The WeLead Reader
February 23, 2019

“We tend to be more bipartisan”: In an interview with Glamour, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) discusses the “crisis level” of women’s representation in the Republican party (there are now just 13 Republican women in Congress, compared with 89 Democratic women). She also talks about her efforts to recruit more women and her recently launched PAC, which aims to provide early support to women in Republican primaries. Of her female colleagues, Stefanik says: “I have felt very encouraged by my colleagues on my side of the aisle, but also women on the Democratic side, and I think that speaks to the broader point of why having women in elected office is so important.” Glamour

Colorado’s Fab Five: Colorado state senators Kerry Donovan, Jessie Danielson, Faith Winter, Tammy Story, and Brittany Pettersen have been “co-workers, mentors, and friends to one another” for over a decade. But since all five of them won their seats in 2018, flipping their state legislature from red to blue, they are embarking on a new challenge: leading as part of the majority.  The ‘Fab Five’ hope to work together on important issues while continuing to support one another personally and professionally. NBC News

A Legacy of Challenging the Status Quo: As part of a celebration of Black History Month, this piece celebrates black women politicians, focusing on former Rep. Shirley Chisholm (D-NY), Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Reps. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA).  These women are trailblazers, but as a whole, black women in politics have “been relegated to supporting roles for far too long.” With Kamala Harris running for president, that might change in 2020. Essence

Secret Salaries: Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms recently banned questions about salary history on applications for jobs with the city. The ban is “an effort to prevent wage discrimination and close the gender pay gap.” Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“Every single official in attendance was a young woman”: At the recent Young Elected Officials Women’s Conference, attendees gathered to discuss having “a seat at the table” in politics. There is a long way to go, but young women of color are committed to showing up and “doing the sort of unglamorous, tedious, workaday labor upon which meaningful transformation is built.” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who delivered the keynote address, noted that “There is a tradition of asking for permission” but that women “know what our communities need.” The Root

“An ambitious, aggressive, detail-oriented man can be a strong and effective leader, while a woman with the same traits is branded bossy, bitchy or worse.”: Christine Quinn, former Speaker of the New York City Council and president of Women in Need, a nonprofit providing services to homeless women and children in New York City, writes from a unique perspective about her own experience running for office. Quinn reflects on her choices to appear more likable and feminine during her time campaigning, and discusses where she sees other candidates doing it this time around. CNN

UN Ambassador - Take Two:  Kelly Knight Craft, the current U.S. Ambassador to Canada, has been tapped by President Trump to be the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, after his first choice Heather Nauert, withdrew from consideration.  Washington Post

The Fab Four: In Pennsylvania, four women broke up the male-dominated congressional delegation with wins in the 2018 midterms. Newly elected Reps. Chrissy Houlahan, Susan Wild, Mary Gay Scanlon and Madeleine Dean, "supported each other along the way, holding joint fundraisers, meeting up for margaritas, and consulting each other about how to manage joint media appearances — discussing everything from what to say to what to wear." Pennsylvania Capital-Star

"Democratic women seeking one of their own to back in 2020 race":  With six women running for President, Bloomberg News talked to female democratic voters in New Hampshire and finds that "they weren’t sold on any particular candidate and that gender wouldn’t be the sole determining factor for them. But many expressed hope that a woman would campaign on the issues they value and win.“ Bloomberg News

Small potatoes compared to what Trump had done”: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has taken a lot of heat in the press for how she has handled questions around her past claims of Native American ancestry. But in the minds of voters, the controversy may not matter. In interviews with voters in early primary states, the New York Times found that they are more concerned with policy ideas than scandals, and  they see Warren as a victim of a sexist culture in Washington rather than a perpetrator of harm. New York Times

Second Time Around: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is running for president again, and despite concerns from the 2016 campaign, he is confident he can appeal to women and minority voters in 2020. In a recent interview, Sanders outlined his campaign’s plan to address sexual harassment concerns stemming from his 2016 bid. Business Insider

Sanders Sisters: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)  said, as part of his 2020 campaign announcement, that “we have got to look at candidates, you know, not by the color of their skin, not by their sexual orientation or their gender and not by their age.” On social media, many Democratic women criticized the statement as “tone-deaf” in light of the Democratic field, which is historically diverse in terms of race and gender. However, some young millennial women, calling themselves “Sanders Sisters,” say they care more about supporting Sanders’ democratic socialist ideology than voting for a woman candidate. Refinery29

"The dos and don'ts for the women running for president":  Madeleine May Kunin, the former governor of Vermont, writes a column for the Boston Globe outlining lessons the 2020 women candidates learned from Hillary Clinton's 2016 loss. She says the likability issue is among the most difficult for female candidates, "women have to walk a tightrope between being tough enough to be commander in chief (masculine) and nice enough to be liked (feminine) while still remaining authentic."  Boston Globe

Bringing Families to the Forefront: In a column for Vogue, contributing editor Michelle Ruiz extols the benefits of having multiple women in the presidential field. While there are many reasons to be glad women are running, Ruiz is particularly encouraged to see policy problems that have historically been deemed “women’s issues,” such as childcare and paid family leave, take center stage. Vogue

“Wide-ranging disinformation campaign”: An analysis of recent social media data by POLITICO suggests that foreign state actors may be targeting several Democratic 2020 presidential candidates, including Sen. Kamala Harris, to “sow discord” and spread false information. POLITICO

Sexism Rears Its Head...Again: Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan looks back at the sexism directed toward Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign and points to signs it is already starting to affect the discourse around the 2020 candidates. She writes, “One of the reasons [sexist coverage of Clinton is] still so fresh is that we’re hearing echoes of it, already, in the early coverage of the female Democratic lawmakers who have declared their 2020 candidacies.” Washington Post

“It’s momentous, it’s exhilarating, and it’s about time.”: Marie Claire interviewed five of the six women running for president, saying of the experience, “What surprised us the most was when we asked them what questions they are asked that a man running for the highest office would never face.” The answers each candidate gives are both revealing and fitting. Marie Claire

“It’s Not Just Talk”: Author Sady Doyle talks about the ways Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand have established campaigns meant to fight what they consider gender oppression. Centered around a “childcare crisis,” the candidates are running campaigns with a core message: “It takes a woman to center this issue because women are the ones who’ve been forced to cope.” Dame Magazine

Clinton Chats Campaigns: Hillary Clinton met with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and former vice president Joe Biden in early February to discuss the 2020 election. Earlier in the year, she met with Sens. Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. Clinton has reportedly chosen to stay quiet on the primaries and eventually back the Democratic nominee in the general election. CNN

➤➤Kirsten Gillibrand

This week, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) made her first campaign swing through eastern Iowa, where one of her campaign events was memorably (and humorously) interrupted by a women seeking ranch dressing.  The result?  The first viral video of 2020.  Gillibrand continues to play up ideas of family and motherhood in her campaign. She also visited New Hampshire, where her speech prompted a conservative voter in Concord to say, “If she was pro-life I would vote for her.”  Toward the end of the week she made a two-day trip to Texas, where she toured Paul Quinn college, a historically black college in Dallas and an all-girls school in Austin.

News & Analysis:

• Gillibrand in Iowa: "I Do What's Right, Even if it Costs Me Everything" Des Moines Register
• Kirsten Gillibrand Hires Two More Senior Iowa Staffers as She Builds Out Her Caucus Campaign Des Moines Register
• Kirsten Gillibrand in Dallas: ‘I Have to Fight for Every Family as if it Were My Own’ Dallas Morning News
• “Carer-Feeder:’ Gillibrand Plays Up Motherhood in 2020 Race Associated Press
• Kirsten Gillibrand Cites Jeff Bezos’ ‘Helicopter Pad’ in Blasting Amazon’s NYC Plans Fortune
• Presidential Candidate Kirsten Gillibrand Supports 3rd Gender Marker on Federal IDs LGBTQ Nation

Opinion:

• David Shribman: Gillibrand Shows Iowa a Democrat Firebrand The Detroit News
• Devi Ruia: Gillibrand’s ‘Women-Plus’ Campaign Is Exactly What We Need Right Now The Pitt News

Sen. Kamala Harris received the endorsement of California governor Gavin Newsom this week, who said of her, “the American people could not do better.” Not all are such a fan of Harris, who was criticized for neglecting the critical state of New Hampshire. She responded with an appearance in the state for the first time since announcing her bid for the presidency and assured voters that she intends to “spend time here” and “shake every hand that I possibly can."  Yesterday, she spoke to 1000 African-American women attending the Power Rising conference in New Orleans. 

Harris is holding a town hall meeting in Ankeny, Iowa today, in Bettendorf, Iowa on Monday and  in Las Vegas next Friday.

News & Analysis:

• In New Orleans, Kamala Harris Urges Women to Keep ‘Fighting’ in Politics  Times Picayune
• Harris Hires Ex-Clinton Aide Ruiz and Several Other Women of Color POLITICO
• Kamala Harris Surges Into Lead Among Democratic Party Candidates Newsweek
• Kamala Harris confronts the 'elephant in the room' on the campaign trail NBC News
• Donald Harris Slams His Daughter Senator Kamala Harris for Fraudulently Stereotyping Jamaicans and Accuses Her Of Playing Identity Politics Jamaica Global
• Would Kamala Harris Crush Biden in a 2020 Cage Match? Vanity Fair

Opinion:

• Colbert I. King: Harris's Record and Character Matter - Not the Race of her Father and Husband Washington Post
• Matthew Continetti: Clumsy Kamala - Why Harris May Be her Own Worst Enemy National Review
• Joe Battenfeld: Kamala Harris Could End Elizabeth Warren’s Oval Office dream Boston Herald
• Will Bunch: Kamala Harris takes on Trump as a charismatic ‘generic Democrat.’ Is that bad? Philadelphia Daily News

Sen. Amy Klobuchar made a high-profile appearance Monday night a New Hampshire CNN town hall where she surprised listeners with a candid and moderate approach, making sure voters know she “isn’t a genie” and her policies are realistic. 

Just yesterday, a second wave of reports detailing Klobuchar's mistreatment of aides included interviews with more than two dozen former staff members and internal emails that were turned over to the New York Times.  While some aides are calling her behavior "dehumanizing," her campaign spokesman reiterated Klobuchar's acknowledgment she had pushed too hard on occasion, and pointed to the "countless experiences of people on the senator’s team who she has been so proud to work with.”   And the debate continues over whether the intense media focus on these reports is, in itself, sexist. The Huffington Post (which ran the first reports on this topic two weeks ago) follows up with this piece: "Exposing Klobuchar's Mistreatment of Staff is Not Sexist."

Klobuchar spent Friday in Georgia, where she met with Stacey Abrams and former President Jimmy Carter. She makes her first visit to South Carolina this weekend with events in Greenville and Columbia. After that she is headed to Nashua and Concord, New Hampshire. 

News & Analysis:

• 'Senator Next Door' Klobuchar Makes Stop in Iowa Duluth News Tribune
• Every Democrat Should Talk About Health Care Like Amy Klobuchar Does Slate
• Amy Klobuchar Fast Facts CNN
• “I have to tell the truth”: Klobuchar Takes a Swipe at the Bernie Bros: Can Klobuchar Make Clintonism Great Again? Vanity Fair
• Sam Brodey: Could Amy Klobuchar Be the 2020 Democratic ‘Maverick’? The Daily Beast
• Meghan McCain Praises Amy Klobuchar For Being ‘A Bad Bitch’ Huffington Post

Opinion:

• Jennifer Rubin: Klobuchar Bets on Competence Washington Post
• Mark Osler: Can Klobuchar's Record as a Prosecutor be an Asset in Her Presidential Run? Star Tribune
• Michael Sean Winters: Sen. Klobuchar has Candor, Clarity, Strength National Catholic Reporter
• Jonathan Capehart: Klobuchar 2020 is in Danger of Becoming Sanders 2016 Washington Post

➤➤Elizabeth Warren

Sen. Elizabeth Warren made a splash this week with an “ambitious” proposal for universal child care (New York Times, The Cut). Warren unveiled the proposal at a campaign event in Glendale, CA. Last night she headlined the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s 60th McIntyre-Shaheen 100 Club Dinner in Manchester. (WMUR)

News & Analysis:

• Warren Opens Door to Reparations for Native Americans Washington Post
• Elizabeth Warren’s Ideas Could Win the Democratic Primary—Even if She Doesn’t FiveThirtyEight
• Sanders and Warren Give the Left a Bigger Platform—and a Tougher Decision than They Ever Expected CNN
• Elizabeth Warren Is Not Afraid of the Democrats The Nation
• 3 Issues that Elizabeth Warren Says are ‘Real’ National Emergencies Boston.com

Opinion:

• Christine Emba: Warren Could Get America to Have More Kids Again Washington Post
• National Review Editors: Senator Warren’s Parent Trap National Review
• Moira Donegan: Why Vote for Sanders When You Can Have Elizabeth Warren Instead? The Guardian

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) continues to be one of the most divisive candidates in the 2020 Democratic field, receiving pushback for her defense of WikiLeaks and support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who she said was not an enemy of the United States.

Gabbard visited Iowa City on Thursday after a lengthy detour following messy Iowa weather. See a video of her appearance here.  On Friday, she made a stop in Council Bluffs. 

• Twenty Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Tulsi Gabbard National Review
• Tulsi Gabbard: Everything You Need to Know About the 2020 Candidate Axios
• Tulsi Gabbard’s 2020 Campaign: News and Updates Vox

Tune in to ‘The Trail’: Catch up on developments in the 2020 race from WMUR’s podcast, “The Trail.” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand “explains her evolution of her positions on guns and immigration.” Also featured are presidential hopefuls Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld and former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper. WMUR

Black History Month Meets Brookings: “The Brookings Cafeteria,” a Brookings Institute podcast, hosted Stacey Abrams to talk Black History Month. Together they discuss “how her organization, Fair Fight Georgia, is addressing the problem of voter suppression as the African-American electorate and candidates claim more political space.” Brookings Institute

“Can I Interrupt?”: Presidential hopeful Rep. Tulsi Gabbard made an appearance on The View where she clashed with Meghan McCain over her stance on Syrian foreign policy. Gabbard had previously stated on MSNBC’s Morning Joe that the President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, is not an enemy of the United States. McCain called out Gabbard, saying, “When I hear the name Tulsi Gabbard, I think of Assad apologist. I think of someone who comes back to the United States and is spouting propaganda from Syria.” The Daily Beast

Laughing With Harris: Trevor Noah hosted presidential hopeful Kamala Harris  on The Daily Show Wednesday night, where she defended her record as a prosecutor and shared stories from the campaign trail. YouTube

DVR Alert:
Sunday at 8:00am: Sen. Kamala Harris - Appearance on CNN’s Inside Politics
Sunday morning: Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-NM) on CBS's Face the Nation

Men Still Dominate the Media: A recent study from the Women’s Media Center shows that the state of women in the US media is, according to a report from Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard, “abysmal.”  The study is “comprised of original research by the Women’s Media Center and aggregated research from academia, industry and professional groups, labor unions, media watchdogs, newsrooms and other sources.” Among the troubling findings:

• Roughly half of the women journalists from 50 countries, including the United States, surveyed by the International Federation of Journalists said that they faced a range of physical and verbal abuse in the course of their work.
• Editors of the nation’s 135 most widely distributed newspapers are overwhelmingly male and White, according to the Columbia Journalism Review.
• Male congressional journalists had twice as many followers and maintained a higher profile on Twitter than did women congressional journalists, according to researchers from George Washington and Calvin Universities.

Read the full report from Women’s Media Center here.

“Entrenched sexism in higher education”: Ann Bartos (University of Auckland) and Sarah Ives (Stanford University) investigate how sexism in the academy can “take root” during graduate school, when students serve as teaching assistants. Women graduate students are often expected to perform emotional labor and care in ways that their male counterparts are not, which leads to different expectations for men and women when they become professors. The authors argue that the persistence of sexism in academia “warrants an investigation” into where women “learn their ‘place’ in the academy.” Gender, Place & Culture

Discriminatory Laws Matter: Many countries around the world, though not all, have seen significant advances in women’s legal rights in recent years. A recent paper by Mala Htun (University of New Mexico), Francesca Jensenius (University of Oslo), and Jami Nelson-Nuñez (University of New Mexico) seeks to understand why women have greater autonomy in some countries than others. The study explores the association between gender-discriminatory laws and indicators of women’s economic agency, such as asset ownership and labor force participation, and found that different types of discriminatory laws have constraining effects on  various measures of women’s economic agency The authors say that their findings “highlight the importance of conceptualizing and measuring legal rights and their potential effects as multidimensional.” Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society

A Long Way to Go for Women: Research from the Africa Growth Initiative at Brookings finds that economic empowerment programs in developing countries are falling short of their goals. One reason is that some current strategies work well for male entrepreneurs but leave women behind. Female entrepreneurs, the study found, “are often lacking in access to financial and human capital,which impedes business growth, have different mindset constraints, such as risk-aversion, and have not caught up in soft skills such as leadership.” To fully address these constraints for women, programs must be prepared to “challenge cultural beliefs about gender and power.” Read the full policy brief here.

Pink Slips: In this feature, Michaella A. Thornton investigates how working mothers’ experiences with being laid off differ from those of their husbands. She finds that “a man’s job loss is mourned and treated as a significant event while a woman’s layoff, especially a mother’s layoff, is trivialized or used as an argument for why she should ‘return’ home.” Revealingly, a 2013 study from Pew Research found that 51% of Americans felt that children are “better off” with their mothers at home, even though, according to the Center for American Progress, almost two-thirds of American mothers worked outside the home and earned at least a quarter of the family’s income (as of 2016). This disconnect, Thornton argues, goes a long way toward explaining why men’s layoffs are treated as much more of a financial catastrophe than women’s, even when that perception doesn’t match up with reality. The Common Reader: A Journal of the Essay

“The silver lining in the last couple of years is that women are galvanized and mobilized and ready to enact real change.”: Amber Tamblyn, Olivia Munn, Melissa Fumero, and Cook County state's attorney Kim Foxx participated in a panel, moderated by Lisa Ling and hosted by Emily’s List, where they talked about political activism and the value in investing in the cause for the long-haul. Tamblyn said, “Everyone is counting on us burning out and hoping that all of the women elected and brought into the Academy are a fad and will pass.” Hollywood Reporter

Symphony Settlement: Boston Symphony Orchestra has settled a lawsuit with Elizabeth Rowe, the principal flutist of the orchestra. She filed a lawsuit last July seeking upwards of $200,000 in owed wages, claiming her “closest, male peer” was paid significantly more. NPR

“United States of Pizza: Women’s Slice of the Pie”: DC’s Pizzeria Paradiso has launched a weekly campaign to honor women in Congress. With a weekly rotation of pizzas, they are channeling a broader theme in the world and applying it to their pies, hoping to keep the momentum around women going strong. With pizzas like the “Arizona Pozole Pizza,” in honor of Sens. Martha McSally and Kyrsten Sinema and Reps. Ann Kirkpatrick and Debbie Lesko, the ingredients for a successful political pizza platform are all there. The Eagle Online

What Is the Equal Rights Amendment, and Why Are We Talking About It Now?: With so many women running for office, the Equal Rights Amendment has been a trending topic. Read here a clarification of common questions about the ERA and the importance of codifying the amendment. New York Times

Basketball Boss: Evelyn Magley is making history as the first woman to run a US men’s pro sports league. Magley is CEO of The Basketball League (TBL), which debuted last month in 10 cities across the country. Magley’s values set the new league apart: She wants to develop her players “on and off the court with a focus on community and building self-esteem.” OZY