Robert Watson:
Hello everybody. Welcome to our Zoom session. While we're getting logged on here I'm going to press share screen because I have a PowerPoint for everyone and that should come up on your screen there.
Robert Watson:
So I hope everybody is well. Let me thank Ellen, and of course Pat and Marcia for all their help, and Alex from Brandeis National for his assistance. I hope everybody is well and I hope you changed out of your morning pajamas into your afternoon pajamas. I did, at least from the waist down. I wish I could see everybody in person, but hopefully we'll get back to some degree of normal in the not so distant future.
Robert Watson:
So today we'll be taking questions at the end of the talk, as you know I always do. To do that, if you go to the bottom of your screen, it should be at the bottom of the screen, there is a chat box, and just type a question in when we're done, and it's like typing text on your smartphone. Then I'll be able to see those and I'll read off the questions for everybody at the end.
Robert Watson:
So we picked the topic of the 19th Amendment and 100 years of women in politics because we're just a few days away from celebrating the 100th anniversary of women getting the right to vote, and it's a really cool story. Having done that then, we'll talk about women in politics and I want to do two things with that. One is I've interviewed several women that have run for president and I wanted to share with you some of the things that they've told me. Then I also did a study a few years ago where I surveyed and then followed up with phone calls, lots of women in elected office, from local, to state, to national levels across the country. I'll share with you what the concerns they had.
Robert Watson:
So okay. So our story of the struggle of the 19th Amendment, it begins, here we go, you can see on your picture, it begins with these two ladies there. It begins in the year 1840. So on the left, that's Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She was a remarkable woman, very well read, an abolitionist, ahead of her time, advocated for women's equality ahead of her time. She was from New York, an incredible woman. On the center right, that's Lucretia Mott. She was a Quaker from Massachusets, and also like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she believed in women's equality. She was a hardcore abolitionist and also remarkably well read. They both came to this topic of women's rights and women's right to vote by their extensive reading of history, and they were immersed in social reform movements. They were real grassroots organizers and warriors, especially when it came to abolition.
Robert Watson:
So in 1840 something happened. Elizabeth Cady Stanton on the left there, she gets married, and her husband wants to know what she wants to do for her honeymoon. You got to love her, this is what she says. She heard that there was an international anti slavery conference in Europe, so that's what she wants to do for her honeymoon. That's my kind of gal. So she and her husband packed their bags and go all the way to Europe for this anti slavery. I mean, imagine the ship, the time it took to get there. They go all the way there and when they arrive, guess what they find out? She's not allowed in, women are not allowed in, after all that. So she's outside stewing, angry that women aren't allowed in. There's something fundamentally wrong with that, and she meets Lucretia Mott, who also traveled all the way to Europe but also because she was a woman could not get in.
Robert Watson:
So the two of them were planning. When we go back to the United States we need to start a women's movement to get the right to vote and we need a similar kind of conference for women. While they're talking, they meet one of the male conferees. He steps outside and sees the two of them and they strike up a conversation. He agrees that he will join them back in the US in putting together a women's conference. Who was that man that they talked to? None other than the great former slave orator, Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass and Elizabeth Cady Stanton would become fast friends. The three of them worked together on an international women's conference. That would happen, you see I have it on the screen here, the Seneca Falls Convention. It would be a two day conference at a Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York, in July of 1848, and they invited men, but men were only allowed to attend on the second day. Touché.
Robert Watson:
So they put together this conference and Frederick Douglass was there. These two were the two lead organizers, and at the Seneca Falls Convention they had 11 resolutions, 11. The first 10 resolutions passed unanimously and relatively easy. They were things like this. Women at the time in some states could not legally divorce, so they wanted the right to divorce. Women in some places could not inherit land, they could not divorce, custody rather in a divorce. So today virtually by default if there is a divorce women get custody, but back then men always got custody. In fact, it was such that if a man died, sometimes the children were given to his brother or the wife's sister. So women wanted the right to divorce, the right to inherit, the right to own property, the right to custody. They wanted the right to get a business license, to appear in court, to become an attorney, and so forth and so on. So these were resolutions one through 10, and they passed, as I said, relatively easily and unanimously.
Robert Watson:
But then we get to resolution 11, that was the right to vote, and that's brought up on day two, and that's the controversy. Stanton, and Mott, and others, including Douglass, have a great debate about this. Several of the mothers of the movement felt that maybe they shouldn't push a right to vote, because that would alienate too many men. It would certainly alienate conservatives, and Southerners, and preachers, and so forth and so on. So they felt, well maybe we shouldn't do that, but Elizabeth Cady Stanton says, "No, we need to do it." They have a recess and Stanton and Douglass go outside and talk, and decide we're going to go with resolution 11. Frederick Douglass, as you all know, was a spellbinding orator. Martin Luther King 100 years before. So Douglass goes back in and gives one of his signature speeches and whips everyone into a frenzy. They push the vote for the 11th resolution and it passes. So in 1848 they passed a resolution to give women the right to vote. It would take a while, as we all know.
Robert Watson:
What happened in the intervening years, one was the Civil War. So obviously everything is put on hold in the years leading up to, the bloody years of the 1850s and of course the early 1860s with the Civil War. Now, just as many African Americans and former slaves wanted to let's say earn the right of freedom by fighting, so did the mothers of the movement. Some worked as spies, some dressed as men undetected in disguise and fought in the war. We just celebrated the anniversary of Gettysburg, one of the pivotal battles of the war, one of the bloodiest battles in American history, and there were a handful of women that fought and died at Gettysburg. But many of the mothers of the movement served as nurses during the Civil War.
Robert Watson:
Now, what is amazing about this is one, they were untrained. It wasn't like they went to a college of nursing. They just learned on the fly, and secondly, the Civil War, as you know, more soldiers died of disease and malnutrition, and so on than died in combat. The field hospitals in combat were just charnel houses, just bloody. I just finished a book on the Civil War a couple of months ago, it'll be out I'm guessing around January, February.
Robert Watson:
Anyway, there are descriptions, everyone, next to a field hospital that there would be a five foot high pile of feet, legs, arms and hands that had to be amputated. If somebody is shot in the arm, if you don't take ... And there's no technical means to repair that. If you don't take care of that and gangrene sets in, the whole body could die, so lose the arm, save the body. This is what the women were doing. Imagine a man, you put him on the table, he bites down on rawhide, maybe takes a shot of whiskey, you're holding him down and the surgeon is sawing. You take him off, he's passing out, you have to care for him. You throw a bucket of water on the table and put the next man on the table. This is what they were doing. So they earned their stripes.
Robert Watson:
They also, the mothers of the movement, were among Abraham Lincoln's biggest supporters. You all know that, and you've heard my lectures on Lincoln, that Lincoln was actually quite unpopular from 1861 to '64, probably shouldn't have won reelection, thank god he did. But they were amongst his biggest supporters. The mothers of the movement supported the Emancipation Proclamation, and they supported reconstruction. That was Lincoln's policy when the war ended in 1865, to reconstruct the South, rebuild the South, civil law and so forth and so on. That included the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. These mothers of the movement were among the leaders in the 13th, 14th, and 15th. 13th Amendment, 1865 it ends slavery. 14th Amendment in 1868 is the legendary Equal Protection Clause. That's the clause Trump and our Republican friends are talking about trying to get rid of, don't ask me why. The 15th Amendment of course in 1870, negro male suffrage, or we would say black men get the right to vote.
Robert Watson:
Now, the mothers supported the 13th and 14th, but when it came to the 15th, Elizabeth Cady Stanton says should we support an effort to get black men the right to vote when women don't have the right to vote. She was worried if it doesn't pass now, when is it going to pass. So Stanton actually hesitated and some of the women said, "Maybe we shouldn't support this." In the end analysis they supported it because they had been abolitionists their whole lives. But you know, Stanton was right in this respect, it would be a half century, 50 years after black men got the right to vote with the 15th Amendment before women would get the right to vote in the 19th Amendment. None of these founding mothers would live to see it. So it makes some sense.
Robert Watson:
Also, after the war, orphanages, and you can see I wrote it here on the screen. Not only abolition but imagine, 600,000 men are killed, hundreds of thousands if not millions are maimed and wounded. Imagine the orphanage situation. Today foster care is a nightmare, especially in Florida, but across the United States. Can you imagine the lack of facilities back then? So it was many of these mothers of the women's movement who organized orphanages. They also were some of the leaders in the temperance movement. Temperance is one of the things I think that textbooks get wrong. They always depict temperance as a teetotaling lady in a big hat who said, "I'm against alcohol." Well, it wasn't really that. The mothers of the movement fought for temperance for this reason, violence against women.
Robert Watson:
Now, remember things like date rape, acquaintance rape, spousal abuse, domestic violence, these terms are only 40 years old or so, yet alone the laws. Imagine instances of rape and domestic violence in the 1800s. I've written a couple of books on the 17 and 1800s, several of my books are set in those two centuries, and having spent so many years researching those centuries, what I can tell you is probably one out of every three men was a full-blown alcoholic, I mean face down, flat out, pickled drunk. So alcoholism was a pandemic and consequently violence against women. So they favored temperance to try to stop rape, domestic violence, and children being beaten. So they fought for all these issues.
Robert Watson:
So moving forward now, the movement gets new leadership in 1869. That's Susan B. Anthony there. Never been a big fan. I'm a big fan of Lucy Stone and of course Elizabeth Cady Stanton, giant fan, and we're getting to one of my heroes here in a moment. So the movement splits by the late '60s and 1870s. It splits into the National Woman Suffrage Association headed by Susan B. Anthony, and the American Woman Suffrage Association headed by Lucy Stone. It is a big rift. The National Suffrage Association headed by Susan B. Anthony was more conservative, a little older. A big split was they were against family planning and birth control, abortion rights. The American Woman Suffrage Association was a little younger, a little more progressive, headed by Lucy Stone and they favored family planning. Stone and Stanton's perspective, think about it, women were constantly pregnant. It was not uncommon for someone to have lots of kids and get lots of miscarriages, and lots of stillborn, and infant mortality rates being what they were in the 1800s. How can women hope to exercise any rights, politically and otherwise, if they have six kids under the age of nine and they're pregnant?
Robert Watson:
So family planning was a big issue. This is why I think America celebrates Susan B. Anthony because she was against family planning and more conservative rather than celebrating Lucy Stone. So that was the big split there. That split is healed with someone I really like, and that's this person, Carrie Chapman Catt, triple C.
Robert Watson:
Carrie Chapman Catt. So she's the one who really makes it all happen. Number one, Carrie Chapman Catt heals the rift between the National and American Woman Suffrage Association, brings them together and creates the National American Woman Suffrage Association. She finds the 50 yard line common ground on controversial issues like family planning. She also goes to a younger generation of women and says, "You know, maybe a lot of older men and older women are set in their ways and we're not going to get women's right, yet alone the women's right to vote, maybe we need to focus on younger women." So she starts reaching out, and training, and preparing younger women. She also realizes that perception is part of the problem. Most men did not believe that women were capable of exercising political rights or voting, so she gets young women and trains them by giving speeches and doing media interviews. So all of a sudden people are hearing from these very articulate, well informed, intelligent, impressive young women and it's beginning to change the paradigm here. She's doing that, but here's her biggest contribution.
Robert Watson:
So if you want women to get the right to vote, you need a constitutional amendment. Now, to get a constitutional amendment you need two thirds of the House and Senate, but you also need three quarters of the states. So what she says is rather than fighting for a constitutional amendment, let's instead go state by state by state. It's easier to get one state to give us the rights than the whole country. Plus, when we try to get the whole country to do it, we're going to need those states anyways. So people agreed that's a great strategy. So she says, "So let's focus on a handful of states and see what we can do."
Robert Watson:
Now, you would assume that she would pick places like New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and so on. No, she said, "We're going to Wyoming, Idaho, Montana." The wild, Wild West, for crying cowboys, right? For crying out loud, why did she do this? Here's what Carrie Chapman Catt realized, there are no women out West. That may sound counterintuitive, but your liability is your strength. The men in those places were desperate, they wanted women. So she said to the men in Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, she said, "If you support women getting the right to vote, I will make sure that a lot of women come out to your state." And they said, "Yes, yes, yes." They were desperate.
Robert Watson:
Now, some entrepreneurs used to get wagons full of prostitutes and drive them out West to these rural frontier places, but she said, "No, I will get lots of women to move out." So Wyoming moved quickly, followed by Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Montana and Nevada. They joined and they passed. Then Carrie Chapman Catt says this, "Okay, good. So women in these places have the right to vote. Before I bring all the women out, one other thing, we need the right to own land, to divorce, to custody, to inherit property, get a business license, practice law, the whole nine yards." And the men said, "Yes, yes, yes." They were desperate. So she got everything passed and she made good on her end of the bargain by simply doing this. She found a lot of younger entrepreneurial women and said, "You can't get into business, they won't give you a business license. Your husbands and towns won't do this. Why don't you move out West? You can open up a hotel, a boarding house, a restaurant, clothing company, a shop, a general store." And women who wanted to run their own lives and open up businesses were happy to do that, and when they went out West they got the licenses to open up businesses right away and there was hardly any competition. So Carrie Chapman Catt made all that possible.
Robert Watson:
Now, the next moment is 1912 and 1913. So the women's movement was excited because in 1912 Woodrow Wilson was running. A former professor, president of Princeton, and Wilson was a progressive who claimed that he was going to finish Teddy Roosevelt's great legacy of progressivism. The great Teddy Roosevelt, 1901 to 1909 was his presidency, Roosevelt was the one who pushed standardized work week, gave us the weekend, workplace safety measures, child labor laws, mind safety, meat inspection, food inspection. I mean, remarkable record. He was inspired by Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, which spelled out the horrors of the meat packing industry in Chicago in the early 1900s and TR, Teddy Roosevelt push all this. Remember also, one of the fathers of conservation. Wild life refuges, national parks. Teddy Roosevelt does all that.
Robert Watson:
Now, there were two things he tried to do, almost everything he gets through, he had a remarkable record, but two he tried for that didn't happen, he wanted women to get the right to vote and he wanted universal healthcare. How about that? As did Harry Truman. So the women were inspired because Teddy Roosevelt was progressive and Wilson was going to finish it. So they supported, they couldn't vote, but they supported his presidency in 1912 and Wilson wins.
Robert Watson:
So in 1913 they host a gigantic parade the day before the inaugural in Washington, D.C. and here are some images of it. Some women were on horseback with swords and giant helmets, dressed like Amazons. Others had the sash, like the Miss America sash, only the suffragette. They marched, it was a giant parade, it was a great moment. They knew it was going to happen now that Wilson was president. Wilson comes into office and what happens? He flip-flops, now he doesn't support it after all that. But then something happened. Woodrow Wilson's wife, Ellen Axson Wilson dies in office, and Wilson feels terrible about it. Not only does he miss her, but he's very guilty because Wilson was having an affair with a woman named Mrs. Peck, Mary Peck. They would go to her resort in Bermuda. In fact, people in Congress that knew about this used to call Wilson Mrs. Peck's bad boy.
Robert Watson:
So Wilson's guilty about it. He has three daughters at home. He wants to do something to help the women's agenda, so he starts thinking maybe I should support a woman's right to vote. But then something else happens, he meets a saucy widow named Edith Bolling Galt, G-A-L-T. Her husband was a jeweler who left her with a lot of money and Edith was something else. Opinionated, saucy, sassy, she was a scandalous woman. The papers back then in the social pages, diaries of senators' wives and others, everybody gossiped about her. If she was alive today she's be a Kardashian, that's how scandalous she was. Maybe she'd work for Trump, although she had too much substance. So Edith Bolling Galt, here are two of the big scandals about her, if you'd like to know. I know this is Brandeis, but since we go back a long ways together, and Pat Knapp I'm sure would give me permission, so here we go. Here's why she was such a big scandal. One, she used to drive her own car. Say it isn't so. Yeah, that was actually seen as scandalous. Secondly, women had to be escorted when they went to parties. Edith would go by herself unescorted and just show up.
Robert Watson:
So those were some of the big scandals. Wilson meets her and she rocks his world. The press is covering this love affair between the widowed president and widowed Edith Bolling Galt, and what they would find out was they would see her leaving the White House early in the morning. Big scandal. In fact, it was said that when World War I started, Edith was so shocked she fell out of the president's bed. That's what they used to say.
Robert Watson:
Here's another good one. One of the best typos in the history of newspapering. One of the Washington newspapers was covering Wilson and Edith out for a carriage ride and they wanted to write "the president was again seen entertaining Miss Galt in public." But there was a typo, and this is what they wrote. The president was again seen entering Miss Galt in public. So it was a great typo.
Robert Watson:
Anyways, Wilson moves with lightning speed. I'm thinking just as fast as the Boca brisket brigade. We've talked about them before, and you know and I know that that's fast. So Wilson moves as fast as the Boca brisket brigade and they get married. Now that Edith is in the White House as first lady, the women's movement is excited again and they put it back on the agenda, and Edith and Wilson in 1918 support women's right to vote. There is a picture of the Wilsons together. Wilson would have a massive stroke and she basically runs the government for a year at the end of his presidency. Wilson doesn't meet with the Congress, his advisors, the press, Edith meets with everything. At the least she's his regent, at the most an associate president, we should say. By the way, before women got the right to vote.
Robert Watson:
So in 1918, as you see on my screen here, Wilson and Edith support the right to vote. The women's movement is excited and it's moving through the House, it's moving through the Senate, but it's two votes shy of passing in the Senate. It had a majority but not a supermajority. So it's two votes shy. Rather than let this thing sit for many years, while Wilson is still president, and more importantly while Edith is still first lady, they want to move right away. So in 1920 they move it again.
Robert Watson:
1920 a woman's right to vote is back on the docket. Here's the story of how it got passed. I call this story a man, a mother, and a good boy, okay? So let's start with the man, then we'll talk about the mother and the good boy. Here's the man, I have a picture of him. That's Congressman James Mann from Illinois. The women's movement was brilliant. They pushed, as did Democrats, to have a Republican introduce the 19th Amendment. Showing that it's not just a Democratic liberal issue, everybody should back this. So kudos to Congressman Mann, a Republican from Illinois. He introduced the measure. You can see there, I put on your screen, it passes the House with big numbers, 304 votes. Passes the Senate, so now we just have to go to the states. So the states have to ratify, we need three quarters. So what happens is two batches of states move quickly, those ones out West that Carrie Chapman Catt hit back in the day. They ratified quickly, and of course the more progressive Northeastern states. However, the South counters and almost all the Southern states immediately come out and oppose this. So it's going to be close, it's going to be close.
Robert Watson:
Along the way, a lot of opposition formed. Southerners, Christians, conservatives, Republicans really dug in to oppose women getting the right to vote. Sounds like them today, right? Here you can see a picture I put of a headquarters. This is the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage. So all around the country these things were popping up. So the South, all but one state in the South votes to defeat this. Basically the Northeast and West vote to pass it, and by 1920 we're one state shy, one state. So people are all excited about this one state. Here's the bad news for the women's suffrage movement, that one state was Tennessee, which is in the South. It's a conservative state. So Christians, conservatives, Southerners were thrilled. With Tennessee it's never going to pass. So women suffrage groups go to Tennessee, the opposition goes to Tennessee and it becomes a national battleground. Everybody is fighting for it, and they finally hold the vote in Tennessee, and you couldn't script something better. Guess what? It's a tie vote, here it is. Tie vote, 48 to 48. How about that? It's a tie vote.
Robert Watson:
So what to do? Well, then they realized that there was one member of the Tennessee legislature that didn't vote, so it's tie. So this one vote after starting their movement in 1840, after 80 years it's going to come down to one single vote, and here's the vote. Representative Harry T. Burn. Here's a picture of him, he was only 23. He was the youngest member of the Tennessee legislature.
Robert Watson:
Now, Southerners, and conservatives, and Christians were happy because Harry Burn was conservative and represented a very conservative district, so they all knew that he would vote against it. However, Harry Burn was home sick, and guess who was taking care of him? His mother. So we talked about the man, now we're going to talk about the mother and the good boy. So Harry Burn is at home, his mother is taking care of him. Could you imagine a Jewish mother, matzo soup, and now you drink your soup and put your scarf on. So his mom is taking care of him, nursing him back to health. She says, "You go, you have to go cast this vote, but before you vote." She writes him a note, puts it in his pocket and says, "You have to promise your mother that you read this note before you vote."
Robert Watson:
Now, what conservatives were doing is they were demonizing the women's movement, just like today. They were saying, they used to call Carrie Chapman Catt, Carrie Chapman Rat, and they would always say, "We smell a rat in ratification." So they resorted, not unlike our president, to name-calling and bullying. So they smelled a rat, Mrs. Rat they called Carrie Chapman Catt. So Harry Burn goes to cast his vote, takes out the note from his mother and this is what it says. "Don't forget to be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt put the rat in ratification." And it passed by one vote. After 80 years passed by one vote. So there you go, there's the story of the 19th Amendment.
Robert Watson:
So let's talk about 100 years of women in politics. Good story, right everyone? Good. So let me move forward. Okay, so women have been running for the presidency and Pat Knapp will remind everyone, as will Marcia, that I think the two first lectures I gave 20 years ago for Brandeis was one was on women running for president, one was on first ladies. So we've almost come full circle after all this time. So here you go.
Robert Watson:
Women had been running for office, get this, since 1872, even before they could vote. So they've been running for office for a long time. So here's what I did. I interviewed women who ran for the presidency and I interviewed women in elected office. So let me talk about the latter first.
Robert Watson:
So I interviewed women in office, I asked them one question. What's the biggest challenge you face in politics because you're a woman? That's the conversation we had. Here's what they told me. I'll just talk about four for the sake of time. Number one, the number one thing they said was the biggest challenge was fundraising. Fundraising, here's what you find. 90 plus percent of the races where there's a man and a woman on the ticket, guess who raises more money? Men. Women have a tough time raising the big bucks. Now, not a $20 check from Ellen or me, but I'm talking the big bucks from let's say a Koch brother on the right or George Soros on the left. So women don't raise the big bucks. In modern times there's really only been three women that have been able to match what men do if not out fundraise men. That's Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and Nancy Pelosi. Those are the three big fundraisers, but the lion's share of women struggle to raise money. Raising campaign money is still of, by and for men.
Robert Watson:
I had one woman, she was a Republican in the Alabama State legislature, I think the only woman in the state Senate at the time. When I asked her what her biggest challenge was, and we were talking about fundraising, she said, "Oh, that's easy. I don't golf." So I said, "Okay, explain yourself." She said, "Well, where do you think money is raised? It's raised in the press box of the Alabama Auburn football game but no man would invite me there. It's raised in the locker room at the private clubs and I'm legally not allowed to go there. Thirdly, it's raised on the golf course, and I don't golf." So I said to her, "With all due respect, learn to golf." She said, "Are you kidding me? Being a state senator is a part time job. I'm a wife, a mother, and I have a job on the side. Who has the time to golf?" You've all heard me quote Mark Twain say, "Golf is a good walk interrupted." Sure, I'd like to golf, I just don't have time. I don't have four hours in a day, in a week. So women don't have the time and they're having trouble raising money.
Robert Watson:
The second thing that women talked about with me about the challenge is what's called the second shift syndrome. What this is is let's take a two income family, both the wife and husband work. What we find is that the man has two, three times as much leisure time in the average week as the average woman does. Even in a two income family, who still does 80, 90% of the domestic work? Cooking, cleaning, diaper changing, bill paying, groceries, laundry, et cetera? The woman does. So what the second shift syndrome is that a man comes home from his shift at work, nine-to-five, and what does he do at five o'clock? He sits in his comfortable chair, falls asleep and then gets dinner. A woman comes home from her first shift nine-to-five and she starts her second shift, which is domesticity. A few of the women even told me that they have a third shift, which is taking care of their husbands, right? So domesticity.
Robert Watson:
So the point being, until women have more time they're going to have trouble running for office. Studies today show that men have far more leisure time than women. Therefore, if you want to run for office, can you imagine the amount of time it takes to raise money, go to Rotary, go to Kiwanis shake hands, go to every event. Women don't have the time, so until we are able to change this sexist arrangement, women won't have the time to run for office.
Robert Watson:
The third thing women told me was, you can see it here on the screen, the empty nest syndrome. What this is is if you asked the question, men, when do you run for public office, what's the answer? Whenever they want to. Women, when do you run for public office? The answer, when the kids are raised and out of the house. Now, here's the thing. If people are waiting to marry until much later, they're waiting to have kids until much later. Until your kids are grown, most women are going to be perceived as being too old to run for office, and not Trump, but a typical political career is years at the local level, then state level, then national level, then running for president. So the empty nest syndrome. We have to flip the script here and get women to run earlier.
Robert Watson:
Pat Schroeder who ran for president in 1988, long time congresswoman, one of the longest serving women in history, District One, Colorado, she used to tell me that when she would run she would get a lot of grief, even from other women that are saying, "You have a daughter at home. You are abandoning your maternal responsibilities." She was once in a debate and they asked her about that during a debate, and she said, "I'm glad you ask me because I wanted to ask my male opponent who has two kids at home if by running for office he's not abandoning his paternal responsibilities." So the empty nest syndrome.
Robert Watson:
The fourth and final thing I want to say about this is this. There's a series of questions that are asked to men and women in public life, and this is interesting. It would suggest that maybe women are less ambitious. Now, I don't think that the right word, I don't think that's so. Maybe the right word is more scrupulous, more prudent, more cautious, more realistic, I don't know, but here's the battery of questions. So men and women, if you only had a 5% chance of winning, would you still run for office? The majority of men, yes, the majority of women, no way. Next question. If you had to raise money from unsavory sources, blood money, big PACs and lobbyists, would you still run for office? The majority of men, of course. The majority of women, no way. Next question. If you knew you were going to be the target of negative attack ads, which everybody in politics does, you know that, I know that, and we know since we're Brandeis, we know that these ads aren't truthful, it's all lies but people believe the dang things. If you knew, the question goes, that you were going to be the subject of negative attack ads, would you still run? The vast majority of men, of course. The vast majority of women, no way. So there you go.
Robert Watson:
So women have scruples or morals, or are prudent, but the kicker is this. If you want to get elected, you need to be a single minded seeker of elections. You need to be the shark on the blood trail, and if women have all these hesitancies, it's simply not going to play out well for them running for office, so there we go. Let's go to our last bit.
Robert Watson:
So here are some of the women that have run for office. Here's the first woman who ran. This is Victoria Woodhull, 1872. She was remarkable. As you can see here, young woman, attractive, smart, go-getter. She was a published author, a self-taught lawyer, however, when she tried to even register to run she was arrested, when she tried to vote again. Neither political party would have her, so she had to run on a third party ticket, an Equal Rights Party. By the way, her vice presidential running mate was none other than the great former slave orator, Frederick Douglass, a favor to Elizabeth Cady Stanton. So when Victoria Woodhull and Frederick Douglass were running, I remember back in 2008 I used to do a Sunday show for NBC station and I used to write a Sunday column for the Sun Sentinel, both for many, many, many years, and I did a show and wrote a column where I said in 2008 when Hillary and Obama were running I used to say that Victoria Woodhull and Frederick Douglass were in heaven looking down at us saying, "What in the heck took you so long?" So she was the first person.
Robert Watson:
In the 1880s, Belva Lockwood, here she is. Belva Lockwood ran twice in the 1880s. Not really as a serious candidate, just to kind of stir things up, but nonetheless, another impressive woman. Then it would be all the way until 1964 before another woman ran. This is Margaret Chase Smith, a Republican from Maine who ran in 1964. She was a House member and a senator. One of her big regrets, she said, was the media would always call her opponents Senator so-and-so, Governor so-and-so, but even though she had served in both the House and Senate they called her Mrs. Smith. But a smart, impressive woman. First woman to run on a major party ticket. She ran as a Republican and ran a wonderful campaign and handled herself extremely well.
Robert Watson:
Then 1972 we break the color barrier. You all recognize her, that's Shirley Chisholm from New York, a female member of the House of Representatives. Shirley Chisholm from New York had a great campaign motto, unbought and unbossed, I always liked that. Because she was from New York means that she had to follow that state law in New York which says when you retire you move to Florida. You do know about that, right everyone? So she came to Florida, Palm City, I had a chance to interview her, and this is what she said. Her big regret was this, that when she ran black men did not support her. That black men, the same folks that she marched beside in the '60s for civil rights said that no, the first African American to run for president has to be a man, not a woman. So she had a lot of pushback from black men, to the point where she said, this is what she said, she felt that her sex was a bigger obstacle than her race. She said, "We'll elect a black man president before we elect a white woman president." And you know what I said, "No way." Guess what? She was right.
Robert Watson:
Next, 1984, remember her? Geraldine Ferraro from New York. First woman to serve as a vice presidential nominee on a major party ticket. 1984, Walter Mondale, Democrat, picked her as his vice. Because she's from New York, that means she had to follow that New York State law, which means she came to Florida, and I had a chance to interview her twice when she was in Florida. This is what she told me. She said, "When I gave my first speech as the first female vice presidential nominee in a major party ticket in history, I didn't want to speak about a traditional women's issue, healthcare, education, something of that effect." She said, "I wanted to talk about national security and foreign policy, which are seen as men's issues, force issues." So she said, "I delivered a 30 minute address on national security and foreign policy."
Robert Watson:
Here's the problem, she said, "The first question that was asked of me was what designer am I going to be wearing? Calvin Klein, Halston, whatever. No, think about it." So I said, "What did you say?" She said, "Nothing." She said, "There's nothing I could say. If I answered the question, would I look like a tough commander in chief?" Absolutely not if she's talking about fashion. If she talked about fashion, could she look like someone who would stand up to the Soviets, the Russians? Remember everybody, our presidents used to stand up to the Russians instead of being in bed with them. She said, "On the other hand, if I told the reporter screw you for asking me the question." She said, "I would be the word that rhymed with witch." And you remember Barbara Bush even said of her, Geraldine Ferraro rhymes with witch. So Ferraro was in a pickle there. You also remember how they went after her husband, John Zaccaro? So she really had some bad memories of the sexism that haunted her campaign.
Robert Watson:
Next woman, 1988, Pat Schroeder. Okay, I just had her right before the COVID crisis she came back to Lynn University. So I've had the pleasure of interviewing her many times and working with her on a few projects. She was good enough to write the foreword for one of my books. Pat Schroeder, when I interviewed her, this is what she told me. She said, "Sometimes a woman's worst critic is another woman." She said, "I got so much pushback from other women." And here's an example she gave me. She said, "An older woman handed me a check one time and I leaned forward, got the check. It was only for 12, 15 bucks or something, and the woman wanted to say something to me." So Schroeder said, "I thought she was going to say, 'I'm sorry, this is all the money I have.' But the woman said, 'Here, now get a haircut, do something with your hair.'" So I have notoriously messy hair, but that hasn't held me back in my career. Donald Trump has the weirdest hair, I think it's some artificial alloy, he has the weirdest hair in the animal kingdom, but he's president, but a woman is another thing.
Robert Watson:
I've interviewed a lot of women during my many years that I did TV and female anchors always said that they got so many nasty letters of people criticizing them for their hair, gaining weight and the clothes they wore. Men can gain weight, wear the same outfit, have messy hair, it's just not going to be an issue. The other thing Schroeder said to me was that similarly another time a woman gave her a check and said to her, "Do you know that your shoes and purse don't match? Here." Gave her a check. Now, when I interviewed her, it was 20 years ago or more, so I didn't understand what that meant. Now that I've been married for quite a while I understand that shoes and purses and things have to match. But those are the kind of problems Schroeder faced.
Robert Watson:
She also teared up a little bit when she stepped down, who doesn't? NFL quarterbacks and great NBA basketball stars, they cry like babies when they step down, men have. Reagan used to tear up. Schroeder gets some tears in her eyes and they say, "You see, women can't be a president."
Robert Watson:
The next woman to run, Elizabeth Dole. Remember her? She ran for president in 1999 for the 2000 race but dropped out early. Bob Dole's wife. Former two time cabinet secretary, Department of Labor and Department of Transportation. I remember in my car one day, if you're like me and you talk to the radio, I was listening to NPR, which is arguably the least sexist news outlet, but they were interviewing her in New Hampshire and this is what they asked her. How do you plan on walking around campaigning in that New Hampshire sludge and snow in high heel pumps? Now, what could she say? She's back to Ferraro. She's dammed if she does and dammed if she doesn't, but nobody would ask John Kerry how he could campaign in his fancy Sergio Ferragamos. Nobody would ask George W how he could campaign in some endangered species skin cowboy boots or something, but for women they get that question.
Robert Watson:
Carol Moseley Braun, if you remember her, 2004. A Democrat from Illinois, a Senator ethically challenged, she ran briefly. 2008, Hillary Clinton almost became the first woman in history to be a nominee for president of a major party, then in 2016 she would make history as becoming the Democratic nominee for president, and by winning more votes than any person has ever won for president in history, also winning the biggest landslide in history in sheer number of votes.
Robert Watson:
2008, another historic first, Sarah Palin. I apologize everyone, I don't know for the life of me how this photo got in there. My kids must have been messing around with this or something. You know I would never put a photo like this in here. So Sarah Palin makes history. She becomes the first vice presidential nominee on a Republican ticket in 2008 joining John McCain, and enough said about that.
Robert Watson:
2016, here you go. We had a record. 2020, I'm sorry, 2020. Six women ran for president in 2020, that's an all-time record, everybody. So let me close this by simply saying, here you go. Here's a list of some of the countries around the world where women have been heads of government. Noticeably absent from the list is the United States, our closest allies, the United Kingdom, Israel, and Canada have all had women at the helm. Latin America, Africa, Asia, a Muslim country, Pakistan twice had Benazir Bhutto at the helm, yet the US hasn't. Here's a map to show you as of last year, 2019, all the countries where there were women heads of government. Here's another map to show you countries that have been run by women throughout history. Let me close by saying this, two quick thoughts. One, why hasn't the United States yet elected a woman? On one hand, many women around the world have been prime ministers, not presidents, it's different.
Robert Watson:
It's easier to get elected prime minister in a parliamentary system. All you need to do in a parliamentary system is have a safe seat, rise up the chain of command, and then if your party gets either a majority or even just a plurality, think of Israeli politics, if you get even a plurality, your party makes a deal, you're the prime minister. So that would be a lot easier. If we had that system in the US, Nancy Pelosi would be the prime minister. It's harder to win a nationwide two year long, hundreds of millions of dollars campaign like we have in the United States for president.
Robert Watson:
Secondly, a lot of women around the world, in addition to being PMs, prime ministers, they were daughters of a previous prime minister, sister or wife of a previous prime minister. So there's been direct familial connections that have benefited women around the world. So what's good for the goose should be good for the gander and begin to help women. We're seeing it now, Elizabeth Dole and Hillary Clinton both ran for president and have direct family ties to the office. Bob Dole was the Republican nominee in '96, of course Bill Clinton was a two term president. Murkowski, a senator from Alaska, her father was a senator before. So we're beginning to see that now.
Robert Watson:
Second and final thought. It's not if, but when we elect a woman president, and it's exciting now in the 100th anniversary to know that any day now Joe Biden will announce that a woman is going to be his vice presidential pick. Then in a couple of weeks he'll announce a cabinet, whether he wins or not, that will contain 50% women. Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama had a number of capable women in office. Trump we took a step backward. But it'll be exciting to know that there are several women being tapped for key positions.
Robert Watson:
I'll leave you with this thought. Both my grandfathers, one went to the fourth, I think one did the sixth grade. They worked in the steel mills in Steelton, Pennsylvania, Bethlehem Steel. They never would have had a female let's say professor. They never had a female boss, they never would go to a female doctor, a female lawyer, female accountant. Hell, they wouldn't even go to a female veterinarian. Every young person today has had a female boss, female lawyer, female doctor, female vet, female name it. When I was in college studying politics and history, there were very few women at Virginia Tech that were majoring in politics and history. Now every school we go to, everywhere you go women are over 50% of the majors. Student government at almost every school I got to to lecture and at my own school now, a majority of student government is women, female. So this is a paradigm shift, everybody. Things are changing, so it's not a matter of if but a matter of when we elect a madam president.
Robert Watson:
So with that, let's go to the chat and have at me any questions you'd like to ask and I'm going to the chat here and I'm going to start reading some questions off. Okay, so I see da, da, da, da. Terry's granddaughter joined us, good. Hello Terry's granddaughter, and Terry's granddaughter, if you have any questions, you can email me at rwatson@lynn.edu and I'd be happy to talk to you about the history of the women's movement and send you some resources. The museum at Gettysburg has a collection of medical equipment from the time, that's ... Yes, I've been to Gettysburg, also been to the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg and there's also a medical museum in Baltimore. Some of the equipment they have, you're right, it's absolutely chilling, and to think that untrained nurses, just women activists, were taking care of these patients and just witnessing one person get a leg sawed off, but holding them down and hearing them scream and taking care of them, and then all day long. It's remarkable. Good point.
Robert Watson:
What else do we have here? So Linda asks, "Can you discuss the future of the Equal Rights Amendment?" Thank you, Linda, good. So the ERA was originally introduced back in the early 1920s, of course it went nowhere. Then it was reintroduced in the early 1970s, and a lot of times measures like this will have what's called a sunset. They have to be done within a certain number of years, so you had the decade of the '70s. The ERA would then sunset in 1979. Now, it passed the House and Senate, but you need three quarters of the states. It was three states shy. Jimmy Carter comes into office and extends it to 1982, but still nothing happened. What's happened since 1982 really makes it complicated. A couple conservative states that ratified it have since voted to unratify it because they were worried it was going to pass. Now, legally does that mean they're a yes or a no on it? That would have to go to the high court. Another handful of states have since added it after 1982. Does that mean it counts or doesn't count? That would have to go to the high court too. My guess would be no and no, but if it does count, we could be in a situation where by this year or in the next election cycle you could see a vote for this again.
Robert Watson:
One of the states, by the way, that's never ratified it is the State of Florida. Yeah, for 12, 13 years in a row now they introduced the ERA to Florida every year and our Republican party in Florida kills it every year. Our state senator, Lori Berman, good friend, a remarkable person, Lori introduces it every year and continues to do so. So yes, so the ERA, Linda, it basically just says women are people too, you know? It's a relatively simple thing. I'm hopeful that in our lifetimes we'll see the ERA move forward. Now with the Me Too movement, with the Black Lives Matter movement, with equality finally coming front and center, I do think that the next time you have an amenable Congress and president that is of a certain political party, I think there's hope that this will pass. Thank you, Linda. Good question.
Robert Watson:
Allan, do you think suburban women will support Trump? Good question. Oh, Biden's VP. Good question. So what we saw was Trump actually carried the women's vote, suburban white women. Trump carried suburban white women in 2016, despite his lifetime of behavior against women, calling women fat, calling them whores, making fun of them, bragging about molesting women, not allowing female employees to pump breast milk or breastfeed. One thing after another. No, this time it's going to be different. Siena, out of New York, several of the major polling organizations, not just Siena, have indicated that women are saying that they're going to vote Democratic. Get this, not by double digits, 10%, 11, 12, which is remarkable, but we're talking 20 some percent. You're looking at a 20 some percent swing of women voting Democratic. This is remarkable. If that is the case and if the voting turnout rate is normal, Democrats win across the country in a walk. The Republicans just simply can't make up that majority, if women come out in big numbers, if they vote 20 some percent more Democratic than Republican. So good question.
Robert Watson:
Biden's VP, there are from Stacey Abrams in Georgia, to there's female governors in several states, Democratic female governors, Michigan, New Mexico. There's several women in the Senate, from Elizabeth Warren, to Kamala Harris, Klobuchar said she's taken herself out of the running. Yeah, there's a number of women. What's exciting, I think, is if you would say 30 years ago, 20 years ago that you want to pick a woman to be VP, the concern would be there would be only a handful of women who would be perceived of being eligible or qualified. That is only a handful of women in the Senate, but today no, we have a giant list. I love the fact that Biden said he's going to pick a woman because we have so many qualified women. For example, women now constitute 25 of the 100 members of the Senate. That's a record, 102 women in the House, that's a record. We have several female governors and several female lieutenant governors. We have a few women that are or have been generals, several female CEOs of Fortune 500 firms. There's a lot of women out there, so that'll be exciting.
Robert Watson:
Here's a question. Can you discuss the ERA? Okay, good, I just hit that one, the ERA. Endowments for women's colleges. Yeah, good question. So I have been in favor of reparations for women and for slavery in the following form, not cash payments. Here's the types of reparations I believe. For institutionalized centuries of systemic bigotry, and exclusion, and prejudice, I think that states and the federal government should have an additional pot of money that is for scholarships for women, scholarships for African Americans and minorities. I think there needs to be infrastructure investments in urban areas. I think there should be an extra pot of money to subsidize black colleges, female colleges, things of that effect. Let me take one more and we'll throw it to Ellen.
Robert Watson:
Oh, well the last two questions are, last three questions are who is going to be the vice president. So everybody is asking that. So Ellen, the floor is yours, and I think you're muted, so you have to unmute, yeah.
Ellen O'Connell:
My husband wishes he had the mute and unmute button.
Robert Watson:
My wife wishes she had it. I'm glad he doesn't have it for you, Ellen.
Ellen O'Connell:
And I don't have a clue who is going to be the vice president, but I will tell you one thing. This is the first time I can say I've welcomed 150 people to my bedroom.
Robert Watson:
That's good. That's good. Can I borrow that line? Ellen, I'm happy to be one of the 150 and I'll light a cigarette a little later.
Ellen O'Connell:
I want to thank you for kicking off our virtual reality. The chapter is extremely grateful for all of the times that you've been there for us and we especially appreciate it this time. I want to thank the over 155 of our members who signed up, registered, became technically unchallenged and joined us today, and I want to reassure you this is just the beginning. Obviously this is, and maybe we're a little tired of hearing it, it's our new normal, but we are going to make it as fun, and as interesting, and as challenging, and as stimulating as we possibly can. And here's the commercial, we need you to join. We need you to get online, pay your dues, participate, help us out, come up with ideas, we're open to hearing what you want to do, how we all survive this. Again, thank you all. Robert, thank you so much. We look forward to being able to see you in person. I actually had tickets for Pat Schroeder, but due to the pandemic we escaped and we are currently ensconced on Cape Cod, Massachusets, where we have a very sane Republican governor and all is well. So to all of you, stay safe, stay healthy, and do us all one favor, get out and vote. If you have grandchildren who are 17 and turning 18 before November, get them registered and get them out there to vote. Take care, be well. Thank you so much. Thank you.