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The 1977 Women's Conference That Changed America · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
0:11
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, there's Chuck
0:14
Speaker 2: and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you should know.
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Speaker 2: The watershed moment in American history edition.
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Speaker 1: That's right, in which we tackle not literally take on
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Speaker 1: no cover.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Yes, the Houston, Texas Conference, the National Women's Conference in Houston,
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Speaker 1: that was from November eighteenth to twenty first, nineteen seventy seven,
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Speaker 1: which was the only time that the US government got
0:49
Speaker 1: together and said here's some money, go out and put
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Speaker 1: together a conference and a group of delegates that represent
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Speaker 1: the women in this country and come back to us
1:00
Speaker 1: with ideas on action we can take but mostly won't.
1:05
Speaker 2: Well, they left off the mostly won't part. They didn't
1:08
Speaker 2: find that out until afterward.
1:09
Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Gloria Steinem, who is one of the co founders of
1:13
Speaker 2: Now and like a quintessential second wave feminist, she called
1:17
Speaker 2: this the most important event nobody knows about, and it
1:21
Speaker 2: really was. This was a very specific moment in time
1:26
Speaker 2: where Olivia helped us with this, where she pointed out
1:28
Speaker 2: that this is probably the last moment where the federal
1:33
Speaker 2: government would be like, sure, we're going to fund a
1:36
Speaker 2: conference to find out how to better womenkind womenkind, and
1:44
Speaker 2: then at the same time the last moment where those
1:48
Speaker 2: women could go into that conference assuming that the stuff
1:52
Speaker 2: they came up with was going to actually have legs
1:55
Speaker 2: and move forward in Congress.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Did you see the FX mini series This Is America?
2:01
Speaker 2: I did not, which is surprising because I've been chewing
2:03
Speaker 2: around the edges of it in other research and I've
2:06
Speaker 2: still not seen it.
2:08
Speaker 1: It was really good.
2:10
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm sure it looked like it's just a murderer's
2:13
Speaker 2: row of great actors.
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Speaker 1: Great actors, and it's I'm sure you can still watch it.
2:18
Speaker 1: But a lot of the people in this story figure
2:22
Speaker 1: in that mini series.
2:23
Speaker 2: Well, that's the thing. This is a It was a huge,
2:26
Speaker 2: huge deal. The historian named Marjorie J. S. Spruell wrote
2:30
Speaker 2: a book on this, and she called it the crest
2:33
Speaker 2: of the second wave of US feminism. It is also
2:38
Speaker 2: conceivably the time the moment where the Christian right became
2:44
Speaker 2: a thing, where the religious rite, i should say more specifically,
2:48
Speaker 2: and that the religious right became came to hold tremendous
2:53
Speaker 2: way over the Republican Party. A lot of people point
2:55
Speaker 2: to the election of Ronald Reagan. Some people take it
2:59
Speaker 2: a little further back and point to Jerry Folwell's organization
3:03
Speaker 2: of the Moral Majority Political Action Committee. Nope, Apparently it
3:07
Speaker 2: happened two years before Fallwell in Houston, Texas, and it
3:10
Speaker 2: was an rally that was designed to oppose this women's
3:15
Speaker 2: conference by women who were threatened by the idea of
3:19
Speaker 2: women being stripped of their traditional roles of homemaker. There
3:24
Speaker 2: was a huge opposition of women who believed that the
3:29
Speaker 2: family was the basic unit of society and that that
3:34
Speaker 2: family was meant to have the mom stay home with
3:36
Speaker 2: the kids and the dad go off and be the
3:38
Speaker 2: wage journer. And that worked fine in Dandy after the
3:41
Speaker 2: post war World War two era, but that became increasingly
3:46
Speaker 2: difficult as this time war on wag's real wages failed
3:51
Speaker 2: to keep up with inflation, and all of a sudden,
3:53
Speaker 2: you actually kind of needed the mom to go out
3:55
Speaker 2: and work. And so to these women, this is like
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Speaker 2: a literal breakdown in the fabric of society, and they
4:00
Speaker 2: were very upset about this, and they very much blamed
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Speaker 2: feminists who seemed to want to push things in that direction.
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Speaker 2: Not only weren't opposed to it, they wanted to push
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Speaker 2: things in that direction, and so this huge opposition came up.
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Speaker 1: That's right. And it was also a time specifically, you know,
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Speaker 1: you were talking about the opposition movement just in general,
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Speaker 1: but specifically to oppose the Equal Rights Amendment, which was
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Speaker 1: proposed first in nineteen twenty three, technically passed the House
4:29
Speaker 1: and Senate in nineteen seventy two, still not written into
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Speaker 1: the US Constitution. We can't get into it now because
4:38
Speaker 1: it is a very long and convoluted story.
4:40
Speaker 2: Well, we did an episode on it, did we on.
4:43
Speaker 1: The whole thing? How when was that?
4:48
Speaker 2: I know, man, I know, I would say in the
4:50
Speaker 2: last three years.
4:52
Speaker 1: Interesting because there's new stuff that's happened in the last
4:55
Speaker 1: few years. So I wonder, yeah, if it was before that,
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Speaker 1: dish well, I mean, just like lawsuits like Virginia coming
5:03
Speaker 1: on board, which meant which means we had three quarters
5:07
Speaker 1: of the state approval basically everything in place that is
5:10
Speaker 1: required to make a constitutional amendment. But then people are like,
5:14
Speaker 1: well wait a minute, other people rescinded THEIRS and Virginia
5:18
Speaker 1: came on late and there said previously been rescinded. So
5:21
Speaker 1: then there were lawsuits and here I said, we weren't
5:24
Speaker 1: getting into it, and I'm kind of getting into it.
5:26
Speaker 1: But I think the last lawsuit said it's still not happening, man,
5:33
Speaker 1: and that was in the last couple of years.
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Speaker 2: That's still just crazy to me.
5:37
Speaker 1: Yeah it is. But anyway, Yeah, we did do an
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Speaker 1: episode on that. That's why it seems so familiar. But
5:41
Speaker 1: we did.
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Speaker 2: And the reason why it seems familiar is because Phillis
5:45
Speaker 2: Shaffley figured Big into that, and she figures Big into
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Speaker 2: this too.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. So Phillis Shafflee was an attorney, a very much
5:54
Speaker 1: conservative right wing activist, and who was played by Cate
5:58
Speaker 1: Blanchette wonderfully in Missus America. Yeah, she did a great job.
6:05
Speaker 1: She founded the Stop Era. I was about you call
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Speaker 1: it a club or organization, and I just have to
6:14
Speaker 1: shout out the fact that stop is what's called a backronym.
6:19
Speaker 1: That's when you have an acronym that's already a word,
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Speaker 1: So all you really needed was an organization called stop Era.
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Speaker 1: It actually stands for stop taking our privilege privileges. And
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Speaker 1: you can't use a word from the acronym or backronym
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Speaker 1: in your acronym or backronym, it's no.
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Speaker 2: Or else you're just saying it twice, right, Yeah.
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Speaker 1: It's just so clumsy, and we like to critique acronyms
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Speaker 1: as good or bad. I give stop Era just an unnecessary.
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Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, we need a rubber stamp for that, or no,
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Speaker 2: a metal clanging sound like you've embossed it.
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Speaker 1: At any rate, philishafflete foun you don't want to work
7:01
Speaker 1: this out? All right? What are we doing?
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Speaker 2: The So you remember like the old production company that
7:08
Speaker 2: created Dragnet, It was like Mark seven or something like that.
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Speaker 1: Don't remember that, but sure, well we'll go.
7:15
Speaker 2: Off and watch an episode of Dragnet and then at
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Speaker 2: the end I'll point it out to you, okay.
7:18
Speaker 1: And it was like a set ubu set good dog thing.
7:21
Speaker 2: Kind of but yes, exactly it was the same premise,
7:23
Speaker 2: but it was it was somebody like putting like a
7:26
Speaker 2: metal stamp and they hit it with like, ah, like
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Speaker 2: a hammer. Yeah. It made that that metal emboss engraving sound. Okay,
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Speaker 2: that I want to rip off is what I'm saying.
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Speaker 1: All right, so we give stop e r a an
7:41
Speaker 1: unnecessary Oh.
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Speaker 2: That sounds good. That was really good, Jerry.
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Speaker 1: The we should talk about the beginnings, the seed of
7:51
Speaker 1: this conference It happened on the heels of the UN
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Speaker 1: saying nineteen seventy five is the International Woman's Year, and
8:01
Speaker 1: they had a international conference in Mexico City that year.
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Speaker 1: And that's when gerald Ford stood up and said, all right,
8:09
Speaker 1: here's an Executive Order number one one eighty three to two.
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Speaker 1: We'll give you five million bucks to about twenty nine
8:15
Speaker 1: million dollars today to create the National Commission on the
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Speaker 1: Observance of in an International Women's Year, and like, go
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Speaker 1: have your big conference, work out what you want to
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Speaker 1: bring back to us, which is what we're refer too earlier.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and that five million sounds like a lot to
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Speaker 2: fund some conferences, and it is, but I've read from
8:35
Speaker 2: somebody who was kind of sour on the whole thing
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Speaker 2: point out that that's less than a nickel a woman
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Speaker 2: for every woman that was in America at the time.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, but twenty nine million comparatively, you can't pull a
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Speaker 1: conference off for that. I'm with you, But okay, they'll
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Speaker 1: do it for a million.
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Speaker 2: A very important point was it was also a series
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Speaker 2: of conferences. First. They had state conferences first, Yeah, figure
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Speaker 2: out what they were going to bring the national conference.
9:01
Speaker 2: So it was like this year long of conference, and
9:04
Speaker 2: like looking back now, you're like, wow, people were talking
9:08
Speaker 2: about women and women's rights a lot at the time,
9:11
Speaker 2: and it was a huge like there was. It was
9:14
Speaker 2: just in the zeitgeist, like women's rights was moving forward
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Speaker 2: at this incredible clip. Just two things. Time declared the
9:21
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy five Man of the Year to be the
9:24
Speaker 2: American Woman. Yeah, and I read that the nineteen seventy
9:27
Speaker 2: one seventy two Congress, I think that was the ninety
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Speaker 2: second Congress, they passed more women's rights legislation than all
9:35
Speaker 2: previous legislative sessions combined. So it was it was a
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Speaker 2: huge It seemed like a juggernaut. And of course women
9:42
Speaker 2: were going to have all the rights that men have.
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Speaker 2: The Equal Rights Amendment was going to be become a
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Speaker 2: part of the Constitution. It was just in the air.
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Speaker 2: So this conference just made sense.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Can I read that Time magazine quote because it's
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Speaker 1: pretty great. Yeah, this was in the quote unquote Man
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Speaker 1: of the Year article said enough US women have so
10:00
Speaker 1: deliberately taken possession of their lives that the event is
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Speaker 1: spiritually equivalent to the discovery of a new continent.
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Speaker 2: That's so awesome.
10:09
Speaker 1: Man, whoever wrote that, nice work.
10:12
Speaker 2: James time.
10:14
Speaker 1: Oh, Jimmy time. So there's a congress person named Bella
10:19
Speaker 1: Abzug battling Bella Abzug from New York who was a
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Speaker 1: real firebrand and was one of the biggest advocates for
10:28
Speaker 1: this congress. I'm sorry for this conference in Congress. And
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Speaker 1: she got together with some other organizers, like you mentioned,
10:35
Speaker 1: there were state and regional conferences. They were gonna choose
10:39
Speaker 1: about two thousand delegates, and they were really really smart
10:43
Speaker 1: because and you know, maybe if we told Josh I
10:47
Speaker 1: was putting together sort of a easily two parter on
10:51
Speaker 1: just the history of feminism.
10:55
Speaker 2: Oh, you weren't talking to me just that.
10:56
Speaker 1: I see, No, let's talk to the listener. You know.
10:59
Speaker 1: I got to people out there in podcast land.
11:02
Speaker 2: I'm psyched about that one. I've been wanting to do
11:04
Speaker 2: that forever and we need to We need to do
11:06
Speaker 2: that sooner than later, for sure, because I've been wanting
11:08
Speaker 2: to do that one for years.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. But I think where I was going
11:13
Speaker 1: was that they were really smart in that. Uh oh,
11:16
Speaker 1: I nowhere else head it is that in certain ways
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Speaker 1: of feminism, there was not the most representation and as
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Speaker 1: feminism grew through the different movements that expanded, and this
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Speaker 1: was one of those moments where they got really smart
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Speaker 1: and they were like, you know, we can't just make
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Speaker 1: this about white suburban women or white you know, I
11:37
Speaker 1: guess urban women either. We need to expand our pool
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Speaker 1: and talk to women who are farmers and women who
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Speaker 1: are basically women who haven't been you know, minority women
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Speaker 1: who haven't been included as much in this conversation. Will provide,
11:55
Speaker 1: provide childcare. If you can't afford to come, we'll pay
11:58
Speaker 1: your entrance fee. Like it was just a really smart
12:01
Speaker 1: way to go about it, which is like, let's bring
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Speaker 1: everybody together finally here in the nineteen seventies.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and it is the conference encouraged that they were
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Speaker 2: trying to get the best representation of women in America
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Speaker 2: that they possibly could, and so that conference kind of
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Speaker 2: inadvertently encouraged all these different types of feminists to come
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Speaker 2: together like they never had before. That was a huge
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Speaker 2: lasting impact of it. Yeah, a lot of there was
12:27
Speaker 2: a lot of infighting in feminism at the time. There
12:31
Speaker 2: was the old Guard, kind of personified by Betty Ferdan
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Speaker 2: who wrote The Feminine Mystique, who was kind of opposed
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Speaker 2: to say, the gay contingent, which she called the lavender menace,
12:44
Speaker 2: which she believed prevented mainstream society from accepting feminism and
12:48
Speaker 2: seeing it as credible. Like you said, feminism was largely
12:53
Speaker 2: viewed through the lens of white, middle class women. This
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Speaker 2: was an expand scope and it was it made some
13:02
Speaker 2: people nervous. They were like, well, how are we going
13:04
Speaker 2: to get anything done with all these opposing views? And
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Speaker 2: it was very fortunate that there was that small contingent
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Speaker 2: of conservatives who were super mad about this, it still
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Speaker 2: attended this conference that allowed all the other groups to
13:17
Speaker 2: come together to oppose them and get these planks pushed
13:21
Speaker 2: forward rather than fighting it amongst one another. And it
13:24
Speaker 2: actually brought together different branches of feminism that are still
13:28
Speaker 2: just part of this coalition today.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a lot of coalescing on both sides
13:32
Speaker 1: because of this event. It's pretty incredible. Yeah, because philis
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Speaker 1: Shaffley early on championed to try and stop this from
13:41
Speaker 1: even happening, like, hey, Congress, don't fund this thing. That
13:45
Speaker 1: didn't work. And so a woman named Lottie Beth Hobbes
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Speaker 1: of Texas, who features pretty prominently here, had the idea
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Speaker 1: to like to show up and rabble rows and make
13:57
Speaker 1: their voices heard on the other side. She initially proposed it,
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Speaker 1: and interestingly, Shaffley, I think you found this wasn't immediately
14:05
Speaker 1: on board because she was very you know, she liked
14:09
Speaker 1: to play chess and not checkers, and she was like, Hey,
14:13
Speaker 1: if we show and there's a low opposition turnout, we're
14:16
Speaker 1: going to look like fools. But Lottie Beth Hobbs said no,
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Speaker 1: we're going and you should get on board, and she did.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. That was Marjorie J. Sproule, the historian turned that up,
14:29
Speaker 2: which is fascinating as we'll see how that played out.
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Speaker 1: And the committee that was actually formed by the anti
14:36
Speaker 1: era activist was the IWY Citizens Review Committee, and again
14:42
Speaker 1: a coalescing, They're like, are you anti gay, come and
14:45
Speaker 1: join us? Are you anti abortion? Get over here? Do
14:48
Speaker 1: you not want the era bill passed? Come along Catholics, Mormons, evangelicals,
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Speaker 1: And this is what you were talking about earlier. That
14:57
Speaker 1: really sort of galvanized the beginning of the religious right.
15:01
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the more inclusive the feminists were in the conference,
15:05
Speaker 2: the more targets it presented to people opposed to it,
15:09
Speaker 2: the more likely it made for those opponents to come
15:11
Speaker 2: together in opposition and form like an actual movement with
15:16
Speaker 2: real political clout, and that became the religious right. And
15:21
Speaker 2: apparently it was the inclusion of a woman's right to
15:24
Speaker 2: abortion included as part of the like the goals of
15:28
Speaker 2: this conference that really kind of created that what had
15:33
Speaker 2: not been a coalition before where it was basically the
15:36
Speaker 2: Catholics who were anti abortion up to that point and
15:39
Speaker 2: the Evangelicals were saying, like anti gay. Well, now they
15:42
Speaker 2: had something in common feminism. Feminism is going to ruin everything.
15:46
Speaker 2: There are other people who are anti era, and it
15:48
Speaker 2: just brought all of them together. Like you were saying,
15:51
Speaker 2: it's just nuts how the fabric of our society today
15:57
Speaker 2: formed over this weekend essentially in November. Yeah, it's insane
16:01
Speaker 2: to me, Like history so rarely tucked into one little
16:06
Speaker 2: tiny corner three days. Yeah, and this is a really
16:10
Speaker 2: good example of that rare, rare instance.
16:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you know, you mentioned the anti abortion like
16:17
Speaker 1: Roe v. Wade went through in seventy three, but it
16:19
Speaker 1: didn't even become officially part of the Republican platform anti
16:24
Speaker 1: Roe v. Wade until nineteen seventy six, And like you said,
16:28
Speaker 1: it was something to coalesce and bring people together. So
16:32
Speaker 1: like both sides it's almost like they're going to war,
16:34
Speaker 1: you know, both sides are bringing in back up and
16:37
Speaker 1: they're mounting the troops to sort of dig in on
16:40
Speaker 1: both sides. At this one weekend in Houston, there were
16:45
Speaker 1: conservative delegates that did get elected. Utah, Mississippi had delegates there.
16:51
Speaker 1: They got elected because they had more you know, conservative
16:54
Speaker 1: voters in those states.
16:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, those state conferences that were held before the nation conference. Yeah,
17:00
Speaker 2: that's where they elected delegates. And if you're in a
17:02
Speaker 2: conservative state, you were sending conservative delegates. So much so
17:06
Speaker 2: Mississippi sent six men to the women's conference, as I
17:10
Speaker 2: guess a symbol as well of like these are the men,
17:13
Speaker 2: these are this is who in charge. Is in charge,
17:16
Speaker 2: they should be the ones who are the delegates. There
17:18
Speaker 2: was actually seven men. South Carolina sent a male delegate too,
17:24
Speaker 2: but he apparently didn't show up. So you will very
17:26
Speaker 2: frequently see that out of the two thousand delegates, only
17:29
Speaker 2: only six were men.
17:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Mississippi also sent Dallas Higgins, who was married
17:35
Speaker 1: to George Higgins, who was the leader of the Kukux
17:40
Speaker 1: Klan in Mississippi. So do with that what you will.
17:43
Speaker 2: Got a lot of ground to cover Mississippi.
17:46
Speaker 1: So as far as the other delegates on the you know,
17:50
Speaker 1: the non conservative delegates, they were obviously feminists there with
17:55
Speaker 1: their agenda. A lot of them were political insiders who
18:00
Speaker 1: had been around for a long time. They brought out
18:03
Speaker 1: all the stars though, they're like, Gloria Steinem, you get
18:06
Speaker 1: in here, Correta, Scott King, come on down, Shirley Chisholm,
18:11
Speaker 1: who Ruby just did a project on Churley Chislm for
18:16
Speaker 1: Black History Month, so I learned all about her, which
18:18
Speaker 1: is amazing.
18:19
Speaker 2: She was the first black woman elected to Congress.
18:21
Speaker 1: Right, first black woman elected to Congress, and first black
18:24
Speaker 1: woman to run for president of the United States.
18:26
Speaker 2: Oh, I didn't know that, nat.
18:27
Speaker 1: Which is incredible. Barbara Jordan of course was there. And
18:31
Speaker 1: if you want a real showstopper, you got to get
18:34
Speaker 1: my Angelou to write a custom poem for the event.
18:38
Speaker 2: Yeah. What was it called? Like toward to More Perfect.
18:40
Speaker 1: Union, to form a more Perfect Union that was written
18:43
Speaker 1: for this conference.
18:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty cool. So we keep talking about Houston and
18:49
Speaker 2: Texas and if you're like, well, why would they hold
18:51
Speaker 2: a women's rights conference in Houston? Or in Texas. There
18:55
Speaker 2: are a couple of reasons why Texas was actually one
18:57
Speaker 2: of the states that had already ratified the ER, and
19:01
Speaker 2: Houston was a well. Also, Barbara Jordan was a congress
19:05
Speaker 2: person from Texas from Houston, so they had even more
19:08
Speaker 2: feminist cred And then Houston actually had a an agency
19:15
Speaker 2: basically a Woman's Advocate agency in the city office. And
19:20
Speaker 2: so like all of these things put together, mete Houston
19:23
Speaker 2: seemed like, hey, this is a city on the rise
19:24
Speaker 2: as far as feminism goes in. In reaction and response
19:29
Speaker 2: to finding out that Houston was where the national conference
19:31
Speaker 2: was going to be, the Governor of Texas declared that
19:34
Speaker 2: week national Family Week. Very clearly through his lot or
19:38
Speaker 2: Texas's lot in with the anti era people, the Houston
19:44
Speaker 2: City Council had diminished the funding for that Woman's Advocate
19:48
Speaker 2: office to one dollar a year and essentially just eliminated it.
19:53
Speaker 2: They took a lot of steps to kind of go
19:55
Speaker 2: backwards when they found out this is this is going
19:58
Speaker 2: to be in Houston, like most of Houston's establishment was
20:01
Speaker 2: not happy that this was going to happen here.
20:04
Speaker 1: I thought you were going to say it happened in Houston,
20:06
Speaker 1: because that meant that I'm one day closer to you.
20:09
Speaker 1: M Mmm, No, No, you ever heard that song?
20:15
Speaker 2: No? Is that a tron D song?
20:17
Speaker 1: No, it's uh, he's a Gallon Brothers or Larry Gatlin.
20:20
Speaker 2: Maybe what's the song?
20:22
Speaker 1: Houston? Parentheses means I'm one day closer to you. It's
20:27
Speaker 1: a good song.
20:28
Speaker 2: Okay, I've not heard it.
20:29
Speaker 1: Stun means that I'm one day closer to you.
20:33
Speaker 2: Nope, still have not heard that.
20:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess maybe she lived in Dallas or something. Anyway,
20:39
Speaker 1: that joke didn't work. So let's take a break.
20:42
Speaker 2: Is this our first break?
20:44
Speaker 1: It's got to be Yauza. All right, we'll be right back.
21:14
Speaker 1: All right. So this conference began with a very symbolic
21:18
Speaker 1: event or gesture, I guess, or a series of gestures.
21:21
Speaker 1: They modeled it on the Seneca Falls Convention of eighteen
21:23
Speaker 1: forty eight, which was the big sort of bedrock event
21:28
Speaker 1: of the beginnings of the woman's suffrage movement. And so
21:32
Speaker 1: they got a torch Olympic style, got all these athletes,
21:36
Speaker 1: all these women to go, I mean all across the board,
21:39
Speaker 1: like high school girls, all the way to Olympians themselves,
21:44
Speaker 1: and they passed that torch quite symbolically from Seneca Falls
21:48
Speaker 1: all the way to Houston. Maya Angelou comes in with
21:51
Speaker 1: that poem, brings the house down. All the heavy hitters
21:55
Speaker 1: are there. That national news coverage is just going bonkers.
22:00
Speaker 1: There were morning TV shows that literally set up camp.
22:02
Speaker 1: There was in all the magazines. The first Ladies got together.
22:07
Speaker 1: I think Roslynd Carter was the active first Lady at
22:11
Speaker 1: the time, but Lady brig Johnson, Betty Ford, they all
22:14
Speaker 1: came and got on stage together and in the end,
22:18
Speaker 1: including the delegates, anywhere between seventeen and mid thirty thousand people,
22:25
Speaker 1: it depends on who's counting.
22:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a significant number of people who came to
22:30
Speaker 2: show up. And so they were talking about a ton
22:34
Speaker 2: of different stuff. Remember all each state sent delegates. In
22:37
Speaker 2: each delegate or group of delegates had their own pet
22:42
Speaker 2: project that they wanted to pass their own The point
22:45
Speaker 2: was to put together a bunch of planks to form
22:47
Speaker 2: a platform to send to Congress and the President and
22:50
Speaker 2: say this is what you start passing this and women
22:52
Speaker 2: will be much more equal in the United States. Right.
22:55
Speaker 2: So Olivia pointed out, some of the planks are all
22:59
Speaker 2: of the planks in The final plan covered arts and humanities.
23:04
Speaker 2: May I do this one sure? Battered women, business, child abuse, childcare, credit,
23:09
Speaker 2: disabled women, education, elective and appointed office, employment, equal Rights Amendment, health, homemakers, insurance,
23:16
Speaker 2: international affairs, media, minority women, offenders, older women, rape, reproductive freedom,
23:23
Speaker 2: rural women, sexual preference statistics, and women welfare and poverty.
23:28
Speaker 2: Those are the planks that ended up in this final platform.
23:31
Speaker 2: It covered everything, and that was a direct result of
23:34
Speaker 2: bringing so many different women from so many different walks
23:38
Speaker 2: of life together and say like, what do you need
23:40
Speaker 2: to be to thrive in the United States?
23:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, they've tried foot rubs here, Like can we just
23:46
Speaker 1: get like one a week from our partner? Is that
23:49
Speaker 1: too much to ask without some without grousing?
23:51
Speaker 2: Is that okay? Can you imagine if the federal government
23:54
Speaker 2: mandated that you have to do that would be hilarious.
23:56
Speaker 1: Well at the time they probably said, all right, you
23:58
Speaker 1: get your foot rub, but we get two in return.
24:00
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, So.
24:03
Speaker 1: There was You know, I mentioned that the news was
24:06
Speaker 1: covering it big time, and I don't think this is
24:10
Speaker 1: any accident that it was a woman's conference. There was
24:12
Speaker 1: a lot of talk of like of in fighting and
24:15
Speaker 1: even fighting or not even fighting, but obviously fighting between
24:19
Speaker 1: the two sides, and they may even physically confront one
24:23
Speaker 1: another and get in fistfights, and it's just that sort
24:26
Speaker 1: of old, you know, cat fight trope that's so worn out,
24:30
Speaker 1: and it was I'm sure worn out in the mid
24:33
Speaker 1: seventies as well. Of course that did not happen. One
24:37
Speaker 1: of the reasons is because there were only about three
24:40
Speaker 1: hundred Conservatives there and they were just far out numbered.
24:45
Speaker 1: They did have ribbons, they had lapel ribbons that said majority,
24:50
Speaker 1: which is kind of where this whole idea of hey
24:54
Speaker 1: with a moral majority, like we are the majority, Like
24:58
Speaker 1: most American women don't want what you're suggesting, so here's
25:02
Speaker 1: our little pin to suggest.
25:04
Speaker 2: That, right, And so that was kind of how the
25:07
Speaker 2: media portrayed the people who were what the feminists the
25:12
Speaker 2: other delegates called antis. The conservative delegates were called antis
25:17
Speaker 2: by everybody else because they were anti everything. When they
25:20
Speaker 2: passed passed the platform, you could vote on individual planks,
25:24
Speaker 2: they just voted against the whole thing. So it was
25:26
Speaker 2: viewed as this kind of single coalition and step with
25:29
Speaker 2: philis Shaffley. And it turns out that there was a
25:33
Speaker 2: reporter for the Nation named Lucy Kamasar, who did more
25:36
Speaker 2: digging than the rest of the media and found that actually, no,
25:41
Speaker 2: like a lot of the women walking around with majority
25:44
Speaker 2: pins on are like, yes, they're anti federal government, but
25:48
Speaker 2: they're pro federally funded healthcare or childcare. They oppose rape
25:55
Speaker 2: like they weren't. It wasn't just like complete locksteps she showed,
25:58
Speaker 2: but that wasn't the story that got told about the
26:01
Speaker 2: opposition at the conference by the rest of the media.
26:05
Speaker 1: I'm loath to make another music joke, now, let's hear it.
26:11
Speaker 1: I just wonder if every time she walked into the
26:12
Speaker 1: room they said, hey, don't turn around.
26:17
Speaker 2: Is that a Ace of bass joke?
26:19
Speaker 1: You get this one?
26:20
Speaker 2: Ace of bass?
26:21
Speaker 1: No Falco, don't turn around? They're commisars in town.
26:27
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, okay.
26:29
Speaker 1: That's got better or worse than the other one?
26:31
Speaker 2: Uh, much better because i've heard that song.
26:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, different spelling.
26:34
Speaker 2: Plus it's a good song. I'm not convinced that the
26:37
Speaker 2: Houston one day closer to the song is good.
26:40
Speaker 1: Oh you probably like it. Larry Gatlin, Sure you remember
26:43
Speaker 1: the Gatlin Brothers.
26:44
Speaker 2: What was their big hit?
26:47
Speaker 1: Houston? Was it?
26:48
Speaker 2: Really? Because I've heard them before, but I've never heard
26:51
Speaker 2: a big hit of that song.
26:53
Speaker 1: They were big. That was that whole seventies thing when
26:55
Speaker 1: country just had a big sort of movement country music
26:59
Speaker 1: with a Mandres Sisters and all that.
27:00
Speaker 2: But there was another song of theirs that I would
27:02
Speaker 2: have heard of.
27:04
Speaker 1: Well, how about this. You look that up and I'll
27:08
Speaker 1: bring us forward. I haven't set it back like I
27:10
Speaker 1: keep doing. So the platform itself passed, you know, and
27:16
Speaker 1: with flying colors, like most people expected it would, with
27:19
Speaker 1: all the progressive delegates there. One of the biggest exceptions
27:23
Speaker 1: of that, though, was how they were dealing with racial inequality,
27:28
Speaker 1: because they had put together a brief addressing this that
27:32
Speaker 1: basically just said, hey, no double discrimination here, Like, it's
27:39
Speaker 1: already bad enough that women of color are being discriminated
27:42
Speaker 1: against because of their skin tone, but you can't double
27:45
Speaker 1: up because they're women as well. And maybe let's get
27:48
Speaker 1: some bilingual programs going. So they trot this out to
27:52
Speaker 1: their delegation and a lot of women of color stood up,
27:56
Speaker 1: and I was like, this isn't enough. This is very vague.
28:00
Speaker 1: So we actually have a plan that we put together beforehand.
28:04
Speaker 1: It's called the Black Women's Plan of Action, the b
28:07
Speaker 1: w p A and we would like to swap that
28:09
Speaker 1: in for this minority resolution that you've crafted.
28:14
Speaker 2: Right, And that was a that was a big deal
28:17
Speaker 2: that it actually got that far, and even better than that,
28:20
Speaker 2: it actually was voted on enthusiastically. It was like a
28:24
Speaker 2: six page plank that really covered everything that the that
28:29
Speaker 2: women of color generally were interested in seeing resolved, and
28:35
Speaker 2: it got added to this to this platform. Kreta Scott
28:38
Speaker 2: King presented it on the last night to the delegation
28:42
Speaker 2: and it received it passed by an overwhelming majority. And
28:48
Speaker 2: this was really kind of part of the spirit of
28:52
Speaker 2: this conference. The women broke into singing, we shall overcome
28:58
Speaker 2: together after they voted in favor of adding that plank,
29:01
Speaker 2: rather than just the hey, let's all be you know,
29:04
Speaker 2: let's be considerate of women of color, like that was
29:07
Speaker 2: the original plank.
29:09
Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's also notable because once the Black Women's
29:13
Speaker 1: Plan of Action was presented and they came forward, then
29:17
Speaker 1: Asian women and Puerto Rican women and Chicana Native American
29:22
Speaker 1: women they were delegates. There were delegates there as well
29:25
Speaker 1: representing them and they were like, well, hey, like we
29:28
Speaker 1: should all have our voice. And I think it was
29:31
Speaker 1: just one of those big moments like we've been talking
29:34
Speaker 1: about of coalescing, where a lot of these white feminists
29:39
Speaker 1: were like, hey, you know, I don't know if we've
29:41
Speaker 1: done right by our sisters of color, So like, we
29:46
Speaker 1: we're all about inclusion, yet we're not being as inclusive
29:49
Speaker 1: as we should be, right, And this was that moment
29:52
Speaker 1: when it happened.
29:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, a very similar thing happened with the gay contingent
29:56
Speaker 2: of the feminist second Wave, which again Betty Fredaine called
30:01
Speaker 2: the lavender Menace, not because she necessarily had a personal
30:05
Speaker 2: problem with lesbians, but because she saw that as a
30:10
Speaker 2: huge obstacle to mainstream America taking feminism seriously. And one
30:15
Speaker 2: of the reasons why is because at the time, you've
30:20
Speaker 2: heard of man haters, right, it was just kind of
30:22
Speaker 2: like a trope that was funny, and it was usually
30:24
Speaker 2: assigned to all feminists. That was what they used to
30:28
Speaker 2: describe lesbians before. That's what they were characterized as in
30:32
Speaker 2: the media and in the popular culture. Man haters. That's
30:35
Speaker 2: the only reason anybody could ever be a lesbian. You'd
30:37
Speaker 2: have to hate men. And that also kind of dovetailed
30:41
Speaker 2: with an actual thread of like real disdain for the
30:46
Speaker 2: patriarchy and male dominance that was alive and well in
30:50
Speaker 2: some sections of second wave feminism at the time. And
30:53
Speaker 2: although they represented a minority of feminists in general, including
30:58
Speaker 2: the feminists at this convention, those are the ones who
31:01
Speaker 2: get the microphone stuck in their face because they made
31:03
Speaker 2: the great the best press, So they had a disproportionately
31:06
Speaker 2: large voice, and they seemed like they were hobbling feminism
31:11
Speaker 2: as a result, because who wants to get in league
31:14
Speaker 2: with man haters?
31:15
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, for sure, And I think that was
31:17
Speaker 1: a real It seems like at least there was a
31:19
Speaker 1: realization within this conference and within the delegation that they
31:23
Speaker 1: were like, this is really our moment to bring everybody
31:27
Speaker 1: together because there's obviously going to be you know, it's
31:30
Speaker 1: going to be a stronger movement if we're representing everyone
31:33
Speaker 1: and everyone's on board. So Betty for Dan during the debate,
31:38
Speaker 1: very publicly endorsed the resolution, completely reversed her previous position,
31:43
Speaker 1: and that was, you know, people within the movement, Betty
31:46
Speaker 1: for Dan was a very sort of a founding member
31:50
Speaker 1: and a voice that was important. So it was a
31:52
Speaker 1: big deal.
31:53
Speaker 2: Yeah. And so when they voted overwhelmingly again in favor
31:57
Speaker 2: of including the gay and less being contingent as part
32:02
Speaker 2: of that. I don't remember exactly what the plank was,
32:05
Speaker 2: but it was essentially saying like, guess we're your legit
32:09
Speaker 2: human beings and we recognize that, and everybody should. They
32:12
Speaker 2: broke out into song again and they sang, Houston, I'm
32:15
Speaker 2: one day closer than to you.
32:18
Speaker 1: I thought you were going to say, like an Indigo
32:20
Speaker 1: Girl song.
32:20
Speaker 2: No, but I did look up Larry Gatlin. Still no clue.
32:24
Speaker 2: I have no idea how I've ever heard of him,
32:25
Speaker 2: because I've not heard of any of his songs.
32:28
Speaker 1: That the Gatlin Brothers nothing.
32:29
Speaker 2: Nope, all right, there's a song called Broken Lady, which
32:33
Speaker 2: sounds awful, but that's their biggest hit, and I don't
32:36
Speaker 2: think i've heard that one.
32:38
Speaker 1: H Was it Broken Lady? Parentheses? Get me some glue?
32:44
Speaker 2: What is going on with you today?
32:46
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm a big lover of the parenthetical
32:50
Speaker 1: song title. You don't see those anymore.
32:51
Speaker 2: It's true, It's true, you really don't who What was it? Oh?
32:56
Speaker 2: That Cutting Crew song? I Just Died in your Arms
32:59
Speaker 2: tonight song? Great song?
33:01
Speaker 1: Is that a parenthetical?
33:02
Speaker 2: Yes? I just is in parentheses? Is need?
33:06
Speaker 1: Yes?
33:07
Speaker 2: The title of the song is in parentheses. I just
33:09
Speaker 2: in parentheses died in your arms tonight, Like it couldn't
33:12
Speaker 2: just be died in your arms tonight.
33:14
Speaker 1: Wow, a frontloaded parenthetical. That's unique.
33:16
Speaker 2: But also I say we brand this one unnecessary too,
33:19
Speaker 2: shall we? Okay, very nice. I did not see that
33:25
Speaker 2: coming up again, frankly.
33:28
Speaker 1: So they did not sing that song. But after that vote,
33:31
Speaker 1: there was also obviously a reproductive Freedom resolution. This supported
33:37
Speaker 1: government funding for abortion and sex said that passed very
33:41
Speaker 1: easily as well, like everything else, But the Conservatives were
33:45
Speaker 1: really upset about this one obviously, And say they got
33:49
Speaker 1: up on stage with a huge blown up picture of
33:53
Speaker 1: an aborted fetus and they sang everyone's getting up and singing,
33:58
Speaker 1: I imagine, much to John and Yoko's may they saying.
34:01
Speaker 1: All we were saying is give life a chance. And
34:05
Speaker 1: in the meantime, the other side is out there chanting choice, choice, choice,
34:10
Speaker 1: and it's just a you know, it's quite a scene
34:14
Speaker 1: happening there. Like the energy in that conference center must
34:18
Speaker 1: have been incredible for sure.
34:20
Speaker 2: And then everybody got brought down when the plank, the
34:23
Speaker 2: proposal to create a cabinet level Department of Women's Affairs
34:29
Speaker 2: was voted down, and they had good reason too. Actually,
34:32
Speaker 2: there were a lot of women who are like, sure,
34:34
Speaker 2: that sounds good. There are a lot of other women
34:36
Speaker 2: at the conference who are like, no, we do not
34:38
Speaker 2: want to pigeonhole all of women's problems into one agency.
34:43
Speaker 2: Like our problems and the thing are our goals and
34:45
Speaker 2: our hopes. They spread over everything else, Like we're humans,
34:50
Speaker 2: like we should we have all the same interests that
34:52
Speaker 2: men do. Why should we just have one cabinet position
34:55
Speaker 2: that all of our stuff is shoveled into. It doesn't
34:58
Speaker 2: make any sense. So they actually combine their votes with
35:00
Speaker 2: the anties, who again, we're voting against literally everything that
35:04
Speaker 2: everybody else was voting yes on, and they actually managed
35:08
Speaker 2: to scuttle that one. I think that was a good move.
35:11
Speaker 1: I think so too, because I wonder if all the
35:14
Speaker 1: eggs had been in that one basket, if you know,
35:16
Speaker 1: four years later, they're like, you know what we're gonna
35:18
Speaker 1: We're gonna acts that position and all together, yeah, or
35:22
Speaker 1: that cabinet.
35:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, like they did with the Woman's Advocate Agency in Houston.
35:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, And then all of a sudden, you're nowhere again.
35:30
Speaker 2: Right. All we're saying is give life a chance, you
35:34
Speaker 2: want to take our second break and then come back
35:36
Speaker 2: and talk a little bit more about the counter mobilization
35:39
Speaker 2: and what came of that.
35:40
Speaker 1: Let's do it all, right, So we mentioned at the
36:09
Speaker 1: beginning in sort of pepper throughout some of these counter protests.
36:14
Speaker 1: These aren't the actual conservative conservative delegates that are there
36:19
Speaker 1: at the conference. This is the group headed by Texan
36:24
Speaker 1: Lottiebeth Hobbes, who was the president of an anti era
36:28
Speaker 1: group called Women who Want to Be Women, the w
36:33
Speaker 1: W w W. This was happening across town. There was
36:37
Speaker 1: also a woman named Nellie Gray. She was the president
36:40
Speaker 1: of March for Life. They had their own big rally,
36:43
Speaker 1: and this is where they really brought together. Like we
36:47
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, like hey, if you're if you lead a group,
36:52
Speaker 1: a Catholic group or a conservative group or any sort
36:56
Speaker 1: of this is where they started sort of dubbing themselves
37:01
Speaker 1: the I don't know about traditional family, but just the
37:04
Speaker 1: family movement, the pro family movement, right, which is a
37:10
Speaker 1: bit of a thumb in the eye to the other side,
37:12
Speaker 1: saying you don't care about families.
37:14
Speaker 2: Exactly, you must be anti family standard grade school tactics,
37:17
Speaker 2: and you still see it today oh.
37:19
Speaker 1: You absolutely do. But this was the moment where they
37:21
Speaker 1: got together on the other side of town and said,
37:24
Speaker 1: everyone who is against this stuff come together and will
37:32
Speaker 1: will at least try to put our differences aside and
37:34
Speaker 1: coalesce as well.
37:36
Speaker 2: Yes, they also got huge support from No Ma'am, the
37:39
Speaker 2: National Organization for Men against Amazonian Masterhood, and I think
37:46
Speaker 2: something like fifteen thousand people came out for this antier,
37:52
Speaker 2: anti feminist rally that they held in opposition to the
37:55
Speaker 2: Women's Conference. Remember the high end of Women's Conference was
38:01
Speaker 2: thirty two thousand the lower and that the number ICEE
38:05
Speaker 2: bandied about most often is around twenty thousand, So this
38:08
Speaker 2: is a significant number of people in opposition coming to
38:11
Speaker 2: Houston for this. And remember Philis Shaffley was like, I
38:15
Speaker 2: don't think we should do this, and had Lottie Beth
38:17
Speaker 2: Hobbs not been like, we're doing it anyway, this probably
38:22
Speaker 2: never would have happened. And Philis Shafflee gets all like
38:25
Speaker 2: across the board the credit for founding this rally. It
38:29
Speaker 2: was almost all Lotti Beth Hobb But once Lotti Beth
38:32
Speaker 2: Hobb was like, we're doing it anyway, Phylis Shaffley was like, Okay,
38:34
Speaker 2: can't beat them, join them, And so she came and
38:37
Speaker 2: spoke and in establishing a lot of like that, like
38:41
Speaker 2: you said, thumb and the eye kind of tactics that
38:44
Speaker 2: we still see today. The first thing she said when
38:47
Speaker 2: when Philis Shafflee gave her remarks on stage, she thanked
38:52
Speaker 2: her husband for allowing her to be there, and apparently
38:55
Speaker 2: the crowd just went wild for that one. And one
38:58
Speaker 2: of the other things that I saw is that a
39:00
Speaker 2: lot of the people there had signs or boasted to
39:03
Speaker 2: the press about how they had paid their own way
39:06
Speaker 2: to make it there, which was a shot at the
39:08
Speaker 2: women who needed help or government funding to attend the
39:12
Speaker 2: Houston conference. It's not very nice stuff. So it was
39:15
Speaker 2: a really very targeted, very specific, very effective anti er
39:22
Speaker 2: anti women's conference rally, the pro family rally, and it
39:26
Speaker 2: got a lot of press attention as well, Like people
39:29
Speaker 2: would report from the women's conference then they go over
39:31
Speaker 2: to the proe pro family rally and it was just
39:35
Speaker 2: crazy amazing press.
39:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally, And it was the moment where they were like,
39:40
Speaker 1: not only did the press notice, but and this was
39:42
Speaker 1: one of the bigger reasons why they did this is
39:44
Speaker 1: they wanted and got the attention of the Republican Party.
39:48
Speaker 1: So it's like all of this stuff wasn't officially platformed yet,
39:53
Speaker 1: and or some of it wasn't, and so this was
39:56
Speaker 1: when the Republican Party was like, all right, listen, we
39:59
Speaker 1: need to platform all this stuff officially. And it was
40:02
Speaker 1: just again, just this this three days. It's really incredible
40:06
Speaker 1: how much it shaped things. I know, you found an
40:09
Speaker 1: interview where Lottie Beth Hobbs, you know, because she was
40:13
Speaker 1: from Houston and a Texan, like, had this big rally,
40:17
Speaker 1: and like, what would have happened had this not even
40:19
Speaker 1: been in Texas? And who knows? You can only speculate
40:23
Speaker 1: of what would have happened. I imagine, you know, Jerry
40:26
Speaker 1: Folwell came around not too long afterward anyway, So I'm
40:29
Speaker 1: sure this movement would have taken hold, but maybe not
40:31
Speaker 1: as soon.
40:32
Speaker 2: Here's the thing. Maybe not as soon, maybe not as tenaciously.
40:36
Speaker 2: Because that rally, the pro Family rally that was in
40:40
Speaker 2: opposition of the Women's Conference, it attracted fifteen thousand attendees,
40:46
Speaker 2: that got the attention of a lot of different people,
40:48
Speaker 2: including the Republican Party. But also it showed those people
40:53
Speaker 2: the attendees, like hey, you're an orthodox Jew. Hey you're Catholic.
40:58
Speaker 2: Hey you're an evangelical Christian. Hey, you just hate the
41:01
Speaker 2: idea of the federal government overstepping its bounds. All of us,
41:05
Speaker 2: we have all sorts of stuff that we disagree on.
41:07
Speaker 2: Doesn't matter because we all hate this other stuff more
41:10
Speaker 2: and want it to not happen. So if we just
41:12
Speaker 2: hang in together, if we just stay together, like we
41:16
Speaker 2: can actually have a lot of political clout as a coalition.
41:20
Speaker 2: That rally showed them that. So had that rally not happened,
41:25
Speaker 2: it's entirely possible that coalition might not have formed or
41:28
Speaker 2: not have formed in the way that it did form,
41:31
Speaker 2: and it certainly wouldn't have formed in time to basically
41:34
Speaker 2: take over the Republican Party and support the Reagan presidency
41:38
Speaker 2: for the vast majority of the eighties. Like it's sounding
41:42
Speaker 2: to think for good and bad, what how different the
41:48
Speaker 2: United States would be? Like this is a turning point
41:51
Speaker 2: in American modern American history this weekend.
41:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, it's crazy.
41:56
Speaker 2: That was by the way, that was Marjorie's sprule again
41:59
Speaker 2: that historian who was being interviewed in Houstonia magazine sisod interview.
42:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the outcome of all this was obviously you know,
42:09
Speaker 1: they passed all these planks. They ride up their report,
42:14
Speaker 1: I guess called the Spirit of Houston, and they handed
42:17
Speaker 1: it over to President Carter and Congress. So Carter says,
42:22
Speaker 1: you know, I support all this stuff. Of course, your
42:25
Speaker 1: goals look pretty great to me. But then, like I
42:28
Speaker 1: said at the very very beginning, not a lot actually happened.
42:32
Speaker 1: As far as real practical moves there was. They extended
42:37
Speaker 1: the and we talked about this in my freshly remembered
42:42
Speaker 1: era episode where there are a lot of different cutoff dates,
42:46
Speaker 1: like you got to get it done by this year
42:48
Speaker 1: or else it's off the table. He extended the time
42:51
Speaker 1: for ratification to nineteen eighty two. There was some protections
42:56
Speaker 1: against discrimination based on pregnancy. They said, hey, you can
43:02
Speaker 1: get some Social Security benefits if you have been a
43:05
Speaker 1: homemaker your whole life and you got divorced, Like we're
43:07
Speaker 1: recognizing that as a job for the first time. And
43:11
Speaker 1: a lot of feminists that were there were like pretty
43:14
Speaker 1: upset by inaction and by the fact that Carter supported
43:18
Speaker 1: the High Amendment, which totally took down the reproductive Funding Plank,
43:24
Speaker 1: basically banning the use of federal funding for abortion.
43:27
Speaker 2: Yeah. They were also really mad at Carter for cutting
43:30
Speaker 2: social programs to pay for increased defense spending as well,
43:33
Speaker 2: which is not what you think of when you think
43:35
Speaker 2: of Jimmy Carter. But apparently he got a little more
43:39
Speaker 2: conservative later in his presidency. And so it just essentially
43:44
Speaker 2: went nowhere. Like if you read like assessments of what
43:49
Speaker 2: came out of the Women's Conference of nineteen seventy seven
43:52
Speaker 2: in Houston, most of the most of the positive silver
43:57
Speaker 2: lining parts are that it helped women come together who
44:04
Speaker 2: otherwise would not have ever met and basically swap strategies,
44:08
Speaker 2: stop swap organizing methods, saying like, hey, we're organizing like
44:14
Speaker 2: domestic abuse shelters and rape crisis centers, and this is
44:16
Speaker 2: how we're doing it. And basically it helped on the grassroots.
44:20
Speaker 2: It took a bunch of different germs and put them
44:22
Speaker 2: together and they spread beneath the federal level and the
44:27
Speaker 2: state and local level, and it really helped women advance
44:30
Speaker 2: in that sense. But federally it went nowhere almost at all.
44:36
Speaker 2: It went almost nowhere.
44:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, And you know, we talked a lot in this
44:41
Speaker 1: episode about the fact that you know, galvanizing different kinds
44:45
Speaker 1: of women together, but one that we haven't mentioned yet
44:48
Speaker 1: that Lucy Kammas are don't turn around. She was a
44:53
Speaker 1: nation reporter said to her, the most remarkable aspect was
44:57
Speaker 1: not bringing together like necessarily bringing lesbians under their wing
45:02
Speaker 1: and women of color, but bringing women who might typically
45:05
Speaker 1: vote Republican in their past, bringing them in because they
45:09
Speaker 1: cared about some of this stuff as well, and you
45:12
Speaker 1: don't have to care about all of it to support
45:15
Speaker 1: this thing. And she was just like, that was the
45:17
Speaker 1: most remarkable part to her.
45:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, which makes a lot of sense. But unfortunately, one
45:22
Speaker 2: of the other outcomes of that weekend was you do
45:25
Speaker 2: have to choose, Like these groups, these coalitions solidified and
45:32
Speaker 2: in opposition to one another, so and both of the
45:35
Speaker 2: political parties were essentially forced to choose. There was no like, oh, actually,
45:40
Speaker 2: I kind of agree with this point over here, So
45:42
Speaker 2: I guess I'm independent. I don't know the state of
45:45
Speaker 2: the country that we live in today, that polarized country.
45:48
Speaker 2: You can actually date it back to this. This is
45:50
Speaker 2: the cradle of it. It's I just can't stop being
45:54
Speaker 2: in awe of the effect that it had.
45:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally, I'm always very fascinated by the independent voter.
46:02
Speaker 1: It's really interesting. To be clear, I'm not knocking independent voters.
46:05
Speaker 1: I just i'd find it fascinating.
46:06
Speaker 2: Sure, I wasn't knocking them either. It just made me
46:09
Speaker 2: think of something else.
46:10
Speaker 1: I was just trying to cut off the emails or
46:12
Speaker 1: like Chuck didn't, Chuck thinks you should vote all one way.
46:14
Speaker 1: That's not what I'm saying.
46:16
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, no no, I don't think that
46:18
Speaker 2: came across like that at all. No. So ok yeah,
46:20
Speaker 2: if anybody was sending in that email, they would have
46:22
Speaker 2: been wrong, wrong, wrong, Have you got anything else?
46:25
Speaker 1: All right? No, I'm done, done, done.
46:26
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, Chuck said done three times in a row,
46:29
Speaker 2: which of course automatically unlocks listener mail.
46:34
Speaker 1: I thought that meant the candy man appeared.
46:36
Speaker 2: The candy man reads listener mail. But the candy man
46:40
Speaker 2: I'm talking about, you.
46:41
Speaker 1: Know, you mean the kind that brings you eminems and stuff, right.
46:44
Speaker 2: No, the kind that smoked with a glass eye.
46:49
Speaker 1: No, okay, all right, this is that's fromer, an eighth grader.
46:54
Speaker 1: We love reading these kinds of things. Hey, Josh, Chuck
46:58
Speaker 1: and Jerry. My name is Beatrix, great name. Yeah, I'm
47:01
Speaker 1: an eighth grader in mckinville, Oregon. I listen to your
47:04
Speaker 1: episodes constantly all caps, and I really wanted to make
47:08
Speaker 1: it to your Portland show, but unfortunately I missed it.
47:10
Speaker 1: My mom and I live almost an hour away from
47:12
Speaker 1: where I go to school and where she works, so
47:14
Speaker 1: we often listen to your stuff on the way. I
47:16
Speaker 1: recently listened to the Rock, Paper Scissors app and you
47:19
Speaker 1: mentioned that no one plays just refined, but without needing
47:22
Speaker 1: to make a decision. But my class does and it
47:25
Speaker 1: really annoys me because there's no point. Also, I would
47:29
Speaker 1: love an episode on ADHD, specifically what causes it Beatrix.
47:34
Speaker 1: That's coming sort of soon. I do have a small
47:38
Speaker 1: convention though, Guys, though I've been listening for over a year,
47:41
Speaker 1: I still can't tell which one of you is which
47:43
Speaker 1: That's okay. I can tell your voices apart, but if
47:45
Speaker 1: I was asked, I wouldn't be able to say which
47:47
Speaker 1: one of you is Josh and which one is.
47:49
Speaker 2: Chuck if we switched from time to time.
47:52
Speaker 1: That's right, And if you go to that live show
47:54
Speaker 1: in Portland next year, then you.
47:56
Speaker 2: Can tell yeah, there you go. That's the way they
47:58
Speaker 2: talk about cognitive DISMCE.
48:00
Speaker 1: That's yeah, And how about this, Beatrix, send us an
48:03
Speaker 1: email from that same thread when we go to Portland
48:06
Speaker 1: next year and you and someone else can get on
48:09
Speaker 1: the guest list.
48:10
Speaker 2: Very nice.
48:11
Speaker 1: How about that you'll get to that's freebe tickets. So
48:15
Speaker 1: Beatrix finishes up by saying, I'd love if you gave
48:18
Speaker 1: a shout out to tech stuff and stuff they don't
48:20
Speaker 1: want you to know.
48:21
Speaker 2: Nice. Oh, we're gonna shout them out. Hey, way to
48:25
Speaker 2: go tech stuff and stuff they don't want you to
48:27
Speaker 2: know too. Excellent podcasts, you have great take.
48:30
Speaker 1: Coourse tricks, our longtime friends and colleagues sit to those shows.
48:34
Speaker 1: And finally, I would love it if you would read
48:37
Speaker 1: this on the air so me and my mom get
48:39
Speaker 1: hear it on the way to school and wish me
48:41
Speaker 1: good luck in high school next year.
48:43
Speaker 2: Good luck Beatrix, high school kids. Fun.
48:46
Speaker 1: You're gonna do great. Don't you worry about it. From
48:49
Speaker 1: the sounds of this email, You're just gonna tear it apart.
48:52
Speaker 1: I love it.
48:53
Speaker 2: Knock it out of the park.
48:55
Speaker 1: Knock it out of the park.
48:56
Speaker 2: Well, if you want to be like Beatrix and send
48:58
Speaker 2: us a just patently awesome email, you can send it
49:02
Speaker 2: to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff you Should
49:17
Speaker 2: Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
49:19
Speaker 1: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
49:22
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.