Pushkin pushkin. It is a constant balancing act. It's everything from how you dress and you know what your hairstyle is, to how loudly you speak or how loudly you laugh, or you know who you are seen with or I mean, it's just a constant judgment. Hillary Rodham Clinton's had a complicated relationship with the public. It started in the nineteen seventies when she challenged the cookie cutter roll laid out for her as first Lady of Arkansas. Follow her to me that you really don't fit the image that we have created or the governor's wife in Arkansas. You're not a native, you've been educated in liberal Eastern universities. If you're less than for it, you don't have any children, you don't use your husband's name, you practice law. Does it concern you that maybe other people feel that you don't fit the image that we have created for the governor's wife in Arkansas. No, that doesn't bother me, and I hope that it doesn't bother very many people. But it did bother many people. Hillary being Hillary made people uncomfortable, and so one by one, her critics started asking her to change herself. Despite all her extraordinary accomplishments, including senator, secretary of state, first woman to be nominated for president by a major political party, and I mean she even won the popular vote in the twenty sixteen election. Despite all of that, people kept at it. They wanted Hillary to be different, for her to change, and she was willing to change, just never in the way that people had hoped. I'm maya Shunker, and this is a slight change of plans, a show that dieds deep into the world of change and hopefully gets us to think differently about change in our own lives. Hi, how are you. Hi. It's great to meet you, Secretary Clinton. I just wanted to welcome you formally to my closet. I always dreamed it would be this way, you know, the first time I met Hillary Clinton would be from my makeshift recording studio with clothes everywhere. But I guess this is the world we live in right now. It is the world we live in. I have been privy to many closets over the last year because as I've been doing my podcast and talking with friends on Zoom and everything, people are in closets. They're in corners of their bedroom, they're in kitchens, I mean, it's just been quite a tour of everybody's living space. Yeah, exactly. You get an intimate glimpse into people's lives exactly. So I'm just going to jump in. Do you mind if I call you Hillary? Not at all, Not at all. So I love to rewind the clock to your twenties. We can take the little time machine back in time. So you're a lawyer in DC, You've just wrapped up your work on the Nixon impeachment hearings, and then love gets in the way and you end up moving to Arkansas and Bill becomes governor, and you are not the typical first lady, and that's met with some resistance, right. Do you mind sharing what it was that people were taking issue with? Well, I think that back in what would have been the nineteen seventies, it was still, you know, somewhat unusual to have graduated from law school to be teaching law or practicing law. I did both, and I really saw that, but I didn't think it would impede me in any way. And then when I married Bill in nineteen seventy five, you know, I determined that I would keep my own name, which seemed to me to make a lot of sense, because that's what I had written under at law school, that's what I had practice law undertaught, etc. And I think it was really at the point that our daughter was born in February of nineteen eighty and Bill was having to run for reelection because there were only two year terms for governors back then, and the front page announcement was Governor Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham announced the birth of their daughter, Chelsea. It was probably that moment that really pierced people's public consciousness that oh, my gosh, she has a different name. And then that became a really big issue. And so when Bill lost for reelection in nineteen eighty in the Reagan landslide, among the top reasons people said that they didn't vote for him was because I didn't take his last name or change my name, as they would say. And it was a truly surprising revelation to me that that would matter so much to people. But now, frankly wouldn't make that big a difference to anybody, but it was significant, and I had so many people come to me and say, you really have to take your husband's last name. You're really stopping him from being able to run again and be governor again, and there's a lot at stake with him being governor. And the one person never asked me to do that was my husband. He thought it was pretty ridiculous also, but I concluded that it was, you know, for me, something that I was willing to do, and I made an announcement that I would be Hillary Rodham Clinton. And obviously it went against what I thought was my decision, but I balanced all of the pros and cons and decided that on balance, it was the right thing for me to do. Yeah. I think a lot of people, women, especially face the same kind of tension, which is knowing when it makes sense to compromise. Right, Do I do I take a principled stance at every turn, but then risk getting kicked out of the arena altogether and then lose my ability to have impact. Or do I try to more thoughtfully pick my battles and stay in the arena and just play the longer game. Well, that's exactly right. I was not going to stop practicing law. I was not going to stop being outspoken about a lot of issues that really mattered to me. And when Bill was reelected in nineteen eighty two, I dove back in and shared a task force to reform education in the state, and it was I'm sure easier for some people to hear the changes I was advocating for because I was all of a sudden truly understood to be the governor's wife. So it is a constant balancing act, and I'm sure that's true for all people, but I think you're right to say that as women, we make those decisions constantly. And it's everything from how you dress and you know what your hairstyle is, to how loudly you speak or how loudly you laugh, or you know who you are seen with or I mean, it's just a constant judgment both internally you're judging yourself, but most importantly how you're being judged, because there continues to be a rather active double standard. Yeah, there's some really telling footage from back in the day where you're getting interviewed about your role as first Lady, and underneath your face it says Hillary Rawdon, and underneath that in parentheses it says missus Bill Clinton. I mean, I just laughed out loud, right, But I'm part of a different generation where it just seems like, of course I'm going to keep my last name. But I recognize that at the time that was a truly bold feminist statement. So I want to dig into that a little bit more. Which when you did first marry Bill, what fueled your decision to keep your last name. I was just you know, feeling like he was going into politics and he would have a very public life. At that time, I never thought I would personally run for office, but I thought I would stay as an advocate. I'd been, you know, working for the Children's Offense Fund, I'd been a lawyer on the impeachment inquiry staff. I'd had really fascinating important jobs for me, and I wanted my professional life to be considered separate from his. And I will tell you a funny story. Before I took his last name, I was helping on a big lawsuit in my law firm with one of the senior partners. And we went to trial. And we went to trial in this rural county outside of Little Rock, and the judge was at that time under investigation, and the office investigating him was the Attorney General's Office, headed by my husband. So we were in the courtroom and this was the kind of judge back in the day, who would say how pretty I looked and asked me to stand up and twirl around to show everybody what a pretty dress I was wearing. On and on, we made our case and we moved to be dismissed from the case, and we were successful. So we get back to our office and the next day the senior partner calls me in and he said, well, I'm sure glad we got dismissed yesterday because on one of the breaks, the judge was cursing out your husband, talking about how terrible the Attorney General was to be investigating him. So one of the other lawyers said, well, you know, your honor, that young woman that was in the courtroom, that's Bill Clinton's wife. And the judge said, well, if I'd known that, I wouldn't have dismissed the case against your client. Now that to me and apsolated. You know, the challenge of being married to a public figure but being very committed to my own professional career. I mean, I love that Bill never asked you to change your name. So when you finally when you finally took the plunge, what did he say to you? Was he kind of like thanks? But yeah, yeah, he basically said, look, you know, I wish you wouldn't have to do this. I wish you didn't think you had to do it. Please don't do it for me. And you know, he said everything the right thing, but he also encountered from a lot of you know, his male supporters, you know, men who would say, you know, Bill, I always thought of you as a really you know, strong guy, and how come you don't make your wife take you know, take your name. I mean, it was such a flash point, and it it was, you know, something that I guess both of us should have predicted. Now we would be you know, laughing at it. But look at what they make big issues out of today. So I guess we shouldn't be surprised that anything which touches a cultural hot point is going to provoke a reaction. Do you remember the first time you introduced yourself as Hillary Clinton? Oh, sure, I would. I did a press conference. I mean, you know, I was at an event and I said, look, I know this means a lot of a number of people, and I don't want their concern about you know, my last name to interfere with doing what's right for the state and making some tough decisions. So from now on I will be known as Hillary Rodham Clinton. I just did it, very matter of fact. I didn't make a big deal out of it, and you know, I assumed that. Okay, now you can argue about me about other things. Why is she still working? Why why is she, you know, telling people to raise their taxes to pay for teachers? What is she doing? And then later why is she fighting for healthcare and the you know when Bill was president? So fine, if this gets you to focus on what I actually think is important, and that is how we're going to live together, make tough decisions together, let's do that. It's interesting. I mean, there was an element of a slippery slope which used to change her name. It's that with positive reception and then all of a sudden people are like, oh yeah, but what about your hair and your glasses and makeup and can we get you a stylist. I'm curious to know whether changing any of these parts of yourself ever affected your self perception. You know, I never thought any of it affected my self perception or my identity, and there were parts that I ended up enjoying. You know, I finally got around to forcing myself to wear contact lenses. You know, it made a big difference and how I could actually see as well as be seen. I had a lot of fun all of a sudden, you know, thinking, well, you know, I don't have to just wear turtlenecks and and baggy vests and you know, skirts and pants or whatever. So yeah, they're parts of it that were interesting that, you know, maybe I wouldn't have pursued had I not married Bill, or had I not ever married anybody. But I didn't ever feel like it affected my core as to who I was. I never and I give my parents credit for this maya. I never. I never really felt like anybody was damaging me or undermining me or subverting me, because I just didn't, you know, either respond to that or didn't frankly allow it. So, you know, maybe it's stubbornness. Maybe it's just the strength of you know, two parents who never told me that there wasn't anything I couldn't do as a woman. And so I don't feel like any of the sort of small choices compromises that I made along the way were that significant. I did feel so strong in my own sense of being in purpose. I think that also caused a reaction, and I think that was hard for people, men and women to understand. But it's just who I am. Yeah, I do wonder whether this is so interesting because it almost seems like the people of Arkansas wanted you to suffer a bit more from that name change, Like I would have almost felt more satisfying if it had been a really challenging thing for you, Like maybe they were they were hoping you were going to give them something meaningful to show how much you. I don't know is how wrong i'd been. How Yeah, it's like the fact that it was easy in some sense because you're such a pragmatist right to change your last name left people feeling like, Okay, she changed the last name, but damn it, but she didn't do enough. Yeah, we were trying to change her and she's not willing to change. That's one right, that's really perceptive. Maya, that is exactly right. And this has been a constant theme through my adult life. You know, there's something about women stepping into the arena, particularly being unapologetic about it, being willing to stand up against or call out strong groups or interest groups or forces at work. Whatever that is in and of itself, still I'm what, um, surprising and even uh not fully acceptable and and so I I really did experience that, um, and I think I paid a price for it. I mean I think that, you know, being unapologetically outspoken and willing to challenge conventional wisdom. You know, it's discomforting for a lot of people. Yeah, did I put up with a lot of stuff? Yeah? Did I put up with a lot of stuff when I ran for office? Yeah? Did I put up with you know, all kinds of you know, sexism and misogyny. Absolutely, some I just ignored for you know, all the reasons that people women of my age ignored that stuff. Uh, it just wasn't worth the battle. Even in the case of Arkansas, you made all these superficial change just to your look and you changed your last name. But it didn't it didn't do what people were hoping to do, which is to break you a little bit, you know, to like expose some deep vulnerabilities. Because what do bullies want. Ultimately, they want to get a rise out of you. They want to see you crack a bit. But you know, it's so interest This is so interesting to me because in the twenty sixteen campaign, like for example, the famous incident of the second debate where Trump is looming over me, leering at me and trying to intimidate me, and I'm madly going through what are my options here? Do I turn around and say, back up, you creep? You know you don't intimidate me? Do I, you know, try to laugh it off? What do I do? How do ideal with what is a clearly signaled effort on his part to his supporters that he's got the little lady in hand, because he's a master manipulator. And it was hard, and eventually I decided, no, you know, I'm not to respond. I'm not going to either laugh it off or try to, you know, expose it, because I don't want people to think I can't take it. I mean, I'm trying to be president of the United States, for heaven's sakes. So this is a highly complicated calculation as a woman, and I probably would guess that women make that calculation dozens of times a day. Yeah, you know, I think this constant critique that you've gotten over the course of your whole life is we don't know the real Hillary Clinton. And I just wonder, in having this conversation if that's a euphemism for we don't accept the real Hillary Clinton's That is exactly. She is not like me, or she's not like the women that I know, or she's not like what I want a woman to be. You know, I used to laugh when people in the media would say, oh, you know, she yells. Have you ever gone to a rally where any man is running for anything and he doesn't at some point yell, I mean, good grief, look who I was running against in twenty sixteen, and all of the yelling that went on. But you know, that's not what we want. So this is one of the areas that is really rich for further research and understanding, because how do you communicate about that. You know, you don't want to sound like you're whining. You don't want to sound like you can't take it. You don't want to sound like you're asking for special treatment. But how do you begin to unpack that. We'll be back in a moment with a slight change of plans. When Hillary Clinton moved into the White House after her husband became president, she again challenged the cookie cutter role laid out for her, this time as First Lady of the United States instead of Sticking to her ceremonial duties, Hillary was asked by her husband to lead the Task Force on National Healthcare Reform. It was an ambitious role that had never been given to a first lady before. She said yes, and almost immediately the public criticism began to pour in. You've been under this glaring spotlight. Right, It's unimaginable for a lot of people to be under such sustained scrutiny for so many decades. And it's almost like you've had this mirror permanently stationed in front of you that's just been reflecting things back in the form of a constructed Hillary, right, I mean, And so I do wonder like, obviously many of the things reflected back to you had been false, had been distorted. But was there ever something reflected back to you over the course of your long career that taught you something new about yourself? Yes? And And you know, I think I say this often because young people ask me all the time, how do you get into politics? How do you take you know, all the attacks and everything. And I said, look, I learned to take criticism seriously, but not personally. And by that, I mean your critics can teach you things that your friends either won't or don't know. Tom, you have to be careful about where the criticism is coming from, because a lot of times it's not well meaning. It's not it's not well intentioned at all. But you do have to at least understand and try to figure out how best to deal with it. So with respect to healthcare, I, you know, I learned a lot about the perceptions shaping reality. You know. My view is that we had all these really hard working, incredibly smart people from all over the country who were coming up with a plan that would make it possible for us to get to universal healthcare and make it affordable. So I mean, I worked on that very hard to help shape it and then to help present it. But I really believe that because I was the President's wife, it was hard for a lot of people to accept the plan for what it was. And if I had known that going in, I still would have worked really hard on it, but I wouldn't have headed it. Somebody else would have been the face of it, because all I cared about was trying to get it done. And you're taking it on as the first Lady of the United States unpaid volunteer, but nevertheless in that role that may just be too much for the body polo tick to absorb. And what did that teach you about yourself in terms of, you know, where a specific blind spot was or something that you just needed to learn the hard way, like well, I mean, it was a very big learning curve to be in a position that was totally vicarious. You know, everybody in a White House is there for only one reason. The President wants them there. And who the president marys ends up in the White House, who the President picks as vice president ends up in the White House. All these people end up in the White House. So I didn't have agency in a way that made it my responsibility as I did when I became a senator. I do wonder whether learning this lesson when you were first lady in the White House and recognizing that you maybe didn't love playing that vicarious role ended up fueling your interest in, you know, untethering yourself and running for senate. Was that was that part of the evolution for you? Yes, it was. And I'll tell you the exact moment that it all came together because I had, as I said, no idea that I would ever actually run for office. And then, you know, having been in the White House and knowing that it was going to end, you know, trying to think about what I was going to do next was pretty much on my mind. And after the nineteen ninety eight midterm elections, when then Senator moynihan said he wasn't going to run again, immediately Democrats in New York started calling me asking me to run. And I'm sure some of them thought I would be an excellent senator, but a lot of them thought that I was the only person they could think of who was available, who could beat Rudy Giuliani, who was running. So, you know, he had been mayor, he was obviously controversial, he was obviously tough and all of that. So we hadn't seen anything yet, which is well, he lost he lost his mind. I think, I don't know what happened to him. But so people started calling me members of Congress and others, and I kept saying no, no, no, no no. And then in the spring of ninety nine, I was as first Lady in New York City at a high school to promote women's sports. It was like a Title nine event, and there was a new documentary coming out about women in sports, and the name of the documentary was Dare to Compete. And of course, you know, the New York papers are filled with people trying to get me to run, and my saying, you know, no, etc. And the young woman who introduced me captain of you know, basketball team, she introduced me, and then she bent over and she whispered in my ear, dare to compete, missus Linton, dare to compete. I was so astonished by that, because, you know, I had spent many years urging women to compete, you know, in sports and academics and science, in politics. I'd campaigned for dozens of women running for Congress or governor, whatever election it was. And I suddenly thought to myself, maybe you're afraid to compete. Maybe you are telling people to do something that you wouldn't do yourself. And it was literally at that moment that I took seriously running for the Senate and working through it and trying to be as honest with myself as I could. I thought, Okay, I'm going to try this, And I had no idea whether it would work or not, because when you're supporting somebody else, and I'd support it, not just my husband, but you know, hundreds of people, you know, it's always about them, and then all of a sudden, you know it's about you. And so it was. It was a big transition. But it was that well, that young woman at that moment that really, I think turned my head around. What do you think you were scared of? I think it was just the unknown. I think it was knowing how hard politics is, because honestly, I'm kind of an expert on that. I thought, you know, I'm just going to be walking into the meat grinder. It's been you know, a very eventful eight years. I could go teach, or write or do all kinds of interesting things. Why do I want to do that? You know? Why do I want to subject myself to that? And remember I had been burned in effigy well with other things, so I knew I was already again because of all the stuff I represented as a I don't know, baby boomer woman who you know, didn't know her play. I guess I had been, you know, subjected to so many a text from Rush Limbaugh and all the people like that. Why did I want to do that? Why? And then I kind of thought, Okay, you have been and you also believe that there's a lot of things we need to do. You've had a front row seat on history, So get out there and try. You never know until you try. So that's what I ended up doing. Yeah. I think it's easy for people to think of you now and say Hillary Clinton came out of the box this way, right, she was she always had the courage and bravery to run for these big offices. But you know, you had to go through your own personal evolution just like every other person out there, right, Well, what were some if you don't mind sharing, like, what were some insecurities that you had along the way that you had to work through? Oh? My gosh. You know, once you're out there on your own, you're not there to advocate for a program or advocate for a candidate. You know, I think where you're going to be anny good at it? You know, you go from behind the scenes to the front of the stage. And how are people going to respond to you? And are they going to believe you, listen to you, agree with you? Is your personality? Is it going to be enough? So yeah, I mean there's a lot of criticism, and then you know, you get all of the gendered criticism, like don't wear that color, wear this color. Don't wear flat shoes, wear heels or vice versa. Don't let your hair grow, don't let your hair be short. I mean, everybody feels like they can critique a woman in the public arena. They don't do that to men, you know, ninety nine point nine percent of the time. And I had some of the same experience when I practiced law, because you know, there were expectations about what a woman lawyer should look like. So I wasn't totally surprised, but the amount of unsolicited advice that you start to receive, and people say things like, you know, learn to talk like then they always fell on a man's name, like learn to talk like Bill Clinton, learn to talk like Winston Churchill. I remember somebody said, you know, all of these kind of you know, expectations that are not at all who you are, and what you have to do is just learn to be yourself and just be yourself and do the best you can, and then you know you'll either be successful or not, but at least you'll be true to yourself. Yeah. I have been pretty much the same person says I was a little girl, and I think your insights into how that rattled a lot of people in terms of what was to be expected, but I also think that it still is affecting women across the board in every walk of life, and so you have to first of all be at peace with who you are, then try to translate that into the role you're playing in an effective way, whether it's private or personal or public, and just get the most out of every day. Hey, thanks for listening. See you next week when I'm going to be talking to change expert doctor Katie Milkman about science based strategies to help you inspire change in your own life. And I was in this seminar and a graph went up, which normally doesn't change your life, but this graph changed my life. The graph just showed a breakdown of how many premature deaths are due to different causes, and forty percent of premature deaths turn out to be the result of decisions that we can change. A slight change of Plans is created an executive produce by me Maya Shanker. Big thanks to everyone at Pushkin Industries, including our producer Lola Board, associate producers David ja and Julia Goodman, executive producers Mia Lavelle, and Justine Lange, senior editor Jen Guera, and sound design and mixed engineers Ben Taliday and Jason Gambrel. Thanks also to Louis Gara, who wrote our theme song, and Ginger Smith who helped arrange the vocals, incidental music from Epidemic Sound, and of course a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow a slight change of plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Shanker. If we hadn't talked so much about me, I have a lot of questions for you. I think you're slightly more interesting than me, so I'm glad we spent the time this way. It was such a pleasure. Good luck to you, and I hope I get to meet you in person. Take care, Yes, I hope so too. All Right, take care, okay, bye bye

Pushkin pushkin. It is a constant balancing act. It's everything from how you dress and you know what your hairstyle is, to how loudly you speak or how loudly you laugh, or you know who you are seen with or I mean, it's just a constant judgment. Hillary Rodham Clinton's had a complicated relationship with the public. It started in the nineteen seventies when she challenged the cookie cutter roll laid out for her as first Lady of Arkansas. Follow her to me that you really don't fit the image that we have created or the governor's wife in Arkansas. You're not a native, you've been educated in liberal Eastern universities. If you're less than for it, you don't have any children, you don't use your husband's name, you practice law. Does it concern you that maybe other people feel that you don't fit the image that we have created for the governor's wife in Arkansas. No, that doesn't bother me, and I hope that it doesn't bother very many people. But it did bother many people. Hillary being Hillary made people uncomfortable, and so one by one, her critics started asking her to change herself. Despite all her extraordinary accomplishments, including senator, secretary of state, first woman to be nominated for president by a major political party, and I mean she even won the popular vote in the twenty sixteen election. Despite all of that, people kept at it. They wanted Hillary to be different, for her to change, and she was willing to change, just never in the way that people had hoped. I'm maya Shunker, and this is a slight change of plans, a show that dieds deep into the world of change and hopefully gets us to think differently about change in our own lives. Hi, how are you. Hi. It's great to meet you, Secretary Clinton. I just wanted to welcome you formally to my closet. I always dreamed it would be this way, you know, the first time I met Hillary Clinton would be from my makeshift recording studio with clothes everywhere. But I guess this is the world we live in right now. It is the world we live in. I have been privy to many closets over the last year because as I've been doing my podcast and talking with friends on Zoom and everything, people are in closets. They're in corners of their bedroom, they're in kitchens, I mean, it's just been quite a tour of everybody's living space. Yeah, exactly. You get an intimate glimpse into people's lives exactly. So I'm just going to jump in. Do you mind if I call you Hillary? Not at all, Not at all. So I love to rewind the clock to your twenties. We can take the little time machine back in time. So you're a lawyer in DC, You've just wrapped up your work on the Nixon impeachment hearings, and then love gets in the way and you end up moving to Arkansas and Bill becomes governor, and you are not the typical first lady, and that's met with some resistance, right. Do you mind sharing what it was that people were taking issue with? Well, I think that back in what would have been the nineteen seventies, it was still, you know, somewhat unusual to have graduated from law school to be teaching law or practicing law. I did both, and I really saw that, but I didn't think it would impede me in any way. And then when I married Bill in nineteen seventy five, you know, I determined that I would keep my own name, which seemed to me to make a lot of sense, because that's what I had written under at law school, that's what I had practice law undertaught, etc. And I think it was really at the point that our daughter was born in February of nineteen eighty and Bill was having to run for reelection because there were only two year terms for governors back then, and the front page announcement was Governor Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham announced the birth of their daughter, Chelsea. It was probably that moment that really pierced people's public consciousness that oh, my gosh, she has a different name. And then that became a really big issue. And so when Bill lost for reelection in nineteen eighty in the Reagan landslide, among the top reasons people said that they didn't vote for him was because I didn't take his last name or change my name, as they would say. And it was a truly surprising revelation to me that that would matter so much to people. But now, frankly wouldn't make that big a difference to anybody, but it was significant, and I had so many people come to me and say, you really have to take your husband's last name. You're really stopping him from being able to run again and be governor again, and there's a lot at stake with him being governor. And the one person never asked me to do that was my husband. He thought it was pretty ridiculous also, but I concluded that it was, you know, for me, something that I was willing to do, and I made an announcement that I would be Hillary Rodham Clinton. And obviously it went against what I thought was my decision, but I balanced all of the pros and cons and decided that on balance, it was the right thing for me to do. Yeah. I think a lot of people, women, especially face the same kind of tension, which is knowing when it makes sense to compromise. Right, Do I do I take a principled stance at every turn, but then risk getting kicked out of the arena altogether and then lose my ability to have impact. Or do I try to more thoughtfully pick my battles and stay in the arena and just play the longer game. Well, that's exactly right. I was not going to stop practicing law. I was not going to stop being outspoken about a lot of issues that really mattered to me. And when Bill was reelected in nineteen eighty two, I dove back in and shared a task force to reform education in the state, and it was I'm sure easier for some people to hear the changes I was advocating for because I was all of a sudden truly understood to be the governor's wife. So it is a constant balancing act, and I'm sure that's true for all people, but I think you're right to say that as women, we make those decisions constantly. And it's everything from how you dress and you know what your hairstyle is, to how loudly you speak or how loudly you laugh, or you know who you are seen with or I mean, it's just a constant judgment both internally you're judging yourself, but most importantly how you're being judged, because there continues to be a rather active double standard. Yeah, there's some really telling footage from back in the day where you're getting interviewed about your role as first Lady, and underneath your face it says Hillary Rawdon, and underneath that in parentheses it says missus Bill Clinton. I mean, I just laughed out loud, right, But I'm part of a different generation where it just seems like, of course I'm going to keep my last name. But I recognize that at the time that was a truly bold feminist statement. So I want to dig into that a little bit more. Which when you did first marry Bill, what fueled your decision to keep your last name. I was just you know, feeling like he was going into politics and he would have a very public life. At that time, I never thought I would personally run for office, but I thought I would stay as an advocate. I'd been, you know, working for the Children's Offense Fund, I'd been a lawyer on the impeachment inquiry staff. I'd had really fascinating important jobs for me, and I wanted my professional life to be considered separate from his. And I will tell you a funny story. Before I took his last name, I was helping on a big lawsuit in my law firm with one of the senior partners. And we went to trial. And we went to trial in this rural county outside of Little Rock, and the judge was at that time under investigation, and the office investigating him was the Attorney General's Office, headed by my husband. So we were in the courtroom and this was the kind of judge back in the day, who would say how pretty I looked and asked me to stand up and twirl around to show everybody what a pretty dress I was wearing. On and on, we made our case and we moved to be dismissed from the case, and we were successful. So we get back to our office and the next day the senior partner calls me in and he said, well, I'm sure glad we got dismissed yesterday because on one of the breaks, the judge was cursing out your husband, talking about how terrible the Attorney General was to be investigating him. So one of the other lawyers said, well, you know, your honor, that young woman that was in the courtroom, that's Bill Clinton's wife. And the judge said, well, if I'd known that, I wouldn't have dismissed the case against your client. Now that to me and apsolated. You know, the challenge of being married to a public figure but being very committed to my own professional career. I mean, I love that Bill never asked you to change your name. So when you finally when you finally took the plunge, what did he say to you? Was he kind of like thanks? But yeah, yeah, he basically said, look, you know, I wish you wouldn't have to do this. I wish you didn't think you had to do it. Please don't do it for me. And you know, he said everything the right thing, but he also encountered from a lot of you know, his male supporters, you know, men who would say, you know, Bill, I always thought of you as a really you know, strong guy, and how come you don't make your wife take you know, take your name. I mean, it was such a flash point, and it it was, you know, something that I guess both of us should have predicted. Now we would be you know, laughing at it. But look at what they make big issues out of today. So I guess we shouldn't be surprised that anything which touches a cultural hot point is going to provoke a reaction. Do you remember the first time you introduced yourself as Hillary Clinton? Oh, sure, I would. I did a press conference. I mean, you know, I was at an event and I said, look, I know this means a lot of a number of people, and I don't want their concern about you know, my last name to interfere with doing what's right for the state and making some tough decisions. So from now on I will be known as Hillary Rodham Clinton. I just did it, very matter of fact. I didn't make a big deal out of it, and you know, I assumed that. Okay, now you can argue about me about other things. Why is she still working? Why why is she, you know, telling people to raise their taxes to pay for teachers? What is she doing? And then later why is she fighting for healthcare and the you know when Bill was president? So fine, if this gets you to focus on what I actually think is important, and that is how we're going to live together, make tough decisions together, let's do that. It's interesting. I mean, there was an element of a slippery slope which used to change her name. It's that with positive reception and then all of a sudden people are like, oh yeah, but what about your hair and your glasses and makeup and can we get you a stylist. I'm curious to know whether changing any of these parts of yourself ever affected your self perception. You know, I never thought any of it affected my self perception or my identity, and there were parts that I ended up enjoying. You know, I finally got around to forcing myself to wear contact lenses. You know, it made a big difference and how I could actually see as well as be seen. I had a lot of fun all of a sudden, you know, thinking, well, you know, I don't have to just wear turtlenecks and and baggy vests and you know, skirts and pants or whatever. So yeah, they're parts of it that were interesting that, you know, maybe I wouldn't have pursued had I not married Bill, or had I not ever married anybody. But I didn't ever feel like it affected my core as to who I was. I never and I give my parents credit for this maya. I never. I never really felt like anybody was damaging me or undermining me or subverting me, because I just didn't, you know, either respond to that or didn't frankly allow it. So, you know, maybe it's stubbornness. Maybe it's just the strength of you know, two parents who never told me that there wasn't anything I couldn't do as a woman. And so I don't feel like any of the sort of small choices compromises that I made along the way were that significant. I did feel so strong in my own sense of being in purpose. I think that also caused a reaction, and I think that was hard for people, men and women to understand. But it's just who I am. Yeah, I do wonder whether this is so interesting because it almost seems like the people of Arkansas wanted you to suffer a bit more from that name change, Like I would have almost felt more satisfying if it had been a really challenging thing for you, Like maybe they were they were hoping you were going to give them something meaningful to show how much you. I don't know is how wrong i'd been. How Yeah, it's like the fact that it was easy in some sense because you're such a pragmatist right to change your last name left people feeling like, Okay, she changed the last name, but damn it, but she didn't do enough. Yeah, we were trying to change her and she's not willing to change. That's one right, that's really perceptive. Maya, that is exactly right. And this has been a constant theme through my adult life. You know, there's something about women stepping into the arena, particularly being unapologetic about it, being willing to stand up against or call out strong groups or interest groups or forces at work. Whatever that is in and of itself, still I'm what, um, surprising and even uh not fully acceptable and and so I I really did experience that, um, and I think I paid a price for it. I mean I think that, you know, being unapologetically outspoken and willing to challenge conventional wisdom. You know, it's discomforting for a lot of people. Yeah, did I put up with a lot of stuff? Yeah? Did I put up with a lot of stuff when I ran for office? Yeah? Did I put up with you know, all kinds of you know, sexism and misogyny. Absolutely, some I just ignored for you know, all the reasons that people women of my age ignored that stuff. Uh, it just wasn't worth the battle. Even in the case of Arkansas, you made all these superficial change just to your look and you changed your last name. But it didn't it didn't do what people were hoping to do, which is to break you a little bit, you know, to like expose some deep vulnerabilities. Because what do bullies want. Ultimately, they want to get a rise out of you. They want to see you crack a bit. But you know, it's so interest This is so interesting to me because in the twenty sixteen campaign, like for example, the famous incident of the second debate where Trump is looming over me, leering at me and trying to intimidate me, and I'm madly going through what are my options here? Do I turn around and say, back up, you creep? You know you don't intimidate me? Do I, you know, try to laugh it off? What do I do? How do ideal with what is a clearly signaled effort on his part to his supporters that he's got the little lady in hand, because he's a master manipulator. And it was hard, and eventually I decided, no, you know, I'm not to respond. I'm not going to either laugh it off or try to, you know, expose it, because I don't want people to think I can't take it. I mean, I'm trying to be president of the United States, for heaven's sakes. So this is a highly complicated calculation as a woman, and I probably would guess that women make that calculation dozens of times a day. Yeah, you know, I think this constant critique that you've gotten over the course of your whole life is we don't know the real Hillary Clinton. And I just wonder, in having this conversation if that's a euphemism for we don't accept the real Hillary Clinton's That is exactly. She is not like me, or she's not like the women that I know, or she's not like what I want a woman to be. You know, I used to laugh when people in the media would say, oh, you know, she yells. Have you ever gone to a rally where any man is running for anything and he doesn't at some point yell, I mean, good grief, look who I was running against in twenty sixteen, and all of the yelling that went on. But you know, that's not what we want. So this is one of the areas that is really rich for further research and understanding, because how do you communicate about that. You know, you don't want to sound like you're whining. You don't want to sound like you can't take it. You don't want to sound like you're asking for special treatment. But how do you begin to unpack that. We'll be back in a moment with a slight change of plans. When Hillary Clinton moved into the White House after her husband became president, she again challenged the cookie cutter role laid out for her, this time as First Lady of the United States instead of Sticking to her ceremonial duties, Hillary was asked by her husband to lead the Task Force on National Healthcare Reform. It was an ambitious role that had never been given to a first lady before. She said yes, and almost immediately the public criticism began to pour in. You've been under this glaring spotlight. Right, It's unimaginable for a lot of people to be under such sustained scrutiny for so many decades. And it's almost like you've had this mirror permanently stationed in front of you that's just been reflecting things back in the form of a constructed Hillary, right, I mean, And so I do wonder like, obviously many of the things reflected back to you had been false, had been distorted. But was there ever something reflected back to you over the course of your long career that taught you something new about yourself? Yes? And And you know, I think I say this often because young people ask me all the time, how do you get into politics? How do you take you know, all the attacks and everything. And I said, look, I learned to take criticism seriously, but not personally. And by that, I mean your critics can teach you things that your friends either won't or don't know. Tom, you have to be careful about where the criticism is coming from, because a lot of times it's not well meaning. It's not it's not well intentioned at all. But you do have to at least understand and try to figure out how best to deal with it. So with respect to healthcare, I, you know, I learned a lot about the perceptions shaping reality. You know. My view is that we had all these really hard working, incredibly smart people from all over the country who were coming up with a plan that would make it possible for us to get to universal healthcare and make it affordable. So I mean, I worked on that very hard to help shape it and then to help present it. But I really believe that because I was the President's wife, it was hard for a lot of people to accept the plan for what it was. And if I had known that going in, I still would have worked really hard on it, but I wouldn't have headed it. Somebody else would have been the face of it, because all I cared about was trying to get it done. And you're taking it on as the first Lady of the United States unpaid volunteer, but nevertheless in that role that may just be too much for the body polo tick to absorb. And what did that teach you about yourself in terms of, you know, where a specific blind spot was or something that you just needed to learn the hard way, like well, I mean, it was a very big learning curve to be in a position that was totally vicarious. You know, everybody in a White House is there for only one reason. The President wants them there. And who the president marys ends up in the White House, who the President picks as vice president ends up in the White House. All these people end up in the White House. So I didn't have agency in a way that made it my responsibility as I did when I became a senator. I do wonder whether learning this lesson when you were first lady in the White House and recognizing that you maybe didn't love playing that vicarious role ended up fueling your interest in, you know, untethering yourself and running for senate. Was that was that part of the evolution for you? Yes, it was. And I'll tell you the exact moment that it all came together because I had, as I said, no idea that I would ever actually run for office. And then, you know, having been in the White House and knowing that it was going to end, you know, trying to think about what I was going to do next was pretty much on my mind. And after the nineteen ninety eight midterm elections, when then Senator moynihan said he wasn't going to run again, immediately Democrats in New York started calling me asking me to run. And I'm sure some of them thought I would be an excellent senator, but a lot of them thought that I was the only person they could think of who was available, who could beat Rudy Giuliani, who was running. So, you know, he had been mayor, he was obviously controversial, he was obviously tough and all of that. So we hadn't seen anything yet, which is well, he lost he lost his mind. I think, I don't know what happened to him. But so people started calling me members of Congress and others, and I kept saying no, no, no, no no. And then in the spring of ninety nine, I was as first Lady in New York City at a high school to promote women's sports. It was like a Title nine event, and there was a new documentary coming out about women in sports, and the name of the documentary was Dare to Compete. And of course, you know, the New York papers are filled with people trying to get me to run, and my saying, you know, no, etc. And the young woman who introduced me captain of you know, basketball team, she introduced me, and then she bent over and she whispered in my ear, dare to compete, missus Linton, dare to compete. I was so astonished by that, because, you know, I had spent many years urging women to compete, you know, in sports and academics and science, in politics. I'd campaigned for dozens of women running for Congress or governor, whatever election it was. And I suddenly thought to myself, maybe you're afraid to compete. Maybe you are telling people to do something that you wouldn't do yourself. And it was literally at that moment that I took seriously running for the Senate and working through it and trying to be as honest with myself as I could. I thought, Okay, I'm going to try this, And I had no idea whether it would work or not, because when you're supporting somebody else, and I'd support it, not just my husband, but you know, hundreds of people, you know, it's always about them, and then all of a sudden, you know it's about you. And so it was. It was a big transition. But it was that well, that young woman at that moment that really, I think turned my head around. What do you think you were scared of? I think it was just the unknown. I think it was knowing how hard politics is, because honestly, I'm kind of an expert on that. I thought, you know, I'm just going to be walking into the meat grinder. It's been you know, a very eventful eight years. I could go teach, or write or do all kinds of interesting things. Why do I want to do that? You know? Why do I want to subject myself to that? And remember I had been burned in effigy well with other things, so I knew I was already again because of all the stuff I represented as a I don't know, baby boomer woman who you know, didn't know her play. I guess I had been, you know, subjected to so many a text from Rush Limbaugh and all the people like that. Why did I want to do that? Why? And then I kind of thought, Okay, you have been and you also believe that there's a lot of things we need to do. You've had a front row seat on history, So get out there and try. You never know until you try. So that's what I ended up doing. Yeah. I think it's easy for people to think of you now and say Hillary Clinton came out of the box this way, right, she was she always had the courage and bravery to run for these big offices. But you know, you had to go through your own personal evolution just like every other person out there, right, Well, what were some if you don't mind sharing, like, what were some insecurities that you had along the way that you had to work through? Oh? My gosh. You know, once you're out there on your own, you're not there to advocate for a program or advocate for a candidate. You know, I think where you're going to be anny good at it? You know, you go from behind the scenes to the front of the stage. And how are people going to respond to you? And are they going to believe you, listen to you, agree with you? Is your personality? Is it going to be enough? So yeah, I mean there's a lot of criticism, and then you know, you get all of the gendered criticism, like don't wear that color, wear this color. Don't wear flat shoes, wear heels or vice versa. Don't let your hair grow, don't let your hair be short. I mean, everybody feels like they can critique a woman in the public arena. They don't do that to men, you know, ninety nine point nine percent of the time. And I had some of the same experience when I practiced law, because you know, there were expectations about what a woman lawyer should look like. So I wasn't totally surprised, but the amount of unsolicited advice that you start to receive, and people say things like, you know, learn to talk like then they always fell on a man's name, like learn to talk like Bill Clinton, learn to talk like Winston Churchill. I remember somebody said, you know, all of these kind of you know, expectations that are not at all who you are, and what you have to do is just learn to be yourself and just be yourself and do the best you can, and then you know you'll either be successful or not, but at least you'll be true to yourself. Yeah. I have been pretty much the same person says I was a little girl, and I think your insights into how that rattled a lot of people in terms of what was to be expected, but I also think that it still is affecting women across the board in every walk of life, and so you have to first of all be at peace with who you are, then try to translate that into the role you're playing in an effective way, whether it's private or personal or public, and just get the most out of every day. Hey, thanks for listening. See you next week when I'm going to be talking to change expert doctor Katie Milkman about science based strategies to help you inspire change in your own life. And I was in this seminar and a graph went up, which normally doesn't change your life, but this graph changed my life. The graph just showed a breakdown of how many premature deaths are due to different causes, and forty percent of premature deaths turn out to be the result of decisions that we can change. A slight change of Plans is created an executive produce by me Maya Shanker. Big thanks to everyone at Pushkin Industries, including our producer Lola Board, associate producers David ja and Julia Goodman, executive producers Mia Lavelle, and Justine Lange, senior editor Jen Guera, and sound design and mixed engineers Ben Taliday and Jason Gambrel. Thanks also to Louis Gara, who wrote our theme song, and Ginger Smith who helped arrange the vocals, incidental music from Epidemic Sound, and of course a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow a slight change of plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Shanker. If we hadn't talked so much about me, I have a lot of questions for you. I think you're slightly more interesting than me, so I'm glad we spent the time this way. It was such a pleasure. Good luck to you, and I hope I get to meet you in person. Take care, Yes, I hope so too. All Right, take care, okay, bye bye