Russia is a truth teller and a builder of movements. We have seen that through her movement with grossly code. The pioneering non profit that regime out founded to close the gap in information society. A National Movement for centering women in economic recovery into champion policies that support all moms. Reshima saujani unwavering passion is at the heart of pay up the pandemic made clear to her and to billions of women that workplaces have never been built for working mothers to have a fair chance. That is what we saw a historic number of women leave their jobs in 2021. Highlighting that it is a system that needs to be fixed, not women. Reshima offers a plan to educate corporate where leaders, advocate for policy reform and reimagine our workplaces. Tonight she will be having this crucial conversation with sally buzbee the executive editor of the Washington Post, where she is the first woman to lead the 144 year old news organization. Previously, sally was the executive editor and senior vp of the associated press. Later in the program we will take some of your questions, you can submit those using the q a button on the bottom of your zoom window. We are also including a link to purchase copies of pay up with autograph book plates in the chat box. Thanks again for joining us. Please give a warm welcome to reshima saujani and sally buzbee into your homes. I hi everyone. It is great to be with all of you. Thank you all for doing this today. Reshima it is so nice to see you again, even if it is virtually like this. Talking to you about all of these important issues you are raising. Thank you, its highly, it is so great to be here. I know a lot is happening in your life and in your world. For you to take the time to be here and to talk about women and working women it means a lot, i think to everything a person who has participated tonight. So thank you. That is very kind. There is no more important issue in our world, i think it is fair to say. Lets get started the title of the book is, payoff the future of women and work and why it is different than you think. Lets start with, how is it different than what you thought . Workplaces have never worked for women. Covid showed that. So many of us found ourselves without affordable childcare. Managers who didnt get it partners who were not doing their part. Now women are in crisis. Millions of women have left the workforce. The largest exodus of women leaving the workforce in the history of our nation. 51 of working women say they are anxious and depressed. The cdc released a report saying two subgroups that are most at risk right now are 18 to 24yearolds and moms. Moms moms dont break. We had an opportunity to finally make workplaces work for us because they never have. You write in the book that this thing that i think many of us have probably felt before deep down, we get this sick feeling that we are colluding with our own erasure. We are squeezed, or do we squeeze ourselves, into a guilt shame filled cone of silence. Requiring the contradictory demands of childbearing and professional ambition. After all, wasnt having it on what we asked for . Im curious why you think this all came to head during the pandemic . Was it always happening in this just worsened it . Or why do you think it came to a head during the pandemic . I think it was always happening. My book Hillary Clinton was talking about this. Ever since she entered the workplace she was told, dont put pictures up of your kids. Dont talk about your motherhood. The only way we could show up at work was hiding half of ourselves. I think the problem, sally, is corporate feminism really bought into this. I bought into this you know . I spent the past decade telling girls to lean in real hard, girl boss their way to the top in covid i found myself with two little kids, running in organization and it broke me. I have resources we learn the having it all is really a euphemism for doing it all. There was something about covid, whether it was being at home with our kids. This whole idea of zoom schooling being invented. Knowing that we would be the beneficiaries, right, of that work. No one cared. The way that weve been doing it. Telling women to get a mentor, get a sponsor, colorcoded calendar, that was not getting up to equality. We were fighting the wrong guy. The fight we should have been fighting is how do we get to equality at home . How do we create structure so we can stop trying to fix the woman and fix the system . That idea of fixing the woman versus fixing the system is obviously very much at the heart of this. I think many of this im constantly asked how do you do what you do . As if we are somehow superhero people who, if they could just figured out what we did it would work. Many of us probably get asked that question. Was that a good bit of advice they gave to people . The way i did it . Talk to me a little bit about that. About that issue. The people approach you with that . I need to change to make this work, is that something you hear . All the time. I think the whole idea of imposture syndrome, why women show up again i spent my life trying to get women into technology. The amount of women for point illicit m. I. T. , brilliant phds, invariably the last question they will ask is i feel like i dont belong here. Why am i exhausted . Why do i feel like i cant cut it. Its because women are doing two thirds of the caregiving work. The reason is, we thought that was the way. Looking at my life, i spent almost a decade trying to have a baby. When i finally had sean i was on two planes, two trains every week trying to deal with movement. I didnt see him see i dont see him crawl. I dont see him or hear him say his first words. I look at myself in the mirror and say, well thats the price. That is the price reshima, you have to pay for changing the world. It shouldnt be the price that we have to pay. You know . If we want to work or make a difference. What we have been doing has come at a huge cost. I think where it is really showing up right now, not even just the labor market or the women in the workforce it is really the Mental Health piece that should terrify all of us. Are there any companies that are doing it right . Is there anything that you see that is, just on a private level, that is helpful or hopeful for the future . I think there are companies who have gotten a little better in the pandemic. I worry that we are going backwards that once we get everyone back to the office. Yes, there are Companies Like disney, catatonia, have bill onsite daycare to really help with the child care issues. There are more companies that are offering paid leave. Paid leave benefits and secondary benefits. There are some companies that have pushed backed against flexibility and remote working. We are going to make it possible for people to work wherever works for them. I think there is a trend. What i worry about, sally, is theres also a trend to go back to the old normal. Joe biden to my mayor, new york adams. Being like, get out of your pajamas and go to work. As if it was that easy. As if that was the issue we are still not talking about the fact that the latest job number 27 times more men entered the job market, we are still missing millions of women. Black women have the lowest Unemployment Rate in 50 years. It is all about or its a lot about the cost of childcare. What would a new definition of working motherhood look like for different groups . Obviously there are different groups. There is privilege affluent white women, there are women of color. How would you think through or think about what this means for different groups women with different Life Experiences at this point in time . Three out of ten American Families a run by single moms. I think about how i built girls a code, i built it i went to refugee camps. I went to the poor communities and i said, if i can teach her i can teach anybody. When we designed workplaces we designed them for white men who had a partner who stayed at home, doing all the domestic work. We did not designed them for a single mom, i think a woman of color that is an hourly wage worker. We need to. The thing is, we have an opportunity to do that right now. Big company should be providing the same paid leave benefits across the board, right . If you have women in factories and women in the front office they should get the same benefits. It should not matter the color of your skin or how much money you make. And as an indicator of how you get to spend time with your kids and how you get to raise your kids. That is what is fundamentally broken in this country. It shouldnt be about privilege dictating your ability to have a job or be a mother. Describ u. S. Has long been a total outlier in child care in general. The system you described happens in some countries. Maybe not perfectly but it does happen in some countries. Obviously you have a Marshall Plan for moms. What would be a realistic step forward in the United States . What are the elements of what that entails to you . Had you asked me six months ago i wouldve said, pass build back better. Get that 7 feeling for childcare. Pass paid leave. Extend the child care at credit. Those things were actually providing relief for working families while we had them. Its still shocks me, sadly, that we are bowing now airlines but we are not bailing our moms. All the evidence, all the data and all the pain that politicians of one party already facing in the ballot box that they still, still, cannot grow a heart. That to me tells me there is something fundamental that we need to shift in our culture. I was doing a panel with some Senior Executives in canada and some political leaders in canada and france. It almost made me cry was this woman in canada was like, its so interesting. Post pandemic in canada its a bull market for women. We have more women in the workforce. That because you get Free Childcare in quebec. You have paid leave it is actually proven that when you create structures of support, when you start encouraging families to share in the Domestic Labor and you provide support to Single Parents that that is actually good for the economy. Good for our health, good for our children. The fact that we, as a country, we like to say were about family values we cant get there it is it is not surprising because i think part of the problem, sally, it goes back to the history. Women were only allowed to work in the workforce because of world war ii. Men were going off to war and they need workers. They said, okay, come in. They even provided paid leave and childcare at some moments, right . When the men came back we were pushed out again. We have always been doing this dance of saying please, please, please. Let me work. You know what i mean . Weve been doing it, at the expense, again, at our families. And our own Mental Health. I think we just need to call it right now. Call it what it is. Resist this push against the old normal. The opportunity is the great resignation. 11 million open jobs. Can you see these ceos faces . Please, please. Anybody come to work. It is a sellers market. We have an opportunity, all of us, not just women man. Childs parents. Trans, nonbinary, all of us have the opportunity to dictate the terms of what we want workplaces to look like. How can women use that leverage though . Oftentimes if women are under stress, or if theyre looking for a job quickly. They are at a transition point in their life they do not always have the time to thoughtfully think through maybe in some cases the resource awfully thing through, maybe there is a better job. Maybe a have leverage in this conversation. Not to mention that none of us are taught to have conversations about jobs with average. Are we teaching, are we doing a good enough job of teaching the next generation of women how to do those things . What specific like, if you are offering specific concrete to both someone right now in the labor market, what am i asking for . What am i pushing for . Obviously depends on the age of that stuff lets talk about specifics. This is fascinating. This is what i outlined in my book. I am all about strategy, solutions. We know what the problem is, how do we fix it i think there are two issues. Typically i think that we havent been in a job market where there are so many open jobs and employees have leverage, that is fresh. Its not going to last forever but its gonna last for a while. Secondly, most of the workplace organizing has often happened in labor unions. There is not an organization that calls you up and says, heres your shot. You can get them to pay for your childcare, all of it. Here is what you need to ask for. We also do need to actually start teaching, working women in particular. I think millennials are getting this right. They are going in asking for seven figures, your corner office. My office. Mental health pay, pay for my therapy. They know their worth. Its not a womans issue it is a working mother problem. We have been so traumatized by our experience as mothers in the workplace. The mother had penalty. You leave the work forth, you get page 40 less than when you exited it. We are kind of like, please, please let us back in we are breastfeeding in closets. We are putting networking lunches on a calendars rather than say we have to take your kids to your doctors appointment. We are turning the video off on zoom praying or kids dont scream as if they dont exist. As if this identity doesnt exist. That is what we have been doing for 100 years. That is what our grandmothers did. What our grandmothers did, how do you on teach that . Though much of this movement have to start there. You do have leverage, you are worthy. The third thing is, for everyone whos listening right now, what is the one thing you want to change . Maybe you want to work from home . Work remotely at the end of the school day, two days a week. Maybe want to fight for that flexibility. Your employers may be really pushing. Maybe you do want to ask about what childcare benefits are . I think part of it is figuring it out what do i need . Saying, you know what . So many people i know would rather quit then ask for what they need. The great resignation, sally, is being led by women. They are quitting. We are going to our next job and we are quitting again we didnt solve i do not want to put this all on us but i think the other piece of this is its not just us. The things that we want, that want that to. The amount of man i know who want to take their kids to school in the morning, want to take their kids to soccer class. They are in the job market instead of asking. It shows, culturally, we have a problem, right . We are afraid fear of retribution, for trying to advocate for ourselves as parents. What role do you think the culture of the country. You are basically saying, this is the way the United States and its culture has been all along. What has cost that . Rugged individualism . Or women arent in the workplace or striving for perfection that feminism in america was striving for perfection . What do you think, culturally, or is it literally just the government, we dont want to use government to form benefits unless we need to . Sent an i secretary clinton said such a interesting thing yesterday. You remember we were close to getting childcare during nixon, the bill failed. When nixon talked about why the bill failed he basically said, i think the appropriate place for womens at home with their kids. I when you listen to joe manchin, when you listen to mitt romney, some state senators across the country use kind of still hear the same things. I think culturally there isnt the will to fix workplaces by men in leadership. Its insane thing i would argue with ceos. I am shocked, right . They know whats happening. Now many people have left, we know why theyre leaving. There is still this resistance. They dont actually want to make workplaces work for us. Maybe they dont want us there. At the extreme, a little bit of why i advocate the topic. If you had asked me a few years ago or he writing this movement banning this book no, when i wrote my first oped i read the comments section. I never read the comments section. What was so fascinating was people on the left were like, what about the dads . People on the roy were like, motherhood is a choice. People on the left still insist on wanting to talk about this as a caregiving issue. I think that is a mistake. I think it is not appealing to the people two thirds of caregivers are women. If you dont have focus then you cannot move the needle. If i had called girls who code kids who code i would not have top 1500 thousand girls. Why are we forcing women out . Similarly here, why did the pandemic push women out . Why was the caregiving put on women . On the right it is about this idea that motherhood is a choice. You dont get anything from your government you dont get anything from your partner. Your employers. There is a sense that you are in yourself its your personal issue, youve got to fix it the fascinating case with this is a School Closures i hope washington writes about this i want to know when that decision was made from a policy perspective too norway, other countries they didnt shut the schools down. They decided to keep him open. We shut the schools down. We design something called zoom schooling where you needed a parent to log on your child at these our increments. While, again, 80 plus percent of parents work. Lost women are in the workforce. We knew in march, april, may, june we had this data. Women are the ones doing the homeschooling. When they decided to do this Cross Country release of policy in terms of how we are going to teach millions and millions of kids we knew who was going to be affected by. We just dont care. We didnt design it in a way that would relieve how they could choose between their unpaid labor in the paid labor. I wonder, i dont know i havent investigated but was that brought up . Did they talk about that . More we even considered . Because we have always been the default again, if men were doing that home schooling. No way they wouldve kept the schools open. It is a fascinating question. Weve all had so many my children are above school age at this point but so many people in my workplace were literally just going like it all went to just your personal resources. There was nothing else that was available. If your husband or your partner of any sort winds helping you with schooling than that was great. If not you went to the grandparents or he had to take the time. You talk, in this book, about your own experiences, right . There is literally a moment where you are describing falling apart. Being in the fetal position on the floor was that difficult for you to do . There is almost a drama around those first couple of months. We did our best but