Diane Guerrero: Reese Witherspoon:

Transcription

1 Diane I'm Diane Guerrero, and this is How It Is, the show where you hear women tell their own stories in their own words. We're unfiltered, real, and ready to tell you the truth. This is our season finale, and we're ending on a powerful note, literally. It's time to talk about power. So tell me: what makes you feel powerful? Reese Witherspoon: Things like awards don't make me feel powerful, accolades. It's actually a sense of accomplishment that makes me feel powerful, that I've done something. I set a goal, and I accomplished it in the world, like starting a company that tells female stories. And then when I got the first movie made, I was like "This, this feels powerful. This is like change in action." Diane Reese Witherspoon is such a boss. We haven't even started this episode, and I'm already feeling empowered. So look, before we get started I just want to remind you if you missed any of our past episodes, you can find them all on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your pods. We've talked about our anger. We've talked about the gray area. We've talked about our voice. We've talked about freedom, and really this all leads to today and how we're claiming our power and changing the world by telling our stories. And I don't know about you, but this makes me feel unstoppable. Today, we have three major powerhouses: Glennon Doyle, Ellen Pao, and Lena Waithe, and they have all embraced their power in very different ways and in very different settings. We have so much to learn. 1

2 Glennon Doyle wears a lot of hats. She has two bestselling books, including Love Warrior, which was an Oprah Book Club pick, and her memoir, Carry on, Warrior. Her online community Momastery inspires millions with her honest, thoughtful insights on how to be a modern parent, and through her nonprofit Together Rising she has raised $9 million for vulnerable women and children in crisis. When Glennon sees heartache, she turns it into action, and she knows a lot about being a mom. She has three kids, two girls and a boy, and lately she's been thinking about what it means to raise a boy, which really means what it means to raise a man in this world. How do we make sure that little boys get to be vulnerable and gentle and sensitive? How do we make sure that the next generation of men don't suffer from old ideas of masculinity? As Glennon tells us, parents have the power to change the world. They don't even have to leave home to do it. Glennon Doyle: My kids believe that the shower is a magical portal of ideas. The youngest recently said, "Mom, it's like I don't have any ideas all day, but then I get in the shower and all of a sudden my brain is full of cool stuff. I think it's the water or something." I said, "Yeah, it could be the water, or it could be that the shower's the only place that you're not plugged so you can hear your own thoughts in there." She looked at me and said, "Huh?" "That thing that happens to you in the shower, babe, it's called thinking. It's something folks did before Google. Thinking is like... It's like Googling your own brain." "Ah," she said, "cool." That same child steals my expensive body wash once a week, so the other day I stomped to the bathroom she shares with her teenage brother and sister to steal it back. I opened the shower curtain, and my eyes landed on the 12 empty bottles littering the tub's edge. All the bottles on the right side were red, white, and blue, and all the bottles on the left side were pink and purple. I picked up a red bottle from what must've been my son's side, and the bottle yelled the following at me in bold capital letters: "Three times bigger! Doesn't rob you of your dignity! Armor up in man-scent! Dropkick dirt, then slam odor with a folding chair!" I had so many questions, the first being what the holy hell? Is my son taking a shower or preparing for war in here? Next, I picked up one of the girls' pink bottles. Instead of barking marching orders at me, this bottle, in cursive, flowy font, whispered disconnected adjectives to me like, "Alluring, radiant, soft, gentle, illuminating, enticing, touchable, light, creamy." Wait, what? 2

3 I looked around for a moment to ensure that this shower was not, in fact, a magic portal that had somehow transported me back to Nope. Here I was in 2018, when boys are still being brainwashed to believe that real men are big, bold, violently disgusted by femininity, utterly invulnerable, and responsible for conquering the world. Here I was in 2018, when girls are still being warned that real women must be quiet, pretty, small, passive, and desirable so they'll be worthy of being conquered. Here we all are in 2018, when our sons and daughters are still being shamed out of their full humanity before they even get dressed in the morning. I was born in As an obedient child, I followed the rules of girlhood by developing an eating disorder at 10 and staying small, quiet, pretty, and very sick for 15 years. When I recovered at 25 and starting writing, I dedicated myself to helping women unlearn our culture's ridiculous femininity rules, claim our full humanity, and live free. I founded a nonprofit to serve women and children all over the globe. I became a mother, and as soon as my girls were born I began promising them that they could be big, strong, loud, and ambitious and still be real women. I vowed to raise them to get angry about misogyny instead of getting sick because of it. I taught them to call out stereotyping in marketing and sexism at school and on the playground. My girls are 12 and 10 now, and they're fierce, strong, and healthy. They're little equality activists, and I'm proud of that. So are they. But here's what I'm not proud of: I have a son, too, and I haven't been promising him since he was born that he can be small, vulnerable, loving, respectful, and quiet and still be a real man. I haven't faced that our culture's rigid gender roles are as poisonous to him as they are to my girls. Until this past year, until the election of Trump, the most recent school shootings, and the Me Too Movement, I didn't consider these realities, that telling a boy he must take all the power is as damaging as telling a girl she must take none, that telling a boy he can only be angry is as dehumanizing as telling a girl she can never be angry, that being told you must dominate is as scary as being told you must be dominated, that being told you must be big and bold and invulnerable to earn your worthiness is as shaming as being told you must be small, weak, and passive to earn it. I just assumed my son was okay, but it's time America admits that our boys are not okay, and it's time for us to take responsibility for that. Being an American boy is a set-up. We promise boys that the way to become a man is to objectify and conquer women, value wealth and power above all and suppress any emotion but competitiveness and rage. Then, we are stunned when they become exactly what we have prescribed them to be. 3

4 Based on the school shootings, sexual abuse epidemic, and White House chaos, it's time to face that one of the greatest menaces to American society is the dehumanized American boy, and parents like me must collectively declare that one of the most effective ways to help our girls is to stop raising violent boys. We have the power to do that. Let's begin where all revolution and social movements begin: at home. Let's start at the dinner table. When our sons cry, let's not say to them, "Don't cry, honey." Let's start in the basement. Let's trash the murder games, the war games, the cop killer games, the rape games. Let's stop bringing games into our homes that were first developed to desensitize soldiers to violence and then acting surprised when our boys become desensitized to violence. Let's start in the family room. When the commercials with the shirtless men come onto the screen, let's not turn it off and leave our sons to make sense of those messages alone. Let's turn our boys towards these pervasive images and say to them, "What do you think the people who created this ad are trying to convince you about what it means to be a man? What are they telling you about what it means to be a woman? What do you think about that?" Let's start in the shower. Let's get rid of all the damn bottles. Let's look carefully at the products we buy for our children so we don't inadvertently bring culture's poison into our homes. Let's just give the kids a bar of soap. Diane I'm holding this so close for when I'm a mother. Glennon really got me thinking about the men in my life, now and in the past, and the messages they have been getting, like my dad who is awesome and also kind of old school, or even my older brother. I used to get so frustrated with them, but now I'm seeing their experiences in a new way, because, like Glennon said, we all suffer from toxic ideas of femininity and masculinity. There's no one right way to be a woman or a man in this world. So one of the things about this idea of toxic femininity is that we're taught that there are these rules of how to be a good girl. As a woman in the world, one of our unspoken jobs is to be the peacemaker. Always make sure that everyone is taken care of. We're not supposed to be disruptive. But sometimes, owning our power means being super disruptive, and it also means failing, very publicly. Ellen Pao is a woman who always played by the rules, and she excelled at them. It brought her to the heights of Silicon Valley and the venture capital industry, but after she had a personal relationship at her office go bad, she was harassed and marginalized. 4

5 So, you know what she did? She made some noise. In 2012, Ellen filed a gender discrimination suit against Kleiner Perkins. Speaker 1: One woman is taking on gender discrimination in the workplace with a $16 million lawsuit. Speaker 2: Ellen Pao sued her former employer. Speaker 3:... the well-known venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers for gender discrimination. Speaker 4: Pao had been a junior partner, and claimed that her bosses did not promote her because of her gender and retaliated against her for complaining. Speaker 5: The complaint details sexual harassment, the loss of business opportunities, and compensation due to gender, and failure of management to act on her complaints. Speaker 6: She's testified about a male partner organizing all-male ski trips and dinners at Al Gore's apartment, and talks about how he at one point said that women kill the buzz, and that's why he's left them out of these events. Diane She was villainized in the press, her family was threatened, and she eventually lost the suit. And she became the first person to take a stand against sexism in Silicon Valley. By speaking truth to power, Ellen discovered that she spoke for a lot of women who needed to know they weren't alone, and she learned, ultimately, what kind of power she held. 5

6 Ellen Pao: So when I grew up, it was very clear to me what the path to success was, and what power looked like was the power of hard work, and there was nothing that in my early years really shook me from that view. You work hard, you find an area where there's opportunity, and you prove yourself, and you will be rewarded. And if you looked at venture six years ago when I sued, it was almost all white men. There were some Asian men, and then there'd be one or two women, but they were rarely general partners. And if you look at those quarters of power, it was very much the system of people working with their friends who look like them and acted like them, went to the same schools as they had, so it became very clear to me that this was not a meritocracy, that it wasn't just about women, it wasn't just about Asians hitting the bamboo ceiling, it wasn't just about people who are older getting pushed out, it wasn't just about underrepresented people of color getting pushed out, it was really about a whole system that excluded almost everyone. I started just thinking about how do I change Kleiner Perkins and have that be a model for venture capital, and then I realized it was having this ripple effect. After I had filed suit and the suit became public, I would have people come to me in tears telling about their experiences and how they had the same experience of being demoted, or they had the same experience of being yelled at for asking for a raise or a promotion. One person told me that his mom had been moved into a broom closet of an office upon being promoted. Somebody else told me about being moved to another location when she had complained. And as I heard more people's stories, I realized the extent of it and that it wasn't just venture capital. It was people in tech, people in law, people in accounting, people in advertising, people in academia. I mean, this is a problem that is very broad and very deep, and I think we can be really hard on ourselves and we can look at ourselves with a lot of judgment, but when you see it happening to somebody and you're able to be sympathetic and empathetic, it allows you to have those feelings for yourself. There have been people who have held these stories in for so long, who have blamed themselves, who have felt shame, who have felt this confusion about their role and what was happening to them that now feel empowered to tell their stories, that now have this lens to understand what was actually happening, and that is extremely powerful and validating for them today. 6

7 It's awkward for me to talk about the effect that I've had because it feels kind of arrogant or bragging to me, so it's always been uncomfortable for me to kind of own this power, but I think it's important for people to see that one person can make a difference. And it wasn't until I started receiving messages after I had filed suit and the suit became public that I realized that it was actually a much bigger thing. The other power of speech is to be able to help others. For so many people, hearing just bits of my experiences was incredibly connecting. As I was going to trial every day, I got an from a stranger named Gesche Haas, who is now a... I consider a good friend. But she just wrote me out of the blue. She had connected to me through a friend, and she wrote, "I just wanted to say how impressed I am by you and how important it is what you are doing for all women. I went through a minor incident myself that was discussed in the media. It wasn't the easiest time of my life, but a time I am very grateful for. There is a saying that all positive comments we receive we deflect like Teflon, while negative comments we hang onto like Velcro. Realizing that we do this helped me focus on the people that deserved my energy, as well as realizing we all have some shame and limiting beliefs even within us, and that is exactly why it's important we stand up, set examples. That's the only way this can change. No need to respond. I'm sure things are crazy. Just writing to you because you deserve to hear a billion times every day what an incredible person you are. Thank you for embracing your strength." So that came at a time when I was at trial every day and people were writing and saying terrible things about me on the stand, in the press, and it was just so helpful to hear that she could understand what I was trying to do and that she saw value in it and that she thought I was right, which I was convinced of, but just having that validation was incredibly powerful. There's a part of me that would really like to retire to Hawaii and just not have to deal with any of it. I do it because I want to push for change. I want people to feel good about who they are and what they've done and their experiences, and to kind of understand what the system looks like and what change needs to happen. Throughout, I knew I was coming from this place of value and just needing to bring other people along, and I think part of that comes from having been in the technology sector where you see... you get to work with all these people who have these great visions of where the world needs to go, and then you help them make that happen. For me, it was clear where the world needed to go and that there were going to be a lot of people who weren't ready for the change, but that this was what was going to happen and I was going to try to help accelerate it. 7

8 Diane Ugh! That line from the Ellen got: "All the positive comments we deflect like Teflon, the negative we hang onto like Velcro." I mean, ugh, that really hit home. Also sounds like a rap lyric. It's really something how easy it is to let critics take our sense of power. I know I'm not the only one who struggles with this, which is one of the infinite reasons I am so pumped for you to hear Lena Waithe telling the final story of this season of How It Is. I'm a huge fan of Lena. When I watched her accept her Emmy for Master of None, I got chills. Lena Waithe: My LGBQTIA family, I see each and every one of you. The things that make us different, those are our superpowers. Every day when you walk out the door, put on your imaginary cape and go out there and conquer the world, because the world would not be as beautiful as it is if we weren't in it. Diane "The things that make us different, those are our superpowers." That is the truth. And Lena might as well be a superhero. Not only is she the first black woman to win an Emmy for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series, she's the creator of The Chi on Showtime, she's starring in Steven Spielberg's movie Ready Player One, and she was recently named one of TIME magazine's 100 Most Influential People. I could tell you more about what makes Lena so inspiring, but I think it's better you hear it from Lena herself. Lena Waithe: I'm Lena Waithe, and I'm trying to leave this business in better shape than I found it. I'm gay as hell. I'm black as hell. I believe in righteousness. I believe in doing the right thing, even when it's scary. And I'm a natural bitch: I don't like much makeup, I like my hair to be as it was destined to be. I'm the kind of person that is just as obsessed with Judy Garland as I am with James Baldwin. I'm a Chicagoan through and through. And I'm the product of a single parent, a product of the great migration, my grandmother going from the South to Chicago. I'm Martin Luther King's dream. It's interesting. What makes me feel powerful is not being afraid of white dudes in power. White dudes in power didn't have to treat me with respect for a long time, and a lot of times they didn't, but I won an Emmy and all that changed, and I love being able to show my teeth a little bit. I love being shady, I love being snarky, I love making them uncomfortable now, 'cause for some reason a statue gives me that power. 8

9 There's a level of power that I'm given that has nothing to do with me. There's a level of power that, say, the industry gives me because I've won an award. There's a level of power somebody gives me because I have a successful TV show. There's a level of power people give me because I'm in the number one movie in America. That power is outside of me. The power that I have to own and give myself is I have the power to be a good boss, I have the power to be a good collaborator, I have the power to be a voice, I have a power to use my platform and be out and say, "Hey, other gay black celebrities who are not out, this is ridiculous. We all need to be out and be ourselves and be free and stop trying to fit into the mold and all this other bullshit." I think there's a power that the world gives us, but the power that we have innately is one that we have to always find and search and figure out the best way to use our powers for good. It's interesting because a lot of people who have been following me from the very beginning or who knew me way back when, they say, "Oh, I always knew you were a star. I always knew you'd be successful." Who knows if that's true or not, but I knew... I'm aware of my power and that I'm a content creator. I literally think of myself as a citizen of the world, and I happen to be in the public eye. What's lonely for me and I've spoken about it publicly, and I'll continue to do that is I hate being like one of five out black people in fucking Hollywood, 'cause those numbers don't add up. They don't make sense. You go to the NAACP Image Awards, you look at the BET Awards I don't know if that's your audience but you look at any black awards show, there's a lot of us. The numbers are like one in four people are gay or bisexual or queer in some shape or form. And also I know a lot of... I see them, and they look at me and they're like, "Lena, you're doing. You're doing it for the culture. I see you. Yeah, man. Be out, be proud." And I look at them go, "When you gonna come out?" "I don't... Look, we'll figure that out. After this movie drop, see how it do, and then we'll see what happens." It's just this thing of protecting this money that don't even exist yet, them being like, "Well, I don't wanna miss out on this deal," or "I don't want this white person to not wanna come see..." I don't know what the fuck it is. Maybe it's our shit, maybe it's the black church, maybe it's our families, maybe it's a lot of stuff, but I'm like, "Guys, if I wasn't an out black bitch I would not be on the cover of Vanity Fair. I wouldn't be on the Emmy stage. I don't know if Steven would've been like, 'Oh, well she's really good at playing a lesbian for this part.'" I don't know. 9

10 I just feel like... And I'm not saying, "Oh, go be gay for pay," but I'm saying being who you really are makes people go, "Well, huh, this is new." But also not new. I'm just... And I don't even like to think of myself as brave, because the truth is I don't know how to be closeted, so I don't even deserve credit for being out. 'Cause I wouldn't be a good closeted person, or I would be that bitch that's like obviously gay and trying to act like I'm straight, which would be ridiculous. Maybe I could be out here doing the cools and this kind of shit. I think the way for women to tap into their power is to not be weighed down by someone else's. Honestly, it may sound simple, but it's true: you have to not give a fuck. And I think the issue with women is that we have so many fucks in our backpacks that it weighs us down and it gives us backaches and makes us tired at the end of the day. Don't give a fuck about what your mom thinks, give a fuck about what your boo thinks. Don't give a fuck about what your kids think, or your coworker or your boss or your sister or your friends. I think the problem with us as women is that we care so much about what other people think about how we live our lives. The truth is we only get one. Only get one life. And if you look at some of the most fierce women that we are obsessed with and we love, somebody like Maya Angelou, somebody like Grace Jones, somebody like Eartha Kitt, the throughline with those women is that they didn't care how people how people perceived them. They didn't care what people called them. All they cared and continued to care about is how they felt about themselves and how they felt about their life and what their legacy would be, and they left behind beautiful legacies. Grace continues to leave behind a wonderful legacy. I look up to them. I look at old videos of them, and I think, well, that, to me, is a hero. And also that's what power is. That's what it looks like, that's what it feels like, that's what it smells. It smells like freedom. Nina Simone is also one. She didn't give a shit. She didn't care how dark her skin was. She didn't care how big her lips were. She didn't care that she didn't sound like anyone else. And she was just a bad bitch. She was like, "This is the song I have to sing. These are the words that I have to say. This is the message that I want to give. You can take it or leave it." And if you took it, great. If you left it, who cares. And I think that's what women gotta do to really tap into their power is to stop giving a fuck. 10

11 Diane I actually cannot believe that I'm going to say this, because when I was a kid the amount of zero fucks that mom gave, gave me anxiety attacks. I was always just trying to quiet her down, and I was always so embarrassed, but now I look towards my mother, she was the original of giving zero fucks. So shout-out to my mom. I love you, and I love that. And I'm taking all of this for when I become a mother, or I'm feeling pressured to not rock the boat, or when my backpack is too full of too many fucks. It's the end of Season One for How It Is, my friends. The inspiration for this season was Me Too, but what Me Too and what Time's Up have become today is the global movement of women embracing their anger, using their voices, telling their truth, and making the world a better, more equal place. That's the transformation we can all have for ourselves and for our culture when we speak and live our truth. So get out there, do the damn thing, tell your story, own your power, build your own ship, and tell us all about it when you do. on all socials. And now that we've heard How It Is, head over to our website, Hello- Sunshine.com, for what we do. There's more inspiration from today's episode, so make sure you check out the site to read, learn, and get involved. And don't worry: there's more How It Is coming soon, more women with real stories about money, value, beginnings, and endings. On this episode of How It Is, you heard from Glennon Doyle, Ellen Pao, Lena Waithe, and me. I'm Diane Guerrero. I am a Latina, I'm an author, an actress, an activist, and I am a human being, a citizen of this universe, and this is How It Is. How It Is is a production of Hello Sunshine. It is executive produced by Amy S. Choi, Rebecca Lehrer, and Reese Witherspoon. Our senior producers are Gillian Ferguson and Michelle Lanz, and our producer is Charlotte Koh. Sound design by Jocelyn Gonzales. Our theme song, "Queen," is written and performed by Victoria Canal. So do it. Do it now. Do yourself a favor. Just go on, go ahead, I'm not watching. You should do it. That's the end. Enough of this shit. 11