 Welcome to the MIT communications forum. We have a really exciting forum for you today. We're very excited to have our speakers here. First of all my name is Christina Couch. I'm the program administrator for the forum here. We wanted to warn you please no flash photography during this event. Our event is being taped and there will be video and audio recording available on our website. Before we get started I wanted to introduce our moderator this evening. She's the associate professor of literature here at MIT. She's also assistant director of our communications forum and author of artful Dodgers Reconceiving the Golden Age of Children's Literature. Please welcome Mara Gubar. Thank you so much and thank you so much for coming. So our format today as per usual with the comm forum is very conversational. So I have some questions for the panelists and we'll talk until about six o'clock and then and either of you can feel free to chime in too at any time if you have a thought and then we'll open to the floor to your questions. We'll open the floor to your questions at six or so. Okay so first I'm gonna ask our panelists actually to introduce themselves and tell us each a little bit about who they are and their work and how their career is related to the theme of women in politics. So Marianne will you start? I'm Marianne Marsh. I'm a woman in politics. I'm a principal at the Dewey Square group which is a Democratic consulting firm. We're best known for where the preeminent firm in grassroots campaigns before grassroots was cool. We did grassroots and I also am a political analyst for and up here on the Fox News channel as a Democrat. I do WCVB here in Boston. I do WBZ Radio as well. Sky News in London and my perhaps one of my favorites the Radio New Zealand is very big and so I've done tons of campaigns for longer than I want to admit and I've worked with male and female candidates along the way and you know look forward to discussing all that with you this evening. Thank you so much and Ellen I'm Ellen Emerson-White and I make up stories about these things it's not I don't have any TV shows I don't have any pundit experience but when I was going to Tufts I wrote a book about the daughter of the first female president little realizing that many years later not that many we'd like to pretend we just won't go into the details but we still don't have one. Wow go figure so four books about the same character and a lot of research, academic depth behind it but I can't pretend to be a political expert because you know stories, jokes, entertainment and fun. The year the president's daughter came out right yeah I was a toddler of course but how old were you? Well it's gonna date me considerably but I sold I was 19 when I wrote the president's daughter I finished it when I was 20 it came out when I was yes a year later so don't do the math you're at MIT and you're probably very good at math Geraldine Ferrara got nominated two months after the book came out so it was a good tiny and everything looked very promising as far as our actual American political system and yes many years passed and yeah I saw what didn't happen. Mary Ann why do you think it's taken so long? It's a great question right I mean I think to Ellen's point I am I got an honorary degree at my alma mater two years ago and part of that speech was I never thought it would after all these years there still wouldn't have been a woman elected to the presidency inconceivable especially in you know electing Barack Obama first as an African-American president terrific great wonderful but the fact that we haven't elected a woman yet says a lot and when you look at across politics I mean women are 51 52% of the population and a fraction of Congress a fraction of the governor's a fraction of state legislatures up and down the political system there are barely any women by comparison and it's true in business as well I mean when you look at CEOs and you know sitting on boards and all that stuff that says a lot and I think there are lots of reasons for it but it's hard to ignore the fact that oftentimes less qualified men be very qualified women on both sides both as Democrats and Republicans and I think that's a lot to grapple with I think we may have the chance again to watch that sort of referendum a year from now pretty much you know in 51 and a half weeks and to see whether it feels so much longer I know it well it does and I think there are a multitude of reasons cultural I think religion still plays a lot of it into it and go across economics all of it and I think one big difference I see constantly in campaigns is when men run they only have to deal with their assets or challenges as individuals when women run for office they represent the entire gender everything good or bad in top of on top of their individual assets or deficiencies and I think that's a very big challenge and I will leave you on this note for now once again it probably came as no surprise but last night you know we had a Republican debate again you know undercard the big debate and at the end of the debate on drudge which I don't know how many people here know about the drudge report but it's a website that feeds lots of news out there and the featured thing on drudge was Hillary Clinton's hair okay and then the Google map of her hairdresser and where her salon is and what are what's going on with her hair and all this stuff and and so I feel like in this case you see that constant I've had I've had clients who have the same challenges you know Hillary Clinton nobody covered more nobody vetted more nobody challenged more and no one whose hair has been discussed more than anybody and this earth and here we are in 2015 and that's exactly what was on the front page of drudge so I think that says a lot yeah my goodness so what and it was an unkind photo but the one of the top oh my goodness Ellen do you want to do the honors yes yes my father's a retired professor he would be appalled by my lack of mentioning it 1984 Walter Mondale was not going to win the election against Ronald Reagan so Geraldine Ferrara was a congresswoman from Queens and she was nominated to be his vice president and it got pretty ugly because her father was real estate in New York which if you are from New York you know tends to be a complicated business and she was really savage they remember the press conference you're not old enough no I know I'm no yeah and it was a very it was a very strange I mean it was exciting but I don't think anyone who wasn't paying attention thought there was any chance they were gonna and when you tried to sell the president's daughter your editor told you it wasn't realistic right two years earlier they said no one's no one's gonna read this you can't possibly make it remotely plausible to have a woman running yeah yeah and the interesting thing about the books over the years as I was telling you no one has ever mentioned that she's a woman ever none of them reviewing on the conversation they criticize her as a president God knows they criticize her as a mother they never criticized her outfits because she dresses far better than I ever will but yeah it never came up that she was a woman because I've worked really hard to create the most plausible candidate with a background that I thought was electable and were you inspired by actual female politicians had you any contact in politics before what gave you the urge to write this was it a was it a feminist desire to see that in the world or like where did it come from it's better than going to class no there was nothing out there no pop culture I came there had been one movie and I am I did not see this movie because it was 1964 but I caught up with it later called kisses for my president starring Polly Bergen I was someone's nodding you saw movie and it was Pauline because she's elected president and she serves and then Fred McMurray is her husband and he gets her pregnant and she steps down because she has a baby and that's too icky to be president and that's the end of the movie it's supposed to be a happy ending and so that was the only pop culture female president when I was writing the book and there was one book Jeffrey Archer two books Jeffrey Archer had done the prodigal daughter and shall we tell the president and none of the likable president and Steve Dunne Levy had done the very first first lady where she was Machiavellian and very very scary and that book tanked but the archer book did well and that was it no I have no idea like I was going to major in political science and then drama and then English and then drop out of that you know mostly I went to movies to tell you the truth but Emred Sox games pretty much me in college Emred books okay but there was absolutely nothing out there and I had sold two other books to a New York publisher about other things and when I came to them with this idea they just we can't possibly make money on that no and it's ironic too because it's a very realistic series in many ways right you know so it's I think yeah it definitely is except for that part yeah so were you intentionally planning to write it as YA as young adult literature or no you just wrote it and then they told you it was YA how did that work I was 19 you were a young adult I was 19 so I you know the main character was a junior in high school what do you I do remember I went after the president's daughter came out did pretty well and they had me go to a speaking thing and I got there early it was very very crowded and it was a lot of women my mother's age and I was shy and I was just sitting in the corner with my coffee kind of swing in my legs and the editor came in and they're like where's the writer the writer never showed it's supposed to be starting and the editor's like um she's right there sitting there they all turn around the entire room their faces fell and they said oh you're the kids age when we thought you were the president's age we thought it would be real and then they apologized and they were nice and I gave my little talk in the whole nine yards but they were very upset that I was the age of the main character I mean the president is her mother so it's a different thing but yeah they were really hoping it had come out of the era was still in the air then I still can't believe they didn't pass the era fortunately every college kid I know right now is pretty big on feminism so I'm hoping things may maybe maybe we get another chance for that one that's interesting is that your sense too as of someone who advises candidates about younger yeah I mean I do think younger students tend to be more progressive today and you saw that in the Obama campaign you certainly see that in this campaign cycle certainly not only with Clinton but certainly with Sanders in particular I think what worries me is that I think a lot of younger students and others especially women I think take don't take seriously the real threat to things like abortion and abortion rights and a lot of other issues that I think really are at risk this election cycle and are at risk at the state level and a whole other bunch of things that at least we're old enough to remember that that wasn't always the case and I think what a lot of younger women take a lot of those things for granted and don't realize that wasn't always the way and like this could go in this election cycle and I think you also note that especially on the Republican side the disdain for Supreme Court rulings they don't like presidential you know executive orders they don't like bills that are passed that they don't like and just decide to ignore so I love the enthusiasm and progressive views of younger voters and younger students and I love the energy they bring to campaigns and we covet them all but that is one concern I have yeah I mean I wonder to I don't know my own experience teaching is that often people don't want to identify as a feminist like do you know what I mean which always puzzles me slightly and I'm wondering if this is what how we connect this to the to the question of like why has it taken so long and you know what kind of special challenges female candidates face you know so can you tell us give us some like actual like particular stories of campaigns where you saw like sexism being a factor I mean they're endless I mean I mean it's from the the most basic things to the really obvious things so let me let me I'll split them in half okay working with a candidate every time I work with a woman candidate I only do this with women right let me look at your clothes let's look at your wardrobe how do I like your hair what color is your hair should we should change your hair you know I mean it's all about appearances first and foremost because women still are judged on them much more almost exclusively to the fact that men aren't so you have whether you like it or not you have to do it because you don't want that to be an issue you want people to focus on what's being said what you're you know supporting what your positions are but you have to get by that first so you can't give voters an excuse so I mean with male candidates I mean I'll care about a tie maybe you know like what color shirt what color you know but not to the great extent right that you do with women it's it's a full-time job in that respect or making sure they have makeup and hair done and all that for debates and and all those things men do it too and you'd be and most of them do but no one pays attention to that as much and then on the other side of it there are things from male moderators at debates who ask questions that are worded in a way to a woman candidate again on abortion and others that are stunning and jaw-dropping and and yet they're insistent that this is the way it is like what do you mean well I I'd go back to for example I hate speaking of people who are no longer with us because I don't have a chance to defend themselves right but there was a debate with a former client of mine Shannon O'Brien who was you know ran for governor against Mitt Romney I'd worked with her when she ran for treasure believe it or not in Massachusetts and when she was elected she was the first woman ever elected to statewide office in Massachusetts in the night it took us to the 90s to do that wow okay now everyone thinks Massachusetts is great progressive bastion right it is not I mean Elizabeth Warren I think has helped that immensely and a lot of women have gotten elected since she won the Senate race and that was brutal but you know Tim Russert moderated a debate between Mitt Romney and Shannon O'Brien and he went after her on abortion like I cannot tell you and it was jaw-dropping and that was a turning point in that race on that exchange on that topic and I'll point to two others one both have to do with Hillary Clinton if you go back to when Hillary Clinton ran for the Senate in New York and she had a debate with Rick Lazio and there was the famous exchange when Rick Lazio went over to her with a piece of paper walked over to her she's at one podium he's at the other walks across puts this in front of her says sign this sign this sign this now I want you to sign this pledge well that was a turning point in that race because every woman who saw that said oh my god that's my husband with the credit card bill I can't believe this I mean he was it was just so unbo and that turned that race and literally every woman went and voted for Hillary Clinton for Senate fast forward to a few weeks ago and Hillary Clinton comes out and talks about gun control and how important it is and all that Bernie Sanders then says just shouting about gun control isn't enough it's not going to change it and in this case a lot of women and Hillary Clinton said why did you say shouting what is shouting have to do with it she's not shouting and she then use that line herself in several forms saying you know what when a woman when a woman shouts she's not shouting she's actually trying to get something done in saying it so even someone as progressive as Bernie Sanders here we are in 2015 you know those aren't small things people pick up on them so I think that's something worth noting yeah you hear the words shout was a gentle one shrill yeah cackle you know those are the nice ones yeah I know you know the things people say I think it's kind of ugly and but a thing that troubles me and I would throw it back on the voters is I can't even tell you how many times I've talked to someone about a female candidate for any office and have them said oh I vote for a woman just not that one right and then another woman comes along totally different absolutely different and he said well what about her and I'd vote for a woman and after one you know I'm more than one friend I've called out on this said what woman would you vote for and they all say oh Catherine Powers would vote for her okay she's imaginary she's made up what real woman on the planet would you vote for yeah I mean if I was about we're here now they wouldn't vote for her they would have plenty complaints but she would be a strident that would be the word they would give her I think and it's just the most encouraging thing to me that's happened in politics recently is in Canada they just put together a 50-50 cabinet this never happened can you imagine here if we had a 50-50 cabinet 50% women 50% men and they hit all kinds of different religious disabled business I mean he brilliant God love him he made a point of getting every Canadian represented but we've never seen that in America or even anything close to 50% how could we get closer do you think I mean I think part of it is take some of the money out of it well could help a little bit women women have always had a harder time raising money for a lot of reasons because they don't have the political contacts or the business contacts now you have super PACs and we're talking about that a little bit before we started this I think culture is a large part of it seeing women in those roles in culture whether it's in books or in movies or TV or other forums I think just electing more women helps more women get elected because women see people in those roles and I mean Elizabeth Warren winning here really opened up the lid I mean that Catherine Clark then followed her I mean we've elected a more Healy than came in as a there are a lot of women now who are finally winning in Massachusetts and across the country but it takes it takes a big effort a lot bigger than it would for anything else so I think the more women are seen in those roles the bigger difference is going to make do women candidates I feel like I'm trying to think of a happy question like do they have certain advantages as candidates as opposed to men yeah I mean when you look at polling and focus groups vote ironically which is here's the big disconnect people tend to trust women more they believe them when they say something so the anyone who runs for office the four steps you have to go through is that people have to get to know you and like you first and foremost then they have to believe what you're saying and the last piece is trust right so that's why you always hear the word trust at the end of every election do I trust that person to do what they say they're going to do so they trust women when they women say they're going to do something they believe and trust that women will actually get it done they also believe that women are more likely to work together with other people men work with women work with Democrats work with Republicans and you actually see that with the women senators in the United States Senate they all go to dinner every six weeks together Democrats and Republicans they all work on each other's bills together even if they don't agree on things they will work together Susan Collins Lisa Murkowski will work with Kirsten Gillibrand or Elizabeth Warren on things in compromise to actually get things done that's how it used to be with everybody so I think the more that those things are seen and they all support each other in these efforts and they go on book tours together and do all kinds of things together I think the more people see that the better it is but until you win that top slot until a woman gets elected president I think that will help to open up the floodgates more but it's going to be very tough to do very tough yeah well which is maybe why it's good at least we have it in fiction right at least we have Ellen giving us Catherine Vaughn powers so let me ask you a question Ellen I mean again this is to veer toward the sad right in the sense that what happens during the Vaughn presidency the Vaughn powers presidency is is a lot of traumatic stuff goes down so can you tell people who haven't read the series give them a little sense of some of the stuff that happens and just say part of it is me being a bad writer you know yes plotting I'm weak but Aaron Sorkin did it on the West Wing too you're trying to tell a bigger story but you need people to tune in so Jim Bartlett get shot she gets I mean I did it 20 years before I don't think he copied me it's just what we do and there is a kidnapping you know God forbid such a thing would ever happen in the real world but it was where I wanted to go with fiction the thing I find sort of more disturbing I'm just jumping to a slightly different topic for a sec okay because I was going over female presidents in pop culture I was watching some of the show was in the movies and just doing some research this week thinking about it almost none of them were elected on their own almost every single one of them and think about any female president you've ever seen the president dies she takes over as vice president they're not happy to have her maybe she should resign maybe she shouldn't take office she didn't actually win her husband dies she gets she inherits a seat she ends up president all kinds of in the case of the the one great in my opinion we were talking about this female president I think in pop culture has been Laura Roslin on Battlestar Galactica which you if you have not watched you really must at awesome show yes but Laura Roslin is everything you want in a president and it helps when you choose an Academy Award winning actor to play the part it's gonna be that much better but even in Laura Roslin's case they had to blow up everybody else and she's something crazy I can't remember where she is in succession she's way back I want yeah but but I can't remember the number is it like 80th or something or whatever she is she's way back but she happened to be on the ship because they were decommissioning the ship when the world blow up by the sidelines really good show so even she didn't earn it I think on 24 when Cherry Jones played that president I think she was elected an actual honest-to-god election but nope president died commander in chief yeah not a huge favorite of mine but I'd like Gina Davis but she was asked to step down and not assume office so that Donald Sutherland the speaker of the house who played it like Snidley Whiplash could take the role so why is that do you think well I think it is people have trouble imagining the reality of a woman who works her way up through the trenches and gives up a lot because you can't have it all we all know this there are things you're gonna have to give up if you do that there are sacrifices you'll make the core of my books about the female president I think she's a good mother actually I really do but her family has taken most of the blows from her I mean she starts off she's from Massachusetts she starts off in the assembly she gets a congressional seat she ends up in the Senate I think she's a one of the deputy whips when she's in Congress and then she jumps to Senate and then suddenly in the first book keeping in mind I was only 19 they want her to run because she appears to be viable they do not want her to win and she actually doesn't really want to win either it comes as a bit of a surprise to her that she actually won the election and but she does it the old fashion it is the whole thing she goes through the primary she goes through this I did it a little bit of a brokered convention because I just I did I thought it'd be more entertaining in the book I like to think that wouldn't actually happen but I was amazed when I went through pop culture that I could not find examples of in fiction in and most of the female presidents we've seen have been sitcoms there was Hail to the Chief with Patty Tuck back in the day obviously we have deep now most of the books have been science fiction and some other world you know cobalt or you know whatever so not real presidents you haven't had a lot of American ones and you really haven't had a lot in any form who ran for office and if you can't I do think you kind of need to when you watch the West Wing we see the campaign we see the primaries we see the you know we see all the steps and if that had been done with a woman you know say that was played by shocker Channing and he was the hard-working partner it would have been that would have been groundbreaking for television to watch that and we just we haven't seen it and I think America there's a little bit of a tendency if you've seen it I eat Donald Trump maybe you want to vote for it and if you haven't seen it you can't imagine it it becomes a little bit more of a imaginary story Mary Ann how did you decide did you did had were you familiar with any of these representations was that what got you interested in politics in the first place did you want to be a politician yourself how did you get into political consulting and punditry I've always loved politics I mean for as long as I can remember and I don't know how I know that but I I always did decided not to go to law school probably the best decision I ever made despite applying multiple times and getting in and deferring and all that I just I loved campaigns I still do and that's what I love the most is you know working on them and helping elect people and all that the punditry piece was total happenstance more than anything like that was not part of the plan way back at one point I think like so many people you think you're gonna run yourself someday and I'm just gonna learn how to do these campaigns I'll know how to do mine and plenty of people do that but I came to the decision that I thought I could I would be I would do a better job helping a lot of people get elected and that would be my contribution and there's nothing better than honestly working on a campaign and winning nothing better and there's nothing worse than losing and the analysis piece is just it's been that was serendipity but I do think not to I do think people who do analysis who are good are the people who've done campaigns there are a lot of people on TV now and elsewhere who are reporters or columnists or opinion writers what have you that have never worked on a campaign they cover them they think they know them but unless you work in them you don't and I've been very fortunate I think I my batting average is pretty good because I know what it takes to work on a campaign I know what it takes to win you know the different cycles of a campaign and what has to happen to be successful or not so for me having that knowledge makes me a far more accurate analyst on TV or what have you then a lot of a lot of people give their opinions and I'm on with people who give a lot of opinions but when it comes to the actual campaign and especially in a presidential year unless you've done campaigns and you know and not just a unless you've done any campaigns and a presidential campaign because they're you know they're all hard and kind of a different beast you understand them and you know what the next stages and what's coming and what needs to be done and all that even in a crazy year like this where you're watching we're all watching a race unfold that has never been seen before by anybody in modern history and may never be seen again and it's only going to get even more epically crazy over the next year given how everybody feels about it and we're you know we were talking about this before I mean when you have 24 million people 23 million people 13.5 million people watching debates in a primary with a year to go that tells you a lot that how people feel about this election how people feel about the country how the people feel about Washington how they feel about Wall Street and yes Donald Trump's a big part of that and drawing people to it but it's a lot more than that because even the Democratic for first debate there were more people who watched that than watch the very last debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in April of 2008 and at that point no one really knew which one of them was going to get the nomination it was pretty close more people have watched these debates than watch that one so that tells you a lot right there and and so even though I said I can remember saying this the crack of Don yesterday morning on a radio interview even though conventional wisdoms out the window and everything about this election is antithetical to everything else you've ever seen and you have to view it that way still knowing what campaigns do and work makes a big difference yeah and is the punditry world also uneven in terms of gender like are there way more men than women well I mean that's true of everything right so so there are more male reporters right than women there are more male bylines than women they're more on-air male talent talent than women or host shows or our analysts or on the Sunday shows so you're what you we view politics and campaigns through the largely through the eyes of men not exclusively but mostly there are more women now than there used to be but we're nowhere close to what it should be and that everyone brings to it a perspective and a viewpoint and you know I know a lot of reporters and I have great relationships with all of them and enjoy all but everyone brings the everyone brings their perspective to it and I think that's certainly one of the interesting things watching the media cover women candidates versus male candidates and including the Senate races here when Coakley was up against Brown Warren was up against Brown and a lot of what went on there and even what we're watching now so so you know journalists are I think we all try to be objective I as a Democrat on Foxy as I am critical of Democrats when they make mistakes or they make a dumb decision or whatever I will say that but I think it's hard to provide a prism into politics and into what you see without bringing your own personal views to it no matter how objective you try to be and if you accept that premise then you know there are different biases and skewing going on to watching what's going on if you only consume media and I in one last point and this drove me crazy recently Bernie Sanders had a rally here right in Boston and everyone reported that there were 16,000 people there 20,000 people there one person said 24,000 people so I actually go to these things right so I went over to the seaport and I went to get in I went into the seaport and there are three they have three about four ballrooms there in each one holds 4,000 people they only had one open the others were closed so if you were indoors that was 4,000 people there then they opened up an area by the lawn on D that too held 4,000 people how do I know that I asked the Boston police officers who were there with the clickers right and I asked the security people who worked the building because that's how you find out how many people are at these things so there were actually 8,000 people there not 16 not 20 not 24 8 and yet everybody reported 16,000 or 20,000 and so I contacted two reporters who I knew were there and I said where'd you get this number and I said we got it from the campaign I said didn't you not ask the police did you not ask the security no no no we just took the number we were given and that if you go back and look after we finish this every media outlet in the country use that number every single one so there's there's a in it I'm not beating up on the media per say but there's you have to obviously we all use it obviously I'm a small part of it but if you want to really understand what's going out on in politics go find out yourself and one of the great things about being in Massachusetts is go to New Hampshire there is nothing better than the New Hampshire primary it is the greatest thing in politics and it's not even an hour away and people there take it very seriously and they pick president so if you really want to know what's going on I mean great story quick story I do a Sunday show for Channel 5 we had Nikki Songas this morning as our guest congresswoman from Massachusetts and her husband her late husband Paul Songas ran for president she told the story this morning on the air and said that she had a Paul Songas for president button on as she's going through the tolls in New Hampshire because they were going to another place this is when he's running against Clinton they stopped gave the money this is before easy pass to the players and taking the tolls and the person taking the tolls and she goes oh do you know Paul Songas and she said yes as a matter of fact he's my husband she goes that's great I have his book I'm going to read his book before I go see him on Tuesday before I vote next week that's what everybody in New Hampshire does and that's great so go find out for yourself like don't believe me or other people go find out for yourself what's going on in the world especially in politics yeah and it's really exciting like you're saying about campaign work it's really it's got a lot of inherent drama built in that you can capitalize on as a writer too right yeah yeah so what do you think Ellen about like I'm thinking about Catherine Powers as a as a as a character and Hillary Clinton as our actual candidate do you have any thoughts about about similarities and differences they're very very different so different yeah I live in New York and I know a bunch of people who know Hillary I do not know Hillary although I've heard her skin person a number of times and they all talk about what she's actually like and that it just doesn't translate a lot of the time she never to me feels comfortable in her skin she's actually had a pretty good three weeks in my opinion but like right now she's finally getting on her game but Hillary has always been just a little uncomfortable I think it was because when she was born kind of right when everything began to change and she sort of caught between generate I mean she's been born 10 years later 20 years later I don't think she ever marries Bill but you know I think it's just a different thing Hillary just I think the Clintons are so unique to anyone else in the world you can possibly because the president I'm very about is pretty traditional political path nothing too unusual and you know I like to think she's funny and she's you know she seems more accessible to me then and you know Hillary has just always been for this particular time in our history with so much noise like I'm finding a treat at this moment I don't exactly know where my phone is I'm glad I'm not looking at anything I'm not you know turning the phone off sometimes the best thing that just ever happened to you but right now watching the Obama presidency there's a lot of noise and the noise of all kinds all day every day everyone has an opinion and just I don't think he's as good at shutting him out shutting it out Hillary has been getting this garbage for 30 years or however long it's been I just think she's a would be a very good president for these times but I think she would be capable of just going the oval office shutting the door and getting her work done leaving the rest of us alone which is kind of what I'm looking for for president you know just we want jobs we want we want not to be fighting wars there there are things we want and like a little bit of peace just not this really the last 15 years of these two presidencies there's been it was never polarized like this you know in the old days Chip O'Neill and Ron Reagan sitting together having drinks together so it didn't used to be that if you had a different opinion you were a bad person and we've gotten to this weird place where if I disagree with you I think you're evil you know it's like wow what's up with that the whole point of democracy is lively conversation leading to consensus and compromise and that's how things work and we're in this awful I don't know how we're gonna get you would need an incredibly charming and charismatic and relaxed easygoing president to get back to that I think I think we're ways away from that do we think complicit in in the in the state of affairs or or a cause a causal factor I mean I think social media has accelerated everything if you go back to first cable right which was the 24 7 we used to have news cycles now it's a never-ending hose that runs and then you throw in Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and Snapchat and everything else it's never ending never ending never and it happens all the time and news breaks you know on your phone especially in politics on Twitter all the time 24 7 and so I think that has accelerated everything and it's also amped everything up because everybody has a voice everyone always had a voice but you only had certain places that you could use your voice you could vote you know you could write a letter to the editor quaint notion you know you could do a few other things but you know I have I do Fox News every Monday morning and before I'm off the air my Twitter feed blows up usually not good but and people will find an email for me at work or whatever and I find and a lot of times they're really brutal frankly and oftentimes I reply to them and I find that the people I reply to I don't reply to everybody they're always shocked to hear from me because I think they think they're anonymous that there's no consequence to what they say or do they think they can just put it out there on Twitter or say something about you and nothing's going to be done about it and I always reply thank you very much for watching thank you for taking the time to write if there's profanity involved I asked them to write me back without it and let's have a let's have a conversation a debate or whatever and that usually works so I think that's a large part of it and I think candidates in particular if you've been around for a while are used to things being very different and not used to having an iPhone on you all the time trackers on you all the time as I said you know Google Maps showing where your hairdresser you know in Chappaqua you know where her salon is I mean all those things I think it amps everything up and it's sort of like politics on steroids and I think it's that's always a it's always a hard beast to manage and your job is to try to manage it always as a candidate as a campaign but it just it's so big now and it's so fast and I think that has also to your point hardened people's opinions so if you if you have a set of opinions you're just not open to hearing anybody else's ideas you know if you are a conservative Republican who just believes that Barack Obama Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are the anti-Christ you can't be persuaded otherwise and and and I would say the same of people on the left too so it's made that kind the ability to have a conversation difficult let alone work out deals and compromises when a lot of people on the left and right don't believe you should have them and then just one thing to your point if if you go back to the Hillary Clinton of the late 80s early 90s like when her when Bill Clinton was running for reelection as governor or when he was running for president the first time that Hillary Clinton in this environment would walk away with this race would walk away with it she was much more sharp on the ball willing to say anything challenge anybody I mean just go back and look at her like during the 92 election for example and the statement she made or being a surrogate for her husband when he was running for reelection in Arkansas that person there would be no contest right now I think what has happened over the years is when you are subjected to a beating by the media and others all these years you start to get a little care at pace yeah and yeah and but I think she's starting to hit her stride because now she's out there doing more and I think you know that's also the Jeb Bush problem is Jeb Bush is just not performing well as a candidate and you can have the best ads and the best campaigns but if your candidates not performing on the stump and when they meet people and we were talking about this earlier you know the super PAC for Jeb Bush has spent over 16 million dollars just around here lately on ads and his poll numbers have dropped not gone up used to be able to buy five points right with a TV ad or two right you put some money in New Hampshire put them in Boston that was like a good five points you can maybe get 10 now because the ads show Jeb Bush one way and yet everybody who meets Jeb Bush in New Hampshire 15 times because they pride themselves on that that's not the person they see so that the real person the reality versus the the the perception of that that's put on TV aren't the same and so when you have a candidate who just does not perform and does not connect with people you're not going to win that race because who's going to vote for somebody they don't like if you don't like somebody you're never going to get to trust them right you're never going to get through those four steps and I think that's what you see right now and if you would use that measure you can size up pretty much where everybody is in this race really interesting yeah I yeah well I think it's I wish I'm a big Elizabeth Warren fan I really like her and one thing I think she's someone I wish were running but I don't have a problem with Hillary I will be supporting Hillary but a thing that is very appealing about someone like Elizabeth Warren for these times is when she says something no matter what it is I believe her yeah I believe she is saying what she thinks I may not agree with it in her case I usually do but there's a real appeal people just you know we're all it's probably no one in this room who isn't old enough to vote maybe a couple of you are prodigies and got him when you were 15 and maybe you can't put yet but probably you can all vote so we're all grown-ups don't you just want someone to tell you the truth like don't you want someone to say wow we got into Afghanistan this big old mess and I don't know how we're gonna get out and we're gonna you know just tell you tell you the truth thing okay we passed this health care we did our best some of it doesn't work we need to go we do not need to get rid of it we just need to change a few things we need to have less narrow networks we need to do this but let's all work to get like Elizabeth Warren talks and I just think she spent years studying this she's spent countless hours probably lying on the couch in their house staring at the ceiling thinking about it and now when she speaks it I totally believe her I don't think she's jerking us around and it's we were talking about Trump because I happen to know a bunch of people I played softball for years in Central Park we went we won the city championship one year like six years ago we were very impressive and my name is spelled wrong on the trophy I'm not bitter but almost all the people work for Trump and they're all like Democrats and and mostly Latino and they love the man and you know I've heard so many good things about him you're kind of thinking okay I must adjust by mine to see that he's probably a kind man but I think part of the appeal to a guy like him is you think he's telling you what he thinks whether you agree with it whether you think it's stupid no matter what it is and in fact I think he heard himself a little inside baseball here perhaps I thought he heard himself a little in the last debate because it's starting to become clear that he now has handlers hmm and he's now he is starting to sound more like a politician and that's why I think he's his his peak and it's gonna start moving down but Mary and we disagree on that we were having a lively conversation about that before I'll talk about Warren and then Trump I mean Warren I thought her best moment was that unauthorized video in the home of I think it was Joyce Linahan where she said the you didn't build this on your own if you know we all paid for the roads we all paid for this if you have a business we contributed to your workers education everything and even she during the campaign was managed right so she dialed it back a little bit and didn't look comfortable at points especially in some of the debates where she was coached to do or not do certain things with Scott Brown but once she got into office she went back to being the Elizabeth Warren you know that I think we all know and that the most effective politicians are the people who talk like they don't care they don't care if they're gonna they don't care they're just gonna tell you what they think and that's the most refreshing thing to me because the more you do that the more people like you and most politicians and people who work for them counseled the opposite you can't say this you can't do that because voters are gonna like it right and voters are smarter than that they know they know that Elizabeth Warren when she talks she's she really believes what she says and that's what people like about Donald Trump that he's saying whether you agree with him or not offensive or not a lot of people believe in what he says it will work and that's that's why he's so appealing to so many people right now and I think Hillary's best possible move would be this is probably the last time she's gonna run because how old is she 68 yeah I mean if she wins she'll run for yeah but but she won't she won't run again if she does not win just go for it say what you think look they're so afraid to lose and to be taken out of context and to do that just if she just relaxed and went for it but I've been saying right it's so hard when there's stuff on you all the time and any little tiny thing you do it can be blown way out I mean I think this is a real pair well that's why I think it's a strength for her that she's been getting garbage from the very beginning I don't actually I don't think it hurts her feelings I don't think she actually gets like fine whatever and if she can you know the more she can say what she actually thinks what she's actually planning to do and I do think she's hitting her stride a little because if you look at I think the great example is the Benghazi hearings right the 11 hours Benghazi hearings where there couldn't have been a bigger disconnect between Hillary Clinton and what she said and the people on that panel because every single one of the Republicans on that panel absolutely positively believe everything they said and more about her and the Democrats believe the exact opposite of what they build of their Republican counterparts and and she believed otherwise and and that helped her more than anything but I assure you that all the Republicans on that panel will do very well in their reelections in their home districts because that's what the people that they represent believe and I think that's a perfect microcosm of the politics that we have right now and even though I think that was politically advantageous to her and you could see it in the polling afterwards by the way she handled it I mean they kept baiting her every for I mean everyone who questioned her even little things that I think maybe some people didn't notice like a number of the Republicans kept saying well why don't you read your notes from your staff now let me give you a moment so you can take a look at that note your staff just wrote to you or prepared for you before you answer that question and that was they they had a number of stock lines like that in an effort to diminish her demean her or try to get her to snap and if she had ever shown any anger during those 11 hours like she did the first time I assure you her poll numbers would have dropped precipitously so though if a guy did it it would have been passionate and a defense and lots of other ways to define it had she done it it would have been a debacle hey yeah oh man I think that is a moment to open things up for questions from the audience so if you have a question please just trot right down to one of the microphones and if you have to leave students who have other things to do please feel free to leave and don't feel uncomfortable so what what questions do you all have for our panelists thanks for coming I'll start people are shy about questions but think about your question this is very rich conversation so much I want to ask let me make one quick comment and then ask a question the comment is that I think one of the things that you implied Mara when you talked about these wonderful novels about a woman president is that is something really important it's almost always the case that popular culture precedes the actuality many people have said that Obama owes his election in some degree to the number of black figures of authority that began to appear in popular culture black football coaches like Tony Dunge black presidents on television programs things of that kind and of course something similar is is also the case with with with feminism and with the perspective we have on on female candidates and I'm sure that your novels are among the the the most important items that are helping to reach an audience that pays no attention to normal political discourse and that I think that's really valuable my question is this what I discern here is a Hillary bias to put it mildly how about all her negatives folks even those of us who are eager for a female president are at least some of us are incredibly unhappy that she has to be the vessel of this of this revolutionary event and it seems to me important for the panel to acknowledge in how many ways she is a compromised and in some ways less than stellar candidate and what how tragic that is in an environment in which the Republican seem intent on nominating an intolerable clown it doesn't sound like a question I guess what it really is talk about Hillary's about what's problematic about Hillary and your own reactions I want you to think more broadly Hillary is our card right now I'm a big Elizabeth Warren fan and the person I'm watching very closely although I hope it doesn't take quite that long is a Gillibrand I think Gillibrand would be a fabulous president well all the Hillary people leave in seas you know if I were making up a candidate to be our first female president would it be Hillary no not even close there are a lot of downsides she's our best shot right now she's a viable shot I would rather when I said earlier people said oh I vote for a woman just not that woman you're gonna find flaws with that you the world me everybody we're all gonna find flaws with every single female candidate who shows up and frankly I don't always agree with myself so I certainly don't always agree with everybody else I can change my mind and middle of an argument Hillary has a lot of downsides there you inspire trust well because I'm very I always tell the truth yeah but if you go back to the Clintons the Clintons just they do their Clinton thing they make us all crazy I think deep down their little hearts are in the right place as long as you give them enough trinkets you know the Clinton the Bill Clinton years were pretty awesome peace and prosperity I have to tell you they were great they were fun we haven't had that for 15 years really Hillary's what we have we could do better but how long must we wait we should have had a female president 30 years ago we have had a female president 50 years ago we should always have had 50 50 you know we haven't and if that is who we can get in and I think I like to do a pretty good job you know there will be times if she wins that she would drive me absolutely up a tree and I will be spouting on social media about her probably but she's smart she will work hard and if you've ever I've heard her speak a number of times in person and she's that rare bird who speaks extemporaneously in full pages not sentences not paragraphs full pages on any issue under the sun you're thinking wow if you were a guy she certainly won one in 2008 without even I mean she would have and is that your sense to Marianne I think I think Senator Obama would have been the vice president and then he would be running right now in a more experienced place and probably be a better president than he has been I think could be wrong I would I would just say to you the topic is women in politics tonight so there you go and I would challenge you about Bernie Sanders I would challenge you about Barack Obama I don't know okay that's the reality I mean just address what you said I appreciate your question and provocative but I think it when I listen to you and ask that question I'm hard-pressed to think you would say that about a guy period but a hard-pressed to put to make a negative argument about a candidate because there's no perfect candidate period because I don't think and so Barack Obama had shortcomings Bernie Sanders has shortcomings John Kerry who I worked for four years had shortcomings I mean let me go down the list all of them I mean you know they swift voted them okay I mean let me go down the list so I think you know so I just want to actually you and I could give you a different example if you follow New York politics at all I'm a New Yorker in our last mayoral race Christine Quinn was running she was a stellar candidate she was perfect for the job she had all the right experience all the right everything and you know what everybody said I'd vote for a woman just not that woman and you're thinking what do you want if we were drawing her up in a lab we would have created Christine Quinn to be the first female mayor of New York City and you know it's she did the profile and glamour she did everything she was supposed to do it's the other one you misunderstood my question it's not I don't want to be critical of Hillary directly although I can be when I meant by the fact that she's a compromised candidate are the obvious things first of all she's a Clinton how many times do we have to have dynasties in the country even if she was perfect in other ways that would be a tremendous negative for many people second something you people aren't acknowledging most of the people I know who really hate kill Hillary are feminists my son is my son who was my son is a very extreme feminist he believes that Andrea Dworkin is the most sensible writer about politics who ever lived and he represents he represents a radical he represents a radical extreme of feminism they hate kill Hillary because she was an apologist what they say she was an apologist for a rapist they hate Bill Clinton because he was a rape he was a rapist they feel that almost under no circumstances do they want to vote for him now I know they're a minority but they're on the left then there are all these people on the right who hate Hillary and hate the Clintons for all kinds of terrible reasons right that's all I meant by the fact that she was a compromised candidate look I will vote for her however many I vote for almost a I vote for virtually any Democrat in this environment anyway and I certainly would prefer to vote for a woman then for a man for any office for the reasons you people have made clear and that any rational person accepts what I'm saying is it seems to me a tragic dangerous situation in which in an election in which almost any not character a candidate I would say is less compromised would have a much easier time winning but and that's what I'm saying why can't we recognize that we're faced with a terrible problem here because there's so many people in the country who begin already knowing they will never vote for this person because everyone is flawed and when you run for president you have a choice between usually two sometimes three people alright so all I would say is I've heard this for years everyone can always tell me how flawed a woman is and I can tell you for a fact women are other women's worst enemies back and every woman here knows this unless you're like 18 maybe you were something but that's what happens okay and that's why we hold women to a much higher standard women do in men right and I could go down chapter and verse but I'm not going to about all the flaws of we've elected every version of a man as president of the United States okay we're about to be on 45 they've been tall short fat skinny white black Catholic as Episcopalian born again Christian recovered an alcoholic let me go down the list okay we've elected almost every version of a man almost not every single kind but pretty close and we've never ever ever elected a woman now if you wanted a better other woman should have won I agree Chris Kirsten Gillibrand phenomenal yeah but she is she has young children she will run in about eight or 12 years there are lots of women out there lose to substandard men who lose races on that so is there a perfect woman candidate no and Hillary Clinton is human like everybody else so she's just like every other candidate you know what I'm gonna leave you on this point so we can listen to somebody else I would ask you to watch this video when it comes up online and watch how you asked that question talked about it and your perception of her and then show me one male candidate you would say the same about at any level that is as compromised as that yeah I think that it's Rachel's turn to every question hi thank you guys for coming and speaking I was wondering why do you think it is that a lot of I feel like a lot of different countries and you mentioned Canada's an example have been progressive in the sense that there's a lot of women precedents and women chancellors heads of state why do you think it is particularly in America's case when like women and women's rights have been an issue across the world why is it that in America's case it you feel that's so far behind in that sense great question it's it's a great question it's staggering I think part of it is it is still okay to trash women yeah in America I wish it weren't women get hammered women in the public eye no matter who let's take it out of politics for a second Jennifer Lawrence brought millions of people into movies millions of millions of people she has what two Academy Awards three nominations but three nominations because I don't think she got it from Wintersbone she got paid considerably less than Jeremy Renner who was a walkthrough in a movie for you know forget Bradley Cooper and the others she got paid less than the supporting characters I think in America we're in this time of change where for example with the passage of gay marriage there are certain things that we're moving for and obviously things with race are moving forward and gender identity and sexual identity and things like that that people are starting to talk about and be less comfortable about it's still okay to trash women right it's still okay to say huh so okay outfit looks kind of fat doesn't she and you know I think because when you look at some of the countries that have elected women some of them are at least one is to my knowledge Liberia's a Muslim country yeah at least one is a Muslim country which you would not think would be a good okay yeah so America I like to think on a little bit of a fan of exceptionalism even though it's not proper in global times I like to think America should be a model for a world and we aren't and I'm embarrassed by it and I'd like to see us do better and I do I have any idea why we don't know but she is very right that no one is harder on women than other women I think if we're the majority of the population if we really want to put a woman in office we could do it how you treat women is how women get treated right so to your point about what it's okay to trash women you people say things about women that if you said it about someone who is gay or African-American or anything else would be a hate crime okay but it happens every single day we don't pay women as much as men in the same jobs still that is a fact and why is Jennifer Lawrence gonna get more money now because Bradley Cooper said he's not gonna do a movie with her unless she does okay I mean women's health care gets decided by men not by women let's go the basic fundamental things that women deal with every day are decided by people other than women even though women are the majority so I think whether it's questions that are asked points that are made or all that you need to put yourself in that situation and by the way on this earth for the most part you're either a man or a woman you can be an African-American woman you can be a Latino woman you can be lots of forms of women you can be lots of forms of men but somehow women always come up at the short end of the stick always even though women are the majority in this country and I think until women are paid as much are represented in Congress and political office and on seos and on boards that's not going to change but in terms of thinking through like the comparative question though right which is like why is America doing so much worse than other countries I wonder right I wonder if we could think about the history of the feminist movement in this country and what happened with the feminist movement in this country and versus those other places you know this might be a way to start thinking yeah that's true yeah I don't know it's a mystery if audience members have ideas they should the big the next book I wrote this jumps slightly but it is a similar issue is about a young woman who actually is good enough to play professional baseball boy does she get a lot of garbage wow people are not and she is good enough she's a 6-2 lefty that's what you're gonna need and a picture but you know in this last year the NCAA softball finals and the women's soccer great victories got higher ratings than the NBA finals the Stanley Cup and I forget what else not football because you know Americans I watch football do I have my Patriots hat right behind me but you know you see women making these little steps but so far behind everywhere sports Hollywood a friend of mine who is a novelist did a wonderful book called Hild if you want an intellectual version of Game of Thrones did a study recently about the percentage of women winning the major literary awards miniscule I just miniscule even the number of female main characters because most of the women who are winning the awards have male main characters or women directors there's a big women directors remember and you know I personally think even if we picked a person as our female president who not everyone's gonna love God it changes everything it's just there's a trickle down into all fields I don't care who it is I truly don't I really just want a woman in the Oval Office in charge I think one one point okay as a country founded fleeing right religious persecution a lot of religions don't have women and as priests or bishops or I mean I think you if you look at some of the more main religions that this country whether I mean the Protestant Church Episcopalian Church is better about now but a lot of this country is Roman Catholic and women just do not participate in any level of Catholicism in any leadership role and so I think that had a lot to do with it and a lot of politics there were a lot of Irish Americans and Italian Americans obviously largely Catholic politicians who ran and made politics their vocation because they were shut out of other jobs back in the day Irish need not apply go through all of that so there's a lot there's a real intersection between religion and opportunities and how women are used or are allowed to participate in religion and I think that had a lot to do with the way politics unfolded in this country I also think that a reason why a lot of times women get more grief than men and is that at some level if you can't could persuade the next generation to think of themselves as feminists if that's a tough sell right that's a big problem right I mean like now we'll we're willing to say like that's racism that's homophobia right but that's sexism is a harder thing to get people on board with sometimes I think it's been a very effective campaign especially by the right to demonize that word and a lot of young women don't want to be associated with that word exactly of the semantical demonization of the word right and I also think that a lot of young women don't understand that even women who walk out of hair in a few years will get paid less than the guy you're next to in the lab or sitting next to today and that won't change that has not changed and it won't change for some time and I think young women are idealistic like we all were and as I said you know 30 years later I did not think we would have made so little pop progress in politics shocking stunning and unacceptable so I think that's where young women in particular need to be vigilant about the hard one battles that have been waged fought in one and they haven't been enough to make sure that those things don't go back me what good is it if you have reproductive rights but there isn't a clinic in your state to go to what good is it and that's what's going on in this country systematically so I think whether it's voting rights reproductive rights pay we're talking I mean pay equality is a major battle in this country that women should get paid as much as men and the only women who are guaranteed to be paid the same as men are elected office hmm that's it nothing else you know the thing is we still haven't come up with a good answer to your question why do because nobody you know why have other countries done it but it's it's a puzzle so I hope we didn't point you but that cuz it's America should do better we just sure so we have a question over here and maybe it's already brought up a little bit but I was wondering I'm here as a visitor I'm here as an observer I'm not I cannot vote in that country I'm coming from a very small and unimportant country but our social important size but what I what I think for me it's impressive and I'm following the debates is how much religious topics come up and you always know the religious affiliation of the candidates in my country you never know that and and for me this is just something that I was wondering about and also my question connects to that what does religion do with the question of gender and politics have you already started to talk about that but I would like to hear a little bit more and also yeah if you hear it most often from male politicians and less from female politicians that they write books in religious fields and or have an active role in churches I mean it's also because I'm in Catholic church there is a hierarchy and the women are excluded of course but in my country we have more Catholics than in ever other denomination and we have in the executive committee there are in the presidential committee so we don't have a president like the United States but there are more women than men so this connection we don't I cannot make in my why do you think there are more women than men yeah but why do you think I'm just curious it's like what made what made your country say we're voting for the best candidate yeah because they they were qualified to do that job where you from Switzerland okay there you go I go back to I mean religion has always played a role in politics and it's obviously one of the big reasons why we have the United States of America I think a seminal moment in religion and politics was when Jack Kennedy was elected president of the United States he was the first Catholic to ever win the presidency Al Smith and others had tried and failed so it was such a big issue that he actually had to give a speech about it and it was the biggest speech he gave during the presidential campaign in 1960 and it was because so many people were suspicious of Catholics and thought that President Kennedy if he became president would take his orders from the Vatican and the Pope okay fast forward between 1960 and 2008 two things happened one we started to have family value voters and from Reagan forward Ralph Reed the Christian Coalition born again Christians evangelical Christians became major factors in politics it was also part of an agenda on social issues so social issues became a very conservative wedge issue especially around issues like abortion that became major major issues in every presidential campaign and US Senate races in particular as well to try to elect Republicans not Democrats and to that then that evolved to gay rights and that was used as a wedge issue in the presidential campaign in 2004 go to 2008 and Barack Obama Barack Obama belonged to church with a guy named Reverend Wright Jeremiah Wright very controversial they pulled a lot of his speeches and and sermons that he gave and Barack Obama was forced to give a speech in Philadelphia about his religion about Jeremiah Wright and about the things he said in his beliefs and that was probably as important a speech as any that Barack Obama gave during that presidential campaign and had he not hit it out of the park on substance and style you could argue he might not have been the nominee so people have used religion in the United States in politics not as much for good as for getting elected and I think oftentimes what you find is many of the people who use religion as part of their platform and a cudgel of sorts oftentimes don't live up to it and that's when people are practicing the politics of hypocrisy but make no mistake about it many political the political use of religion has certainly more than anything been used to keep women behind and women are the ones who paid the price for that more than anything not only by not getting elected but by having legislation and bills passed that hurt them and I again on social issues in particular so that's the sad truth about all of this what you would like to believe going forward is now that we've made progress went in still not enough on civil rights which we still need to do much better on gay rights which we still need to do much better on I think people have lost sight of women's rights and when you I will leave you on this note in this country the fact is not only are women the majority the vast majority of women in this country support themselves or their family alone because they're either divorced single parents or they outlive their spouse or partner so at some point in this country every woman supports themselves and somebody else and so they rely on their paycheck period women make at least 250 thousand dollars less per person in their lifetime because they get paid less and they take time out to have kids so whether it and there's no paid leave by the way here so they take time out to have kids unlike in other countries unlike other countries and they lose time in the workforce they lose paychecks in the process they don't get promoted and they don't get paid like their co-workers so when you look at women's rights in this country they are everybody's issues there are family issues and everything else because it's women who ultimately end up supporting their kids supporting their families supporting themselves and oftentimes elderly parents on their one paycheck well yes hi thank you very much for this amazing conversation I have a question about I want to go back to the issue of feminism and how to think about the history of feminism and things like that so the question that I have is to what extent the women in politics not only Hillary Clinton but other women are feminists or recognize feminism as something that they should owe to to their position and things like that because the history of feminism in this country is very interesting because it didn't go into the organized state political institutions it remained it remains it seems to be outside it's like grassroot movement and it sees itself as outside of the state broadly defined whereas in places like Norway as a political scientist some political scientists argue feminist political scientists argues that the success of feminism and the success that brought more women to the parliament was directly due to the fact that the feminist movement grassroot movement spilled into the the institutions institutions of the state so I'm just wondering the extent I think it's a dream to have the grassroot movement that wants to be outside of the state because something that is outside of the state seen as very free and not being constrained by anything if there is a way to kind of a broaden it and and sort of utilize the platforms that women in politics have with the ideas and other aspects of women women's movements that remains vibrant and yet still outside of the political the organized politics we talked about the era yeah earlier which is a great example when the era came around and they would read the text of the era to people and I should feel maybe you can recite it I can't anymore but I can't remember the exact wording but essentially it said women should not be treated differently by virtue of sex right let's just sum it up that when they read that statement to people vast majority of the country said of course when they said do you support the era no no the area is bad no no of feminists other hate men or you know whatever and then you know the dumb everyone's walking around with t-shirts that say women need men like fish need bicycles and whatever it just got so ugly and unfortunate and you know I don't hang out with men who don't respect women because I don't want to because if you don't respect you know to me if you don't respect women you're probably mean to your dog too and probably mean to your anyone from a different religion anyone from a different race anyone with a different you know my sister she doesn't like these divisive times she finds them very very stressful and the things she keeps saying is very simplistic but she's very bright she was valedictorian at Williams I'm not saying she's not but she's why can't people just be nice to each other it's not that hard and the baffling thing about feminism to me is why can't you know a lot of you I assume are engineers we're studying some kind of science if you do it well I want to identify you say one of you was I okay I was a friend of mine who was studying at grad school in Columbia he's developing this 3d printing thing to try to create a new retina I don't know if that can work but it's his research thing and whatever do we want to remember that he happens to be Chinese is this the relevant point do we have to remember that he's male no I think the retina is the cool point I don't care you know and there's this thing in America where we like to put people in boxes and you know I don't want you to identify me by a litmus chest or my demographic I want you say oh there's Ellen now you can say I like Ellen I don't like Ellen but I don't want you to say oh she's a woman she lives in New York she you know I don't want you to pull me down to tiny little details in America we're so busy categorizing instead of just saying there is a person and I think that's part of what feminism got so caught up in just turmoil and stress and angst and the fellas didn't like it much I gotta say and that that really hasn't helped I mean now I think what I talked to people who are 17 18 guys seem to be much nicer and much less good like it doesn't seem to be coming up in the way that it did and so I think progress is being made but yeah I mean so the era is equal rights amendment the most difficult political thing to do in this country is to amend the Constitution nearly impossible but people felt in the feminist movement in particular felt that was the way to go right to try to amend the the Constitution the United States to ensure that women would be treated equally as men that couldn't even get it enough signatures in each state to get the Constitution amended so and that that that effort was going on through the late 80s and still failed there is talk again of trying to resurrect it so to go back to your point earlier one electing more women is going to help that and having more women in government in in elected office because that's power okay I mean I would say that about businesses and everything else first and foremost but the the economic argument I made just before you asked your question is the way it's really being spoken about now because those are the facts and I think the more people argue the economics of it and then pass laws and legislation to ensure pay equity to ensure paid leave because those are family issues not necessarily just female issues then that's more likely to be successful I mean disheartening to have this conversation in 2015 depressing but that's politically that's probably what has to happen and just having more women in Congress more women in the United States Senate and hopefully a woman in the White House at some point soon I'm very curious to see what happens in 10 or 20 years because all the numbers are saying they're now more significantly more women in college than men what's gonna happen because if you have more women than men getting the graduate degrees and becoming the doctor I mean just more I would have to assume but there are you know having the running Wall Street running this running that not that they're gonna get rid of men because of course they aren't but I realize that could be coming out wrong but we could move more towards parody yeah I also think it's really interesting to think about the history of which issues got pegged as women's issues and got a lot of energy around them politically and while I am a big believer in women's right reproductive rights and all these things I think in a lot of ways the fact that abortion became the issue was incredibly polarizing and that unfortunately like I feel like obviously the economics one is a much more winning proposition right it's hard to deny do you know I'm saying like yes so I feel like it's also interesting to look back at the history and see what got traction when and how that you know contributed I feel like totally understand what you're saying yeah I think a lot of women in particular I mean tell me one procedure a guy has that they have to go to Congress about no I know you know I'm right there with I'm just saying okay and I think that and so I think many women thought if I can't decide what I am going to do right from head to toe then that's pretty basic and yet that's the debate we're still having I know yeah I know I don't deny it but I think it was I think it was problematic politically in terms of other things not getting done because of the right without that fact right yeah hi thank you guys so much for coming it's been really fun I have two questions and they're sort of related and they're kind of more on the representation angle of this presentation one is I'd love to get your comments on thoughts about quotas for women in government I know some governments around the world are experimenting with that and curious what you think about that and then on another slightly different angle I write a lot about representation of girls and women in toys and books at for young kids so I'm really appreciative of what you've been doing on that and actually I'm a former baseball player myself so I'm gonna have to read that book that you did so I'm curious if you talk about your thoughts on whether things are getting better in terms of specifically political realm of seeing girls in positions whether they're like the lead character you know whether they're shown in toys I you know I do a lot with talking about girls in the STEM fields but I'm curious if you talk a little bit about your experiences and your you know perceptions of whether things are getting better staying the same getting worse in the last 10 20 years well Gina Davis has her I'm sure you're yeah she's doing her big media project which she came to I think mostly after a league of their own I think she became very concerned and she's and I guess she had small children and she looked at movies and television realized there are no little girls in any of these scenes or there's one little girl in the back it's all little boys doing the things and she got Hollywood to start Disney start throwing in little girls so that it could look more like the actual world looks which would and it's sort of shocking that that would be considered progress but it is and I think toys now you can accept it I think it just came up with the Marvel movies that there are no toys of Black Widow doing anything interesting I think Black Widow comes with outfits and Captain America and the others come with hammers and things and so that's kind of depressing I'm sure your research focuses quite a lot on that kind of thing well there's also like the book Cinderella ate my daughter right which is a really amazing book if you haven't read it I really love it and one of the things that she talks about is that the Disney princess thing is a pretty recent phenomenon and that it actually got worse in terms of how women and girls were depicted in the 80s and 90s which is kind of interesting right that in fact we had been making progress thanks to feminism and then all of a sudden we came to this cultural moment where we started going backwards on these things and it was nice to see Target saying that they were going to stop doing the gender you know because I think people are starting to really push back against how pink and blue our culture is thanks to you know Peggy Ornstein and thanks to other people drawing attention to this so hopefully we're going to try and retrench and get better again but it's interesting that we had that getting better getting better getting better and then like going backwards I mean I would point to two things one South by Southwest the hip cool going on in Austin right and the gamers and the bullying of women gamers yeah absurd and yet their answer to that was to just drop the panel both of them and it wasn't till Catherine Clark the congresswoman from here who called them out on it and recode and a bunch of other folks started boycotting South by Southwest so this is South by Southwest right the hip cool happening everybody kills themselves to go there because you're supposed to be seen cutting-edge technology design art culture politics music all of it can't deal with the fact that women gamers get bullied and I mean savaged to the point where they feel that their their lives are threatened and their answer was to drop the two segments until a woman congressman from Massachusetts challenged them on it so that's depressing on a slightly cheerier though although I'll hijack you a little bit here but I maybe play a couple of war games online maybe kind of actively and in one of the war games I've been playing for about seven years and whenever I show up online they're like have me aren't working on your damn book and like oh yeah good point but the interesting thing I play a very aggressive war game called king of the world where people are out for blood and there can be some ugly male females so oddly enough that I've been in the two most we're the number one alliance right now and I used to be the other number one alliance and other play the male players started noticing both these alliances were totally female dominated in the leadership the soldiers for mostly men the leaders the commanders were almost all women and we are the two because I jumped from hitmen to bounty hunters we were the two top alliances in the game and because a lot of smart people play this game and it's a very social game actually and people from all over the world playing there's a lot of talk about isn't this interesting that the women are like the fierce leaders of the game and we never see this and language started and people started behaving better when they suddenly realize oh hey they're running they're running the game here they're dominating this and you know in my alliance because three women are the top players in the alliance and we have two guys on our admins as well but look there's language you can't use in our thread because we don't like it and the guys are very nice about it every now and then one of them will use a questionable word and then when I actually say Ellen June Teresa is this okay did I go too far and you know because but there is all kinds of the other game I play is much more anonymous and a couple of times there's a lot of attacking I got attacked by a player and he was the player was ranked much higher and so I just sent a polite note saying you know is this really kosher for you to attack a newbie and he was really rude to me and I wrote back to him he's somewhere in England I said you know I'm a woman I'm rather offended by what you just wrote is it oh and I thought he was very nice about it but I thought that's terrible that he would treat anyone that way and then this chivalry kicked him which isn't quite what we're looking for I think we're looking for quality not chivalry but it's just my experience in games it's just because I don't have any research knowledge I don't have any theoretical knowledge I just play the games and it's been a you know a very strange experience also I've done female sports report of photography and guys actually doing this we had an event recently where the Yankees were coming it was autistic children like okay the anchors coming Andrew Miller is going to be the big guy well of course it was anywhere out of showed up suddenly male reporters came from everywhere and actually started hitting me physically hit I'm standing there with the camera and knocking me down this and I'm thinking wow this is a strange world we live in that these guys think it's okay to come and physically knock me down of course I jumped in front of them you know I said hey autistic children leave me alone but it's a very strange phenomenon of this interaction within game and sport and I just before you know I just would add one thing I think it's much easier for everybody and everything when you see people like you in positions and things that you want to do right so whether it's in pop culture or books or TV or movies or sports or politics if you see somebody like you it's easier to imagine that you could be that person did madam currie lead to a bunch of female scientists it predates pretty much everyone in the room but wouldn't you think it would have it I thought it might be someone would be able to jump right in with the answer on that but if we have the agent but if we have the equivalent right now I just came from a meeting and given that Hillary will be the Democratic candidate two running mates were suggested that I just wonder your thoughts on one was Elizabeth Warren one was Deval Patrick discuss for her for advice president yeah if she were on the ticket for president you know you'd like to think that two women could be on the ticket at the same time but that would just be so mind-bendingly exploding but Bill Clinton obviously did something similar when he picked Al Gore to Southerners right and they thought you couldn't elect two people from the south I mean I've certainly heard both those names right but I've also heard Julian Castro maybe Tim Kane Virginia somebody like that so I think the question is in the general election no one votes for vice president right you vote for who president is but oftentimes people pick a vice president to address either political or demographic issue they're trying to gap so Obama picking Joe Biden was smart no matter whatever Joe Biden has said or done over the years it was smart politics for him right white Irish Catholic you know blue collar background all those things very helpful especially at that point in the campaign when he picked them I think all of them would be great I mean it I think whether it's Elizabeth Warren or you know Deval Patrick I put I don't think I put Deval Patrick in the same no I put Elizabeth Warren first I would if I were gonna try to hit that I'd go with Cory Boecker myself you know I think Tim Kane things like that there there'll be a lot of options Castro is obvious for obvious reasons Latino trying to get Latino votes I actually think Elizabeth Warren would pull in a shocking number of votes even though people don't vote for vice president she speaks to people right now like she's the right person for the times I don't know if I were here it's such a weird year but I would probably roll the dice and if Elizabeth would say yes but I'm not sure she would I'd probably go for it because Tim Kane is the sensible pick but I don't know it would be a traditional yeah that would be the there would be the obvious pick I mean I'm not sure Elizabeth Warren doesn't bring a state with her that you aren't already going to get your but you just get this sense of the plain speaking plain talking it's what's drawing people to Bernie in a passionate way because he's shooting from the hip and she should you know I think a fire Hillary I would roll the dice and totally take Elizabeth Warren if she could say yes and I would give her an Al Gore level of power you know I'd say here are some your income inequality there you go that's yours you know I would do that would it be smart politics it'll be very very risky it would be entertaining it would be exciting I'm not sure what would work but personally I think it would be brave and bold and really interesting so Ellen can I ask you has all this an actual female candidate as a final question is this leading you to want to expand the president's daughter series well you are you know I'm probably writing a sequel are you okay good but if any of you have read the book there's a different main character and it would be late in the second term fabulous so we can all look forward to that yeah it's not imminent but it's excellent it would be gaming too much I know I always get caught yeah they always nail mason what are you doing you shouldn't be playing the game any final questions from you are we ready no that would be the end of the world as we know I would judge her as I would judge any candidate in that I think before you run to for president you ought to have held office it's a pretty low bar I think the Republican nominee likely is somebody who's not held office and if it is someone's held office I think she's not an unlikely VP pick if her numbers hold up so Mary and you really think Trump could get the nomination I do you do yeah I have for about two months now what and can you say why so I think people have vastly underestimated him and vastly underestimated how angry people are in this country about Washington and Wall Street in particular and again I don't agree with much if any of what he says but I understand what he says and why people find it appealing and every time I was on TV and everyone I was on with including Republican said oh my god did you hear what he said that's gonna cost him 10 points he went up 10 points right so he he's much savvier than people are giving him credit for number one number two when you look at the polling everybody who supports him are with him period of sentence they're not looking at anybody else whereas when you look at Ben Carson right I understand his appeal especially in Iowa his book and his it's been part of homeschooler curriculum curriculum for 20 years homeschoolers are huge in Iowa as are evangelical Christians so I understand his appeal and why he's doing well but his about a third of his support his supporters say you know what we I could vote for somebody else too so his supports more soft and then if you look at every time Trump has gone after another opponent you know Jeb Bush I mean he smelled blood in the water Jeb Bush and he started calling him low energy and he has a very strategic savvy way of getting the weakest point of his opponent and going after it and tipping him over and that was if you watch that's when Jeb really started to tank right he's gone after Marco Rubio he's gone after Carson he doesn't want to knock out Carson he wants to knock him down a little bit because if he knocks him out up comes Ted Cruz and Ted Cruz is the guy sitting there like a shark in the water waiting for Trump and Carson to just collapse which I don't think they are but he's just trying to you know he's the shark looking for the chum and he wants them to do it and he's running out of time so I'm if Trump wins Iowa in New Hampshire he runs the table he's the nominee period and no one's gonna stop him you won't you can't no one can stop him and and and I had said I'm shocked I'm like sitting here shocked yeah well it's very interesting but it's but it's too horrible to be but relevant to our conversation on March 1st that one of the things that he does that's horrible is sexism and as we've already discussed this is one of them for one of the free areas of American culture like you can get away with it and also I think I was very struck watching the Democratic debates that Bernie Sanders has put incoming inequality on the table in a way that was is so unprecedented I feel like in the last couple election cycles and you're sort of saying that Trump is kind of banking on that same level of anger about inequality right right yeah I mean this is the Republican primary process so you know women are can be collateral damage I mean I did a segment of Fox a week ago Monday and it was about Carly Fiorina in the view and how the girl the women on the view criticized her appearance and her face and we're very they were terrible about it right so I I'm not I'm I was very critical of the women on the view however I did take the opportunity to remind everybody about what Carly Fiorina said about Barbara Boxer when she ran against her in her appearance when she ran against her in the Senate race you know five years ago and lost to her so women are other women's worst enemies right and you know you can't be hypocrite too so there's a lot of that going on I but I what you're seeing with Trump again people he's very shrewd he's now bringing his wife with him to the debates before it was his daughter who's he's featured in many things out in events his two sons accompanied him yesterday to New Hampshire I mean he's very methodically and systematically rolling out his family all these big events he's been doing everybody's like oh he's just doing big rallies yeah he is and you know what he's getting nomination paper signatures so he's on every ballot in every state in Texas in Alabama look at the places he's done rallies they've got their nomination signatures he's got a real organization and he has spent the least amount of money in the campaign and on TV of anybody yet he's a front-runner so I think again it's very easy to sit there and say oh he's run a very smart smart campaign and you may disagree with everything that comes out of his mouth but a lot of people in this country agree with him yeah wow I hate that to be the final note of our conversation but I think but I feel 20 20 percent or 25 percent when do you every contest in a 10-person race right now and in March it's winner take all I'm not talking I'm talking about the nomination it'll be if it's Clinton Trump it'll be a celebrity death match pay-per-view and closer than give us a prediction do I think that well if it is I think she wins but I think it is an epic brawl see you're giving me a better way to end okay thank you thank you very much and thank you audience for coming