Show notes
The midterms are over (though the recounts and runoffs may not be). So we make sense of what happened—and what’s next—with Jenn Taylor-Skinner, the host of our fave new feminist political podcast, The Electorette. Jenn tells us all about why she’s feeling pretty good about the midterms, how she plans to keep up the momentum into 2020, and why having a bilateral pulmonary embolism—yep, the same thing Serena Williams had—made her take a hard pivot into podcasting in 2017. Now she’s the full-time host of The Electorette—one of Teen Vogue’s picks for political podcasts, and a show you’ve gotta add to your rotation. > I just really wanted a space where women could speak without being interrupted. And I had no idea how much I had a hunger for that myself.> —Jenn Taylor-Skinner, host, The Electorette Follow Jenn | Follow The Electorette On the agenda More than 100 women are headed to Congress—including the first Native women, the first Muslim women, and the youngest women ever Florida voted to re-enfranchise more than a million people with felony convictions—and this is really freaking important Protecting voter rights and making sure no one ever has to wait six hours at the polls should be top priority (Jenn recommends Ari Berman’s book, Give Us the Ballot) White women gotta do better Maxine Waters remains iconic Plus: we fucking love all your “I Voted” sticker selfies (here’s Sara’s!), your lil baby voter pics, and…you. Sponsors This episode of NYG is brought to you by: Shopify, a leading global commerce platform that’s building a world-class team to define the future of entrepreneurship. Visit shopify.com/careers for more. Harvest, makers of awesome software to help you track your time, manage your projects, and get paid. Try it free, then use code NOYOUGO to get 50% off your first paid month. Care/of, a monthly subscription vitamin service that delivers completely personalized vitamin and supplement packs right to your door. Save 25% off your first month using promo code NYG. Transcript Sara Wachter-Boettcher Harvest is the time tracking and project planning software I rely on to keep my business running smoothly. And you can rely on it too! With awesome features like Harvest Forecast, which helps you figure out who’s assigned to what and keep track of workload, and tons of reports that shine a light on the health of your projects, Harvest makes it easier to focus on getting things done, not busywork. Try it free at getharvest.com, and when you sign up for a paid account, use the code “noyougo” to save 50% off your first month. That’s getharvest.com, code “noyougo.” [intro music plays for 12 seconds] Katel LeDû Hey everyone, I’m Katel. SWB And I’m Sara! KL And you’re listening to No, You Go, the show about building satisfying careers and businesses— SWB —getting free of toxic bullshit— KL —and living your best, feminist life at work. SWB And as I’m sure all of you know, last week was a big week here in the US. We finally had the midterm elections, which I was on pins and needles about. So, we’re going to talk a little bit about that today—we’re going to talk about what happened, and what’s next. And to help us out, we invited Jenn Taylor-Skinner onto the show. Jenn’s the host of The Electorette, an intersectional, feminist podcast about politics. And she is going to tell us more about her perspective on the midterms, as well as what it was like to trade a career in tech for running a political podcast and how she keeps it all together even when she’s talking about heavy stuff all day like voter suppression and reproductive justice. So, first up, Katel, how was your election day? KL It was good, I actually went in the middle of the day, which is a little uncharacteristic for me. I usually go first thing, I think you like to do that too. But I was lucky because there were no lines and it was pretty easy. I definitely was thinking about how that was absolutely not everyone’s experience, but I was extremely anxious the entire day and I think I had my shoulders up around my ears all night. SWB Ugh, yes. I was also feeling very anxious. And I was so upset, you know, watching on Twitter when people were reporting six hour lines at their polling place and broken machines and I mean, it’s not that I think that Philadelphia’s polling locations run super smoothly. [KL laughs] You know, my husband was actually working the polls and he was like, “oh boy, these voting machines,” but we didn’t have those kinds of lines. And I think, I mean obviously that’s just a travesty, right? Voting should not take six hours. You should not have to be waiting through all of this mayhem, it’s just ridiculous. But, luckily that was not my personal experience, so I do like to go early. I meant to get there right at seven when they opened, but I was writing an email or something, so I got there at 7:25 and there was already a good line. And so as I’m shuffling up there, I see none other than Lizz Fiedler, who you might remember. She was a guest back in season one running for the PA legislature in my district, right? And she was out there welcoming voters at my polling location, which was rad. [2:51] KL That’s so awesome. SWB Yeah, so I got to chat with Lizz and even though her candidacy at that point was a pretty sure thing, she was running unopposed because her district is 90% democrat [KL laughs]—for her the primary was the big deal. But even so, she was still feeling pretty nervous because she told me she had spent, you know, fifteen months putting everything she had into this campaign and she just—it’s not real until it’s real. KL That is so cool, I remember going to the party she had when she won the nomination, which was amazing. And this is definitely the first time that I’ve been this close to folks who are actually running in these races. It’s very exciting. SWB Yes. It was really awesome also that I ran into her outside of the polling place and then I got to literally walk inside and vote for her. KL [laughing] Yeah. SWB It was great. And so also like I said, my husband was working the polls and he was there at 6:15 in the morning— KL Ugh. SWB —wrapped up around 9pm and, you know, it was definitely quite a day. [KL laughs] But he noted that turnout was really high in Philly, which was also—that was encouraging to hear. So yeah, I mean it was a stressful day and a lot of—a lot of ups and downs, but you know, here we are. KL So, obviously we didn’t win back the Senate and there were some awesome people running who didn’t win, but it’s been a few days and I think it’s important to talk about some of the bright spots. Like here in Pennsylvania, we are finally going to send some women to Washington. We mentioned before on the show that right now Pennsylvania has 18 reps in the house and none are women, which is changing in January, which is amazing. Four women will join the delegation: Mary Gay Scanlon, Madeleine Dean, Susan Wild and Chrissy Houlahan. SWB That is so reassuring and even though four out of eighteen is [coughs] not enough [KL laughs], it’s still okay—that is so crucial, right? We need those voices. So, we don’t have the representation we need, but there are a lot of really great wins for women and I just want to recap a few of the ones that are so exciting because I know it can get lost a little bit as we are still facing all of the same problems we were facing before, as our political landscape is still a freaking nightmare. It can get a little lost, so let’s just remember some stuff. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib from Minnesota and Michigan, they are going to be the first Muslim women to serve in Congress. And then you’ve got Sharice Davids from Kansas and Deb Haaland from New Mexico, who are going to become the first Native American women to serve in Congress. Veronica Escobar and Sylvia Garcia are the first Latinas that Texas has ever sent to Congress. Which like, come on, Texas? KL I mean, seriously. [5:20] SWB And then in Massachusetts you’ve got them sending their very first Black woman to the House, that is Ayanna Pressley. And then also the youngest women ever were elected in to the House, so New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who obviously everybody was excited about during her primary upset, you know, she was a shoo-in during the election, her district was so strongly Democratic, so of course she won. But now, at 29 years old—she just turned 29—she’s the youngest women who has ever been elected to Congress. KL That’s so rad. SWB Yes! And then it’s not just her. Abby Finkenauer of Iowa is also 29, although she’s going to turn 30 in December, [KL laughs] so she’ll be 30 when she actually goes there. KL That’s a pretty good birthday. SWB Gosh, I know. Can you imagine? We didn’t quite hit this goal. KL [laughing] Yeah. SWB And then finally, one other person I wanted to mention—not a woman, but Jared Polis of Colorado will be the first openly gay governor, which I think is also pretty rad. KL That is also amazing. So, this is all so encouraging and it’s really nice to pause and get excited about all the good news and, of course, we need to know that there is still so much to do. SWB Yes, and I think that’s one of the reasons I was so excited to talk to Jenn from The Electorette because she’s just immersed in this stuff every single day and when we talked to her, she was feeling really positive. She was feeling good. You know, I thought it was so interesting to hear her talk about why she’s feeling positive because there’s a lot of reasons you could point to to not feel good, but she’s choosing to look at all of these encouraging signs and to focus in on, well, what are we going to do next and where do we focus our energy? And so I felt like we had a really good and nuanced discussion about that that I think you all are going to love. [music fades in, plays for five seconds, and fades out] Sponsor: Care/of SWB Care/of is a monthly subscription vitamin service that delivers completely personalized vitamin and supplement packs right to your door. Or I should say to my door because I just got my first Care/of shipment the other day and, Katel, I have to tell you it is pretty cool. KL Ooh, wait, so how do you figure out what you get? SWB Okay, so this is pretty neat. So, you go to takecareof.com and you do this online quiz thing and what it does is it asks you all about your habits and your goals. So, for example, you know I go to the gym a lot, so they’ll ask you about exercise, and if they—if you want vitamins that are going to help you with workout recovery. Or they’ll ask you if you want to sleep better or focus better. And so I took it and I was like “oh yeah, give me some of that good brain stuff.” [laughs] [7:32] KL Ughh. I could use that too. SWB Seriously. So, okay, so then once you decide what you want, Care/of is going to ship your vitamins to you in these awesome, daily pill packs, so you have this personalized mix of stuff that is already organized for you. You don’t have to fuss with a bunch of bottles, I just grab a pack while I’m making coffee. Oh and there are vegetarian options and vegan options if that’s your jam and speciality items like prenatal and postnatal vitamins for all of you mommas-to-be out there. So, for 25% off your first month of personalized Care/of vitamins, visit takecareof.com and enter the promo code “nyg.” That’s 25% off your first month of vitamins, only at takecareof.com, promo code “nyg.” [music fades in, plays for five seconds, and fades out] Interview: Jenn Taylor-Skinner SWB Jenn Taylor-Skinner is the creator and host of The Electorette, a podcast about politics, feminism and intersectionality where she interviews women who are leading causes and making change—from Black Lives Matter organizers to reproductive rights experts. And we invited Jenn here today to give us some expert perspective on the election and tell us a little bit more about her show and her story. Jenn, welcome to No, You Go.Jenn Taylor-Skinner Thank you, I’m excited to be here. SWB First off, can you tell us a little bit about The Electorette? JTS Yes. So, I started The Electorette probably a little over a year ago, so I guess at the end of the summer in 2017 or early fall in 2017. And it was actually somewhat of a long time coming because after Trump’s election and after Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016, I felt that I needed to do something. And if I look back in my history, I think that I registered The Electorette domain one week after the election. And so it wasn’t until later after, I think the spring of 2017 where I—after I’d gone to The Women’s March in DC and I met a lot of brilliant, brilliant, passionate women there and I thought, “You know what? I just want to talk to women.” I—being in technology had spent most of my time around engineers and lots of male heavy teams, but after being at The Women’s March, there was so much energy there in DC and around the world basically that I just felt that I wanted more of that all of the time. SWB And so now you’re doing that pretty much full time, right? What was that decision like to kind of jump in wholeheartedly? [9:45] JTS So, like I said, I registered the domain right after the election, but I wasn’t quite sure, you know, how we make these kind of big decisions in our head and in our heart, but we don’t quite jump in? [laughs] And sometimes it takes something big to push us? Well so my big thing—and like I said, I’ve never told this story—so my big thing was sometime around late spring in 2017, I had a bilateral pulmonary embolism, right? The same thing that Serena Williams had, you know, a clot in both lungs. And so long story as to how that happened and how that was diagnosed, but basically, it was pretty serious. And I realized that life was precious and it could end at any moment, you know. I am and I was a really healthy person, it was just kind of this medical fluke that this happened to me. I realized that I really needed to stop wasting my time in spaces where my voice wasn’t being elevated and it wasn’t being heard, and I really wanted to do this. So, I just made a hard pivot. I mean, I think after I got—I was released from the hospital, I think I went back to work and I resigned. SWB Wow, that’s amazing. KL Wow. SWB So, what’s it been like this kind of first year, little over a year of the show, both for you personally and then also, you know, as you’ve been running this hyper political show focused on feminist issues in the run up to the midterms in the midst of a truly wild year? JTS So, as soon as I started asking women to come on the show and to be interviewed, I had no idea how much energy there was to do something like this and how much hunger there was for women’s voices to be elevated. So, one of the goals that I had with The Electorette was to kind of counter the incorrect messaging out there around lots of things, around reproductive health, around gun violence and all of these things—but hear it from women. You know, again, this kind of goes back to my experience spending most of my career in technology and, you know, what happens when you work in technology when you’re on male-heavy teams, often women’s voices and their opinions aren’t heard. You get talked over—your ideas aren’t listened to. And I just really wanted a space where women could speak without being interrupted. And I had no idea how much I had a hunger for that myself. SWB Yes! I think that’s something that me and Katel can definitely relate to on this show because I feel like every time we interview people, we’re just like, “how do we friend her?” KL Yeah, we always want to hang out with [laughing] the people we talk to way more. [12:01] SWB Okay, so in addition to talking about making friends on podcasts, I also want to talk to you about the midterms themselves because a lot has happened and, you know, when our listeners are hearing this, it will be just about a week after election day and so, of course, everybody will know we didn’t take the Se…
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