Women, Ambition, and Running for Office

Published Sep 6, 2018, 12:28 AM

A & B are joined by author Jo Piazza to talk about her new book and the challenges faced by women running for office. 

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This is Annie and this is Bridget and you're listening to Steph. Mom. Never told you today, we're going to be joined with another guest. UM. A couple of months ago, we talked to journalists and author Joe Piazza about her podcast Committed, which is awesome if you haven't checked it out, UM, and that is all about how to stay married. But recently Joe had a book come out called Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win, and she was very kind to send to some copies which I gobbled through at at the Beach. It was nice actually got to read at the Beach for once. And the book is all about a woman named Charlotte Wash surprise there, who wants to run for office in her home district in Pennsylvania after living and working in Silicon Valley. And as the title suggests, Charlotte Walsh likes to win. She is unabashedly ambitious and that's kind of what the book examines. So, as we touched on in our episode called Year of the Woman, a lot of women are running for office this year, and not only that, they are winning. According to The New Yorker in April four hundred and seventy two, women had entered the race for House, which is a lot of women. Fifty seven women filed or are likely to file candidacies for the Senate, and with historic primary wins from folks like Stacy Abrams and Georgia alex Ocasio Cortez. In New York, Dana Carome winning the election for Virginia's House of Delegates as the first openly trans woman to do so. Women are really kicking ass when it comes to running for office. But unfortunately, as y'all might suspect, running for office as a woman comes with its own unwritten set of rules. Yeah, sometimes literally. Earlier this year, after Tammy Duckworth became the first sitting US Senator to give birth, she and Senator Amy klubash Or had to negotiate four months to change Senate rules to allow Senator Duckworth to bring her under two weeks old nursing daughter with her for a confirmation vote. They were obviously engaging in this negotiation before Tammy Duckworthy birth, but and in there were even rumors of a compromise that will allow her to vote from a closet. From a closet, Wow, Yeah, the implication and unfortunately the reality there is that the rules were made for men and that women are outliers, and probably we should have started with this. This is a fiction book Charlotte Walsh likes to win, but it it reflects so much of our reality, and it is extremely timely. A lot of it examines the the media coverage, the differences in media coverage a male versus a female candidate faces. And I remember when Hillary Clinton was running and all the talk of her shrill voy and she's not authentic, and she's cold. And I would hear friends say to me, I just don't like her, and I'd ask why, and they'd say something along the lines of she just seems fake. I don't believe her. And I try to explain, well, she's probably been coached to a friend as little men as possible, and and people would shrug at me and say, well, I don't like her. Um, she wants it too badly. Essentially, she's not a cool girl. Yeah, even even politicians can't get away from this cool girl trap. I want to be clear. I like Hillary Clinton. I campaign for her, I voted for her. Obviously, I'm not saying there are not legitimate reasons to not want to vote for her, but saying that she just doesn't seem cool or she wants it too much. That seems like a like a coded sexist implication that because she's driven, because she's ambitious, that comes off as untrustworthy to you. But if a man had the same behavior, you would you wouldn't necessarily say that, And the data agrees with me. Women like Hillary Clinton are saddled with another unfair hurdle, and that is the need to be likable. The nonpartisan and Barbara Lee Family Foundation had a study called The Keys to Elected Office, The Essential Guide for Women Now. The data in this report was gathered from the campaigns of every woman who has run for governor in the past fifteen years. The report pulled voters along the candidates and campaign staff, and they found that likability and qualifications are more closely linked for female candidates than with male candidates, or, as a study puts it, for women candidates not making a mistake, it's part of being likable. For male candidates not making a mistake, it's part of being organized and getting results. And women are even deemed for really simple things like the choice to wear clothes. One study found that when articles mentioned a woman's shoes or clothing, voters are less likely to want to vote for them if they're women. Name It, Change It. A joint project of the Women's Media Center and She Should Run released a study conducted by the Salinda Lake of Lake Research Partners and how dropped in mentions of a woman's clothing in appearance affect voters. They probable voters read gender neutral descriptions of a hypothetical male and female candidate and then asked them how likely they would be to vote for one over the other. At the beginning, they liked each candidate about equally. Then four separate groups of study participants each heard a slightly different version of a news story about hypothetical candidates. One group's new story didn't mention the female candidates clothing or appearance at all, and of that group have said they would vote for the male candidate half for the female candidate. But the three groups of study participants who heard a new story that mentioned the woman's appearance suddenly changed their minds and started ranking the female candidate. It's less experienced, less confident, less effective, and less qualified than her male opponent. So basically, if an article mentions, oh, she wore x y Z kind of shoes or x y Z kind of haircut, or x y Z kind of jacket or x y Z kind of purse. As articles about women politicians often do automatically, voters experienced them as less qualified, less constant, and all of that, and it's really it's mess up. We have to wear clothes, Yeah, can you imagine if we didn't wear clothes would be a different news story. I know, I know women across all industries are kind of up against that's very very unfair double standard where we can't win. You know, you can't be yourself otherwise you look unhinged or crazy or this or that. You can't be too coached and too you know, sanitize otherwise you want it too bad, you don't seem trustworthy. That there's really no way to win, especially for women who are running for office. And Joe's book, which we're going to be talking about in a little bit, looks all at all aspects of that, at female ambition, at what a woman running for office is up against, that double standard, that tight rope. You're damned if you do, damned if you don't. We're gonna pause for a quick break, but when we come back. We're going to be joined by Joe Piazza. We're gonna talk all about this and we're back. Thank you sponsor, and we're joined by our friend Joe. Hello, Joe. Hey, ladies, thank you so much for joining us again, and congratulations on the book. Thanks for having me again, um, and thank you for that. It's it's been really amazing. I like literally just got home for the first time in a month. We were on a book tour, driving through the middle of the country for the past four weeks. What was that like? Um, it was amazing actually, and I'm so glad that we did it because so the book is about a woman running for office, kind of timely right now, right a little bit. And we went to we we started in Asheville, and we went to Asheville, Nashville, Louisville, the suburbs of Chicago, Milwaukee, Minnesota, and we got the hell out of our bubbles, which was incredible. I mean, I live in San Francisco, I work in New York most of the time in l A And those are some real bubbles. And so we talked to women who were completely different from us, um, and who were hungry for this story, who were hungry for a story about a woman running for office, about an ambitious an ambitious woman. Um, because books, movies, and TV just kind of fail women a lot of the time. You know, we don't we don't show really powerful strong women nearly enough. So no matter what side of the aisle, a lot of the women in the audience were on, they were psyched for such a strong female character and that was just really cool. Why do you think that is? Why do you think the media does such a bad job when it comes to displaying ambitious women in that way, Because it's been run by men ever, I mean since the very beginning, I mean genuinely, the Hollywood studio system has was the brain child of men, except for Mary Pickford, who did started with her who started the original studio with her husband, but she was pretty much cast aside. And we've had men making the decisions about what they think women want to be seeing. And I genuinely think pop culture, so books, TV and movies, they've just they've all failed us by failing to create strong women because they say, one men definitely won't see it, and two women women don't want to watch it because their men won't watch it with them. It's changing now, it's starting to change. Um. But I've been in l A. I was in l A all last week doing negotiations to turn Charlotte Walsh into a TV show, and I'm working with people who get it and who love it. But it's definitely not the norm. Yeah. I remember the last time we spoke with you, you were unhappy with this, this lacker of representation of ambitious women in the media, and you kind of blamed it for the how it turned out the election totally. I mean, I absolutely think that's that that's why the election turned out way that it did. I also blamed the media, and I think I'm allowed to say that, you know, because I am the media, and I was the media for twenty For twenty years, um, I was I covered for presidential races. I covered a slew of local and state races in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. And I think that we know, we know that the media treats women completely differently than it treats men. It criticizes women for what they wear, how they walk, how who's taking care of their children, or what kind of makeup they have on. And they would never ever do that to a man. So I blame I blame the media, and I blame pop culture. I mean I mostly blame men. I pretty much always mostly blame me. That's usually a safe bet. Just blame then that's generally what I do as well. Um, something that interests me. So you said that, you know, the media is one of the reasons why the Clinton was treated so badly. I completely agree on that same flip side. You know, we we opened the episode talking about all of these women running for office, this sort of untested slew running and winning primaries. Do you think that's a reaction to Donald Trump. I mean, it absolutely is. And I say this all the time that if Donald Trump gave us one good thing, I mean besides a slew of memes, Um, I think that he empowered us to to fight. Right If we had we been given Hillary right after we've been given Barack, I think we would have been like, oh, okay, the world has finally changed and come to its rational senses. But now we've had no choice but to fight. Women have had no choice but to stand up and say, yes, I'm running, Yes I want to fix this, Yes I want to change this. And I mean that is a gift to learn how to fight back. Um All. I interviewed hundreds of women for for this book, women who'd run for office, are running or running campaigns, um and a lot of women running right now, and they all told me they're like, yes, it's a reaction to Donald Trump, but it's also a reaction that Donald Trump shows things are broken and they want to fix it. Because when women run for office, they run because they want to fix it, and when men run a lot of times it's because of ego. What you just said about women running to fix and men running because they want the glitz and glory, I gotta say, you know, I no longer than the New York City, but I did watch the debate last night between Cynthia Nixon and Andrew Cuomo, and what you just said is like ding ding ding ding ding. Yes, you know, the person who seemed like they were just as an as a New Yorker fed up with all of these issues and thinking we can do better, I want to fix it. I have to say. I mean that person was Cynthia Nixon, and the person who seemed like I am fulfilling my political destiny by winning this race that will put me on a trajectory to be president someday and fulfill my family like legacy and dynasty. That person was Clomo. I mean I so I watched scenes from that debate over and over again. I mean, this, this is what I did last night with a tub of ice cream, just me Wahington, Washington Day Nixon. Um, and she was incredible. She was so impressive. Cuomo was up there like stock political character, look at me, and since they was like, Okay, this is how we're going to fix the subway. Okay, this is how we're going to fix education. I mean literally, it was like fix it, fix it, fix it. And what amazes me still is looking at coverage of her, She's still not taken seriously as a candidate. I mean she's there's constantly references to sex in the city, often in the headline of major newspapers. Um, I get it. She was an actress. She hasn't. She hasn't not been an actress on a television show for quite some time. She's been an activist for quite some time. Um, she lives what she preaches. And had it been a man who was running, I mean, and we've seen men run. We saw Al Franken run we saw Arnold Schwarzenegger run, they would not have been treated so lightly in every single story about them as Cynthia has been treated. And I think, especially with her particular case, Dixon had a legacy of risen around public education, predating her work on sex and the city. Like she I like, I didn't know this, and I'm surprised that I that I should didn't know this. But she had been really, really active in New York City's public education site for a long time. And so this idea that she has no political background, no advocacy experience, which is not true. No, it's just I mean, it's absolutely not true. It's a complete myth. Um. Cynthia really killed it last night. I mean, I said to my husband before we went to bed, and like, I, I actually think she might be able to win. Now. I did not know going into this. I mean, because Cuomo is such a legacy, right, um, and even people that know nothing about New York politics, of course, Andrew Cuomo, I mean, he's a politician. He sounds like a politician. Um. But I genuinely believe I feel good about her race now, and I feel good about so many other women's races now. And like you said, we're seeing a record number of women running right now. I Christina Reynolds, the VP of comms for Emily's List, was on two of my event panels with me UM in York and in DC, and she just said, they've never ever seen anything like this. They've never seen they never had this many women one to ask about running and to ask about helping women to run, and it's it's incredible. Yeah, it really is, Um. And I wanted to ask, even though I feel like the answer might be might be easily guessable, motivated you to to write this book? Well? I thought about writing the book before November. I mean mostly because I was watching how the media wasn't just covering the women candidate, but all women candidates, and I was like, you know, we fiction really should reflect the reality we're living in right now. But then absolutely everything changed. Um. The book was originally going to be much more of a satire, and then we started living in a satire, so that wasn't possible anymore. And so and a lot of people ask me, they're like, your journalist, why didn't you make it nonfiction? You interviewed all these people, And I think that fix just has a way of changing people's hearts and minds in a way nonfiction doesn't, because you're just kind of slipping it in. It's a little softer then banging them over the head with facts and figures. And people are reading the book that wouldn't pick up a nonfiction book, that wouldn't pick up like hardcore political book at all. And you know, I kind of a bitch about it all the time. The fact that this book came out in the summer, um like a lot of books by women authors do um. It was categorized as a beach read by a lot of people. Had the book been written by a man, it would have come out in the fall and been an important fall book, um and been categorized as very serious literature about the times we live in. But that's fine, and I'm fine with it because it means that women that wanted to pick up a quote unquote beach read picked it up and read it. And I get comments all the time from people saying, oh my god, I never thought about these things. Oh my god, I just picked the woman running in my district and I'm volunteering now, but I never would have done that before. Um. And so that's the coolest part about this book. And that's why I wrote it. I was like, let's let's start a conversation, a real conversation. And we're seeing it. I mean, we are seeing New York Times articles about the harassment that women face on the campaign trail, the terrible things that people say to women. Um, we're seeing women candidates speak up when people when newspapers use a picture of them that isn't that's not just flattering, but that's insulting. And then put a picture of male candidates in their nice business suits with their next Brianna Wou that was that story was was really something to me. Okay, So for folks who don't know what we're talking about, um, it's Brianna Wou sort of came to prominence throughout gamer Gate, Like she was a big, outspoken critic of gamer Gate and with someone who raised alarm bells about what had been happening to her women like her in the gaming industry, and it made her a huge target, as you might imagine. And so now she's running for she wanting for Congress. Yeah, she's running for the House. And you know she had just done this a photo shoot with the Boston Globe wherein she you know, was looked very you know, it looks like someone running for office, you know, brown hair, wearing a professional dress, all of that. And she's someone who in other times in her life has worn you know, dyed hair like anime colored hair, and funky clothes like many of us. And the Boston Globe chose her two male kid her two male opponents normal pictures of them in suits, head shots, and it seemingly took a picture that was like a screenshot on her doing like a live stream that was probably from years ago, where she had anime colored hair, was wearing a T shirt. And she spoke out, she said, listen, one, you guys just in a photo shoot with me, so I know you have access to photos, right, look really professional too. I have gone out of my way to present myself for the last two years in the most serious way. I dyed my hair brown. I'm wearing the same dress even when it's really hot, Adam wearing the same uncomfortable dres us and this is still how you portrayed me. I mean, I think, no matter where you fall on the political spectrum, that anyone can look at that and say that is unfair treatment. And it's because she's a woman, and it's because she's a woman. And I don't think that she necessarily would have spoken out or had the platform to speak out in any other election cycle, because we're finally at this point where we're saying we've had enough and and we're fed up. Um. You know, I have a scene in Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win where the opposing candidate's wife, the opposing candidate is very conservative, and the press finds out that his wife had had had an abortion, and you're imagining the photo editor pulling pictures of being like, let's find let's find a picture of a woman who looks like she might have had an abortion, and they pull pictures of her from fifteen years ago when she was in her twenties and she dressed differently and you know, maybe a little bit sexily, and those are the pictures they ran, And those are serious decisions, like visuals matter, photographs matter, and you have to think about the people that are choosing choosing those photograph. Like I was, I just kept tweeting Brianna Wou like kind of like a weird stalker yesterday, being like you go girl, yes anything you want. I'm sending you a copy of my book. I'm gonna come out and stump for you, like, yes, you're killing it. And she I think she thinks I'm I'm a little I'm a little bit stalker in creasy. It's probably a good kind of stocking compared to what she's gotten before. I'm I'm certain. So it's funny that it's funny that you say this. One of these scenes in the book finds Walsh kind of getting into like a minor scandal for wearing flats instead of heels heel gate, and you know, it sounds really far fetched, you know, the idea that would happen, but we know that that's actually not true. Like women candidates are often dinged for what they what they wear, how they how they dress. I saw this for the interesting quote from cultural critic Amanda Hess and she says that pointing out a woman's heels in articles, it's kind of a shorthand for what kind of woman that you're trying to kind of depictures. She writes, high heeled name droughts like these are a scourge on realistic profiles of powerful women. For some journalist supporting that a woman wears high heel, high healed shoes, or various colors and origins apparently passes for a weighty detail that gives some inside into the subject's character. Often that perceived inside is negative. Heels are mentioned to pain a woman as spending, superficial, sepia, or a deviation from the male standard. So I'm curious, like, is this something that you found where articles will mention such and such female candidate. Oh, she's wearing heels. You are lubatans and have that sort of act as a kind of shorthand for she's flighty, she's superficial, she's spendy, or something like that. Oh, totally absolutely. I mean, first off, a woman in most articles about a woman candidate, and another reason I want to write this book was just so people would notice it. Right, her outfit is mentioned in the first or second paragraph. And we saw that a lot when London Breed was elected here as Mary of San Francisco. You know, in in no articles about a male politician, are you like, well, he's daring that navy blue suit again and that red tie. No, but the color of a woman's suit is always always noted her, the size of her heel is always noted. And what a lot of the women candidates told me too is that they get this schizophrenic advice all the time. So I did a podcast episode of Committed with Lauren Bear, who just won her primary down in Florida. Um in the House is eighteenth district. And people say, wear more dresses. It makes you look prettier and softer, and people will like you more. Wear more suits because they make you look smarter. Your hair is too severe And by severe, she's like, you mean it's curly, and they're like yes, I mean these are things just would never happen to a man. And their shorthand. I mean there's all kinds of shorthand that we use around women candidates. The outfits are just one piece of them we call and by we, I mean the press women candidates things like hysterical and unhinged, and that shorthand for she's a crazy woman, and what do you think about? It's like the press is writing about a woman the same way that every man ever has talked about their ex girlfriend to their new girlfriend. Oh that's such a good boy. She's crazy, she's crazy, she's nuts and and that and those are the things used to describe a woman. I remember when I was at the New York Daily News, my editor pushed me to write the story about Hillary Clinton wearing a scrunchy and I can't find that story and I wish that I could, And I remember thinking, why does it matter? And I remember thinking I wanted to make my editor happy, and I did it anyway, and I hate myself for doing it, but why why? I remember? It turned into scrunchy Gate. And so when I put this heel Gate story into my book, and my editor was like, well, isn't that a cliche? And I'm like, yes, and that's why we have to write about it. Yes, it's a cliche and it's absurd. Yeah. One of the things that stuck out to me when I was reading this is how our politics are so superficial. And there's one point where Charlotte's campaign advisor Josh tells her a woman who doesn't smile as an angry woman. You cannot be an angry woman even for a second. No, not allowed. And one of one of my favorite anecdotes from one of the women I talked to, who was who had run for governor in the last cycle, told me she got t MJ from smiling so much that just forcing herself to smile actually messed up her jaw. But male candidates don't get that. Um. The other interesting thing I found was, you know, you know, like mailer's those glossy things you get in the mail. I like never actually check my mail or like go through my mail, but it's still a big thing on campaigns. Men are always told to pose with their family male candidates, um, because they're like, you know, everyone wants a family man, it makes you softer. Um. But women are always told to pose alone in a power pose, so like arms crossed or like knuckle under chin. It's like you look smart, you look powerful. They're like, don't make don't let your kids be on there. UM. Again, I think that's changing. I think that's changing, um because more women who are running are being really authentic. They're being really open about having kids, which I think is awesome because the reason that the government doesn't help out mothers is because we haven't had a lot of mothers in government for a long time. UM. I talked to one candidate, a Virginia delegate, who told me that when she found out she was pregnant on the campaign trail, people actually said, great, when are you dropping out? I'm not, and they're like, okay, great, can you hide it? Can you hide this pregnancy while we're campaigning? And she's like, no, I'm pregnant with twins. And she didn't hide it, and she thinks it was a plus, and that race went to a recount. She did the recount in her hospital bed postpartum with twins, and then went out and walked around with one twin strap to her front and one twin strap to her back. And I'm like, yeah, so women aren't strong at all. Now. Think what you're saying is so true, and that you know, if we're able to see competent, strong women kicking ass while being pregnant while having a baby, we should we should be able to see that like reflection, because it's it's the reality. Like I was so happy to see Tammy Duckworth go through that process and still hold public office. You know, we we pretend that, you know, if you get pregnant you have to sort of hide it, and it's just it's just sort of we're acting like it's not a normal part of life for a lot of us, and it is. It's like we're acting like the reality is not actually the reality, and it's the cycle that helps no one exactly exactly. I mean, I turned in the first draft of Charlotte Welsh. I might have told you guys this while I was in labor, bouncing up and down on a yoga ball um and I'm like, all right, I just gotta get this done. My husband was sleeping. I'm in labor finishing a draft of a novel, and he's snoring. Women get done. But we never see that. And this is this goes back to the pop culture thing. We rarely see that on the screen. We see pregnant women, you know, being treated very delicately, and then once they have the baby and have the newborn, then they're typically relegated to their houses. You know. We like, we just don't see pregnant women and new mothers working and working hard in the same way that we we don't see female politicians doing that on the screen either. I love Veep. She's an idiot on Veep, Like we see women politicians as idiots or shrews, or wives that become politicians because their husbands up somehow scandal Yeah, I mean, I love the two, but I sort of what you just said that I didn't realize. Yeah, she's sort of presented as bumbling, like she can't get anything right, even when even when things go right for her, they still go wrong, Like she just is kind of hapless. Yeah, and it's hilarious. But the fact is Veep is the really one of the only shows that we have that show a woman in political power and she's hapless, she's bumbling and that and people people take that to heart too. I mean the I'm constantly lon away by the majority of Americans who take what they see on screens as what is reality. Yeah, I guess that's what That's why I love the show parts and breath because you know, Leslie No doesn't always get it right, but she wants that she wants to do the best thing. She wants to do the right thing. Like I don't know, I guess I just wish that we like men. I wish that we got to have a variety of women who are running for office, the ones who are hapless and bumbling, the ones who are scheming and power hungry and awful, the ones who are altruistic and doing a great job. Men. When you look at shows that feature men, who hold public power. You get the you get the variety, you get all all stripes, from your Frank Underwoods to your who was the president on West Wing Um, oh gosh, Jeff Bartlett, thank you, and we just we just don't have that as women. It's a very sympacific bucket that we're able to test sort of fall into exactly exactly. It was funny west Wing um, like the official west Wing tv H Twitter tweeter the other day they're like, I think we should come up with a prequel about Jeff Barlett unning for governor. And I'm like, oh my god, shut the up, Like why don't we come up with a sequel where CJ runs for Senate like that, Like, yes, come on, come on, men um. Something else we don't see very often in media that I really enjoyed seeing in your book is um relationships between different generations of women. And in this case it was older women who had run for office and been elected, And so it was cool because you get to see the relationship between the characters, but also it was kind of a it's showcased how politics had changed, how maybe things what had stayed the same in what hadn't In this case, Um, can you talk a little bit about about writing that. Oh yeah, women have been told forever. And by forever, I mean since the beginning of women taking office, and in the beginning of women taking office, they were taking office because their husbands died. UM, to run like a man, to rule like a man. Um. Hillary Clinton was told that as recently as this recent election by her male campaign managers. UM. And I wanted to be able to show that through these multi generations of women. So we have a character Roz who had been a senator now she's in her late sixties. She ran ran the gauntlet of of of male dominated politics for a long time, and she had to completely hide who she was. She had to completely hide anything that would have been considered feminine. And then we have Charlotte, who's and actually really fun side note. When I was down in l A having these meetings, in one of the meetings, one of the like producing executives actually listed off of people that a group of people they wanted to play Charotte Walsh, and all of them were in their thirties or like, and one of them was in their twenties. What I actually, I almost like hung up the phone and I got a text from my producing partner who was like, don't hang up. And now you want to hang up. I know you want to call them, don't call it. Call just finished the call. And I did finish the call. But on every other call I said, it's important to me that Charlotte Walsh is a forty seven year old woman. There are lots of forty seven year old actresses in Hollywood, lots of fifty year old actresses, and lets of sixty year old actresses in Hollywood who look forty seven. UM Like, let's let's make her her actual age, UM. And so Charlotte's forty seven. She's going through her own stuff. She's also the mother of three young kids under six years old. But then we have Leela, who is her chief of staff, who I don't want to give away any spoilers, and she she does something at the end of the book to um in politics, but she has a completely different view on it. She doesn't want to put up with any mail bulls at all. When Charlotte gets harassed, she's like, you need to talk out, you need to speak up. And me too happened while I was writing this book, or actually, me too happened after I had already written the book, and then I demanded the book back and Simon and shester got pissed, and I'm like, no, I'm sorry, I've got to change a bunch of stuff. The world changed again, um, and so I wanted those three generations of women to reflect how politics has changed for women in the past thirty years, and how it's changed in the past two years for women. So and also it'll it'll be great if it does make it to the small screen because then we have these really strong roles of women of all different ages and we don't see that enough. Totally sort of along that same vein, I was really excited to see in real life all of these women who are running for office who were really supporting each other. And thinking of how Cynthia Nixon endorsed Alexandria Ocastio Cortes and then vice versa, Cortes you know, endorsed her as well. I think they were given these messages that ambitious women are caddy, that they're you know, competing with each other, that they hate each other, they want to tear each other down and impact. In your book, that's not true and in your life that's not true. Like, we have this this idea of women, ambitious women as these horrible people who will you know, step over anybody to get ahead and are treating their fellow women awful and stabbing them in the back. But that so often isn't true. You know where where do you think that comes from? Pop culture? And men? I hate saying it all the time. It's just it's so true. It's just so true. I'm gonna make us all T shirts. No, you don't have to apologize for blaming men. Men on this podcast, do what all you want. But it is true because I think that men's view of women is that ambitious women are scary, because ambitious women are scary to men, and so that's how we've seen them portrayed for so long. Um, you're still right. I mean we when we on the rare occasion we do see an ambitious women, she's scheming, she's a shrewd, she's a bit she has no friends. And that was that was actually a note that my editor, um really wanted in Charlotte Wall. She's like, we need to show that Charlotte wash has friends. Um, she has supportive friends, She's surrounded by other women. She wants to help other women, because it's just something we don't see portrayed enough. We never Hillary Clinton had such a close group of female friends supporting her, and such a close group of female staffers who would have literally done anything for her. And I know that because I've spent so much time with her female staffers post campaign. Um. They speak about her like she is Jesus Christ walk in the earth right now. Oh my gosh. They love her. They're so disappointed that the public doesn't know all of the wonderful stories about her. And yet we never saw that side of her. We were never allowed to see that side of her. Her campaign tried to do it, but the press never let us do it. And that's one of the reasons that I wanted to try to do it in fiction. I wanted to show Charlotte as a vulnerable, flawed Also, she's flawed, She's not perfect. It would have been so easy to write fan fiction and be like, oh, women candidates are great. They're not, but all male candidates aren't great either. But as a real person and a real woman, Yeah, I'm so glad that you brought up the Clinton friends thing. Um in her big you know, messed up email hacking dumb thing. My favorite favorite favorite email of all time that I literally have have this phrase printed on a T shirt is an email that she SAIDs to Huma, where she says, should we be bad, you should get a kerm roulet. Let's split a firm roulet. Like that isn't an email that you could get from a friend, a friend being like, listen, I know we have all this important, you know, business not to talk about, but do you kind of want to split a carm roulet? Yes? Yes, And I have an homage to that in the book where they're in a diner and I think I think it's a brownie Sunday because I was like, you know, she got to change it up, but she's like, let's be bad, let's get that. I'm like, and I love that moment too between those two women because it's just so human and so real. It's like, yes, of course. And I actually I think they order a salad two in the book and they're both picking at this anemic salad and then they're both digging into this Sunday because that and that's I think about that all the time when I think about what happened to Hillary Clinton in this race. I'm like, she was just Hillary Clinton, just like us, just like us. We have some more conversation with Joe, but we're gonna have pause for one more quick break for word from our sponsor. One thing I really appreciated that you included was that Charlotte have these thoughts like am I ruining my my children's lives? She had these doubts, At least for me. When I see ambitious people a lot of time, I think they must not have any doubts, which is completely incorrect. They're human too. It was really important to me that Charlotte had kind of the impostor syndrome that I think we all have. I was, I was out to dinner with a bunch of friends in New York when I was up there um for the book, and it was it was a table of just like the most badass ambitious women you've ever met, um, you know, like book additors, lawyers, politicians. And I was like, who feels like a failure on a daily basis? And they all raised their hand and I was like, me too, why do we feel like that? Like every every like kind of lame, mediocre man I know thinks that he's winning every day. Um, you know, my husband has been out of a job for two months, and like, if you were like, should you run for office? He's like absolutely, I'm like super qualified. Um. But as women, we doubt ourselves and we don't talk enough about doubting ourselves or feeling this imposter syndrome or feeling like a failure. And I think even ambitious women feel that. I know even ambitious women feel like and I really wanted to show that with Charlotte, to show her doubts and show how nervous she was. And one of the other things that I learned from talking to the folks at Emily's List was that historically, women won't run unless they think that they are a hundred percent qualified to be running, whereas a man will run if he has zero qualifications. I mean, come on, let's be honest, um. And that's been a barrier to women running for a long time. If Donald did anything, I think it would show women that, you know, a complete idiot can run for office. Oh my god, of course I can do this. Um again, all right, find two good things that Donald Trump did in the midst of ruining the world. But yeah, it's again, we're we're women were complex, were flawed. We've seen complex men for the past hundred years, written about, talked about on our screens, and now we're only just starting to get the tip of the iceberg of what it's like to really be a woman. Absolutely, something that you that you tease out in the book a little bit, and that you that I know that you've done in terms of research, is talking to about the ways that women who aren't running for office, the ones who are working on campaigns, who are supporting campaigns, who are volunteering on campaigns, the sort of climate that that they deal with as well in terms of sexism. Can you can you talk a bit about that? Oh my god? I mean, campaigns are just an old boys club through and through um the majority, the vast majority of campaign managers are still men. UM. Most camp paign offices are like a frat house. I mean we're talking like potato chip bags strewn on the floor, people chain smoking, marble reds in a world where no one still chained smokes. I no one smokes anymore except on the campaign. You know, everyone going out for fast food all the time, people playing pranks on each other. I mean, just like boys. Campaigns run by boys. Um. Again, it's starting to change, it's starting to be different. When I was down in l A, I was with UM Julia Peacock's campaign manager and they have an all women's staff and she was like, we are so efficient. She's like, we just we really get things done. We get things done on time. Everyone's kind, everyone's pleasant to each other. And again, I'm not saying that all women environments are perfect, but they're they're definitely a little bit better. Um. You know, on a campaign trail, I have a friend who who did what was going through IVF in the beginning of a campaign, and all of the men on the campaign older just to quit. They're like, you can't work on this campaign. Um, You're you're not. You're you're just not equipped for it right now meaning and by equipped for it meaning you're going to be weak. UM. Mothers are treated terribly on the campaign trail. There's no flexibility given for mothers to take care of their children. There's no compensation given for daycare. That's been a huge barrier to women candidates running UM, the fact that they can't use campaign funds for daycare. UM, when even though they have a full time job while running for office. Um, and you can't run when you have two kids running and running around and you don't have any support. Uh yeah, I think again, it's changing. We're seeing campaigns run by women for the first time pretty much ever, and we're seeing a big difference in how campaigns are run in that I think that they're becoming just a lot more palatable to a lot of different kinds of people. Yeah, I'm I cannot agree more with what you said. And I've done a handful of campaigns in my day, and I always say like, oh never, every time I do one, I like never again, never again, never again, And I always somehow wind up back on on them. I don't know what happens, but I do think there is something in my in my psyche or personality, and that gets sort of addicted to it. You know. You get these crushing loads and these like dizzy highs, and at a certain point, when you've done them for a while, you kind of can't see going back to a nine five desk job. Like you can't see working a job where you're not working these intense hours and having all these ups and downs. And it's just a really unless you've done it or been around it are reported on it. It's a really weird environment that's difficult to describe, and it sounds so awful. So that's why it sounds so weird that then you would sort of become addicted to it. But you do, um, you do. It's it's it's toxic and weird and I can't even really like verbalize it, but it's weird. But in in those campaign settings, I've I've had campaign managers and state there's say things to me like what did you expect from a campaign? Because I if I went to someone and said, hey, this sexist thing happened, or this racist thing happened, or this gross thing happened, or this toxic thing happened, the answer is always what did you expect on a campaign? Like I'm happy that that that you know that is changing and that there are more decision makers that are women in folks of color and queer folks in these spaces because for so long it was a boys club, not even a men's called a boys club. It was a gross place. And you know, I always when I did campaigns, I always came back as the worst version of myself, the version of myself that ate terribly didn't sleep sort of weirdly, you know, bragged about living a really healthy lifestyle, you know, was hitting substances hard, you know, drinking a lot. Like the worst version of who I am as a person. That is a version of myself that I have to be to make a campaign work, and it's it's it's bad. The version of myself who puts up with it's really sexist bull crap and it doesn't speak up of that. Like that is the version of who I became when I did campaigns. Yeah, no, totally. It was. I was blown away the other day talking to Sarah Holland Julia Peacocks campaign manager, because she was like, oh, we make sure that everyone has self care days. You know, we're making sure that everyone everyone gets time off. If you just come and you're like, I need a self care day to self care day to day. Um, including the candidate, including Julia. Julia's like, you know what, no, I'm out tapping out today. They're like, we're totally accommodating of that. We work around it, we figured it out. And I'm like, oh my god, that's crazy, Like you were what do you say self care day? My jaws trap. It was like what you have a what what day? You know, because I mean, yeah, I can tell you hard stories, but the idea that you would be able to even take a day just to sort of, you know, set back and collect yourself. On the campaigns I've been on, I'm sure that I'm sure some of them are different than my experience, but that was just laughable at the idea that would happen would be laughable. So I'm really happy that that seems to be changing laughable, you know. And Hillary Clinton fought really hard. She's like, I want to make sure that my campaign staffers have health insurance. Um I told I heard a story the other day that they that she wanted to make sure that if her campaign staffers needed things like IVF or reproductive help, she was going to give that too. I mean that that was a complete anathema to what happens on every other campaign, where not only are you your grossest, worst version of yourself, but you're also paid nothing. I mean, the pay is terrible on campaign, so I mean, you're pretty much living your worst life. It's so true. Fun fact, a friend of mine ran the North Carolina Clinton headquarters. I'll let her forget her saying Oh, we have a lactation room. And it sounds like such a small thing, but the fact that they included a place for nursing moms, I mean, it shouldn't it shouldn't be revolutionary that that your campaign headquarters has a lactation room. But it was. To me. I thought, Wow, they were really saying, if you are a new mom, you can still work here. Yeah, exactly exactly, whereas when don't have a lactation room, you're saying, as a new mom, you can't work here, that that this is a hostile work environment for you, Like actually a hostile work environment for you, because if you've ever been a new mom, you know that if you don't have a lactation room, you're gonna be squeezing milk out of your boob into the toilet. Yeah, it's it's it's weird how those little things can mean so much in terms of the environment that you're cultivating on a campaign. I wanted to ask about. The book takes place in Pennsylvania, and that's where Charlotte grew up, and she moved to Silicon Valley and ascended the corporate ladder and became one of the quote elite um one thing we heard a lot about post seen election, but after pretty much every American election, really is this divide between rural and urban America. And from what I understand, Pennsylvania has never had a female governor or senator. Right, pretty much one of the most hostile states to women in the country. Uh. And people don't think about pennsylvani you like that. But I chose Pennsylvania. I'm from p A, my dad's from northeastern rural coal country PA. It's a state I can write really well. But it's also a microcosm of the country as a whole. Uh. Pennsylvania has never elected a woman's senator, they've never elected a woman governor, and they currently have an all male delegation to Congress. There's some incredible women running for the House in PA right now, and I encourage everyone to go, like, look them up, throw your support behind them, because Pennsylvania is the epitome of a boys club and it's it's a terrible thing. And it's not a terrible thing because I'm like, oh man, terrible. It's a terrible thing because there's no diversity in that state. Um. You know, I wanted to write Pennsylvania so that I could write about that divide. Pennsylvania has Philadelphia and Pittsburgh vibrant urban metropolis. Is Philadelphia has you pen which is an Ivy League university. I mean, it's like eight. It's like the liberal the liberal elite personify in a lot of ways. But then you go forty five minutes outside of Philly and you have Amish country, you have serious working farms. You go up north, you have the areas of the state where the factories were shut down in this generation, where the coal mines were shut down in this generation, and you have a lot of working poor in that state. And my favorite character in Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win is actually Kara, and she's Charlotte's sister in law who still lives up in northeastern p a r Right outside of Scranton. She's like, whatever, I don't get politics. What the hell have politicians ever done for me? What the hell has anyone ever done for me? But she's smart, she's smart, she's sassy, um she and she's working class. And I wanted to create a working class hero in this book just as much as I wanted to create an ambitious woman from Silicon Valley coming and we have we can see Charlotte too, coming from her Silicon Valley bubble and coming back two areas in Pennsylvania, in the area where she grew up, which has a lot of the working poor, and she grew up working poor um, and we can see her chafe at that. And I think that's a very real thing for a lot of politicians just out of curiosity. Do you identify with that aspect of Charlotte as someone who grew up in those kinds of communities and then moved to California to be like a flashy, successful writer and journalist. I mean, I actually and I moved you to New York to be a gossip columnist in my twenties, so like I was going to like movie premieres in Bungalow eight through my twenties, like there, you couldn't have been more different, um than the way that I grew up. Uh. And so I completely related to that with Charlotte, and I wanted to just puncture the bubble is the thing I wanted to puncture Charlotte's bubble um. And her husband is really her husband is the one who represents the bubble, because her husband is really bought into Silicon Valley and the fact that Silicon Valley is quote unquote normal when there's nothing normal about Silicon Valley. There's nothing normal about what life looks like out here. Yeah, I think that the way that you do that is masterful, and I think it does sort of go along the lines of how we actually live that people who like I'm probably someone who is in a you know, East Coast liberal bubble, but my background, my roots are certainly not East Coast city. It's it's it's rural small towns, and that even like, you can get in your bubble but still maintain these kind of tenuous connections to your to your pass and to your roots, and navigating that can be really really complicated, like navigating what it looks like to be someone living in New York City and living a glamorous, glossy life and going to Bungalow eight who has these roots inside of her. Navigating that is actually really interesting, And I don't think that's the story that we're told often. I think the author who we're told people are city folk who don't care about rural people or their rural folk, and you don't actually tease out the intersections there in and I think, I think you personally do that so well, and the book does it very well as well. Thank you, I mean, and that was really it was just important to me because again, I think that we operate in in books, um, and on TV and in movies in stereotypes, and we operate in stereopy. We operate in the rural stereotype and the urban stereotype. And people are not People are not a stereotype. Real people are not a stereotype. And that's one of the reasons that I wanted to have this book tour. Driving through the middle of the country. I we had a lot of farmers at our events, women farmers UM when we were driving through Kentucky and southern Indiana, who related to Charlotte, who were some of the most I wouldn't call they're not liberal, but they're progressive. Um, some of the most progressive women that I've ever met, and who defied every stereotype that you have of a farmer. I mean, they were put together as like, I mean, I looked like crap I was eating gas station food on my book tour, like they looked shic as hell, um, And I want to just I want to break those stereotypes. We have to break those stereotypes or else we're never gonna be able to relate to people who aren't quote unquote like us. Absolutely, And I think, I think, yeah, that is an important work, Like I I got a little bit id with you know, and blah blah blah. But it's not even about that. It's about understanding the lives of people who are different than us. And I think I think your work really drives at home and where people are coming from. I mean, you know, Charlotte's sister in law lives in a part of the state where she hasn't been taken care of, and she's piste off, and she's piste off. She's like, you know, we don't name like real life politicians in the book because I was like, it's just too easy. It's just too easy. Um, So we wanted we we really wanted to root it in fiction. But she's piste off that the last administration didn't do anything to make her life any better, and in fact, her life is worse right now, and Charlotte has to reckon with that. She's because she's like, the last administration was wonderful, but we have to think about the issues that are important to people, the kitchen table issues, and they're the things that actually affect their lives. UM. And it's I think it's hard to reckon with when you have been in an urban bubble and you don't know anyone outside of that bubble. Um, and we put ourselves in an echo chamber we do, rather than actually getting out and actually having conversations with people or seeing people that are different from us. One thing that became pretty clear to me reading this that I suppose it is pretty obvious, but um, when you decided to run for office, to varying degrees, kind of everyone in your family and in your circle is running for office, they're going to be examined, um talked about. And the relationship between Charlotte and her husband undergoes I mean, probably an understatement, tremendous train um. And we do get to see both sides of it because, like you mentioned earlier, Um, Charlotte Walsh's opponent, his wife gets pulled into it as well. Uh. And just it's a lot I'd never appreciated that if later in life you decide to do this, if you decide to run for office, then it's a decision that impacts almost everyone you know. Oh yeah, Um, marriages fall apart on the campaign trail. Um. And in addition to campaigns being gross boys clubs, I mean, they're also just a hotbed of incestuous inner campaign there can confirm. It's just it's it's so true. But a marriage, you you don't run just as you. And this is particularly true for women. Your whole family is running for office. Your whole family is open to scrutiny. Your whole family has to work that campaign, which means they're showing up at campaign events. There they have to smile. They can't look piste off, they can't look annoyed to be there, even though of course they are. No one wants to go to one more state fair. No one wants to go to one more car dealership, ribbon cutting, No like, these events are exhausting and frankly boring. Um. And then throw into the mix with a woman running for office. Um, you have that kind of ambitioning that makes even strong feminist men uncomfortable. And I've seen it in my own marriage. Um. You know, with when now that my husband's looking for a job, and you know, I've got this book coming out and I'm working on all these projects. He's the most feminist man you'll you'll ever meet. I mean, he really is. He read all the Judy Blue Books as a little boy. He cried a blood and it is still he still chafes. I think that he still chafes because it's not something that's the norm, and he feels like he should be out there supporting, supporting the family and doesn't know what to do with all of my ambition. And we see that in Charlotte's marriage that her husband really he's told to. He takes a hiatus from from work because I'm silicon value allowed to take a hiatus. It's ridiculous. Um. But he becomes the primary caregiver for their three children, because when a woman is running for office, she gets asked all the time, who's watching your children? Who's watching your children? And it's bad optics to have a nanny. Not bad optics for a man to have a nanny, bad optics for a woman to have a nanny. So he starts to he becomes the primary ever and he hates it. He can't. He just he's not programmed for it. And their marriage goes into crisis on this campaign trail and it's just it's one of the most real parts of the book because I have seen so many marriages actually end after a campaign. Yeah, oh my gosh. I again, in my own experience, I can confirm that campaigns can really re havoc on your personal and romantic life. I think anyone who's done a campaign will probably agree. And I think, yeah, it's it's I think it's good to give people this lens into the inner workings of the people who are running for office and the people around them, because what you see our TV is I think kind of manufactured. Him has to be, because no one wants to think like, oh, they're having marital trouble. Oh they're arguing, Oh, like their domestic life isn't is in turmoil because that's all like you said, it's bad optics, And so you're kind of you kind of know you're seeing this manufact extured version of perfection, but we're kind of not acknowledging the reality, which is that, Yeah, campaigns are stressful. Yeah they take a toll on of marriage. It makes sense, Yeah, exactly exactly. And I another reason I wanted to write this book really was that everything that a politician does is speak is in sound Bites. Is in sound bites is about optics. We so rarely see the realities of what it's like on a campaign trail, or the human side of a campaign trail, and I just wanted to expose that in a way um to make it. And also, I think that politics to the average person seems like something that isn't important to their lives anymore. It seems something like something that's so far away. And I thought that by humanizing the campaign and humanizing the politicians, we could bring it back to the way that it's supposed to be. That we live in a democracy. These people are representing us, and we need to care about politics. But I understand I think people are just so exhausted from the whore race tabloid style that we cover politicians these days, and people want to check out, And I'm hoping the book makes them want to check back in. I love that. I love that so much, just so true. You know. I've heard people say things like, oh, I don't really do politics, I'm not really interested in politics, as if they're talking about a TV show they don't happen to watch, like oh I don't watch sharp Objects, you know, But this is people's lives, and a lot of us really don't have the privilege of saying I don't care about x y Z policy. I don't. I cannot pay attention to what's happening on x y Z legislation because it's our lives. And when people say I don't really do politics, I'm not really into politics and check out of politics, part of me get it, but part of me gets so angry because, yeah, I don't really As as women, as people of color, a lot of us just don't have that that luxury. No. Absolutely, politics has to be a part of your life, and it should be a part of your life, and it shouldn't be a part of your life that's also considered so negative. I just think that we've turned politics into a dirty word too. I mean, one of the things you're not supposed to talk about in polite conversation, along with religion insects, is politics. Like why is that? Shouldn't we all be talking about politics with each other? And you know, as a woman, it's it's hard to think about the things in my life that could be better if politicians were just better. I think that there are a lot there are a lot of people who can check out who have the privilege of checking out, but a lot of us cannot do that. Um, and a lot of us who cannot do that or should not do that, are checking out anyway because they're just like, how does that? How does this even affect my life? And it's see, it all just seems so far away, like it's all done in some ivory tower in Washington, as opposed to something that's happening and should be happening in their backyard. One of my favorite stories that Lauren Bear, who's running for Congress in Florida, told me was that when she announced that she was running, she didn't have any of her platforms on her website and people got pissed. They didn't understand like it really it freaked them out because that's the status quo. And she said, I'm running for Congress to represent you, and so I need to talk to you. I need to figure out what you want me to do before I come up with these platforms, before I come up with the things that I'm going to do to represent you in office. So give me a month to listen to you and then I'll come up with my ideas. And that it sounded so revolutionary at the time, because you know, so many male politicians come in just like their balls swinging all over the place, being like, this is what I think needs to get done. But the fact of the matter is a politician is just a representative of you, and that's what they should be. And we need to remember that and go back to our roots remembering that, because if we check out, then we don't let them represent us, if we don't have that voice. And I'm not saying it's a perfect system, God knows it's not. But but if we if we stay home, if we check out, then we don't even get the chance, we don't even get the option for them to represent us. And they should be representing us the ship that's that's actually there one job. Actually they're one and only job. And I think that And again I'm not saying, raw raw, all women are perfect. We're not. We're better, but we're not perfect. But one of the things that they do is they really do listen. And Hillary Clinton, there's this great part in her biography where she talks about just filling notebooks and notebooks of with notes from listening to people and then having her staff archived them for her because the listening was the most important part, I actually think, and this is just me with my big Hillary Clinton opinions, I think that was probably her favorite part of the campaign trail, was the listening as opposed to the performing. And I and that's Charlotte Walsh's favorite part too. She enjoys listening. She enjoys the complexities of thinking about how she can fix the things that she's listening to, as opposed to the performance that a campaign trail has become because of, you know, the fifteen second news cycle that exists. Now, Oh man, I have not this is gonna make me all listful. But one of my favorite Clinton emails, I think her email scandal was like my favorite thing about it was the emails that did not get reported. There was a story of her trying to help a little girl I think from Afghanistan, and they had a photo op where they brought her to America and this and that, and you know, the story ended. And then after what it turned out that this little girl actually didn't like things did not improve for her, like her life after whatever like photo up they did and intervention they did, her life actually wasn't that great. And so months later Hillary Clinton in an email, was like, is there something that could be done to improve her life? That's kind of thing. And that was the thing I loved so much about Clinton was that she seemed like someone who, even when the cameras were off, gave it like the photo off with this little girl that she was trying to you know, help was over, had been over for months, but upon finding out that her life had actually not improved, in an email that she thought would be seen by nobody, was trying to ask questions about what they could do to still help her even after the fact. Like those are the stories that I that I that resonate with me when it comes to politicians and politicians that elected officials when the cameras aren't there, when do you think it's just you in an email? How are you? How are you representing the people who put their faith in you? And I really again not to get to rob rock Clinton, but that was something that I that I really connected with. Oh no, me too, And I loved that email. In fact, I think a best selling book would actually be Hillary Clinton's Emails that you never read. Hillary Clinton's emails that you never paid attention to. I mean, like, let's split a cramber lay like, let's fix this little girl's life. And that's what I want to show. In Charlotte, Wash likes to win, like I want to show those human aspects. And we kind of have a moment like that in Charlotte where she's doing a photo op with um babies who are born with opioid addiction, and she's told, just do the photo op, hold the crying, whimpering baby, and she's like, how can I fix this? Like, how how can I talk about actually fixing this as opposed to putting something that will tug at people's heart screens on on in these new stories and then forget about it the next day. UM. So you know, I'm not all wrong. I'm not all rob rob Hillary Clinton. I think that her campaign was flawed. I think that she was a flawed candidate um in so many ways. But at the same time, a lot of the things that I know about her personally and that people closer have told me really did inspire a lot of Charlotte I am. I want to talk about the ending, but I I feel like we can't without spoiling it for listeners. I'm so intrigued by it, But I guess that means some people hate the ending. My editor and my agent both told me not to end the book that way, and I disagreed with them, and I went against their advice. One woman gave me a one star review on Amazon the other day and demanded her money back from Simon and Schuster because of the ending. What I can say without spoiling anything, really is that the ending does not It's not all tied up with a big red, fancy bow. And I that's because real life isn't all tied up with a fancy bow. I think we're living in a world of anxiety and uncertainty right now. And I wanted reality. I wanted the book to reflect reality um in a lot of ways. And I wanted to end the book in a way that we would start a conversation. The whole goal of writing this book. And I wrote this book when I was not planning to write anything. Last year, I was launching the podcast, I had a newborn, I was pregnant, and I had a newborn, I was tired, and I just think it's so important to start a conversation, and I think the ending does that, but it pisces some people off. And so every time I talk about it. I tell them you can email me, we can talk about it. We could have a skype talk about it, we can have an email, we can have a text chat about it. UM. And so yeah, if it's the kind of thing that really resonates with you or makes you real, real angry, then just text me to hear that listeners, or you can leave me a one star review, of which I will respond to. On Amazon, I responded to I never respond to reviews, I never even read them. And I responded to it. I was like, let's have a conversation. Here's my email. I love it, UM, and I feel like you have started a conversation. I think I think I have. I think we're we're we really are finally talking about it. And and that's that's the most important thing that we talk about these women candidates. At my events, I get asked all the time. They're like, well, where are all these women candidates? And I like lower my voice to this conspiratorial whisper, and I'm like, they're everywhere. And that's all I wanted. I wanted people to be like, Okay, great, I'm gonna go find them. And we have like a resource guide in the back of the book, like it's a weekly reader or something like. Go to Emily's list, go to she runs like here, go to emerge. These are places you can go to find women running on both sides of the aisle. We we list organizations that are partisan and some that are nonpartisan. Go just support women. That's all, that's all I want. I think it's happening. Well, thank you so much for speaking with us, Joe. Where can listeners find you? Um So, I'm my website, Joe Piazza dot com, um or Joe Piazza author on Instagram, and Charlotte Walsh likes to win It's She's on Amazon, she's in all the indie bookstores and hopefully fingers crossed knock on all the things. She will be on the television screen in the next year or so. So let's hope that all works out for her. Yes, absolutely, that brings us to the end of this episode. And since we kind of got to talk in for a while with Joe, we're gonna skip listener mail for this one, but it will be back. But if folks want to send us email, how can they do that? Annie, Well, we would love to hear from them, and they can do it by emailing us at mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com. That's right, and we're also on social media. You can find us on Instagram at stuff mom Ever told You, and us always on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. And thanks. It's always to a producer feeling Faith's

Stuff Mom Never Told You

Through an intersectional feminist perspective, hosts Anney and Samantha dive into science, history, 
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