Welcome to the Balancing Life's Issues podcast,
a show designed to share views and opinions around the idea of work-life balance
with your host, Wendy Walner.
A I think it's a great idea and is enormous change taking place from
time that I graduated from college till.
Today. That's my mom. She's 87, she's voted in 17 presidential elections,
and as we recognize Women's History Month,
I wanna start with her because I'm feeling frustrated.
We've taken steps backwards recently, some big ones,
and I know my mother thinks that this month is important,
but I need to know why.
When I graduated from college, we went to get a Mrs degree to get married.
That was something we hated.
Wait, what? I had to do some Googling to figure out what she was talking about.
And there it is. Thanks to a P B S article titled Mrs.
America Women's Roles in the 1950s under huge societal
pressure to get married,
women who went to college were stereotyped as going to get their r s degree,
meaning getting a husband. That is how society viewed women in college. Well.
We didn't have a lot of opportunities.
First thing I did when I graduated from college was go to secretarial school,
learn how to type, because that was a very big job that you could get.
Everybody was looking for a secretary,
and you had to know how fast you could type.
Even with a college degree.
We're all aware that women were forced into roles at that time,
as my mother was becoming one. It's hard to hear her say that, though.
That was gonna be our final place in life. Just being home, being a mom.
It's sad knowing that such wonderful people,
like my mom felt so stuck at that time.
And it's interesting and encouraging to recognize how far we've come. We.
Have a long way to go. We had, I thought, a very qualified lady for president,
and I was sure she would win, and she didn't.
And I think one of the main reasons is, again, because she was a woman.
Mom, do you see any hope here?
We've come a long way, huge difference from when I was young,
and I think there's much more equality than there was and more to come.
As we started to talk about the message we wanted to deliver for Women's History
Month, it's no surprise that there's a lot of information out there.
This one from mom.com, though really resignated with me,
the contributions of women throughout the years have gone unappreciated and
forgotten. But each year in March,
women's History Month is a time for reflection, appreciation, and celebration.
Women's History Month is an important time to recognize contributions both large
and small, that have changed our lives. So the better inspiration is contagious.
And this year,
the theme for Women's History Month is celebrating women who tell our stories.
So today we're hearing from women who've inspired me through their stories.
We've already heard from my mom, Monica, who travels with me everywhere I go.
Even at her age, she's as strong as ever,
but she still needs some encouragement from time to time. No, I I know that,
you know, I'm, I didn't do it. No love. It was fine. I, I don't like,
I I would like to say goodbye. Oh, okay. Whatever you, bye.
But don't we all need encouragement? And that's why I've invited someone.
I admire Amy Siskin to share her words for Women to Stream Month with you today.
Amy is a defender of democracy, best known as the Author of The Weekly List,
the President of the New Agenda,
a not-for-profit dedicated to the Advancement of Women.
But I'll let her introduce herself.
First of all, thank you for having me, and Happy Woman's History Month.
So I have done, um,
three completely different things so far,
and it kind of brings me to something that I always tell my mentees,
especially if they're in college or just coming out of college with a wisdom of
age and having been, you know, in the workforce or,
or out in, in the volunteer force as well for several decades,
that you'll probably have a lot of different careers or passions or
volunteer kind of things that you do.
So you don't need to know right away where your ambitions lie or where
your path is going to lead you. For me, I,
I started out in a traditional job jobs, uh,
in the distressed debt field in, in Wall Street.
I left Wall Street in 2006. And since then, I guess I,
I've been giving back in various ways.
I'm a big believer in learn, earn return.
I co-founded a national women's organization that I still run
and is still very much a part in focus of what I do.
And in 2016 as, which is what many folks know me for,
I, um,
got very involved in saving our democracy and a project called The Weekly
List that got me even more involved in politics than I had
been. So,
three completely different things and see where life takes me next.
A loving, I think take away takeaway number one is that idea of learn, earn,
and return. Yes. Which is such a great lesson.
So this year's theme of Women's History Month is really celebrating women
who tell our stories. Who should we know about? Oh.
Boy. I, you know,
I think that you can find heroines in any field that you're in,
and I personally feel like you should research,
reach out to people that have part of what they've done that is of
interest to you, if they're still alive. I mean, ,
I use that as an example because my North Star has always been Eleanor Roosevelt
because my mother was from a different generation.
I grew up always hearing stories about Eleanor.
But whatever career field that I have been in,
I've always looked to women that are in that field that I can sort of aspire
to look at their path, understand that they've made mistakes,
that nothing for any woman that you, you know,
are reading about ever went smoothly.
The number of names that I have met of Amazing Woman, because I'm ,
I'm 57 at this point,
and I've done so many events and met so many amazing women over the decades. I,
I don't even wanna start to name people,
but I would just say if there's a particular field that you're interested in,
um, to read up about people read up about their journey. And as you do so,
you'll learn that nothing ever came easy to anyone. Uh, you know,
I'll go back to Eleanor Roosevelt, my, my North Star. She lost her mother,
she lost her father before she was 11. She was raised by her grandmother.
She had a really tough go of it early in life. Uh,
she was born in an era that 50 years later,
she would probably be our first woman president.
And that it's really important to put in the work, put in the grit,
be resilient, fail, pick yourself up and keep going.
You know, I love that because how do we pick ourselves back up? You know,
I had the mantra of Eleanor Roosevelt,
nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Yes.
I think one thing is interesting is that we're all sort of wondering if we take
a journey through your career, and you mentioned Eleanor Roosevelt,
have women really made progress?
So the organization, I found the new agenda, I found it in 2008,
and it was as,
as a result of observing the sexism and the misogyny in the 2008 election,
which is when Hillary first ran for president.
And I feel like because of what happened to her,
and a lot of grassroots efforts came about because of Hillary's historic first
run, things seemed to get better.
Women's representation improved.
There was real watchdogs of any sexism and misogyny in the media,
in the workplace, to the point where I thought to myself, gee,
Hillary's gonna win in 2016,
and then I can pack it all up and consider a job done.
Obviously that didn't happen.
But what I've observed since 2016, first of all,
we lived through some really tough years,
but my observation of what happens in traumatic times is we tend to, as women,
fight others battles and, and put ourself last.
It's sort of what we're socialized to do. And I feel like over the past,
you know, six, seven years, we've,
we've slipped backwards again that a lot of the progress that we were making
has been sidelined. That the whole focus within corporations,
within any fields you're looking at, we made great strides,
and then we kind of went sideways,
and now I'm concerned we're even going backwards. It's, it's really hard work,
and it's really hard for women to put women first,
and I think we're really bad at it.
So I hear the second call to action is for women to own that and say,
wait a minute, I matter.
Yes.
Now, a young person or a middle age or any age comes to you and says, look, Amy,
I'm super ambitious. I wanna really get to the top, but I'm being labeled.
What would you say to that person who is really ambitious, directive,
assertive? Where are we on the conversation of,
to be ambitious is perfectly fine for a woman and more acceptable today?
Yeah, I think there's still stereotypes with that. I, you know,
there's a reason why we're one of the last,
if not the last developed country that hasn't had a woman leader,
because women who wanna be the president or wanna be a c e o, if they say it,
it's like, oh, oh, she's ambitious. Whereas if a man says that,
it's like, oh, he's a leader.
I think we have to be really aware of what our own voices are saying to ourself.
And I think it's not only okay,
but important that women recognize the need to make money and financial
independence.
Maybe ambition is just a word that we should substitute out for.
I wanna be successful,
I wanna go to higher rungs in my career.
I think you should figure out what fulfills you and keep doing it until it
doesn't fulfill you anymore. And then find a new passion to chase.
And that's a very like, privileged thing to say.
A lot of people's careers don't allow them that financial flexibility.
But if you're in a place and you've done it and it's just not bringing you joy,
um, there are plenty of career fields that you can try that make sense to pivot
and speak to mentors and reach out to people, uh,
in different career fields and, and you know,
listen out to what they went through.
Listen out about the possibilities of doing something different. So.
I kind of hear this third call to action about be a little brave,
be a little courageous, take some risks when you can. We're not just jumping in,
we're gonna be careful and mindful and make a plan.
A CEO of a work-life balance company, where are you on the whole, uh,
work-life balance controversy that, uh, it, it, it, and it, by the way,
I've been doing it 30 years. It's still as controversial then now. So what,
what's your take on it?
Uh, I, I, you know,
I kind of hate the framing of the whole thing now that I'm kind of maybe
on the other side of it, you know,
some of the things that I did were not well constructed choices that I,
I gave a lot of thought to. It was just at the time,
situations presented themselves.
Like when I left Wall Street in 2006, so I was 40,
I didn't have a grant planned that I was gonna leave Wall Street.
It kind of gradually happened. I, my kids were in first and fourth grade.
I tried to get back to working three days a week,
but it was just something that happened at work.
When I went away on August vacation,
I had a really bad experience before I left for vacation.
And when it came time to come back, I was like, you know what,
I'm not going back. So it wasn't, in retrospect,
the way I would do things now in my fifties,
it wasn't this well thought out plan.
Sometimes you have to just believe in those signs in life and go with it.
I just have to say this truism also,
being on the other side and having raised two children,
I think this is something that all genders face,
and I don't think there's a right or wrong answer that fits all. You know,
I,
I think people who stay at home with their kids really miss having worked each
side has a view of how hard it is for the other. And again,
there's no right way. I always joke, like when I stopped working on Wall Street,
one of the things that I did is I got involved with, with our local pta.
And I always joke, if you think it's hard being a Wall Street trader,
you haven't volunteered for the pta. Totally. Yeah.
I think the grass is always greener on the other side. Go with your gut. I,
I think, you know, one thing for, we,
we as women have really good gut instinct.
Be patient and sit with things. Don't replay things in your mind at night.
Just sit with it and go with it and just keep moving forward. I.
Love that. But, you know, how would you, uh, mentor or answer a question, um,
that we're seeing come up more and more that you're working in the workplace,
you're a young woman, um, and you wanna have conversations about policies and,
and government today? Um, you know,
how do you talk about progressive policies in an appropriate workplace?
And obviously the elephant in the room that we're always talking about today is
Roe versus Wade.
How do we have tough conversations as a young woman in corporate America?
I guess I've been through it all, and I would just say,
this might not be what you were wanting me to say,
but it might be good to leave that stuff at home,
that there's like a place for your passions and your politics.
And those are at lunchtime on weekends
with your friends at night, with your Facebook pages, whatever it is.
I, I think at work,
and this might not even have been the case 20 years ago when I was working,
or 25 years ago, they, you know, we could joke about it and people could like,
gimme a hard time. So there are real implications of politics at work,
and I think now things are just much worse.
No, I think that's a great perspective, Amy,
and I appreciate you being honest and vulnerable and saying maybe we,
maybe we can't. So I think I had the perfect last question for Amy.
So I'm listening and maybe I have a young daughter,
or maybe I'm a younger listener, um, and I'm thinking, I'd like to know,
I'd like to hear why should I run? People.
Like me don't wanna run because of the system as it is,
but that's exactly what's wrong with the system, right?
We attract people that have no ethics, no scruples, that just care about power.
The list is long. And listen,
I have a lot of politicians in my backyard and I've got to know them a lot.
And unfortunately some of them are great and a lot of them should not be in
public office that really are about their own fame, uh,
about themselves and their social media following or whatever else,
and not about what's good for their constituents.
So when you find someone who is just like good basic bread and
butter politician, like Cherise Davids the first time she ran,
she's the first l g Bt q uh,
member of Congress from Kansas. She's Indian American,
she's from a single mom home, came from nothing, lifted herself up.
I'd like to see more people like Cherise, who really just does, you know,
she doesn't get involved in the hubba, you don't hear about her on social media.
She's not on MSN b c every week.
She goes back to Kansas and she meets with her constituents and does the work.
Real change comes in Washington and real change comes
local. And if you get into that career,
you can have a real impact. Uh,
if you surround yourself by women's organizations, they will help you.
They will have your back.
But it's super important and we've gone backwards here,
our sideways that women's voices are in the mix, uh,
for all of the issues we care about. So I'm somebody,
if you do decide to get to politics, reach out to me and I'm happy to help you.
There are many groups of, you know, that support women, uh,
once they get into politics.
I wanna end by really thanking you and saying it's what's so amazing
is that, um, you are acting your exact, you know,
model about giving back. And so, you know,
you've done such an amazing job with your followers and keeping us up to date.
We're looking forward to hearing more and learning more from you. You know,
a million Thanks Amy for kicking off our Women's History Month.
Uh, I'll end with one closing thought.
I know a lot of women have trepidation of reaching out to people for help,
but I really consider my greatest accomplishments,
the young woman and some young men who, uh, have been my mentees,
who have gone on to do great things,
who still reach out to me when they're not sure about this step or that step.
And I have scores of mentees now, maybe hundreds, uh, and,
and watching them grow and do great things.
So just know that if you're reaching out to someone to ask for them for an hour
of their time, ask them for coffee or whatever, or,
or to speak with you on Zoom, that, um, they get a lot out of it too.
So avail yourself of, of, of mentors, especially women mentors,
uh, and ask for advice and ask for help and stay in touch with them.
So many great lessons. What an amazing closing thought.
Learning to ask for help. I know a lot of us could use that reminder. Again,
I wanna thank Amy for being so open and willing to share as we kick off Women's
History Month.
I'm inviting you to take the entire month into a journey about where we've been,
where we are now, and where we're going. Next episode,
I will be talking to my friend, rain Henderson,
another woman I admire as she offers her own version of what Women's History
Month means to her. Until then, take care.
This has been a production of Balancing Life's Issues with your host,
Wendy Wilner, produced by me, Kai Sorenson.
Subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen and you'll get brand new episodes
as they drop. Got an idea for the show.
Leave a comment or email Kai k a i balancing life's issues.com.