 I thought we could just start by welcoming you Elaine Haney, the new director of Emerge Vermont. Congratulations. What a great opportunity for you and what a great match with your skills. Thank you very much, Lauren Glenn. I am so excited to be starting this new position and working with an incredible array of really amazing Vermont women. So I'm very excited. And tell us a little bit about Emerge Vermont. Folks may not know that you've been doing political organizing and promoting women to candidacies, but I won't take the steam out of your explanation. Tell us a little bit about Emerge Vermont. So Emerge America and Emerge Vermont have one goal, which is to recruit more democratic women to run for office and by providing recruitment and training and a powerful network of folks who have support. And in Vermont, there are over 100 alumni of the Emerge training program and at least 48 of them are currently serving in office throughout the state and in local positions as well. And I believe in November of 2020, we had a 73% of Vermont Emerge alums who ran for office succeeded. And our three most prominent alumni are currently serving, Senate Pro Tem Becca Ballant and Speaker of the House Jill Kroinski and Lieutenant Governor Molly Gray are all Emerge Vermont alumni. So we're really proud of how far they've gotten and we have lots of women across the state who are eager to run for office and to learn the training that we have to offer. Well, that is great news. Tell us about the upcoming events. I hear there's a national event that Vermont will be part of very soon. That's right. Remember during the Democratic National Convention, there was this wonderful roll call of all the states. So we're gonna be having a roll call event featuring Secretary Hillary Clinton. She's gonna be joining Emerge President Ashanti Gholar and host the Speaker of the House of Maine, Sarah Gideon. And they will be talking with each other about important issues facing women running for office today. And then there'll be a roll call of all of the states that are chapters of Emerge. There's 26 and Vermont will be there as well. And it's on May 26th, which is not too far away, Wednesday, May 26th at 8 p.m. Eastern time. Tickets are $25 and the proceeds benefit emerge Vermont. So it's a really exciting time, not too long, not too much of a commitment, but an ability to connect with Senator Clinton, excuse me, Speaker Clinton, Secretary Clinton, and all of the women across the country who are working hard to put more women in office to make our government more representative. What are the particular issues women face in running for office that are different than men's? Well, some of it's a little anecdotal. Men tend to say, I think I wanna run for office, I'm going to do that. Women need to be asked six to seven times to run for office before they commit to doing it. Women also are more involved in other aspects of the community, such as like PTA and volunteer committees like that and don't necessarily consider higher office for them. We also have the typical response of a woman who's thinking about running for office is I don't have enough training. I'm not able to experience to run for office and what Emerge Vermont does is just gives you the toolkit to help you run a sound campaign, but also the confidence and the network to let you know that you can do it even if it's your first time dipping your toe into public service. There is no prerequisite for this kind of work other than wanting to be in service to your community. And women have a harder time also raising funds if they need to. Some offices don't necessarily require it, but the connections to networks of people who are able to donate to campaigns is a little more difficult for women. And so we build a powerful network of women to support each other throughout the entire campaign process and to give folks the confidence that they can do it. And what difference does it make that women are in political office? Women have traditionally presented the kinds of issues that are considered women's issues, childcare, healthcare, family needs, school needs, things that are not necessarily at the top of the priority list in a government that is dominated by men. Women have a more collaborative approach to lawmaking and a more inclusive approach to lawmaking. And so the perspective is very different. The ability to get the work done is very different. And I think there's a lot more bipartisanship when there's more women in the room. Have you, I don't wanna get personal, but you have been in political office and through a pretty rough period of time. I mean, you're challenging time in the history of your community, Essex and Essex Junction. Have you run into chauvinism in your time doing that work or prior? How big of a problem is it really for middle-class women? I think it depends on where you live, first of all. I think there are some more conservative communities and some less conservative communities or at least more diverse communities. I have definitely had my share of discrimination or maybe an easier word for it is microaggressions, things that you experience because you're female. I have absolutely experienced mansplaining on a regular basis. I have been held to a different standard than my male counterparts. I have had some very challenging treatment from people in the public that I don't think would occur facing a man. I've also faced some concerning behavior in terms of recruiting more women to be on boards. Quite frankly, when you are a woman with ambition and intelligence, you can be perceived as threatening and that shouldn't be. When you see men who are intelligent and ambitious and who don't suffer fools, we admire those men but we hold women to a different standard. They need to be nicer, they need to be quieter, they need to be more friendly. It's a challenge and I do see it throughout Vermont in many different ways. But I also see a lot of groundbreaking, amazing women doing work that is benefiting all of Vermont. And those are the role models that I look to and those are the kinds of people who I wanna associate with and that I think the women who go through the Emerge program wanna be like. Emerge is focused on democratic politics, building the democratic infrastructure. But as we talked about the other day, there are some other initiatives in the state to promote women of color and maybe more progressive activists. Are you, tell us about those as well. So Emerge is definitely dedicated to putting more democratic women in office but there are absolutely opportunities to collaborate with other organizations in the state who are training and helping women of color and other groups to be more represented in their government. Campaigning is a skill that everyone needs no matter who they affiliate with. And we wanna see more women in office and yes, we wanna see more democratic women in office but Vermont being such a white state we need to be hyper vigilant about making sure we are giving a hand up to our sisters of color and making sure that they are at the table with us. So just let's recap the event that's coming up the Emerge USA event on May 20th. May 26th, 8 p.m. And you can get more details at, I believe we have a link that we're gonna put up on the screen and you can purchase tickets through that link but you can also go to emergebt.org for information and we will be opening up the application for our signature training in the fall in the next several weeks. So for those women out there who are looking to get some training on campaigning the application will be open soon. And I'm really excited to get started with my first official cohort of candidates to run for office through Emerge. Well, Elaine Haney, congratulations once again on your new position leading Emerge Vermont and thanks so much for spending some time talking with us today. It's a pleasure, Lauren Glenn, thanks for having me.