Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - June 29, 2025


Sunday Nice Things： Fierce

Topics
Jeanette Rankin election Jeanette Rankin's bravery and legacy
All of Our Thoughts on Poop Cruise with Nick Aster She Turned Geology Into a Content Goldmine

Episode Stats


Length

40 minutes

Words per minute

158.33

Word count

6,398

Sentence count

441

Harmful content

Misogyny

130

sentences flagged

Toxicity

9

sentences flagged

Hate speech

26

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
00:00:00.000 Many years ago, I made a podcast that I loved so, so much. It was called Fierce,
00:00:07.580 and it was about badass women doing badass things that history has somehow forgotten 0.94
00:00:13.400 because history is mostly written by men. Every single episode of this show could be a book
00:00:20.780 and a TV series and a movie, and these women's names should be tripping off of our tongues. 1.00
00:00:27.220 So I decided I'd drop a couple in your feed for Sunday Nice Things. 1.00
00:00:31.940 This episode of Fierce is about Jeanette Rankin.
00:00:36.020 Have you heard of her before? 0.84
00:00:37.660 She was the first woman in Congress, and her path to get there wasn't easy.
00:00:42.880 And what she managed to do while she was there is pretty remarkable.
00:00:46.260 I think you'll love this episode.
00:00:47.840 I'm going to drop a link in the show notes so you can binge all of them.
00:00:51.440 It's a narrative series that is so cinematic and well sound designed that it's just, it's the kind of thing you're going to want to listen to while laying by the pool, which is one of the reasons that I'm dropping it in here now.
00:01:03.960 Enjoy.
00:01:16.080 It was a cold, windy November 7th in Montana.
00:01:20.400 A local woman rode 14 miles on horseback to cast her ballot in the 1916 election.
00:01:26.900 She was eight months pregnant.
00:01:29.800 She'd later write in a letter that she'd gladly do it all over again 1.00
00:01:33.140 just to be able to vote for Jeanette Rankin. 0.97
00:01:36.560 This woman's vote would be one of the 76,000 that sent Jeanette Rankin to Congress the following year.
00:01:41.820 One of the votes that made Rankin the very first woman elected as a United States congressperson.
00:01:47.720 A wire report from Rankin's swearing in could barely contain the emotion of the day.
00:01:53.020 Men and women in the galleries pounded hands together and yelled themselves hoarse.
00:01:58.240 Members did the same on both sides of the chamber when Miss Jeanette Rankin, 0.98
00:02:01.940 the lady from Montana, entered the hall.
00:02:06.200 Rankin said this about the event.
00:02:08.840 I will be the first woman in Congress, but I will not be the last.
00:02:16.840 From iHeartRadio and Tribeca Studios, this is Fierce.
00:02:30.200 I can't type. 1.00
00:02:31.660 Yes, women workers do present problems, Joan. 1.00
00:02:34.780 A podcast about the incredible women who never made it into your history books 1.00
00:02:38.060 and the modern women carrying on their legacies today. 0.99
00:02:41.200 Here's to the ladies, the fair and the weak. 1.00
00:02:44.120 I can't file. 1.00
00:02:45.020 Women workers don't mind routine, repetitive work. 1.00
00:02:49.080 Will you make a copy of this? 1.00
00:02:50.600 Naturally.
00:02:51.680 Each week, we're bringing you the story of a groundbreaking woman from the past
00:02:54.880 who made huge contributions to the present,
00:02:57.260 but whose name still isn't on the tips of our tongues, for whatever reason.
00:03:02.020 Maybe it's because men wrote most of history.
00:03:06.100 This week, Jeanette Rankin.
00:03:09.020 She arrived in the House of Representatives 1.00
00:03:10.980 before women across the country even had full voting rights.
00:03:14.860 And at the end of this episode, I'll be speaking to Stephanie Shriak,
00:03:18.180 president of Emily's List,
00:03:20.020 a group that's recruited and trained thousands of women
00:03:22.700 to run for office in the United States.
00:03:33.040 Born to a wealthy family in the pioneering life
00:03:35.720 in Big Sky Country out of Montana, 0.75
00:03:38.180 Jeanette Rankin was a firebrand, an activist, 0.89
00:03:40.760 and a solver of problems from the very start.
00:03:43.860 One day, she happened upon an injured horse on her family's Missoula ranch.
00:03:48.400 She stitched him up right there with a thread and a needle.
00:03:51.700 She'd regularly fight with her father, insist that their ranch hands deserved a higher wage.
00:03:57.400 Her younger brother, Wellington, would later observe,
00:04:00.160 She was a rebel, more or less always.
00:04:03.180 She was going to be out there fighting.
00:04:06.300 Except, how to fight.
00:04:08.300 when she graduated from the university of montana with a degree in biology in 1902
00:04:14.860 most girls her age were already married they were already starting families but jeanette was
00:04:20.720 restless she had tremendous energy but nowhere to put it she wrote in her journal go go go
00:04:30.140 Jeanette's family was incredibly well off
00:04:36.760 Her father was a wealthy rancher and real estate prospector
00:04:40.360 The Rankins were doing so well
00:04:42.980 They built the first home in Missoula, Montana
00:04:45.060 With indoor plumbing and central heat 0.99
00:04:46.800 That meant that Jeanette had options 0.56
00:04:49.240 About how she wanted to live her life 0.88
00:04:50.760 She had the financial support of her family behind her
00:04:53.960 So in 1908, Jeanette decided to go to New York City
00:04:58.400 It was there that she first experienced slums, poverty, 1.00
00:05:01.220 saw the poor, struggling immigrants living in ungodly conditions. 1.00
00:05:05.800 She began attending public meetings, schooled herself in labor laws. 0.80
00:05:10.400 It was then that she decided on a career as a social worker.
00:05:13.700 With her family supporting her financially,
00:05:15.860 she enrolled in the New York School of Philanthropy near Gramercy Park.
00:05:20.040 This was her awakening.
00:05:22.200 She realized that armed with a career, a woman could have freedom. 1.00
00:05:25.720 better still she could see a life that might please her and while Jeanette lived in a prim
00:05:32.500 women's hotel on the Upper East Side her days and nights were spent in Greenwich Village with her
00:05:37.100 new friends especially a couple Catherine Anthony and Elizabeth Irwin they took her to Heterodoxy 1.00
00:05:43.540 a luncheon club for unorthodox women there she met novelists and painters birth control activists
00:05:49.880 and education reformers suddenly she wasn't alone she was amongst other ambitious women who also
00:05:55.700 wanted to change the world. And just having that camaraderie encouraged her to think outside the
00:06:00.700 box of what she was expected to be. Jeanette would remain close with many of these women for the rest
00:06:06.100 of her life. The problem was that Jeanette hated doing actual social work. Days spent minding 1.00
00:06:15.300 children and changing diapers was just another version of the life she'd been trying to avoid. 0.90
00:06:20.420 So she moved up the road to Seattle, where she found a role for herself in the suffrage movement, 0.71
00:06:24.300 fighting for women to gain the right to vote.
00:06:26.500 In 1917, picketing resulted in police action.
00:06:30.580 And even as President Wilson was considering the women's appeal,
00:06:33.840 District of Columbia Police rolled out from their station house
00:06:36.820 to take pickets into custody. 0.99
00:06:38.880 The battle for women's suffrage at the time 1.00
00:06:40.540 was being fought on soapboxes and street corners, 1.00
00:06:43.720 when Jeanette became the movement's top street fighter.
00:06:47.060 Her fellow fighters in the movement remember her as relentless, tireless.
00:06:50.800 Ms. Rankin has worked day and night, heart and soul. Her tact, her gentle feminine persuasion, and her ever-ready logic have made many converts.
00:07:01.200 They sent her all over the country. Washington, California, Ohio, New York.
00:07:05.920 The first time she spoke on the floor of the Montana legislature on behalf of suffragism, they gave her a standing ovation.
00:07:12.500 She told lawmakers,
00:07:13.960 It's beautiful and right that a woman should nurse her sick children through typhoid fever. 0.55
00:07:18.580 But it's also beautiful and right that she should vote for sanitary measures
00:07:23.200 to prevent that typhoid from spreading. 0.97
00:07:26.020 That's an actress reading Jeanette's words.
00:07:28.280 The quotes in this episode were found in a biography of Rankin written by Peter Aronson.
00:07:35.820 Rankin traveled from town to town, once delivering 25 speeches in 25 subsequent days,
00:07:42.140 sometimes even delivering those speeches to children.
00:07:44.920 Ask your fathers why they won't let your mothers vote.
00:07:48.360 Here's how one colleague described it.
00:07:50.520 When Ms. Rankin came forward to speak, the air became electric.
00:07:54.640 Young, attractive, energetic, and glowing with friendliness and reason.
00:07:59.740 Jeanette Rankin commanded attention as soon as she spoke.
00:08:04.160 She did. She really did.
00:08:07.020 By the next national election in 1916,
00:08:09.980 Jeanette Rankin's name would be on the ballot 0.90
00:08:11.620 to be a United States congressperson. 0.93
00:08:13.780 The primal motive for my seeking a seat in the National Congress
00:08:17.140 is to further the suffrage work
00:08:19.120 and to aid in every possible way
00:08:21.140 the movement for nationwide suffrage,
00:08:23.120 which will not cease until it is won. 0.89
00:08:26.480 Jeanette Rankin announced her candidacy on July 8, 1916. 0.99
00:08:31.020 Her platform included an eight-hour workday for women 1.00
00:08:33.540 and something previously unheard of,
00:08:36.640 child welfare laws,
00:08:38.320 laws that would protect the life and health of children.
00:08:41.120 There are hundreds of men in Congress to care for the nation's tariffs
00:08:44.600 and foreign policy and irrigation projects, 1.00
00:08:47.460 but there isn't a single woman in Congress to look after the nation's greatest asset. 0.99
00:08:52.800 It's children.
00:08:54.340 The campaign was more grassroots than Bernie Sanders. 1.00
00:08:57.360 Jeanette placed what she called a capable, efficient woman in every precinct of the state. 1.00
00:09:01.880 It was her version of Tammany Hall. 1.00
00:09:04.840 In fact, that's what her machine was based on,
00:09:07.300 except Jeanette had way more area to cover. 0.92
00:09:10.640 Montana is the fourth largest state of the union. 0.79
00:09:13.060 That's nearly 7,000 Manhattans or three New York states. 1.00
00:09:16.920 To keep the machine going and ignite all of her capable, efficient women, 1.00
00:09:20.320 Rankin traveled by horseback, train, and as much as she could her favorite way, 1.00
00:09:24.840 driving herself alone in her Ford.
00:09:27.500 The 1916 election in Montana was unusual.
00:09:30.020 It was an at-large election with no districts.
00:09:33.780 Everyone got to choose two candidates.
00:09:36.000 That meant the top two vote-getters would go to Congress. 1.00
00:09:39.880 Jeanette was so savvy. 1.00
00:09:41.460 Because she knew she'd go to Washington if she came in second. 0.99
00:09:44.700 She was able to tell Montanans that she wasn't there to steal the vote of a man. 0.86
00:09:48.840 She told them to go ahead and vote for the man that they wanted to vote for.
00:09:53.240 They could give their second vote to her.
00:09:57.160 On election night, the newspapers took their time verifying the outcome.
00:10:01.220 They weren't exactly pleased with what they'd eventually have to report.
00:10:05.400 At 36 years old, Jeanette Rankin came in second with more than 76,000 votes, 6,000 more than the third-place finisher.
00:10:16.300 It was clear.
00:10:20.100 Jeanette Rankin was going to Congress.
00:10:26.080 I'm not nervous about going to Congress.
00:10:29.140 Social work gave me insight into the needs of babies, children, and young adults.
00:10:34.140 and it is for them that I shall work.
00:10:37.240 Time for a quick break.
00:10:39.200 We'll be right back.
00:10:53.600 Following that historic win on April 2, 1917,
00:10:57.320 Jeanette Rankin led a 25-car motorcade of suffragists 0.54
00:11:00.240 up to the Capitol for her swearing-in.
00:11:02.760 When she walked through the doors, the entire House of Representatives, all of them men, rose to give her a standing ovation.
00:11:10.920 Newspapers, of course, diligently covered the election of the first woman to Congress.
00:11:15.360 The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette described her as,
00:11:17.840 A gray-eyed, slender girl with the enthusiasm of a zealot, the simplicity of a child, and the energy and fire of a racehorse.
00:11:24.860 The New York Times felt it was important to tell a story.
00:11:27.240 She dances well and makes her own hats and sews and has won genuine fame among her friends
00:11:33.100 with the wonderful lemon meringue pie that she makes when she hasn't enough other things to do to keep her busy.
00:11:38.880 Another newspaper referred to her as the Maid of Missoula.
00:11:42.520 She was just such a curiosity.
00:11:45.160 She was on the cover of many newspapers around the U.S. 0.99
00:11:48.660 That's filmmaker Kimberly Reed.
00:11:50.760 Reed is a documentarian and fellow Montanan who immersed herself in nearly a year of Jeanette Rankin research. 0.94
00:11:56.440 She got marriage proposals by the droves through the mail because she was so famous.
00:12:04.280 And it's really hard to imagine how much ground she was breaking.
00:12:09.960 Everything was new territory, including what Rankin would wear on the floor that day.
00:12:14.980 They had a resolution on the floor of the U.S. House saying that men couldn't wear their hats.
00:12:21.940 First of all, it was very common for women to wear hats and felt a little bit naked if you weren't wearing a fancy hat.
00:12:27.500 At the end of the day, she didn't really want that special permission.
00:12:31.240 She didn't want to be treated differently, but that meant she had to get rid of this kind of crutch, this safety, security blanket.
00:12:39.480 I have no doubt that she was challenged on a personal level by these even silly things, right, by like taking your hat off.
00:12:46.680 It's still just immensely brave for her to do what she was doing, to be the very first.
00:12:53.520 And she was representing half of the U.S. population, more than half of the people who are in the United States.
00:13:01.360 She had an enormous weight on her shoulders. 0.95
00:13:07.580 Jeanette Rankin entered Congress at a tumultuous time.
00:13:10.780 On April 2nd, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson called an emergency meeting of Congress to discuss entering World War I.
00:13:19.320 Inside the White House, President Woodrow Wilson conferred with advisers, then signed the proclamation of war against Germany.
00:13:25.820 It was Jeanette Rankin's very first day in the Capitol.
00:13:29.340 Wilson asked Congress to pass the vote swiftly.
00:13:31.720 The world, he said, must be made safe for democracy.
00:13:34.280 For Jeanette, her first vote, the first vote by any woman in Congress
00:13:39.320 would be on the war in Europe
00:13:41.040 Now, Jeanette was an avowed pacifist 0.99
00:13:44.480 She believed wars were based on greed 0.99
00:13:47.120 and the desire for countries to make money by selling weapons
00:13:49.780 Her brother Wellington begged her not to vote against the war
00:13:53.360 He told her to make a man's vote
00:13:56.040 to save her career
00:13:57.460 The suffragists didn't want her to vote against the war either 0.99
00:14:01.800 Carrie Chapman Catt, the president of the National American Women's Suffrage Association, 0.97
00:14:06.400 told her that women's suffrage would never pass if Jeanette voted against the war.
00:14:10.560 She said no one would ever trust a woman in Congress ever again. 0.98
00:14:15.360 But Jeanette really believed that women could and should bring a different way of thinking to government. 1.00
00:14:20.580 And that meant rethinking war as a way of settling disputes. 1.00
00:14:24.460 She conflated her feminism, even though she didn't call it that at the time,
00:14:29.360 with her pacifism.
00:14:31.520 She felt like it was her duty
00:14:33.980 to represent all of the other women
00:14:36.300 and children
00:14:37.380 that didn't have any representation, 0.98
00:14:41.580 all these mothers and wives
00:14:44.580 who were losing their husbands and sons 0.97
00:14:47.880 in these ridiculous wars.
00:14:54.840 The House roll was finally called
00:14:56.960 at 3 a.m. on the morning of April 6th.
00:14:59.360 Joe Cannon, the former speaker, told Rankin to vote her conscience, saying,
00:15:05.440 you represent the womanhood of the country.
00:15:08.060 But she was already going to do just that. 0.53
00:15:10.780 She rose and spoke.
00:15:13.260 I want to stand by my country, but I cannot vote for war.
00:15:20.940 49 men opposed the war that day, but it was Rankin who was castigated for it.
00:15:26.960 The Daily Missoulin headline read,
00:15:29.360 Ms. Rankin sobs. I cannot vote for war.
00:15:33.960 Now, there's absolutely no evidence she cried on the floor of Congress that day.
00:15:38.240 In fact, the future mayor of New York, Fiorella LaGuardia, couldn't see if she'd been crying,
00:15:43.680 quote, because of the tears in his own eyes.
00:15:47.600 Meanwhile, suffragist Maude Wood Park, who'd been in the gallery,
00:15:50.660 reported that the House Majority Leader, Claude Kitchen, wept openly as he gave his own no vote.
00:15:59.360 That didn't stop the papers from painting her as a hysterical woman.
00:16:08.440 The New York Times said,
00:16:10.260 Her appearance was that of a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
00:16:14.640 The Helena Independent made her not just weak, but treasonous,
00:16:18.420 calling her a dagger in the hands of German propagandists and a crying schoolgirl.
00:16:24.020 The Bozeman Chronicle just said it. 0.61
00:16:26.580 They claimed she had voted in a fit of female hysteria. 0.81
00:16:31.920 Jeanette later explained herself to the women of the United States of America. 0.97
00:16:35.780 Never, for one second, could I face the idea that I would send your men to be killed 0.92
00:16:40.280 for no other reason than to save my seat in Congress.
00:16:44.140 Jeanette would suffer for that vote, but not before attempting another coup in Congress. 1.00
00:16:49.780 In the summer of 1917, Jeanette Rankin took up the mantle of gaining women the right to vote on the national level. 1.00
00:16:55.680 She took up the lead on the issue in the House. 0.79
00:16:58.360 Both the House and Senate needed to pass a resolution for there to be a constitutional amendment.
00:17:03.400 In an address to Congress in January of 1918, Jeanette said,
00:17:07.600 We as a nation were born in a land of unparalleled resources, but something is still lacking.
00:17:14.220 Babies are dying from cold and hunger, and soldiers have died for lack of a woolen shirt.
00:17:20.280 Might it not be that men who have spent their lives thinking in terms of commercial profit
00:17:25.140 find it hard to adjust themselves to thinking in terms of human needs?
00:17:30.260 Is it not possible that the women of the country have something of value to give the nation at this time?
00:17:36.380 How shall we explain the meaning of democracy 0.98
00:17:38.860 if the same Congress that voted for war to make the world safe for democracy 0.91
00:17:43.580 refuses to give this small measure of democracy to the women of our country? 0.75
00:17:50.080 The resolution passed the House by 274 to 136. 1.00
00:17:54.820 It failed in the Senate.
00:17:57.120 But Jeanette would never recover from her vote against World War I. 0.79
00:18:01.160 While her male colleagues, like the weeping, clawed kitchen, 0.53
00:18:04.080 got sent right back to Congress, Jeanette wasn't re-elected.
00:18:08.520 When she left office at the age of 38, the Helena Independent wrote,
00:18:12.800 she has a brilliant future behind her.
00:18:15.780 Jeanette Rankin came from wealth, but she never liked it or coveted it. 0.99
00:18:21.900 She had that American puritanical streak, the kind that worries a hot shower might make them soft.
00:18:28.520 When she left office, she needed to get out from under the long shadow of her life in Montana. 0.78
00:18:33.540 Jeanette bought a ramshackle farm in rural Georgia, not far from the State University in Athens. 0.73
00:18:39.500 It had no indoor plumbing, no electricity.
00:18:41.160 In the summer, she returned to her family ranch in the Big Belt Mountains in Montana.
00:18:47.100 She'd write about how important these rural places were to her. 1.00
00:18:50.400 It is quite necessary for me to be at home, to relax and secure courage to go out and face the cold, stupid world again. 0.99
00:19:05.600 Jeanette never had much of a personal life. 0.99
00:19:08.600 She had many close friendships,
00:19:10.120 but work always came before any kind of romantic engagements.
00:19:13.980 And Jeanette certainly hadn't retired.
00:19:16.400 It's 1917, and the 69-year drive by women for the right to vote
00:19:20.560 is climaxed by this appeal at the White House.
00:19:22.960 The first part of her life's work was completed in 1920
00:19:25.920 with the ratification of the 19th Amendment,
00:19:28.420 which finally granted women all over the nation the right to vote.
00:19:32.380 This was due in large part to her work.
00:19:35.180 But Jeanette's future, the next 50-plus years, would be dedicated to peace. 0.99
00:19:40.340 The work of educating the world for peace is a woman's job
00:19:43.340 because men are afraid of being classed as cowards if they oppose war.
00:19:48.120 There was just one problem. 0.70
00:19:50.500 Jeanette wasn't particularly good at making peace with having a boss. 1.00
00:19:54.720 She left more than one peace group in the 20s and 30s 1.00
00:19:57.280 because they muzzled her into being a lobbyist.
00:19:59.760 And by 1939, 20 years after leaving Congress,
00:20:03.600 Jeannette Rankin had just about run out of peace organizations to work for.
00:20:07.600 But she wasn't done.
00:20:09.540 She just had to do it differently.
00:20:11.680 The responsibility lies on the shoulders of one man.
00:20:14.780 By his latest act of naked aggression, 0.81
00:20:16.860 Hitler has committed a crime not only against Poland,
00:20:19.420 but against the whole human race.
00:20:21.700 With World War II looming, Jeannette fired up her old Ford.
00:20:25.520 She began the long drive back to Montana.
00:20:28.240 She was going to run for Congress again.
00:20:30.840 But first, she had to remind Montana who she was.
00:20:34.580 If she could pull it off, she really believed she could keep FDR from declaring war.
00:20:39.480 She wrote to a friend in New York. 0.59
00:20:41.040 I still feel sure that he can be bluffed out of going to war if the women will do their part. 0.56
00:20:46.280 Soon as she arrived back in Montana, Jeunesse started doing her part.
00:20:50.340 Her home state needed reminding of their old friend in Congress.
00:20:53.760 She'd show up unannounced at schools to speak.
00:20:56.420 After all, what school would deny the children the opportunity 0.99
00:20:59.460 to see the first woman in Congress anyway?
00:21:02.140 She remembered that when she was a kid,
00:21:03.940 politicians used to talk only to the boys.
00:21:06.900 They'd say the boys could be president. 0.99
00:21:09.340 Then they'd look at the girls and say, 0.97
00:21:11.660 maybe someday you'll be a president's wife. 0.94
00:21:14.840 As she put it, 1.00
00:21:15.900 I'd say, now we know the girls can do many things, 1.00
00:21:19.120 and someday we will have a woman president. 1.00
00:21:22.020 And they roared with laughter.
00:21:24.420 Then she said, 1.00
00:21:25.720 There aren't jobs just for women. Someday, one of these young men may be the husband of a president. 1.00
00:21:34.420 As she worked the school circuit, Jeanette Rankin also worked her way back into the hearts of fellow Montanans. 1.00
00:21:39.800 She announced her candidacy in 1940, re-enlisted her old precinct captains, and set about winning a second trip to Congress.
00:21:46.560 Though she was 60, she marched the campaign trail with the energy of a much younger woman.
00:21:51.960 One observer noted,
00:21:53.600 If she heard of a vote, she would go up and see them,
00:21:57.220 drive up there, and it didn't make any difference about the roads.
00:22:01.200 Jeanette won. She won big. 0.89
00:22:03.800 She captured a resounding 54% in the general election.
00:22:07.440 But that wasn't the news it was in 1916.
00:22:10.720 No one will pay any attention to me this time.
00:22:13.360 There is nothing unusual about a woman being elected.
00:22:16.660 This time, when she reached D.C. to be sworn in,
00:22:19.400 she joined seven other women there. 0.97
00:22:20.840 Now, when Jeanette first ran for Congress in 1916, war wasn't our main issue. 1.00
00:22:27.200 It showed up by surprise on her first day of work. 0.99
00:22:30.240 But when she ran in 1940, she ran as an anti-war candidate.
00:22:34.300 When Montanans sent her to Washington in November of that year, no one doubted her stance.
00:22:39.240 I am still trying to keep our men from being sacrificed in the slaughterhouse across the ocean.
00:22:45.320 But then came that day that would live in infamy.
00:22:48.360 Sunday, December 7th, 1941. 0.56
00:22:50.840 Japan, like its infamous Axis partners, struck first and declared war afterwards.
00:22:57.160 The country's feelings about war shifted swiftly once it was under attack.
00:23:00.800 Reports of the Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor came in the afternoon.
00:23:04.640 Jeanette was in Detroit when she heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor.
00:23:07.880 But when her sleeper train reached Pittsburgh around midnight, she jumped off.
00:23:11.800 FDR was going to speak in front of Congress at noon the next day.
00:23:14.960 If she had any chance of slowing the war drum, she was going to have to get back to D.C.
00:23:19.560 Stat. 0.98
00:23:20.840 Jeanette caught the next train.
00:23:22.880 At noon on December 8th, Jeanette was in her seat
00:23:25.160 to hear the president address the joint session.
00:23:27.920 The United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked.
00:23:33.320 The president's speech lasted only eight minutes.
00:23:35.400 By naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
00:23:39.960 Jeanette knew that meant 52 minutes of airtime up for grabs.
00:23:43.920 But none of her colleagues would yield the floor.
00:23:46.680 Jeanette wasn't the only isolationist.
00:23:49.480 But when it came time to vote, all the others who'd once shared her views recanted.
00:23:55.120 One said,
00:23:56.440 I hope there won't be one dissenting vote. 0.74
00:23:59.500 The Senate had voted unanimously for the war,
00:24:02.600 and Republican leadership made it clear they wanted the same vote in the House.
00:24:06.820 They even tried to change the rules to skip her in roll call. 1.00
00:24:10.380 But Jeanette Rankin wouldn't have it. 1.00
00:24:12.600 At the time, discussion on the floor of Congress was not supposed to be carried live.
00:24:17.540 but no one had turned off the feed after the president's address.
00:24:21.620 A network announcer later provided commentary to guide listeners
00:24:24.720 as Jeanette attempted to be recognized. 0.99
00:24:27.280 Miss Jeanette Rankin tried to get recognized here. 1.00
00:24:29.780 She stood in the aisle and raised her hand.
00:24:32.240 The speaker angrily brought down his gavel and said,
00:24:34.600 let there be no objection to the unanimous consent.
00:24:38.160 In the end, her vote was simply no.
00:24:46.980 As a woman, I cannot go to war,
00:24:54.300 and I refuse to send anyone else.
00:24:58.420 The final vote, 388 to 1.
00:25:06.880 There was this throng of reporters that cornered her
00:25:10.520 and kind of chased her around the halls of Congress
00:25:13.600 to the point where she had to take refuge in a telephone booth.
00:25:19.480 She had to hang out there until the Capitol Police came and rescued her
00:25:24.340 and escorted her back to her office.
00:25:26.560 A photo of her trapped in the phone booth appeared in all the newspapers the next day.
00:25:31.340 Jeanette released her statement to the press.
00:25:33.500 When I cast my only vote against the war,
00:25:35.880 I was thinking of the pledges I had made to the mothers and fathers of Montana
00:25:39.860 that I would do all in my power
00:25:42.040 to prevent their sons being slaughtered on foreign battlefields.
00:25:45.440 Her brother Wellington didn't mince his words.
00:25:48.180 Montana is 100% against you.
00:25:50.780 She knew Wellington disagreed with her,
00:25:53.040 but it hurt to know that all of Montana,
00:25:55.860 all of her country,
00:25:57.680 saw her as an enemy.
00:25:59.860 She was bombarded with insults. 1.00
00:26:01.720 You made an ass out of yourself trying to be like a man. 1.00
00:26:04.120 I hope a jet bomb drops on your head or home. 1.00
00:26:08.140 You dismissed the bombing as lightly as you would a run in your stocking. 1.00
00:26:12.240 Jeanette was a realistic idealist.
00:26:14.220 She knew there was no chance for her in public life, not for a long, long time after that.
00:26:18.520 But she had no regrets.
00:26:20.880 Still, a few people recognized that her vote wasn't unpatriotic.
00:26:25.340 Even if they disagreed with it, which they did, they could still see it as an act of moral courage.
00:26:30.580 The Emporia Gazette in Kansas wrote,
00:26:32.520 Well, look at Jeanette Rankin. 1.00
00:26:34.400 Probably a hundred men in Congress would like to do what she did.
00:26:38.760 Not one of them had the courage to do it.
00:26:41.480 Another Montanan wrote,
00:26:43.320 In all of history, no man has done so brave, so commendable a thing.
00:26:48.820 Today I feel that you've vindicated womanhood.
00:26:52.260 After leaving Congress a second time, Jeanette returned to her modest life.
00:26:56.480 She went back to Georgia, built a new, equally humble farm.
00:27:00.340 She traveled the world studying various models of peaceful resistance.
00:27:04.400 When the Vietnam War broke out, began sending thousands of American boys home in body bags.
00:27:09.920 Jeanette couldn't stay quiet any longer.
00:27:12.520 It is unconscionable that 10,000 boys died in Vietnam this year. 0.87
00:27:17.360 And I predict that if 10,000 women had mind enough, they could end the war if they were committed to the task, even if it meant going to jail. 0.86
00:27:27.000 People in American life usually don't get a second act. 0.57
00:27:29.600 She not only got a second act, she basically had a third act because in the late 60s and early 70s, many of the women who were involved in that anti-war movement studied Jeanette Rankin and all of her pacifist efforts and essentially recruited her to come out of retirement so that she could lead their movement protesting the war in Vietnam.
00:27:53.780 mom. Rankin was now in her late 80s, but she wasn't deterred by her age. She led a march of
00:28:01.160 5,000 women on Washington. They called themselves the Jeanette Rankin Brigade.
00:28:05.780 It was bitter cold. There was a couple inches of snow. They marched from Union Station to Capitol
00:28:12.060 Hill, and they presented a plaque to the Speaker of the House that was calling for this pacifist
00:28:18.100 response to Vietnam War. There were 5,000 women, and everybody wore go-go boots, and they're all
00:28:23.240 in the snow and they're all kind of marching and stomping. In 1972, at the age of 91, the National
00:28:29.880 Organization for Women made Rankin its first inductee into the Susan B. Anthony Hall of Fame.
00:28:35.420 Rankin was honored with the title of the world's outstanding living feminist.
00:28:40.140 She left the crowd with this. Women must devote all their energies today in gaining enough political 1.00
00:28:46.940 offices to influence the direction of government away from the military-industrial complex and 1.00
00:28:52.800 toward solving the major social disgraces that exist in our country.
00:28:59.400 Time for a break.
00:29:01.880 When we come back, we'll be speaking to Stephanie Shriok. 0.95
00:29:04.840 She's the president of Emily's List
00:29:06.260 and a woman who is very much carrying on Jeanette's legacy today.
00:29:10.240 Since its founding, Emily's List has helped elect
00:29:12.500 100 pro-choice Democratic women to the House,
00:29:15.400 26 to the Senate, 16 to governor's seats, 1.00
00:29:18.100 and hundreds more to state and local offices around the country. 1.00
00:29:22.800 Jeanette Rankin fought long and hard for women to get the right to vote.
00:29:29.860 And this year marks the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment.
00:29:34.280 But there's still a long way to go to see women represented in equal numbers in elected office.
00:29:39.600 We saw six women run for the 2020 Democratic nomination, more than any other time in U.S. history. 0.78
00:29:45.860 But by March 19th of this year, none of them remained in the race.
00:29:50.640 Yet, I'm optimistic. 1.00
00:29:52.800 There's an army of women out there working to ensure more women are voted into office. 1.00
00:29:57.840 Emily's List and their president, Stephanie Shriok, are on the front lines of that army. 0.99
00:30:03.800 Emily's List is a nearly 35-year-old organization solely committed to electing
00:30:10.140 pro-choice Democratic women all across the country, up and down the ballot.
00:30:14.860 So tell me about the first time that you heard Jeanette Rankin's story.
00:30:18.120 I grew up in Montana.
00:30:19.520 I grew up in Butte, which is the good labor union copper mining town.
00:30:25.840 And you just didn't grow up in places like Butte, Montana without hearing about the pride of Montana being the first state in the union to elect a woman to the United States Congress.
00:30:38.300 Even though, you know, we learned about her, what we actually knew about her was so minimal.
00:30:46.640 What she did for the women's suffrage movement, how engaged she was, what she did in Montana,
00:30:52.280 what she did for the anti-war movement, what she did for women all through those years.
00:30:56.580 Like that was not taught to us as kids in Butte.
00:30:59.400 We just really learned the top lines.
00:31:01.220 When I think about Jeanette's story, what I think about the most, what gives me chills
00:31:05.320 is thinking how brave it was to be a woman doing what she did in the time that she was doing it.
00:31:10.520 Absolutely.
00:31:11.420 Because I too have that feeling deep in my belly when I think about her,
00:31:15.940 because you got to try to put yourself back in what I would call the wild west of Montana
00:31:22.680 in 1916. Literally the wild west. I mean, truly the wild west. You know, Montana had just become
00:31:30.040 a state in 1889. And here's this fierce woman who found her voice along the way traveling around the 1.00
00:31:40.480 United States, coming back home to Montana, fighting so hard for Montana to give women
00:31:46.680 the right to vote. But then to think, I should run for office when this had never happened,
00:31:53.360 and the entire country, the women across the country still didn't have the right to vote.
00:31:57.820 So what that must have been like, how scary that must have been for her. And yet,
00:32:04.020 jumping in and taking that responsibility from the beginning so, so seriously. It really is so
00:32:12.640 moving. And still today, I just like to think I get to be part of that, a little piece of that
00:32:19.140 legacy and that bravery. Is it easier now? Absolutely. Is it easier over the last three
00:32:25.940 decades? Completely. But there's still a mindset of what a leader in this country looks like.
00:32:34.780 You know, what is that person supposed to be? And of course, particularly on the executive side,
00:32:39.380 when you're looking at governors and presidents, you think of an executive leader as a male. And
00:32:45.040 quite frankly, you think of it as a white male. And having to change that mindset of what a
00:32:51.880 feminine leadership looks like and that it's powerful and strong is something that we are 1.00
00:32:57.680 always working on here at Emily's List. And how do you guys do that? What I've said to so many
00:33:02.600 candidates over the years here is that you've got to do it your own way. You've got to figure out
00:33:09.900 who you are. What's your story? How does your story connect with the voters? And then you got
00:33:16.860 to just be yourself. It doesn't mean you don't run smart strategic campaigns and you
00:33:21.800 do all the things you need to do on a campaign setting. But you just have to fight through it.
00:33:26.400 And yes, you're going to run into sexism. I'm sorry, it's not going away. You know, people are
00:33:31.460 going to ask you, do you have children? Why don't you have children? What are you going to do with
00:33:36.760 your children? You win or lose either direction. But you just answer the questions you keep going
00:33:42.500 because what works at the end of the day is that after she wins, then the voters and the constituents 1.00
00:33:49.480 and see what great leaders these women make. 1.00
00:33:52.420 And that's how we do this. 1.00
00:33:53.740 That's how we change minds.
00:33:54.880 We keep winning.
00:33:56.380 And Jeanette Rankin for the Congress was the first win.
00:33:59.480 And we have just every election cycle since added a few more here and there.
00:34:06.020 And thankfully, we all got to just watch in 2018 a historic number of women walk onto 0.98
00:34:11.900 the floor of the United States House of Representatives and what that has meant, not 0.52
00:34:16.780 just to the focus of what's going on, but the culture of the place. And that's what we have
00:34:23.160 to change, the culture of the place. It's still hard. Do women still face a lot of the challenges
00:34:28.700 that Jeanette faced back then, more than 100 years ago? They do face some. I think there's still a
00:34:35.660 question about electability. We've been paying attention to what's been going on in this
00:34:40.620 presidential election. Women still have to prove that they're accomplished enough and can do the 1.00
00:34:46.600 job. Whereas men tend, and I am stereotyping here, so I always want to be a little careful, 0.99
00:34:53.300 but men tend to just sort of like, of course, you know how to balance a budget and you're going to
00:34:58.220 be tough on crime. But at the end of the day, the voters and the American people, they're looking
00:35:05.040 for leaders who are going to take care of their families that are going to focus on making their
00:35:11.600 lives better as constituents. So they don't care. Where are we now in terms of women elected to
00:35:18.640 office? So in the United States Congress, you know, women still only represent, you know, just 1.00
00:35:24.520 shy of 25%, which is not great. And that puts the United States, last time I looked, we were beyond 0.58
00:35:31.520 a hundredth in the world in the percentage of women in our federal office. Terrible place to be. 1.00
00:35:37.700 Having women there, having an equal number of women there, how does that change culture 1.00
00:35:42.080 in Congress? 0.97
00:35:43.220 It starts with changing the debates around policies that affect the country.
00:35:48.900 And that is on all fronts.
00:35:51.940 You know, I think so often folks think, oh, women are going to come in and they're going
00:35:56.240 to talk about women's issues.
00:35:57.640 And I can't tell you how many times. 1.00
00:36:00.180 Kamala Harris has a great line. 1.00
00:36:01.800 She gets asked all the time, you know, are you going to just talk about women's issues?
00:36:05.080 And she's like, yes, I'm going to talk about the economy.
00:36:08.020 And I'm like, exactly.
00:36:09.760 It matters to have those voices represented. 0.99
00:36:12.840 And also, one woman can't carry everybody. 1.00
00:36:15.460 So we need women of diverse backgrounds, races, education, geography, to have a truly representative democracy. 1.00
00:36:23.300 And how much do these stories matter? 0.99
00:36:25.400 And repeating stories like Jeanette Rankin's, knowing stories like Jeanette Rankin's, and just not letting these names be lost to history.
00:36:33.420 Oh gosh, I think it's everything. I think it's everything in every culture. I mean,
00:36:38.480 the importance of storytelling for me and frankly for Emily's List is how you connect with each
00:36:45.860 other. And our young women and young men need to know the stories of the women who came before us,
00:36:58.960 who broke down barriers, crashed through ceilings.
00:37:03.160 We've got to tell these stories.
00:37:05.500 The bravery of Jeanette Rankin and so, so, so many others
00:37:11.240 who took huge risks at potentially great loss for themselves,
00:37:17.900 but did it, and then stood up for what they believe.
00:37:21.680 Those stories are as powerful today as they were then,
00:37:25.200 And as I think about, you know, women like Sharice Davids, who ran in 2018, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation in this country from Kansas, stepping up saying, I'm going to run for Congress, even though no Native American woman had ever been elected to Congress before in this country until 2018.
00:37:49.580 But I'm going to do it.
00:37:51.640 And I'm going to tell my story and our story.
00:37:54.440 And she did.
00:37:55.200 that's what we've got to keep doing
00:37:57.960 we're very grateful to our guests
00:38:11.960 filmmaker Kimberly Reed and Stephanie Sriak
00:38:14.260 president of Emily's List
00:38:15.540 Fierce is hosted and written by Joe Piazza
00:38:18.200 produced and directed by me, Anna Stumpf
00:38:20.220 our executive producers are Joe Piazza
00:38:22.580 Nikki Itor, Anna Stumpf
00:38:24.520 and from Tribeca Studios, Leah Sarbib.
00:38:27.300 Jeanette Rankin is voiced by Emily Stein.
00:38:29.820 Additional voices provided by Sam Stumpf,
00:38:31.940 Jane Stumpf, and Katie Stumpf.
00:38:33.700 This episode was edited and soundscaped by Anna Stumpf
00:38:36.140 with additional support from Jacopo Penzo,
00:38:38.140 Mary Du, and Josh Fisher.
00:38:39.780 Our associate producer is Emily Marinoff.
00:38:42.020 Fact-checking by Austin Thompson.
00:38:44.020 Research by Lizzie Jacobs.
00:38:45.600 The Fierce theme song was written by
00:38:46.860 Hamilton Lighthouser and Anna Stumpf.
00:38:48.620 Our very sincere thanks to Mangesh Hatikador
00:38:50.600 for making this series possible.
00:38:52.400 And to Nikki Itor,
00:38:53.320 who just did so much for the series,
00:38:55.100 there's no way to even name it all.
00:38:57.520 Sources for this episode, 1.00
00:38:58.880 Jeanette Rankin, A Political Woman,
00:39:00.580 by James J. Lopak and Jean A. Lukowski.
00:39:03.620 Jeanette Rankin, America's First Congresswoman,
00:39:05.920 by Peter Aronson.
00:39:07.520 When Jeanette Said No,
00:39:08.880 Montana Women's Response to World War I,
00:39:11.040 by Mary Murphy for Montana,
00:39:12.660 the magazine of Western history.
00:39:14.540 Suffragists' Oral History Project,
00:39:16.220 Jeanette Rankin, Activist for World Peace,
00:39:19.060 Women's Rights, and Democratic Government.
00:39:21.240 Interviews conducted by Malka Chow
00:39:22.620 and Hannah Josephson. Various articles found in the digital archives of the House of Representatives
00:39:27.080 and the Library of Congress blog. Articles from the New York Times in 1916 and the United Press
00:39:32.460 and the Suffragist in 1917. From NPR, The First Woman in Congress, A Crusader for Peace by Whitney
00:39:37.840 Blair Wyckoff, and The Lone War Dissenter on All Things Considered from December of 2001.
00:39:43.600 For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
00:39:47.740 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
00:39:52.620 Thank you.
00:40:22.620 You