 William G. McGowan Theatre. I'm Debra Wall. I'm the Deputy Archivist of the United States, and I'm pleased you could join us for tonight's program, whether you're here in the theater or joining us on Facebook or YouTube. I need my glasses. Tonight's conversation is one of many programs we've developed to tie into our new exhibit in the Lawrence F. O'Brien Gallery, rightfully hers, American Women and the Vote. We're pleased to be presenting this program in partnership with the U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress, and we thank them for their support. Before we get started, I'd like to tell you about two other programs coming up soon in this theater. Next Thursday, June 20th at noon, Senator Mike Lee will be here talking about his book, Our Lost Declaration, America's Fight Against Tyranny from King George to the Deep State. And on Tuesday, June 25th at 7 p.m., we'll show the documentary film The Apollo, which debuts this fall on HBO and chronicles the unique history and contemporary legacy of the New York City landmark theater. Our new exhibit, rightfully hers, is the cornerstone of our centennial celebration of the 19th Amendment, which prohibits states and the federal government from denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States on the basis of sex. Although ratification came in August 1920, it was 100 years ago this month that Congress passed the resolution proposing the amendment and set it on the path toward ratification. The decades-long fight for the vote prepared women for the next logical step, election to office themselves. We're familiar with Jeanette Rankin, the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress before the 19th Amendment. Rightfully hers also introduces us to Mary T. Norton of New Jersey, who in 1924 became the first Democratic woman elected to Congress without being preceded by her husband. Since that time, however, the number of women in elected office at all levels of government has been slow to grow. Tonight, we'll hear a discussion about the factors that contribute to the large gap between men and women serving in Congress. To get us started, it's my pleasure to welcome Peter M. Wycline to the stage. Since 2003, he has served as the chief executive officer of the U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress, which celebrates bipartisanship, a collaborative approach to legislating, and reconnect citizens with the representative governments. He plans and directs all policies, objectives, and initiatives for the association and serves as its spokesperson to the public, the media, and Congress. Mr. Wycline holds two BAs from Penn State. He attended law school at Fry University in Berlin, Germany, and completed his legal studies in Washington, D.C. at the Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Peter Wycline. Thank you, Deborah, for that kind introduction. And thank you also to the National Archives for the many, many years of great partnership that FMC has enjoyed with you. It's always great to be back here. Thank you. FMC is a premier nonprofit focused on Congress involving former members of Congress as well as current members of Congress in our work on a completely bipartisan basis. Domestically, our main focus is civic education, while our international work consists mainly of creating legislative exchanges for current members of Congress and their peers in Parliament overseas. In addition, we engage in democracy building and democracy strengthening projects, for example, by feeling election monitoring teams across the globe. We also seek to showcase good governance by bringing Democrats and Republicans together for an issue-specific debate that is productive, pragmatic, and respectful. And we aim to reconnect citizens with their representative government by offering panel discussions on topics ranging from money in politics to properly taking care of our veterans. Many of these conversations with the public take place right here at the National Archives, and tonight clearly is a good example of that aspect of our work. I hope you'll take a couple minutes and learn more about the former members of Congress at USAFMC.org. I do realize that on the topic of challenges faced by a female candidate for office, I am the least qualified speaker you'll hear from tonight, and I therefore will wrap this up as quickly as possible. Suffice it to say that as a father of three daughters, I am incredibly appreciative of the trail blazes you're about to hear from tonight. They have each stood up to challenges that go well beyond simply running for office. They have each been told numerous times that they had no business being in politics, and they have each nevertheless persisted to quote Mitch McConnell. Therefore, please help me welcome an outstanding panel and please hold your applause until they have joined me here on stage. First, Barbara Comstock, a former Republican representative from across the river in Virginia's 10th District. We're also thrilled to be joined by Ann Lewis, who served as White House Director of Communications in the Clinton Administration, and Connie Morella, who after representing Maryland's 8th District for 16 years served as U.S. Ambassador to the OECD from 2003 until 2007. Next, Donna Edwards, a former Democratic representative from across the bridge in Maryland's 4th District. And last, but certainly not least, our moderator, Alexandra Petri, Washington Post Colonist, as well as a playwright, a Jeopardy finalist, and a stand-up comedian. Let's please give them all a round of applause as they join me on stage. So thrilling to be here this evening with such a distinguished array of panelists and a place like the National Archives, which is so steeped in history. I thought it would be fun to start by thinking back. And these wonderful women were all kind enough to send me a long list of the things they're excited to talk about. So I've been trying to cull that together into a few things we can manage in the time that we have. And so I thought it might be fun to start out by looking at how things have changed in the landscape that women face since the days of Jeanette Rankin coming to the present. So can you all speak from your own experience? And I know, Connie, you were especially excited to maybe discuss this. Well, it's because I'm the oldest here, I think. Well, yeah, actually, and some of you may have heard about it from your grandmothers, the fact that when I got involved with politics, it was the women's movement that put the movement into me. And that was back in the seven days, we had a commission for women in Montgomery County, Maryland. And we looked to the Equal Rights Amendment, getting the authorization from the state legislature for it to become part of our constitution. So we took a look at the status of women in our state and, of course, in the country. And at that time, let's say 1972, if I wanted a credit card, I had to have a mail sign for me. And, you know, very often, if you wanted a job and you were during a period of an age where you might be pregnant, you could say you had to sign an affidavit that if you did become pregnant, you would lose your job and you would lose your health benefits and everything that accrued to that. And educate. So it goes all the way. I guess what I would say is that as we look to the fact that we have a heck of a long way to go still, we have made progress. And it was the Equal Credit Act in 1974 that changed that. We had Roe versus Wade coming at that time. We had the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. So that's just the beginning. So I guess, Alexander, in terms of where we've been, we were in really dire circumstances. And we have made some progress since then. I could go on and talk about what the progress is, but that a lot more needs to be done. And I guess I will end my comments by quoting Abigail Adams when she wrote to John during 1776. And she said, John, remember the ladies, if you don't, they will foment such a quiet revolution as will not be undone. And I think that revolution is now. And I think it is continuing. And and I know you're a historian a bit of, yeah, but yes, I was thinking, just you said, you kind of think about how much has changed fairly recently, right? I went to work for Barbara Mikulski on the Hill. Barbara Mikulski gets elected to the House in 1976. In 1986, she gets elected to the Senate. Now, 1986, trust me for the young people here is really not that far away. And yet when Barbara Mikulski gets elected, she doubles the number of women in the Senate. You know, when your number is low, it's easy to make big dramatic changes, right? She is the first Democratic woman to get elected in her own right to the United States Senate. And so we have seen in the last 30 years just stunning change. It's easy to sort of say, well, of course, there are women in the Senate in the House. I mean, there are women in the country, right? We are a democracy. But think how much has changed how quickly. Two more examples, Barbara Mikulski as a member of the House in her second term gets elected to the Health Subcommittee. Now, you might not think this is much. She is the first woman ever to serve on the Health Subcommittee of the Congress. So I'm sitting there thinking, I think we've just done 200 plus years, right? Never had a woman making health policy at that level. So again, think of the changes these women have made. And Connie is a great example. And I know when Barbara and Connie work together, I remember that. Donnie, you remember the office of research on women's health. You're saying the office of research on women's health. Barbara Mikulski as a member of the House works with a number of other women in the Congress. And there is no office of research on women's health. And in fact, NIH, National Institute of Health, right? Wonderful people. These are good guys. These are guys who choose to be public health doctors. There are a lot of other ways they could have used their medical degree. They go into public health. And yet they were not using women in their research. Even I am told, I don't know if it's for a fact, even I am told for breast cancer they used male rats. I believe this is true. It was simpler, they thought. We don't have to get into that name work because we are beyond that. But a bipartisan group of women house members went over to NIH and had a meeting. And they had a conversation which I believe was a very educational conversation. And at the end of that educational conversation, we now have the women's office of women's health. So yes, so much has changed in really remarkably short time when you look at it that way. And the impact, and that's what I want you all to think about. Think of the difference those women have made because they did choose to step forward and to run. They did take on being a candidate and getting elected. And once they got there, remembering why they were there, and who they represented. The Office of Research on Women's Health was a great example of bicameral, bipartisan work. On the Senate, we had Barbara Mikulski and Olympia Snow. On the House, we had Pat Schroeder and myself. And then when the directors had said, oh, yes, we will begin to make some changes, we thought the way to do it is to go to the law. So when the NIH revitalization Act came up, we made sure that they put into it that there will be a permanent Office of Research on Women's Health. And that points out the fact that you have male genes and you have female genes. I've heard that. But you don't have Democratic genes and Republican genes. And so the need to work together is there. And when Barbara was elected, she was there with Nancy Kasbaum. And that was when I was elected to the House. So yes, that's when there were two women in the Senate. Well, I think maybe stepping back more broadly, I think one of the things that's fascinating about this whole question of sort of the hurdles faced by women is there's real hurdles and then there's the hurdles that people sort of imagine that women will suddenly will be overcome by emotion and will be unable to govern or legislate or whatever the case may be. And the questions that you get asked tend to be sort of different questions. I was wondering if you all had examples that you remembered at the time you got a question that you thought this isn't at all relevant. And I was asked so many questions. I mean, I ran in Maryland, and I'm fairly fortunate, because I live in Maryland, you've heard. The first woman I ever voted for, I lived in Silver Spring, was Conor Morella. And then the second woman I ever voted for because she ran for the Senate was Barbara Mikulski. And then when I ran for for Congress in 2006 at first, it was the first time a black woman had ever, when I won in 2008 had ever been elected to Congress from Maryland. Yes, the home of Harriet Tubman, but we'd never had a black woman in the Congress. And all the time on the campaign trail, I would be asked the most ridiculous questions. My son was in high school. How are you going to make sure that he, you know, gets to his basketball games and graduates on time if you're running for Congress? Well, you know, lots of people work and do that too. And the men, you know, have sons and daughters graduating from high school as well. I was asked ridiculous questions like, you know, how can you be you have to dress the part of a member of Congress? And, you know, why are you wearing dangling earrings? Well, thank you, Connie. And now I just wear dangling earrings all the time. So really ridiculous things that have nothing, absolutely nothing to do with the ability to legislate or govern. Incidentally, before she even came to Congress, she was involved with domestic violence. And when she came to college, she to Congress, she continued to be involved and be a real leader. And I always appreciated that, Donna. Well, I think it's important to remind everyone and talk about the history, how few women in history have ever been elected. And so I had done the numbers because I was up at Harvard the semester, so I was going through all this. And it really is stunning. When you think about it, there's been almost 11,000 people who have served in Congress over our history. And only 325 women have been elected to serve in the House, the whole history. And two thirds of those have been since 1992, one half since 1998. And only 56 women elected to the Senate. And I should point out the 325, only 98 are Republican to whatever they're to 227, not include some of the delegates to not just members of Congress. So the numbers are still really small. I know I ran into Nancy Johnson and Connie one day and I said, do you realize we're more than 3% of the Republican women who've ever been elected in history to Congress? And there are still so many firsts that you all can do because it is there's only been 40 women in the Senate, entirely 25 Democrats, 15 Republican. So there's been one woman elected Maryland in the Senate, none in Virginia. No governor in Maryland yet, right? None in Virginia. And that goes around the country in Vermont. They've had governors, but Bernie Sanders and Leahy have been there forever, never about a woman senators. If you're from Vermont, you could be the first. And when you start looking at the first, you know, the first African American, first Indian American, Nikki Haley was the first Indian American governor in the country. So you have a lot of firsts that are still out there that you all can be. I was the first woman to be elected in my seat in Congress. And I'd always been held by a man. So when you look at this and you realize that it really does kind of make you think, wow, let's get more people involved. And I know I started a young woman's leadership program for that very purpose. Because when I was in Congress working, I was a staffer for 10 years, then I was in the administration, I actually never thought about running. And Connie Morella was there. I guess she didn't make it look real easy, because she was, but she was so amazing. She was such a great role model. But I never thought of doing it. And one of the reasons I didn't is because my husband's a teacher, and I was the main breadwinner. So when I thought about doing and thinking, well, how do you do this? If it's a full time job, right? And then how do you do it? If you have to give you know, because you basically have to be full time. So I sort of backed into it by running for the State House first, where you can actually be part time, you're part time in a lot of the states. So you can still keep your income going. And then you run in the state. But there are a lot of still first there to go. And, and really, in history, there's still a lot that we haven't had a female ways of means chairman, we probably haven't had a female chairman of a lot of committees in the Senate. And even cabinet members, there hasn't been a woman Defense Secretary yet, I guess we haven't had things like that. And of course, a woman President. So and when you look at this year, and the presidential front, isn't it ironic that after all the talk we have of this, we have three 70 year old guys leading on both sides. So art on my side, and Democrats side. So I think the thing is you have to be 70 have kind of crazy hair and have some sexual harassment problems. So isn't this but Barbara's gone all the way remembering when she she was so great on the government reform and oversight committee. And then she went on to the state legislature and then the federal legislature and then Harvard. Yeah. So again, we're proud of you. And when you talk about things that dumb things people said, I was actually pretty fortunate. I had I actually was recruited by a man who thought I was the speaker of the House in Virginia who thought I had made the decision to run and he announced to a full room that I was running before I had made the decision. So everyone clapped and I sort of thought, well, okay, maybe I'll do it. So I really it was that sort of accidental. But you know, I I really, you know, it had been so challenging there. But when I ran for so I was at five years in the State House. And so then when my former boss Congress and welfare had worked with Connie, so well, when he retired, I decided, Okay, I am going to run for this one and jumped in myself. But my opponent, who was a man usually my delegate opponents have been women. So when my opponent who was a man, he said, Well, she's never had a real job. That was never happened. I showed this ad to some students who had up at Harvard. And just look at this. You said, You know, first of all, I was a mom, as my son said to me, he said, If you had done nothing else but raise me that was a damn hard job. And I have two boys. This is the one. And then, you know, I've been working, you know, on the Hill been in the government, but a partner in law firm. And sorry, when I when my female press secretary called the Washington Post to disclose that my opponent had said this at a public event. The male reporter said, Oh, we're not, that's not a story. Well, yeah, so it was a million dollar ad campaign, though, and that is one of the challenges that women, you know, run for office and mostly they're not asked to do it. Or if they're asked to do it, it takes, you know, what, seven times or something before they decide, I hope we're in a different environment now. But I know when I ran, I actually, because I was an activist out of my community, and I knew that someone needed to run against my eventual opponent against the incumbent. And so I went around trying to recruit other people to to run. And of course, if you're just recruiting from the people who already hold elective office, it's a lot of men. And then no one would do it because they thought it was too big of a challenge. And so one morning, I just kind of woke up, I looked in the mirror and I was like, Well, you could do it, saying to myself and the self said back, Yeah, you can do it. And so, you know, then I decided to run. But I actually had to, I lost my first election, I'd never run for office before. And I lost that first election. And unlike what happens a lot of times is that candidates, especially women will lose and then say, You know what, I'm done with that. I'm not going to do it again. And I decided to run again. And I became a much better candidate. And so it was a real lesson learned about, you know, taking that challenge the second time and then winning the second time. I'm glad you said that, because that it's exactly right. Being able to get up, lose. And the next day say, Okay, I can learn from what I've done and keep going. It's really important. And it's a little less likely that women will do that yet. So if you think about the kinds of questions women get of the comments, one is clearly who's going to take care of your family, which for a man having six or seven children is apparently a great political plus, right? They're going to put it all over their pursuers. But for a woman one, and you're going to be asked, Do you have childcare? Is that all arranged? The second piece is the question about whether you're tough enough to survive to make it in politics. There is a variety of reasons. A lot of examples on television will take the worst ones of how tough it is, how much infighting there is. And so you've got to sort of persuade voters a that you were strong enough to survive. But be that you're not nasty, right? It's women have a more delicate line to walk on this one. And the third, I think really inaccurate question is the idea that women can't raise the money. And this is more self defeating than others, because women are much more likely to think, Well, I might like to run, but I don't think I can raise that much money. That is because, let's say because of the raised consciousness in the last 20 years or so, there are networks that help women raise money. It is at this point, at least even, and in some cases, easier for women candidates to raise money. But it is still a step backward for women. That is, they hold themselves back more often. And much more so than men do. I know how many people here have read Lean In, Charles Sandberg's Lean In. If you ever read it, and the guys should read it too, there's a 17 minute TED talk that covers a lot of it. And it's great. One of the things that Charles Sandberg points out is when there's a job, you know, the guys will look at it and say, Okay, there's 10 things I've got to do. Well, I know three will fake the rest. The women look at it and say, Okay, I got nine of the qualifications where I don't have that 10. What am I going to do? And so what is so effective? Do have, you know, some male, you know, folks you're working with too, because I know in my case, Frank Wolf, who I had worked for, and he had been in the seat for a long time when when I first ran, you know, he had also recruited me to run in the State House. He said, at one point after I got kind of pushed in, he said to my husband, Well, she might have to run a couple times before she wins because he ran three times before he won. Newt Gingrich ran three times before he won. And it was great for my husband to hear that. Because he said, Well, no, we're going to win the first time. And he started going out and knocking on the doors. The whole family goes, I don't want to do this and lose. Let's make sure we get out and win. But so many of the things that you had done already in your community, you realize, women don't give themselves credit for the things that they've done. And I had a real door to door campaign. And it was great in a community I lived in for 25 years. And what was wonderful is you'd run into people who said, Oh, yeah, I remember you, you did the PTA thing, you know, in preschool, or you had the the baby shower for the teacher, or you were the balloon lady, I was the balloon lady at the fairs. So which came very handy for politics, he had a lot of balloons that may not be politically correct these days. Back then, we did. So there were, as well as, you know, working on a lot of the issues that you care about, and you really get to get in touch with your community and your friends. And it was just, it was a great experience. And I know, when or lose, I remember, I had worked on Mitt Romney's campaign in 2008, and I ran in 2009. He called me the night before the election. And he said, Well, how's it going? I said, Well, it's 5050, we don't know. And he said, Well, winter lose tomorrow night. Aren't you glad you did it? And I think we'd also, and I said, even before I had served, it was such a privilege to get in touch with your community in that way, have those conversations and really see the lives of your community in a way, you know, you might be in certain niches, and then you got to see the whole picture. And I said, Oh, you are so right. It was, it's been such a privilege and that had been his approach, you know, when he had run for president. So I was really, really felt that way. And even on election night, I only won by 422 votes. So I thought, you know, the bad precincts came in first, so I thought it was over. And the good ones came in. Yay. But I really did honestly feel that way each and every time that what a privilege it is to do this. And then when you realize, and there's only 325 of us who done it in the house, and, you know, a few more in the Senate. And so we need all of you. So any of you out there who are thinking about it, don't hold yourself back because you think there's a list of things because chances are you've done more than you realize. It is the people's house. And it is important that you get to the people. Charlie Cook would say that Morella she'll go to the opening of an envelope. And when I introduced him, I used that quotation. And he said, Yeah, but when my daughter was get was at a school that was given the blue ribbon, the only way you could avoid shaking her hands is if you were in the men's room. And but that's what's important is that you get out and touch the people that you want to represent to establish the trust. And in terms of running again, my motto was no guts, no glories. And so it's important that you keep trying. You want to say something. I think this is fascinating. So could I ask what was the thing that pushed you over from I'm undecided about maybe I can do this I can definitely do this. I did it. I don't know that I thought I could definitely do it. But I did. I mean, I will say when I ran I ran for the US Senate after serving in the house for five terms. And and that was a different kind of hurdle because I knew that I'd have to give up something. I'd have to give up the house seat in order to run for the Senate. And I was very clear about that. And so the stakes were really different. But for me, and I think for all of us, it really was just about the desire to serve, you know, and many of us have been serving our communities in different kinds of ways. And so being in in the house was just the next step of service. And, you know, this year, I was thinking as you were reading those numbers, Barbara, of those three 25, I don't know if you know it off the top of your head. But I'm guessing that only a tiny percentage of them have been African American women. Yes. Shirley Chisholm, this is the 50th anniversary year when she was elected. 47 total. I had the 47 in the house. And she was my hero when I was growing up. And I remember being like so invested in Shirley Chisholm. The greatest gift was running for Congress in the way that I did it. And I wouldn't take guff from anybody. And people used to describe me as Shirley Chisholm, unbossed and unbought. And I love that to this day. And there's only been two African American women centers in history. So I think and that and none right now. So one, Kamala Harris, Kamala Harris. But that was not covered in your race as much. I mean, because I know when that because you were running for that race while I was running for my first reelection. And once you were gone, I was the only woman in the entire delegation when I'd say to a press person, you know, there's going to be no women in the Maryland delegation if Donna doesn't win. And I'm the only woman in Virginia right now. And they'd look at me and they go fact check me. Like they didn't even know that. Like did not notice like we look a little different. Well, in Maryland, when I for when I first started voting in Maryland, our delegation was evenly split in the house for men and for women. And today, there's not one woman in our entire 10 member delegation. And Maryland is one of the highest plate rates of working women, professional women, a talent pool. So it really is also highest rates in the legislature. And usually that correlates. Right. There are lots of women in the Maryland legislature. In fact, the newly elected speaker to women. But for some reason, this is one where it is where it hasn't translated. You asked Alexander about what makes you do it finally after thinking about it and two things. One, yes, you want to serve. You wouldn't get that far if you didn't really want to make a difference for the people you know. In my experience, however, the second piece is something makes you mad. I'm trying to watch my language here. But there was. There was a God darn it. That's it. Right. I was signing on that one. Okay, something you're thinking about it. You're thinking about it. You're measuring your and then you wake up or you hear it on the news. And that's it. And you're ready to go. I think also, and for me, it was the woman's movement, you know, looking at the disparities, you know, in terms of education, you looked in the newspaper for jobs. One section, this was before we had media and social media is another element that you're all interested in. But you had a section for women, jobs for men, for women that might be a clerk, or they call them a secretary then, maybe a rural school teacher, maybe a nurse. And that was about it for a man you could be a constructive worker and engineer, a pilot, of course, a doctoral lawyer. And so that was what did it for me when you said, you get a passion. Yes, you get a strong feeling that something's got to be done. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's also the question sort of you can't be what you can't see. And if you don't sort of the idea of representation is a big in media these days, where people say, we've got to have a female superhero, but also in the actual halls of Congress literally representing people. There's the question of does this resemble the electorate? And I also wonder on sort of questions, women's issues, quote unquote, because there's, I mean, women's issues, climate change, more women are likely to say, we've got to do something about climate change than men, for instance. And so you could say, well, that's a women's issue. But did you find that people expected you to respond differently to issues than your male counterpart just because of who you were? I mean, I came to Congress having had this history of working on domestic violence and sexual assault, working with Connie when she was the lead on the Violence Against Women Act, which was so great. I had that history, but I also had a passion about other things. I had a passion about infrastructure and about affordable housing and, you know, a whole foreign policy and a whole array of issues. And I mean, I think one of the challenges was trying to keep people from putting me in a box, you know, this is the box you belong in and defining women's issues so narrowly that it meant that if you were a woman, you couldn't possibly work on anything else other than, you know, childcare and healthcare. All great things and important to work on. Well, and I think, you know, I, we, Don and I were both on the science committee together and the transportation committee. So those were actually two committees that were pretty bipartisan. Most of our legislation would go through, you know, pretty bipartisan way. So like in science, we're working on STEM education, getting more women in careers. But one of the things we ended up also covering in the science committee was when the whole me too and sexual harassment things came up was like in the science field, you know, if you were a college student and the professor that you have to study under for this area that you want to get your graduate degree in is also a sexual harasser. These women end up leaving the field entirely. We know when women are subject to sexual harassment or sexual assault, they often leave the career field that they're in. And I think when that issue, when that all came up, I guess it was the fall of 2017, I was also on the House Administration Committee, which was the committee that went that through that. So that wasn't, and that was an issue that, you know, was always there and you always knew it was there, but it was clear the rules had to change. And we had when we took up that legislation, there was no rules in Congress that you couldn't have a sexual relationship with your staff. And we had to make that was that was a bill I had to say you can't sleep with the staff. You think that would be obvious because it's obvious in the corporate world, it's been that way for, you know, decades. And Bradley Byrne, who's congressman, Republican congressman from Alabama, very concerned and been a labor lawyer. And so he came together with me and with Jackie Spear, Debbie Dingell and others. And we got sort of a bipartisan male female coalition because of his labor lawyer experience. He really laid it out there. It's like, we got to change this because initially our guys were like, we don't need to have anyone tell us we're going to run our offices the way we want. He said, no, you need to run it. You know, we're Republicans. We always say we should run it like businesses. Well, businesses fire people who do that. And businesses get, you know, have committees and Bradley had done this. He had gone in and said, I don't care if he's a great CEO or your boss, your, you know, brings in all this business, he's got to go. He did, you know, do these things that are wrong. So we really were able to have a sea change on that. It's unfortunate. I mean, I'm from Virginia. And you've seen what's happened in Virginia, you know, a number of fronts, one of them is, you know, we have a lieutenant governor who's still sitting there with credible sexual assault and rape against him. And this week, we just there was a wonderful Democrat primary where a wonderful African American woman senator who has been great, worked on a bipartisan basis, has all kinds of legislative accomplishments was beat in a primary by this guy who had long history of, you know, praying on young women. We had to warn the interns in the state house and he had a 16 year old who then was pregnant when she was 17. He was 55. He went to jail denied Joe Morrissey. He denied that he impregnated the teenager. Like people get fired in the real world. Like if this were a CEO who impregnated his 17 year old intern, you would, you know, be fired. But he just got the nomination again, from a hugely competent woman. And it is so, you know, these things are very bizarre. You think you get, you know, we think under our bill he would need to be fired, but the people just nominated him again. So he's claiming he's born again. He married the girl after denying he was the father, the child, and he went to jail. And then he said, oh, a little merrier, and I'm all good again. So, you know, we still have prog, we still need to. So that's a first in Virginia. I guess. I think women care, women care about all issues. And there is no issue whether we're talking about international trade or other issues where women do not play a role and do not care about them. I do think there's something extra special they offer in it giving some insight from their experiences and their knowledge into some pieces of legislation that make them more appropriate for more people. I'm thinking of like family and medical leave, where we're still probably the only developed country in the world that doesn't give paid family and medical leave. But I think what Congress is looking at now also is most inclusive of men, men as fathers, as children of elderly parents. And so I think the women help to bring insight into that and into a lot of other issues. Got, I think, one commies right about the lawmakers taking those, you take it more seriously if it's part of your own life experience than if you just read it in a briefing book, right? And God bless good guys, the Galitans we always call them, who read the briefing books and know what these issues are. But if you've stayed up at night worrying about it personally, it has a different effect. And the other place it has an effect is on voters. With more women on the ballot, with more women participating when you can see, as we say, you can't be what you can't see, you can't choose if you don't have women also to choose from. Women watching this, seeing the candidates who have had these experiences, one, you get a lot more participation, you get higher turnout, and you get a different conversation because people will ask these candidates, and I've done this working with women candidates and walking with them, people will pull you aside and ask you, right? They have personal questions about their family, about what's happening and they are much more likely to talk to a woman about that than another man. And he might be a very thoughtful, dear guy, but if they don't know him, they're still more likely to ask the woman. So it changes the conversation, it changes the dialogue, and in really positive ways. Just building off of that, how do you think your presence in the room has sort of changed the dialogue in those rooms, especially when you had sort of a group of women just here and we're talking about science and also, we're people. Well, I mean, I think it changes it so tremendously and on a whole range of issues, and you never know. I mean, the fact is, and corporate America kind of gets this in a different way, that it matters who's around the table, because then you can have the conversation. And I think that for women, particularly in Congress, when I remember being startled when I was first sworn in and I walked in, and even though Nancy Pelosi was the Speaker of the House, which was fabulous, I remember walking into that chamber, and I never felt so much male presence, even though- Coming to our caucus in the Republic. Yeah, I believe it. I know. But it was extraordinary and you think, well, how do you make decisions when you only have 20, whatever it was, 21 percent of the Congress is women. And that means that 30 percent of us are not around the table. It changes the conversation. Absolutely. And that's a real- With the numbers changing, what are the things that's not highlighted? There was obviously a lot of women elected last year, but on the Republican side, we went from 23 to 13. 89 Democrats, 13 women. It was about 60 something to 20 something, 23. And that dynamic has just changed. So now it's 38 percent of the House Democrats are women and with still diversity, still a bit more diverse, whereas on the House side, it is 66.5 percent of our conference is women. And if Liz Cheney runs for Senate, we'll be down to six. So it's unless she has a woman. And some of the women who were running were saying, well, do you have the women behind you? And I know that's something I tried to focus on a lot, getting more women to run. That's something I'm working with now because we're not going to get to 50-50 if there are no Republican women because I don't think the Democrat guys are going to totally give up all their seats, right? So you're going to have to. So they're getting closer to 50. We're getting further away. So you need to have those diverse voices on both sides because when we meet in our conference and we're talking about what we're going to lead on, it does make it harder when you're just that six and a half, well, we were about eight or nine percent when I was in there, but so was pretty small. Barbara's absolutely right. You're going to have just women are going to be only in one party if we don't do something about it. And I think the leadership needs to. We also, but back to your question also, when you had outside the House chamber four or five women members of Congress just talking to each other friendly, the guys would get very uptight. What are they conspiring? What's going to happen? Really, what's going to happen with them? They're working something out, something that's going to be presented. They may solve the government shutdown. Yes. I know, but you know, there is, there is the Women's Political Policy Institute, Women's Congressional Policy Institute, which tries to bring, it's a foundation tries to bring together women on both sides of the aisle to talk about what they have in common, not what divides them, but what they have in common. And it does from that springs forward a lot of good legislation and camaraderie, camaraderie is something Congress needs a lot more of. I know Don has been involved and certainly Barbara has too. We may have somebody here from the Women's Congressional Policy Institute. Thank you. Thank you. Cindy's up there, she does a great job. No, but I mean, the bipartisan women, the women's caucus, it is the largest, I think, bipartisan caucus in the Congress. And Connie, were you one of the founders or you were co-chair or were you one of the co-chair? I was co-chair with Nita Lowey, who now chairs appropriations. Right, and I was one of the co-chairs as well. And one of the things that happens is that women across the aisle come together and they talk about those commonalities. And I remember when we were supposed to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, and all of a sudden it broke down into this major partisan controversy, which was unbelievable on an issue like Violence Against Women. And so I got together with the co-chair from Washington, his name is Slippie. Kathy, where's Roger? Jerry Herrera Butler, excuse me, thank you. And we did a joint letter, Republican and Democratic woman, we did a joint letter to our leadership saying we want you to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act. It allowed the advocacy community out in the country to use that letter to advocate. And when we came back from a recess, we reauthorized it with overwhelming support of Republicans and Democrats. And so I think there are many examples that we can show where when women members can come together, we come together across partisan divides. It's not that we're gonna agree on everything, but we intentionally find the things on which we do agree. Very true. I think going back to the partisan question though, is it is an interesting disparity right now? And you wonder, cause women of course are not a monolith. I'm also picturing sort of a female monolith, like a large stone, and I'm sort of amused by the smell of it. But no, but women are not monoliths, women come from all sides of the party line, and yet you don't see that represented right now. So how does that get turned around? Or is that gonna continue? It's an interesting question. One of the dynamics I think that has changed, especially since the last election, is that Connie talked about a couple of guys saying, what's going on in there, right? There are three or four women standing around and talking, what do they have in mind? It's technically a covenant, I believe. No, yes. But what has happened is, let's say the male colleagues have much more respect for women right now. They see women as a powerful force, and since every one of them, this is a bipartisan statement. They all want to get re-elected, right? And as you see women as a powerful force, able to move voters, they think, I'd like some of that. I want their support. It makes it easier for the women in Congress to be effective, because most of the guys who are looking for re-election, and everybody's looking for re-election, would like to have some visible signs that they've got women as partners, that they've got women as co-sponsors, that women will come into their district or a state to campaign for them. That is a good thing and can work out well for your legislative initiative. But there are challenges on the recruitment side, and I think this goes to your question. Now, how do you recruit Republican women in some of these districts? And that's about leadership. I mean, the party committees, I think, have to be open and willing to go out and find and recruit women, and I think there's been, frankly, some resistance in that area among the leadership. There are a couple of Republican women currently who've tried to organize political committees, political action committees to help recruit and support women candidates, and they've come up against a brick wall. Well, good thing, but they're not waiting to be asked to the prom. That's right. And they, after the election, and I think that is a lesson to be learned. I think we saw that in the last election. A lot of these women stepped up and did it. They didn't wait to be asked, and I think that's what Republican women need to do also. Because if you're dragging someone who's kicking and screaming to do it, I mean, I did accidentally kind of get pushed into it, but when I ran for Congress, it was very intentional, and I didn't wait for somebody, some guy to tell me it was okay to do it, and I think that needs to be more the norm for Republican women. So we're trying to get that message out and Elise Stefano, who was in our class in 14, was the youngest woman to be elected at that point, went out and said she was gonna start recruiting more women in primaries, and that's what I'm doing with the group that I'm in too. And one of the guys said, well, I don't think that's a very good idea. And she said, well, I didn't ask for your permission. I don't wanna see for your advisor permission. And by the time she started rolling and doing it, guess what? That guy and a few other guys were actually there writing checks saying, okay, we better be there too. Because we're not, as Republicans, there is not a path to be in the majority without Republican women. You know, they're not gonna say, oh great, yeah, let's get 218 white guys. The old white guys, part of that. That's not gonna happen. So their survival depends on having more diversity, and that's more diversity across the board. Because the country, now right now, the country itself, I mean, if you look at our caucus, I mean, both sides, most people are in safe districts. There's only, well, I mean, out of 435 maybe 50 districts that are actually ones that go back and forth, and that's on a high end. And Connie and I were in those kind. Oh boy. And Donna stepped up in a district that was more of a safe district, and then ran against an incumbent, and then did something also courageous, which is also great, take a risk when she ran for Senate. So I think more, there's big risk there, but high reward, because she would have been one of the thirds, and she still could be. So I think that's what needs to change now, is that we don't ask for permission or weight, or, you know, and just. Don't you agree, Barbara, we also need to get people to vote in primaries, because as we're talking about it, let's say we get some good, thinking of the Republicans where I couldn't agree more, we need to have more parity between the sexes in the parties. But when you get the guys there, they already have decided that they're gonna be the ones who are gonna run, and if people are not voting in primaries, and only those who care strongly, you know, on both sides of issues, whether it's left or right, are the ones who vote, then you're not going to have women having the opportunities that they might have had had more people voted in the primaries. And you're saying more women, and there are more Republican women too, in the state houses. I mean, the state houses are a logical place for a school board or a local city council to kind of try it out and see, because it's not, when I ran for state house, Frank Wolfe said to me, well, if you run and you don't win, no one's gonna even know you ran. You know, it pays attention to the state house. So don't worry about it, just go and do it, because women have much more of a fear of failure. They're not risk takers as much generically. I don't mean to, you know, I think your younger generation here, that is getting better and it needs to, because, and that's why I was, you know, the sort of the lean in model is, take those risks and don't worry about it. You know, I realized, I always had female campaign managers, except for my first race, I had this wonderful young man, and we'd go door to door, and whenever someone would say, nope, or you know, not be friendly, you just brush it off and keep going. And I was like, boy, how do you do that? You know, that's hard. When someone rejects you, you know, it's like, yeah, just brush it off. And I realized, oh, like guys are used to like, asking women out, right? They say no, they move to the next one. They don't care. For women, you know, the one time you ask somebody, oh, this is my generation, maybe, I think it's changed, for the one person, you asked to the Sadie Hawkins and they said, no, oh, never gonna do that again. Or in a sales thing, never gonna do that. So women just need to, you know, once you get over that and move through that, then you realize it's not, you know, you do this, it's a great privilege, it's wonderful, win or lose, it is a great privilege to be part of that process. And the men don't let it deter them. And Kim. You need to have more women running as we are now. I am so pleased that you have women running for president, more than one person running for president. And I think that tends to make a difference. Let me give you a statistic I got from, I guess it was Melman and Castanetti who do a polling service, yeah. And they pointed out the fact that it took 89 days from the time that Alexandra, or to quote his AOC, was elected for her to make the cover of Time Magazine. It took Nancy Pelosi, House Speaker, 11,714 days from the time she was elected to be on the cover of Time Magazine. So what are we saying? That maybe the newer ones coming, are bringing that kind of enthusiasm and whatever, that they're gonna do it faster and they're going to proliferate. I don't know, I hope that is a sign that they're being listened to also and that more will run. And I think, hopefully, the idea is for this not to be a novelty every time, but for it to be a normal thing. That's exactly right. And so right now we have two state legislatures, I think, in Nevada and Colorado that have majority female. And one of the fun things that's going on there is they're just running sessions normally and they'll have things that they encounter that they weren't expecting to encounter. Well, the leader will walk into a room and a man will be walking behind her and they'll assume that the man is in charge. So there's the things that you were saying that you thought would be hurdles that turned out not to be hurdles. But what about things that you didn't expect and then you walk into the room and suddenly there's this invisible hurdle, as it were. Well, for me, I can remember in the state legislature, which kind of continued on for a while too, you go into the hearing room and you were one of the delegates and so you would make a statement. And the chairman of the committee would say, well, yeah, Connie, that's very fine. Thank you very much. One of my colleagues would make a similar statement, picking up on exactly what I had said and the chairman would say, delegate, always like use the title, delegate Jones, that's wonderful. Let's put that into the record. Well, Mr. Chairman, that's exactly what I said. I'm so glad that you're doing that. I don't know that I always responded that quickly, but the point is being taken seriously has always been, I think, a difficulty that women have had less now than before. And I would say one answer to that, and many of us have had that experience of contributing an idea or a statement or a principle. And I'm not saying you get yelled at, but it just sort of sits there and then a guy comes along and says very similar thing and gets a lot more affirmation. The best technique on this is to have another woman across the table say, excuse me, but that's just what Connie said. So I'm very glad you agree. So that is good. Oh yeah. That's a great strategy. You organize for meetings the way you organize for everything else in your life, especially legislative sessions. Yes. That is very good. And I think just going back to the question as we're sort of winding towards the end of our time of how do we make this banal? Because if you're looking at AOC and the reason she's on Time Magazine, I don't think it's not because, oh, she's the first female freshman member of Congress. It's sort of her youth and it's sort of these ideas. And in addition, she's also female and how do you keep rolling a ball so it gets there? Well, I think, I mean, it's a challenge. I listened to the conversation that takes place around the women who are running for the Democratic nomination now. And sometimes I listen to the way that they're described, shrill, aggressive, pushy. I mean, all of the things that are the markers for gender identification. And so I do think that there's still a lot of training that has to happen, both in the media and the public, to begin to normalize the fact that we have women who are in public view and are seeking public office. And we are really not there yet. I even remember when I was, at one point I was running and I remember in the Washington Post I can say that I'm a contributor to the Post so I love the Washington Post. But there was an article that was two articles that were written about me. One, it described me as overly aggressive. And I was fighting for something. What man has ever been described like that? Never described as overly aggressive. First of all, aggressive with a man is actually a positive characteristic, right? And so there was that. And then there was another one that wrote about everything except what I said, but it talked about the shoes that I have on. Yeah. And so I do think that we still have a long way to go so that we have enough women who are populating the public that it's not even part of the conversation anymore. Well, I hate to, I'm picking on the post too. It's our hometown, they were making it to that. Fairfax County just had supervisor primaries. And the post endorsed editorial, so it's not you, sorry. Which I think was, as we know, because usually when we went in it was men we were dealing with. They might occasionally bring a woman, but usually it was men. They asked the woman, I guess they asked everybody, they asked, well how can you serve on the school board or supervisor if these meetings are late at night you have young children? This is 2019, somebody was asked that. In an ed board at the Washington Post. Now I know when I was in the ed board one of the male members who I guess that was fussing over getting an Uber for his daughter and running in and out of the room so I guess he shouldn't be on the ed board. But, and they endorsed all men. So they asked that question and it didn't even occur to them they'd endorsed all men. And when you look, I just thought that was a little odd. Now, there's some partisan things too along the way, but that that happened in 2019 is kind of stunning, because that never occurred to me that somebody couldn't serve because they had children. I know someone asked me like, well how's the cleaning and everything with the house, how is that split? How do you and your husband split it? And I thought, oh, like 70, 30? And they're like, wow, your husband does 30? And I said, no, he does the 70. And this was a while back. So, families do different. And I see that with my kids. They're doing, they can, it's much different. Hopefully your generation, that's changing. I see that with my boys stepping up and doing the childcare things. One of the kids sick, my daughter isn't automatically the one that stays at home. Sometimes it's her husband or sometimes it's Nana. So I can jump in too or sometimes it's grandpa. But it's, these things still happen out there. I was roasted a while ago in my eldest son. He said, my mother loves to travel. And she said to my father, take me someplace I've never been before. And he took her by the hand and brought her into the kitchen. I still, despite having raised a big family, I still like trying to stay out as much as I can. And in fact, our Thanksgiving dinner came from Whole Foods. They make a great turkey. I'd say two things. I can't on this one, I can't speak for both sides. I can say on our side, on the democratic side, some of the best organizations and most effective organizations I know right now. I can't speak for both sides. I can't say on our side, on the democratic side, organizations I know right now are those working to get young women running for office. Training, yeah, you're right. Emerge has chapters in Maryland and in Virginia. And there's some bipartisan groups too. There are some bipartisan groups. Running starts and bipartisan. So the good news is, although we had a great year last year, nobody that I know was singing around saying, okay, did that, done. But everybody's saying, okay, we can do this. And I really meet people and talk to people and buy fundraising tickets for great organizations. I think it's underway. And one of the things too, we need more women, like senior campaign operatives. Like I found when I went to the RNC in 2000 to work on the campaign. And it was really hard to get some of the senior women to give up their jobs, to come work on the campaign. Again, the risk, well, what if we lose? I don't have a job. So they didn't want to leave the hill to come out. And I was fortunate. I always tried, like I mentioned, except for that first race, always had a female campaign manager. And we really tried to recruit and train and bring women up through the ranks because there aren't enough senior women. And if women aren't there at the table, if they aren't making the ads, if they aren't doing the mail, you're not going to have that voice there either. And in politics, those are the jobs that pay, too. They pay better than the jobs on the hill when you're running the campaign and the ads, right? That is clearly a bipartisan difference, a partisan difference. Almost everybody I know would say, a campaign, where? How do we get there? There's a lot of interest in it. But you look at some of the, at the presidential races this year and look at how many of them have women campaign managers. In fact, so many, it's not a story anymore. And it would have been a story for years. And they're, and they win. I mean, that's, most of my campaigns, I said, well, my women are going to beat their boys. And we did. We've got to get women to look to vote and help other women. I sometimes, I feel sometimes that women are more critical of other women who are running for office than they are of the men. And so I think we've got to, by having more run, by having more people listen to what they have to say, that will help to make a difference. And they need mentoring too. And the organizations that they have are very helpful, including us more. You know, someone on Twitter, I thought something very funny where she said, you see women are always tearing each other down because as we all know, there can only be one woman. So it's a competition. But I think sort of getting rid of the, there's the slot where like, there's five power rangers and one of them's a girl power ranger. And that's her personality. It's girl. And here's a whole range of personalities. They still do expect too much. They expect everything from a woman. She's got to be able to smile. She's got to have a sense of humor, a sense of tranquility. But she's got to have the guts to go out and fight for something that's important. And besides, how does she look? I mean, like a president, we haven't seen a woman president with heels yet or with dangling earrings yet or whatever. So we have to do everything backwards. Yeah, yeah. Kind of create that where we look to qualifications and don't expect that. Well, for instance, just Bernie Sanders, does he come up as grumpy? If he were a woman, would we say she's too grumpy? That is a good test case. If you take those three guys in that same profile, okay, so President Biden, Bernie, but they're women who are 70-year-old women who have those same characteristics. The press would write about them so differently. It really would, you know, just imagine, you know, a 70-year-old woman married to a young model guy. A 70-year-old grumpy woman, you know what, you know, and, you know, it really would be, and you think, how would the press look cover that? So I always ask when they're covering the men, because it is, there's a, what's the group that looks at how the press covers men and women candidates? It's really different. And I think you see it most in the presidential. I know in 16, I'm a Republican. I did not vote for Hillary Clinton, but my staff would often say, like, but you're saying the same thing she's saying about how she's, you know, on the press coverage. And it really was true, and often it was sometimes the same reporters. Well, I don't want to pick on Bernie, but one real example of that during this cycle. There was one point I think Bernie had, I don't know, he maybe cut himself shaving or something, he has a band-aid across his face, and everybody's hair is going to, and I could not even imagine that any of the women who are running Elizabeth Warren or Kamala Harris had had, you know, a band-aid over their face, and the hair was all over the place, and a bruise on the side. That there would not have been so many stories about that band-aid and that hair, and you saw almost nothing about Bernie, and I think it's just another one of those examples where, you know, there's so much focus all the time on a woman's appearance, on, you know, what she's wearing, what's going on with her hair, that she changed her haircut. I mean, I can't tell you the, I mean, I change my hair like every other week, and somebody's always commenting on it, and like, I don't even notice, but, you know, but those kind of things take away then from our ability to hear what the candidates have to say, so I think as part of the audience, we have to really push back when we hear those things, when other people are saying those things, to, you know, to just say to them, really directly how inappropriate that is because you want to hear what the candidate says and you're not really focused on whether that's her color or not. Yeah. Hear, hear. And the unimaginable luxury of not having to care what you're wearing at all to the extent of wearing a band-aid, I wish. Because look, everyone looks, we all considered what we had to put on, and just the joy of getting to walk around, you know, as a brain in a jar, someday, maybe forwards and flats instead of backwards and heels. And I think speaking of backwards and heels, although I'm, what a transition. We might start opening it up to questions. And so, folks, if you have a question, there are microphones on the edges of the room and keep in mind that the Internet is watching you, and this is being archived, as we are at the archives. Well, as you go to the microphone, I think your articles in the post are excellent, Donna. Thank you. And the exhibits here on Women in the Vote, have a place for those of you watching on TV. You have to see that in the Library of Congress has one. And where else is there portrait gallery? Portrait gallery. Great exhibits that need to be seen, and fortunately, they're here a nice long time. Hello. My name is Sarah, and I am a college student, and I'm actually intending to write my senior thesis on conservative women running in elections. So something that I'm wondering about that I guess could be a question for anybody. Something I've thought a lot about is that incumbency is one of the strongest forces in politics, and very often, especially the Republican Party, kind of takes the attitude of we're going to let the best candidate come out of the primary and kind of just leave primaries alone. And this often just results in incumbency taking over, making it really hard for new candidates, especially women, to get into races. So I'm wondering if you think there needs to be more of a strong role from the party side to help with fundraising, to help with recruitment, and not just kind of leaving it up to candidates to kind of do it all on their own, to really make a difference if the Republican Party wants to see changes in its demographics. And actually, the group that I worked with winning for women, we just had a meeting yesterday, and so we're taking it, we're not waiting. We're doing it ourselves, and we're actually organizing with a lot of other groups and making sure we get people through the primary process because oftentimes women on the Republican side are like, oh, you can run in those tough swing seats. We'll let you do that because women often can do better in those seats, but then you're in the, you know, you don't have that longevity that say in a red or district. So you have a lot of open seats. You know, one of the, one of the things now since 18, there were a lot of seats lost. There's a lot of open seats now and people retiring that you can get women into those seats. And so we are focusing on getting women candidates, supporting them early, but also explaining to them all the metrics they need to win a, you know, a campaign. But understanding that a lot of these seats, if you get through the primary, so a six-person primary, there's one in North Carolina that there's a bunch of people. The woman came in second, so there's a runoff. So there's now, it's two doctors, a female pediatrician and a man, urologist. And the woman pediatrician has great ads, you know, kids and everything, I don't know what the urologist is doing. But so we're focusing on getting her through that primary, Joan Perry. So that is something that I think we need to focus on the red seats and sort of the safe seats, not just sort of get women out of the swing seat ghetto where, you know, it's tougher. I'm a college student here in the Washington, D.C. area. And my question is, I found very inspiring. I found it to be very, I found learning about the stand that Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine took against Senator Joe McCarthy to be profoundly inspirational. And I was wondering if you might be able to speak some about Senator Smith and what you think are some of the most important and long-lasting contributions that she made. Oh, she's one of my idols. I think she was a great senator. Speaking up, you know, against McCarthy, that was really gutsy. She also, she did a lot of other wonderful things. She was out of the box. She did independently, what she thought was in the best interest of her country, her constituents and her conscience. And I know that she actually was a candidate for president. And she showed up and actually a candidate for the party. And she showed up and she talked and she didn't make it, didn't have adequate delegates, of course. But you know, every day when she would go to the Senate, she would wear a rose and she had a rose on that time, too. And what the group, the assembled group, the delegates that the presidential convention did when she did not make it and they knew she wasn't going to, they gave her a bouquet of roses and they sang, everything's coming up roses. But she did so many wonderful things. I think she, and again, she was like the first woman, not the first woman in the Senate, but the first, I think woman on her own to make it to the Senate. But I certainly admired her greatly and I think her courage, her commitment to what she believed was in the best interests of the country was critically important. Anybody else want to add to? Where's your rose? I think we've got a long line over here, so go on. Good evening, my name is Savannah Rogers and thank you so much for a wonderful discussion thus far. I was wondering in a world where women are constantly faced with double standards, I think one of the most difficult is this idea that female leaders need to be both maternal, but then emotion is seen as a weakness. And so how do you find that balance and what advice do you have to women of my age on how to kind of combat that idea of that you're either maternal or you are emotional and weak and where does the line fall? Thank you, because that's a really important question. It's certainly one that every woman candidate is held to. You have to be warm and maternal, right? The best sort of kind of mother. And at the same time you've got to be tough enough to fight for your constituents to take on the bad guys in the Congress and that is a tough line to walk. I think there are a couple of ways. One is find some women who are running who are now in office and look for a model because the good news is we now have so many. But watch them, see how they do it. Secondly, a sign. I remember when Barbara Mikulski was running first and as you've just heard, there were very few women running like that. She said, I think of myself as Aunt Barb. Every family in my district has an aunt, right? Who is somebody who looks after people. You can go to your Aunt Barb if you've got a problem. You know she's gonna fight for you and you know if you messed up, it'll be all right with her. And she said, I want them to think of me as Aunt Barb. So that's one model. There are now others. There are professional women you can do but enjoy the sort of the glory of having so many women in office and think who would it be? Would it be a Kamala Harris? The progressive prosecutor, right? Will it be Elizabeth Warren? Who's sort of more professorial. But look how well they're both doing or Amy Kovachar? Or look at some of those women senators and again, take your model, watch what they do. Check how they do both. Because in real life, if you think about it, all of us have both, right? All of us are both mothers and grandmothers and we are legislators and we are fight advocates. So we can do it. One problem is the press often compresses you into one side. So figure out for yourself which model you're going to be and then go for it. And it changes over a lifetime too. Like I, when my kids were young, I couldn't have done this because, you know, we were both working and just wouldn't have worked for me the way I was working. But when my children were grown, I could do it. But then Kathy McMorris Rogers who was a Republican conference leader, she had three children while she was in Congress. The first, another first, the first woman ever to have three kids. I can't, you know, and she lives on the West Coast. You know, so. She's my rep, I'm from Oldman, Washington. Well there, you've got a great represent. And Jamie Herrera Butler also had her children while she was in, and actually she had worked with Kathy. So there they certainly had those role models. Now, when I was in Congress, you know, I was working for Congress and Wolf but Connie was a great role model. And she was raising, I only had three children. She was raising nine. So I was like, wow, I always wanted to have more kids, but I don't know if I could have gotten a nine. But then she was doing such a great job. So you see, what's right for you, what's right for your family, what's right, you know, how you can deal with all of it and how you can, and there's so many different ways to serve. You don't have to do it this way. I mean, you can be an advocate because all of us have advocated and served in a lot of different ways. So it's what's right for you at what time in your life and how you can do it. Okay. Thank you. My name is Lee Young. Connie, I'm glad to see you tonight. You see, I run against you when you are in the campaign. Do you remember? But I want to tell you my story and it's still there. And a woman is good to have a role model. I think show up in the street, show up in the legislator, show up in the court. But I don't think women really play the right game because I hope women can be a role model to improve the society. But so far as I see, it's not improving. Actually, women a lot has been used to victimize other people whether they are men or women, elderly or young. So now you can see we have a mass incarceration in such a dangerous shape. And we always complain other countries have human rights issues. But when there's mass incarceration in the United States, it's number one in the world. We never mentioned that actually. And the way I think I compare my son and my daughter, my son is the first born my daughter's years later. They both are two years ahead of high school graduation. But the problem is my daughter, she was labeled to be inferior and a flunk. And so although my son is a graduation as a vegetarian, but they don't want to give my daughter a diploma when she graduate. That's it. Well, it's good to see. And now I'm just trying to tell you that the things we try to say women should be say the diversity and inclusion. We have a lot of terminology to be proud of, but we don't try to see. We want to contribute to make the society better. The society is civilized. And people are smart and can do a lot. But the problem is I cannot see the justice and fairness in our society. So my question is now is the major serious problem is now we have PPP, public-private partnership. That means extreme fraud and crime. And you can see it with a lot of official misconduct and abuse. And you can see even murder. And the problem of all this, including the official misconduct, is made by women. And this is also the same whether you are in a political civil organization or in the National Academy of Science. They can conspire with the lawyers and the police to victimize people. Well, thank you very much. It's really good to see you again. It's been a long time. And I mean, it's just another reminder. I run in a campaign. Right. But it's, what I try to say is with your power, you got to make the society better. Right. We're going to give somebody else a chance also to get a question. But thank you so much. Thank you. We'll be happy to continue afterwards. Thank you so much for that. Thank you. Catch us later. Yeah. Go ahead. Hi, my name is Megan and I'm with the Mount Vernon leadership fellows who are all down here. And my rep is Debbie Dingell. I'm really proud about that. And first of all, I just wanted to thank you all for being here tonight. I think I can speak for every woman in this room that it is such a pleasure to see five strong woman up here talking to us. And I really appreciate it. And it's something like I really treasure. And I think what I've heard from a lot of you in this past discussion is a discussion about what is feminine and like what makes a woman a woman today. And I think those are conversations that I see, you know, happening a lot right now with my generation. So my question is how do you see the landscape changing for trans women and the LGBTQ community, especially like in the political landscape and in Congress? If you do see a change or like what do you hope for in the future? I mean, I do think it just goes back to where we began the conversation that if you see it, then, you know, you believe that you can be it. And I think the more we open up the political space and the ability to run for office no matter who you are and to give those opportunities, we will begin to see more people. You know, it's kind of extraordinary because I know when I ran for Congress as a black woman that no one had seen a black woman running for Congress in Maryland. And now all of a sudden in, you know, a lot of different ways. I mean, not just for Congress, but other offices. Then, you know, women look and say, well, I could do that too. And I think the same thing is true for the LGBTQ community that, you know, when we see people who are openly who they are, then I think others, young people, I've had young, you know, young people come to me and say, well, I think I'd like to run for office too. And you know what I say? Okay, go get some training and just do it. And again, don't wait for somebody to ask you. And I think those opportunities are there. And when there are elected officials who identify themselves and they're willing to do that, it opens up the space in an amazing way. Look at, I mean, just in terms of the LGBT community, Jared Polis, who just won, who was our former colleague who is now governor of Colorado, that is, that by itself is like transformative. And we're seeing those things happen in race after race, Virginia has a couple of examples, Maryland as well, all of this region and the presidential campaign too. I had already forgotten that because like it's not a deal. But you know, I'm just so hopeful for this next generation because I think this generation is opening up opportunities and avenues that I never even imagined when I was a young person. Attitudinal progress has been made incredibly fast with the LGBTQ community. When you look at any of the other issues we've had, that has happened so quickly, acceptance, inclusion. And so I'm just very proud of the fact that that is the case. Hi, my name is Andrew and I just had a quick question. You all have listed a variety of challenges that you all have faced such as woman versus self, woman versus society, woman versus gender roles, woman versus media, woman versus man, and woman versus woman. So of all of these, what would you say is the most challenging? That is an amazing way to kind of discuss this. I know, I know. I don't think it's versus. I think it's more of we're all to get, because I think it's such a privilege to serve and to do this. And you're really like, I think we all work together on a lot of things. I mean, Don and I worked on science issues, on metro issues. So it wasn't Democrat versus Republican. It was sort of getting money for metro versus people who didn't want to give it. And so it's kind of doing your homework and finding your coalitions and then putting them together in whatever way is effective to get the things you need to get done for your constituents, but also the causes and the things that you care about. And that's like the woman's caucus was great on that we worked on issues like the sexual harassment issue, human trafficking issue, some of the online challenges that we had on harassment and things. That was the woman's caucus. And so we had these great groups that supported us. So I don't really see it as, I mean, when you go to an election, yeah, then it's versus. But all the other play, you know, and in your life, certainly hopefully it's not the men versus the women, but it's more educating everybody about what you're focused on and why and how you can bring more people to your cause. The answer is culture. We need a cultural change because this has gone on from the time of Aristophanes and Odysseus and Ptolemycus. And, you know, it has been happening. And so we need to, in all areas, not just politics, we need to see kind of this cultural shift where women are being looked at equally in all instances. And I think, you know, the press sometimes still covers it traditionally instead of, so maybe all of us versus the press is one of your things, present company accepted. But I love watching C-SPAN, particularly when you're watching presidential campaigns for those of you watching, because you see people, you don't have to have, you can see up front and personal, or if you go to, you know, watch them at an event, you get to see that and you don't have somebody else's filter telling you about what they wore or things, but you're hearing and listening to them on the issues. So watch C-SPAN, watch the places where you don't have the filter so that you're seeing it honestly and how you respond to it. And I think some of the presidential town halls that the press has done has been good because people get to, you know, ask questions. But oftentimes the press is filtering that out. And that's the thing I like about social media. I know there's a lot of social media controversy lately, but as a Republican, I feel like social media at least gives me a level playing platform where I can go on and either buy ad space or put things up about what I'm doing. And I can tell what we're doing. We can show what we're up to. We can show going around the district. And that way it's not, you don't have those filters. It used to just be three networks told you what to think and that's over. And that's good news, I think for more diversity in representation everywhere. Watch C-SPAN. I really think you're brilliantly alone and fabulous together. My name is Cynthia Terrell and the organization that I started and run represent women focuses, I think, on some of the root causes of many of the challenges that you all have addressed today. And we're trying to really focus on rules and systems strategies to advance women's representation and leadership in this country. Things like PAC targets so that women are able to run viable campaigns. Party recruitment targets so that parties feel a sense of pressure from the public to recruit women to run to replace Barbara Mikulski or when Donna is running for the party to come together to support her. Things like rank choice voting, which are electing about twice as many women in jurisdictions where it's used. Multi-seat districts which are used at 10 states including Maryland, which are electing more than twice as many women to office. So that's a district design question. And then legislative rules, things like childcare on site, childcare, paid leave, other kinds of rules so that women can serve effectively once they get elected. And it's no surprise that countries that use these systems rank above the United States in women's representation. In fact, does everybody know the number? Barbara, you're so up or representative, come stuck up on numbers, but we rank 78 for women's representation right now. And that number is so changeable it could easily, we could drop back to 100 or so depending on the partisan advantage in the 2020 election. Well part of it is because you don't have a lot of these guys in safe seats never going to leave. Well exactly, that's my point. So we have a super antiquated winner-take-all voting system. The rest of the world is leap-frogging ahead of us because they're focusing on systems changes, not on preparing individual people to run, but on systems changes which I would argue have a more enduring legacy. Things like Title IX and the ADA and the Voting Rights Act in software itself. All of which were rules and laws changes. So I guess I'm asking you, this is kind of a, trying to make a question out of the statement. But I'd really value your advice for how to pivot somewhat from these very real challenges that you all face, that women face all the time in many sectors to real rules and systems strategies so that we can get to the root causes of some of the challenges. That's a great question. I think structural change in the way that you described Cynthia is the most difficult thing to do. And there are other systems that you, maybe you mentioned, but things like what is the structure of the campaign finance system and how that operates and how do we conduct elections and how does that function to reduce or increase the number of women who are able to run for office. And one of the most difficult things is that the people who have to make the decisions to change those structures are all the guys and the incumbents who currently hold office. And it is why they are more difficult to achieve. And, you know, the notion that I think you can raise these issues up to a level where the public more broadly wants them and accepts them and there's a strong sort of advocacy support behind that, then the more likely we are to achieve those kind of structural changes because depending on existing legislatures as they're currently comprised to do that is a real long shot. I think, you know, one of the reasons I started my young women's leadership program for girls young, like down in junior high in high school is to try and get them at that young age to start, you know, if you can see it, you can be it as Anne has pointed out. And I think a lot of it is, I mean, I agree and there's some structural things to look at too but it's also that you're doing what Donna did which was run against an incumbent. I ran against an incumbent, I mean, opposite party but did the same thing and most people won't do that. And that, and people say, oh, you can't beat an incumbent. Well, actually, yeah, you can. You know, I mean, you gotta work harder than they do and raise money and do it but the way, how do you start raising money? I had never fundraised before I ran for office but I had gone to fundraisers and I had written checks and I had had meat and greets and made cookies and invited people over and a lot of those things that make you able to get elected are things that women already know how to do but no one has told them, well, that's gonna help you get elected if you already do that. Yeah, and I think we've got time for just one more question. So if you will be our last question. Incidentally, I just want to point out civics education is really needed so that people can learn and how they can change the structure of things. And these Mount Vernon students get to be on the property for the summer, right? Yeah. That's awesome. Good evening. My name is Takina. I have recently been elected as my college student government association. I'm actually the first African American female so it's a very big step for my college. The one question that I have is I've been in this position that has a lot of male dominance and a lot of male influence that has been swaying not only in my agenda and the legislation that I wish to push in our legislative sessions but also kind of the ideas that I have for the school and beyond. And I was kind of curious on how you guys kind of stay on your path and stay motivated to push the agendas that you have without getting influenced by that kind of presence. Wow. The way you get the way you stay on the path first is you ran because you knew you could make a difference and you are making a difference every day. You make a difference every time you get up there as a leader. Okay, that's not. We can keep talking. You've made a difference in kind of the programs you're working for but also in the example you set and in the coalitions you're building around you. So don't ever underestimate what a difference you're making how important it is that you go on doing that. And if you feel the need for some reassurance you have two ways to do it. One is have some friends that you can go out and have a good time with. And I think this is really important and women are good at this. Build your network that reinforces you and what you want to do and know there are people you can count on. And the second is if you can read some history because everything we try to do other women have had to do harder. The women who fought for suffrage, right? Think how little money they had how little... how few resources they had to work with when they began and every single vote they had to win came from men, right? There were no swing voters. This happened because men voted over women which means the women who fought for suffrage had to go out in their states in their districts and get 51 or more percent of the men to vote for them. I always think if they could do that we'd do anything. You know you're right. Rankin was elected by men. The first woman and the Congress was elected by men. So again history helps because anything we're trying to do other women have had to do and they had to do with fewer resources, fewer opportunities. They did it. They made our lives possible. And the second piece is again have your own network of friends and you can go out once in a while and have a drink or whatever it is that you're going to enjoy. Tell stories. Talk about those guys. When you get back you're going to feel a lot better. And congratulations again. I just want to add to that. Don't be afraid to listen to your inside voice. And I'll pick up on that too. Maya Angelou said like who you are, like what you're doing and like how you do it. And I think that's what's been said. Thank you. Thank you. That was a great question. Thank you so much to the panel. I think you all should know that this woman, the moderator, is a great writer. Yes, and a great, great moderator. Thank you. Men were voting for Jeanette Rankin.