

little by little. It isn't as if

15:06

we say hello, I'm going

15:08

to live this kind of life forever. We

15:11

do it one step at a time. So,

15:13

speaking of marriage, you

15:15

made a very deliberate choice not

15:18

to get married, not to have children,

15:21

and then when you were sixty six you

15:23

met David Bail and married him.

15:27

Why well,

15:30

we we loved each other

15:32

and we would have been together in any case.

15:35

And he needed a green card, so

15:38

he had been born in South Africa, lived

15:40

in England. He was

15:42

constantly worried that that the immigration

15:45

office was going to knock on the door and take him away.

15:49

Uh So I

15:52

thought, well, you know, we've worked for thirty

15:54

years to change the marriage laws. I

15:57

would no longer lose my name, my

15:59

credit, eating my legal residence. Also,

16:02

we were going to see my

16:04

friend Wilma man Killer, who's the chief was

16:07

the chief of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma,

16:10

and she offered us a Cherokee ceremony,

16:12

so we got married kind of walking around

16:15

the fire on her lawn. You know,

16:17

who can resist that. It just seemed

16:19

to make sense. I mean, if it had not been for

16:21

his legal status,

16:24

there would have been no reason to do it legally,

16:27

was he the great love of your life? No?

16:31

I mean, you know what, That's what

16:33

drives me crazy. Doesn't it drive

16:35

you crazy that just because you've got a

16:37

marriage license suddenly

16:40

it's the great love of your life. There is no great

16:42

love of your life. There are unique

16:44

individual loves of your life. And

16:47

I'm still friends with all my old lovers.

16:51

I mean, you know, yeah,

16:53

I mean I also think it's really interesting growing up

16:55

like we are, you know, taught about this fairy

16:57

tale of the love of your life. And I just turned

17:00

party this year. And for me, one thing I learned

17:02

in my adulthood is that some of the great loves of my life

17:04

I'm my best friends, yes, I

17:06

don't know, our women friends absolutely,

17:09

and our men friends right and our

17:12

old lovers. Marlo Thomas

17:14

always refers to her old lovers as her

17:16

council of advisors. And

17:20

who who are your best friends? I'm

17:22

sorry that Wilman man Killer is no longer here,

17:24

but she was certainly a best friend. Alice

17:27

Walker, uh Amy

17:29

Richards, who's a colleague as well. We work together

17:32

all the time. Victoria

17:34

Jackson, wonderful human being. It's

17:37

a circle of women

17:40

and old lovers can

17:46

you talk about the role of money

17:48

in feminism. I think

17:50

it's a measure of inequality for

17:52

us. That's very important. When

17:55

we see a man who's a parking

17:57

lot attendant getting twice

17:59

as much money as a woman who's a childcare

18:01

attendant, you know, we

18:03

say, wait a minute, it gives us a measure

18:06

of what needs changing. Why is

18:08

teaching still not well paid? Well? Largely

18:11

because it's still more

18:14

a female profession than most other

18:16

professions, you know, and you can just see

18:19

that wherever. So what

18:21

we're trying to do is to say,

18:24

not equal pay for equal work, but equal

18:26

pay for comfortable work, so that the

18:28

amount of skill or education involved

18:31

is the measure, not not

18:34

race and not not gender.

18:36

And do you think that's changed over time?

18:39

Yes, no, it has changed over time.

18:41

It just is still

18:45

very far. There's still a big gender

18:47

and a big racial divide.

18:50

So we just elected our first woman vice

18:52

president. Have we made as much progress

18:55

as you would have thought when you started Miss magazine?

18:58

No? You have to

19:00

remember, you know, in Let's

19:02

see, it was in that

19:04

surely Chisholm all by

19:06

herself took the white male

19:09

only sign off the White House door.

19:12

That was a long time ago. Uh,

19:16

she was running for president. She was only on the

19:18

ballot in fourteen states, I think, but

19:21

you know, she did raise people's

19:23

hopes and imaginations. Now

19:26

we have a vice president and a wonderful vice

19:29

president. I mean, I'm so proud, you

19:31

know that to feel represented

19:33

by her in every way.

19:36

But there

19:39

was still a lot of resistance,

19:41

say to Hillary Clinton when she

19:44

ran. And I think

19:46

it's deep, you know, because I think

19:48

that as long as children are

19:51

raised mainly by women, that

19:53

we are going to associate female

19:55

authority with childhood. And

19:59

people, not only men, but men

20:01

especially seem to feel regressed

20:04

childhood when they see

20:06

a powerful woman. It's

20:08

as if they're they're unmanned. It's as

20:10

if they're eight again, which

20:13

was the last time they saw one. Uh.

20:16

And because I noticed that and even

20:18

my smart, wonderful grown up

20:21

journalists men friends,

20:23

and how they treated Hillary in the press,

20:27

I think it's really interesting to see with

20:29

Kamala if she's very close

20:31

to her sister, who became a single mother when

20:33

she was a high school senior in Mina. Kamala's

20:36

niece are very close, and it's interesting to think about

20:38

how we can reconstruct what we

20:40

see is as families. How

20:42

do you think we could reconstruct all of that

20:45

to kind of change how we view women. Well,

20:47

I think that the most important parts

20:50

to include men in it, you

20:52

know, because until men are raising

20:54

infants and little children as much as

20:57

women are, it

20:59

won't be equal because men

21:01

won't be able to develop the

21:05

uh, nurturing an emotional part of

21:07

themselves, which they have just as much

21:09

as women too. And of course we

21:11

see men who are loving, wonderful parents,

21:13

so we you know, we know that this is possible,

21:16

and women are less likely

21:18

to develop the um

21:22

achieving talent, whatever

21:25

part of themselves they develop

21:27

outside the home. You know, until

21:30

we have democratic families, will never

21:32

have a democracy outside the home. So

21:35

true. One of the things

21:37

I noted from your your

21:39

book was that you talk about

21:42

the kindness of your father and how

21:44

because of him you

21:46

never selected men who weren't

21:48

kind to you. You know, you never selected

21:51

violent men. That was not something you ever attracted

21:53

to. Talk about the role

21:55

of self esteem in all of this,

21:59

well, I think in what you just described,

22:02

I think it's harder for a

22:05

girl and a young woman who to

22:07

know that there are men different from

22:10

her father. So if she

22:12

has grown up with the controlling or

22:14

violent or cruel

22:17

father. It's hard for her to

22:20

harder anyway, for her to know that

22:23

there are men who are not like

22:25

that. It's normalized a little

22:27

bit for her, or maybe it takes longer.

22:30

So I think we see that in

22:32

in say women

22:34

who have married several times, that they often

22:36

first married a man who was

22:39

like their father before they could discover

22:41

that there were other men to

22:44

follow up on the relationship point, how

22:47

do you manage conflict in relationships?

22:49

You seem to do it so gracefully because you've

22:51

been in a lot of situations full of conflict.

22:56

But you mean conflict within the relationship.

22:59

Yeah, yes, of

23:01

course you have differences, but I think

23:04

there's been It's been

23:06

easier for me because I've

23:09

been able to choose. I mean, most

23:11

of the men I've met, i've met because we

23:13

were in some social justice

23:16

movement together, so we shared

23:19

a lot of values. Um,

23:23

I suppose a disproportionate

23:25

number of men have been in a

23:28

racial justice movement have been of a different

23:30

quote unquote race, because that

23:34

kind of gave

23:37

us a shared context

23:40

and they tended to understand

23:42

what women were up against. Two.

23:46

So I just I

23:48

think we've been able to share

23:51

values, and

23:53

I was not with somebody,

23:55

at least not since the very beginning

23:58

who expected me to lead a traditional

24:00

role every day. As

24:03

women especially, we all face microaggressions

24:06

like any persecuted group. How

24:10

do you deal with those microaggressions?

24:13

Well, I mean

24:15

I face fewer, so I'm not saying that,

24:18

you know, my advice is totally

24:21

valuable, because clearly I

24:23

face fewer. But I

24:26

try to name it or to try

24:28

to fix it, you know, I mean, if you one

24:31

sign of of an equal relationship

24:33

is that each person is both talking

24:35

and listening. So I

24:38

try to remember myself to

24:41

talk as much as I listen, and

24:43

listen as much as I talk, and

24:46

whether that's with women or men, that

24:49

helps to create an equality

24:52

in the moment that then becomes

24:54

organic. And

24:56

now for a quick break, can

24:58

we talk about Phillish laugh? I watched

25:02

Mrs America. How did you feel

25:04

about that? Well? I didn't

25:06

watch it actually because I knew it would

25:08

drive me crazy. I mean, the

25:12

uh they, the people who were

25:14

doing it, had had given me and uh

25:17

others scripts in advance, so I knew

25:19

it was Bonker's from the beginning, and I told them.

25:22

It was bonkers because Fellows

25:24

Lafly had absolutely nothing to do

25:27

with stopping the Evil Rights Amendment. It

25:29

was the insurance industry, the state

25:32

by state, you know, because the insurance industry

25:35

was and maybe still is. I don't know that the

25:38

one big national industry that

25:40

isn't governed by federal regulations.

25:43

It's governed state by state. So

25:46

they did not want to equalize their actuarial

25:48

tables because it would have cost them a fortune.

25:51

And when we got within three states

25:53

of victory, they suddenly realized, wait a

25:55

minute, you know, uh,

25:58

this is going to cost us a lot of money,

26:01

and so probably they hired

26:03

I don't know exactly how Philosophic got

26:06

involved. I think in the series it implied

26:08

that she had been recruited elsewhere by the

26:10

John Birch Society or somebody. Somehow

26:13

she got involved, but she, as

26:15

far as I know, she never changed one vote.

26:18

Oh wow, okay, this is this is

26:20

amazing my jaws on the So yeah,

26:22

well that's that's a problem with that series.

26:25

I mean, people are you know, writers

26:27

and directors are welcome to do whatever they

26:29

want. But it

26:32

falsified history and

26:34

it made it seem that women were

26:36

each other's problem. Yes, there

26:38

were women who were against the Equal Rights Amendment,

26:41

but they weren't what stopped it. It

26:43

was the economic interests that stopped

26:45

it. Did you ever feel the weight

26:47

of having an entire movement rest

26:50

on your shoulders? No, because I doesn't.

26:53

If I had disappeared anywhere along

26:55

the way, and if I disappeared tomorrow,

26:58

the movement goes right on it never

27:01

ever, what's

27:04

true? What

27:06

do you worry about when you go to sleep? Now?

27:09

Uh? Why I haven't written, you

27:12

know, the any part of the

27:14

book that I'm supposed to be working on During the day,

27:16

I've just been answering my emails. What

27:21

book are you working on? Well? With

27:23

two friends, I'm writing a book

27:25

about the black

27:28

women who were always a dispropo

27:30

as I was saying, a disproportionate part of the

27:32

women's movement from the sixties

27:34

and seventies forward. Um,

27:38

it's kind of just

27:40

because of the way it was reported.

27:44

I mean, you know, even even when I

27:46

was speaking, I was always almost always

27:48

speaking together with Flow Kennedy or

27:51

Margaret Sloan or you know, we were consciously

27:54

speaking as as a black woman

27:56

and a white woman together, and the

27:58

newspaper reports would

28:00

still report her as the civil rights

28:03

movement and me as the women's movement, and we would always

28:05

say, actually, this is a scene

28:07

in in uh the movie

28:09

of the Glorious Too, in the Julie

28:12

Tamore movie, that a reporter

28:14

is treating Flow as if

28:16

she's the part of the so and we're saying no, no,

28:18

no, we're both here as part of the women's

28:21

movement. So it's it's a definitional

28:23

problem that has always been wrong. Do

28:26

you have any regrets? Oh?

28:30

Yes, tons of regrets, right, tons,

28:32

tons, tons? I mean, I

28:36

mean they're not they're not big

28:38

regrets or conventional regrets,

28:40

maybe because it's not like I regret

28:43

I don't know, not having children, or conventional

28:46

family or a job,

28:49

you know, things like but I

28:52

regret wasting time. Mm

28:54

hmmm, because time is all

28:56

there is. Really, what

28:59

do you feel you we the time on you

29:01

know, watching television series

29:03

and writing little

29:06

things instead of something that

29:08

that might last for a little

29:10

longer. What what role

29:13

in your life does guilt play? Well?

29:16

It certainly plays, you

29:18

know, a role in the sense of

29:22

what did I do today? How did I end up

29:24

only doing emails? You know? Uh,

29:29

also with friends, I think, um,

29:32

oh, this friend is maybe not in such

29:34

a good situation. Is

29:36

she Okay? You know I want to call her?

29:40

Um, It's it's

29:42

more, you know, it's because I feel

29:46

an emotional tie or a tie

29:48

of purpose that I haven't

29:51

really attended to. How do you take

29:53

care of yourself? You mean, do I

29:55

exercise? No, I've never been

29:57

a person who exercised in

29:59

a classic way or in a regular way.

30:01

How do you think about the rest of your life

30:04

unfolding? Well, I occasionally

30:07

try to remind myself that even

30:09

if I lived to a hundred, it's not that long.

30:12

But that does not seem to interfere

30:15

with my thinking that I'm immortal, and sometimes

30:18

some way,

30:21

and thinking you're immortal does not cause

30:24

you to plan well. Well. We end

30:26

every episode with a lightening round, so

30:29

we would love to ask you a few quick questions that

30:31

are more lighthearted. Okay,

30:33

all right, Sam? Do you want to start? Sure,

30:37

but I can't promise it's going to be lighthearted

30:39

though, Amy, I

30:43

can't promise it's going to be quick either. Do

30:49

you take anything personally? What

30:52

was the last thing that hurt your feelings? I

30:55

was reading something about a long

30:57

ago campaign

31:01

for Shirley Chisholm, and there

31:03

was something very misunderstanding.

31:06

You know, I had run as a delegate for Shirley Chisholm,

31:08

and it made it seem as if I hadn't supported

31:10

her, and that hurt my failings. What

31:13

book are you reading right now? Well,

31:15

I'm actually not reading

31:18

a book so much as referring

31:20

to books I have read looking for quotes.

31:23

For instance, here's Sex and

31:25

World Peace, a totally wonderful

31:28

book by a group of people, mainly Valerie

31:30

Hudson, and it's

31:32

very helpful because it explains

31:34

that the status of women is

31:37

a bigger predictor of world

31:40

peace than anything else, more than

31:42

economics, more than hunger, more

31:45

than border conflicts. Not

31:47

because women are more important, but because,

31:50

as I was saying about families, the

31:53

conflict between males and females

31:55

in the family normalizes

31:59

conflict, or normalize this hierarchy.

32:01

Other places, I have to

32:03

ask what is Glorious Dynam's

32:07

morning beauty regimen? And

32:09

do you color your hair? I do?

32:12

I do? We we don't know what's under

32:14

here, right uh? And

32:18

I started doing that in India. I

32:20

mean I was coloring my hair darker

32:22

because I was wearing saries. Then

32:24

I came home and I was greatly

32:27

influenced by breakfast at Tiffany, So

32:29

I streaked my hair. I

32:31

just have continued to do

32:34

that. That's my favorite movie. I love

32:37

it is a wonderful movie, right. Um.

32:40

And other than that, I

32:42

mean, it's just you know, soap

32:46

washing and moisturizer and

32:49

kind of some

32:51

some kind of cream tinted.

32:54

It's tinted moisturizer, I think, yeah,

32:56

And and and completing my eyebrows.

32:58

I think I've lost the end of my eyebrows. So do

33:01

you have a favorite cocktail? No,

33:04

I don't like to drink. It's I'm

33:06

so not interested in wine or any

33:09

kind of drink. It just doesn't taste

33:11

good to me. I'd wave rather

33:13

have ice cream. What flavor? Ice

33:15

cream? Practically anything? I

33:18

mean, you know, there's not I've never met

33:20

a flavor I didn't like. If

33:22

you could wave a magic one and change one

33:24

thing about the world, what would it be? Mm

33:27

hmm. Labels?

33:30

Because we made up race and

33:34

colorism and so on. Uh,

33:37

and gender, we made up gender. So

33:40

I would do my best

33:43

to remove labels and try

33:45

to allow

33:47

us to see our individual uniqueness

33:50

and are shared humanity,

33:52

and I think in a way COVID may help

33:55

us do that conscious business wise

33:57

because it does not care about

34:00

race or class, or gender or

34:02

national boundaries. Blue is

34:05

our male perspective on the show, and he's

34:07

been listening to this interview and then

34:09

he comes out with his one

34:11

big question. No pressure,

34:14

you know, especially for me being a black man in America.

34:17

And you touched on a lot of topics, you know that's

34:20

related to the current I

34:22

guess climate of the country.

34:24

And my dad will always tell me because

34:26

he he passed away in but

34:28

when I was coming up, he would always tell me to

34:31

go around older people and ask them what they

34:33

would do, you know, like if

34:35

they could relive their life, because that can

34:38

possibly be my be my foresight

34:40

and things that I can focus on. Um, if

34:42

you were thirty years old, what

34:45

would be your primary like driving force

34:47

and focus. Oh that's hard

34:50

because part

34:52

of our uniqueness is the time we came

34:54

up in as you you know, so it's

34:56

hard to separate those things. But

34:59

I think it would be trying

35:02

earlier. I'm not sure I at that point

35:05

had realized the

35:08

I still thought there were boundaries, if

35:10

you know what I mean. I still thought that

35:14

there was such a thing as a national boundary

35:17

that mattered as opposed to us

35:19

all living on spaceship Earth or

35:22

I I maybe didn't yet

35:24

understand that you don't learn from sameness,

35:27

you learn from difference. So

35:30

for my own security, I was maybe

35:33

too much looking for people

35:36

who shared experience as opposed

35:38

to people who had different

35:40

experiences. It took me longer

35:42

to to learn that. Well,

35:45

thank you, I wrote that down. You don't learn from sameness,

35:47

you learn from difference. This

35:50

is so amazing. One of my big takeaways glare I just

35:52

said. You know which I'm going to repeat everywhere, is

35:55

equal pay for comparable work. I've never

35:57

heard it said that way, and that is exactly

36:00

how we should talk. Yes, absolutely, because

36:02

there's such occupational segregation

36:05

um by by gender and race,

36:07

and you know, so we

36:10

we don't think about it that way,

36:13

but we should, especially when we

36:15

look at all these people in boardrooms doing

36:18

nothing or very very little.

36:23

I loved what she said about comparable work, and

36:26

I also was fascinated

36:29

when she said that she felt if she got

36:31

married, it would be the last decision she'd ever

36:33

make, which I think she was alluding to.

36:36

You know, she wouldn't be able to have her own bank account,

36:38

credit cards, work would be

36:40

different. So many laws that have changed

36:42

since then. Yeah, I think it's interesting.

36:45

I think very few of us today know

36:48

that as late as in eighteen seventies

36:50

a woman could not get a credit card aside

36:53

from one paired with her husband. Right,

36:55

like, that is not very long ago. I

36:58

also thought, I mean, the thing I loved

37:00

that Gloria said when she was talking about marriage

37:03

is that her husband wasn't the great love of her life.

37:05

That we can have many great loves. And I think

37:07

that's just it's important. It's an important

37:09

thing to say. I have to tell you so.

37:12

So my last book, as

37:14

you know, it's about work life balance. And one

37:17

of the things that always struck me is I

37:19

felt like if someone had a confidence crisis,

37:21

which is honestly an epidemic among

37:23

women across our country. If

37:26

if there is a confidence crisis, it's impossible

37:28

to teach someone how to negotiate a salary or

37:30

ask for a raise, or advocate for themselves at home.

37:33

It's all about self esteem. And when I

37:35

read her new book, actually

37:37

it's a new forward to her old book, which is

37:40

an extraordinary book that I highly recommend

37:42

everyone read called a Revolution

37:44

from within. This was like the Bible

37:47

of self esteem. It's not just

37:49

like new ag meditation, yoga,

37:52

you know, go have a bath. It was all

37:54

about like statistics

37:57

and stories and the history

37:59

of self est deem. And I can't

38:01

even express how valuable the book is, Like

38:04

I was highlighting almost every sentence.

38:07

You know, Sam, I don't think we've really

38:09

talked about this, but you know, I've struggled with

38:11

self esteem since I was a little girl. I was

38:14

teased when I was in first grade for

38:17

being overweight, and that really just kind

38:19

of spiraled me into doubting my self esteem

38:21

for decades. But I do think it is

38:23

a crisis and it's definitely a book to And that's

38:25

really hard to believe knowing you now, because

38:28

you are so confident and it's such a big part

38:30

of who you are, and I think so many women look

38:33

up to you because you exude confidence.

38:35

So what for you, Amy,

38:38

what helped you recover that

38:40

confidence? Well,

38:43

it's interesting, particularly following up with this

38:45

conversation with Gloria, because what helped me

38:47

gain confidence was becoming a mother,

38:50

because just what was really important crystallized

38:52

for me and I stopped giving a

38:54

ship about everything else, like

38:56

truly, like I don't care what people think of

38:58

me anymore, because it doesn't matter. As long

39:00

as I'm kind and I'm good to my friends

39:03

and my family and the people I love and that

39:05

I work with. Um, that's what's

39:07

important. There must be more to it

39:09

than that, like think about it. Most

39:12

the problem is amy that most women

39:14

who are listening who have become moms

39:17

didn't have that switch for them. In fact, a

39:19

lot of women when they become moms lose

39:21

their confidence. What was

39:23

it for you? There must be more than

39:26

just I treat people well? I mean what

39:28

was it? When was it that you were like

39:30

I'm a badass? Like when did that happen?

39:34

I mean, honestly, like I well, yeah,

39:37

I mean yes, it's like listen, I think the biggest

39:39

transition for me was when I

39:41

left my corporate job to start the Riveter and

39:43

I was going to start a small business and through

39:46

a series of conversations decided to raise millions

39:48

of dollars and build this national company and

39:50

realizing that like, oh, like

39:52

anybody can actually do this right, Like

39:54

you don't have to have a special degree,

39:56

you don't have to have a special set of skills, like you can

39:58

just make a run at it and you can do it.

40:01

So it sounds like you realized what you were capable

40:03

of when you started a company. But I

40:05

do. But I do go back to becoming a mother because

40:08

that was a shift for me. And it was this thing of like,

40:10

you've really got to clarify your priorities, how

40:12

you spend your mental energy, all of these

40:14

things because and part of it was that I had four kids

40:16

in four years, Like let's not lie like I

40:18

don't have space for a lot um

40:21

but and maybe I don't know, maybe there's some metapoint sam

40:23

that like once I had kids, my own mortality and what it

40:25

meant and my legacy started to mean more. So I was

40:28

just like what matters

40:30

for me? Like I was. I always

40:32

credit my confidence with having parents

40:34

who made me think I like walked on

40:36

water and could do anything.

40:39

And when I've interviewed famous

40:42

people, you know, leaders,

40:44

whoever, people who excel in their field, that

40:46

is one thing they all have in common is that they had parents

40:49

who made them feel they could be anything. And when

40:51

I read glorious book, even

40:53

though she had a lot of challenges in her

40:55

childhood me and she had a mom who struggled with

40:57

mental illness and a father who was always

41:00

on the road. They

41:02

did make her feel She even cites

41:04

the fact that they never once spanked her. They

41:06

never made her feel anything

41:09

less than she could be anything,

41:12

and they really really gave her

41:14

tons of love and confidence. And I do

41:16

think that you know, as parents, will

41:18

will trip and follow and will make so many mistakes.

41:21

But if you can give your kids that one gift,

41:23

which is making them believe in themselves,

41:26

then you've you've overcome a

41:28

lot of weaknesses. I completely

41:31

agree. Thanks

41:34

for listening to What's Her Story with Sam

41:36

and Amy. We would so appreciate

41:39

if you would leave her of you wherever you get your

41:41

podcasts, and of course connect with us on

41:43

social media at What's Her Story of podcast.

41:46

What's Her Story with Sam and Amy is powered

41:48

by my company, The Riveter at the Riveter dot

41:50

c o in Sam's company, park Place

41:53

Payments at park place payments dot

41:55

com. Thanks to our producer

41:57

Laurel Mowglin, our podcast associate

41:59

Emma Harror, and her male perspective lue

42:01

berths M