This is Women Road warriors with Shelly Johnson and Kathy Tucaro.

From the corporate office to the cab of a truck, they're here to inspire and empower women in all professions.

So gear down, sit back and enjoy.

Welcome.

We're an award winning show dinner dedicated to empowering women in every profession through inspiring stories and expert insights.

No topics off limits on our show.

We power women on the road to success with expert and celebrity interviews and information you need.

I'm Shelley.

And I'm Kathy.

Women have shaped every chapter of our history all around the world.

Yet for generations, many of the stories have gone untold.

Our accomplishments and the women who shaped history deserve being more than just a footnote at the bottom of a page.

We need to be showcased and remembered.

Today's guest is showcasing women in a powerful way and is so appropriate for Women's History Month.

For almost three decades, the National Women's History Museum has been working to illuminate the women who've helped build the United States Leaders, innovators, activists and visionaries.

Women whose contributions continue to shape our future.

Their organization played a key role in advocating for the creation of the Smithsonian American Women's History Museum that was authorized by Congress in 2020.

Today it reaches millions through digital storytelling, national exhibitions and community centered programs that bring women's history to life.

Leading that mission is Frederic irwin, president and CEO of the National Women's History Museum.

She has over 25 years of experience in strategy, entrepreneurship and impact leadership, including founding the women's business education company Her Corner.

Before joining the museum, she also served as Managing Director of impact Strategy at the Sorenson Impact Institute.

Frederic has dedicated her career to advancing opportunities and visibility for women.

She's joining us today to talk about the museum's groundbreaking work, its innovative national exhibitions and and some of the remarkable women whose stories deserve to be remembered.

Frederic, welcome to our show.

I am so excited to be here.

This is like my kind of conversation, empowering women.

Honestly, I can't tell you this has like made my day to be here with you guys to talk to talk more about whatever you guys want to talk about.

Since nothing's off limits.

I'm really impressed to have you as

a guest on our show especially for, you know, Women's Month.

Like you.

That intro just blew my mind.

I'm like, wow, what's missing from my intro?

Not actually missing.

It's literally not, does not exist.

Is historian, nonprofit leader, or, you know, museum leader.

Like, I came into this with none of that.

So I think, you know, some people might have Heard that and been like, who's this lady and why is she running that?

Well, you're such a powerhouse with all you've done, Frederic, and your organization is such a wonderful tribute to women.

What is the museum doing this year and what can people see at the museum?

I'm not sure everybody knows it exists.

Oh, I think that's fair.

I think that's true that not everybody knows it exists.

The National Women's History Museum, the mission's very simple and you mentioned it.

Make sure that all of the contributions that women have made to our nation are visible and more importantly, accessible to everyone, no matter where you are, and part of the history that everybody learns.

One of the things that we decided to do when I came on board a little over two years ago was to lean into becoming truly, well, not kind of becoming the leading digital first women's history museum at a national level.

I say that because when the women originally founded this entity, this organization, 30 years ago, they had one objective, which was to get to a yes from Congress, that there should be a physical brick and mortar space for women's history, just like we have museums in Washington for a number of other lovely different causes.

It took them 25 years.

Now, I don't think they expected it would take 25 years, but they did know it would take a long time.

And so what they did on day one in 1996, which is a little unusual back then, was they said, well, we know this is going to take a while, so let's make sure that in the meantime, we put everything online so that it's accessible to teachers and students.

And so today, fast forward to today.

It was December 2020 when they finally got that yes from Congress, if you will, that said, okay, we're.

We agree there should be a physical brick and mortar museum, object based experience for women's history, and we want it to be run by the Smithsonian so that it'll have a place on the Mall and federal funding.

And so in that moment, what Congress did was they created two entities, the Smithsonian, which has taken on the building of the building, and the National Women's History Museum, which is still, what we say, kind of a sister organization, but we're not similar.

We're not the same.

We're privately funded, they're federally funded.

And so today what we're doing is saying, wow, in an age of AI and technology adoption, we have 30 years and thousands of pages of women's history in our repository.

Let's lean into that.

Yeah, we are one of the largest repositories of women's history.

We serve over 6 million people every year.

We serve 40,000 educators that we interact with on a monthly basis, giving them curriculum and classroom resources and biographies.

But my vision is to really lean into what does a cultural institution look like in 2026?

You know, does it have to be that traditional physical experience?

Which is lovely, but what if.

What if you're like Kathy and you're not anywhere near Washington, D.C. you know?

Or what if.

What if you're a young girl and you can't afford to make it to Washington, D.C. and fly there?

How else can you be inspired and learn the stories that are not told in our history books?

And I love the fact that you exist.

We deserve to have this recognition because, you know, women have been doing so many things.

We play such a vital role.

We have not always been recognized.

People are surprised when they go through history.

I mean, we've been mothers, entrepreneurs, inventors, authors, you name it.

I grew up knowing that we were powerful.

I remember my dad saying, she who rocks the cradle rules the world.

You know, we deserve to be recognized for all we do.

Yeah, I like that.

Yeah.

You know, and I love this.

And it is amazing that it took 25 years to actually have a physical place where people could go, but now they can, and they can see it digitally, too.

Marvel.

Because, Shelly, unfortunately, in 2020, Congress agreed there should be one, but they didn't approve a location.

And so the Smithsonian is.

Unfortunately, it's been a little over five years.

They are still advocating and raising awareness and trying to get Congress to say, okay, it can be in, you know, this specific area of the Mall.

Then from that point on, it, it's probably at least another decade away.

It just takes a really long time.

So that's, you know, that's a while.

So in the meantime, I think there's still a lot of work to be done.

Okay.

At least on the accessibility front and the online front.

So there's no physical place where people can go to your museum.

Am I correct?

I just want to clarify that for our listeners.

No.

So the National Women's History Museum has always been digital first.

And I'd say what we do is because we are now no longer responsible for building a physical space.

We do recognize, though, that there is value in, you know, physically seeing women's history.

And I especially like the idea of kind of running into it in unexpected places.

So one of the things that we do is we have a museum in residence program.

And so, for example, we will design an exhibition with Historians and curators.

It's a long process and we install that exhibition in a public library.

So the first one was in the public Library of Washington D.C. at the MLK Library.

We're hoping the next one will open in Dallas in January at the, at the largest Dallas public library.

And we put it there for 18 months so that kids can, you know, go after school or go to the programming and they literally just say, hey, what's this?

And learn about women's history.

So we do that and we also do what's called kind of pop up exhibitions.

So let's say you guys were doing a women's Empowerment summit for all the amazing listeners of this podcast and you wanted some spectacularly beautiful panels about women in our history and whatever, we can design those with you, deliver them, and I mean ship them, deliver them, assemble them, put them up, and then take them back.

So that's less of a historian driven exhibition, but it is of course written by our team, our educators and our historians.

So it's fact based.

Wonderful.

So we can showcase.

Anyone can get together with you and perhaps showcase women in a powerful way.

Yes, absolutely.

And the truth is that if, if you, if you were to ask me what's the fastest way to change, you know, people's knowledge of women's history, I might not say that the fastest way is by walking into a museum, spending a day there and hoping that you have a phenomenal experience that transforms your paradigm, or even walking into a public library and seeing something like that.

I think that we have to be aware of where people are today in 2026.

And most people are online and their attention spans are very short and they're what we call digitally native.

So I actually think that how we reach our impact and if the impact is to elevate awareness of what women have done, we have to think outside the box.

Yes.

And the way people consume media is changing constantly.

And for you to be digitally first on this is a progressive way of doing things and it's reaching so many people.

I mean, you can reach people all around the world with what you're doing.

Exactly.

And that's.

That for me was what was so exciting and enticing about taking this opportunity in this role two years ago.

Because I've spent my whole career advocating for women, thinking about how to advance women.

I've done it point to point with Her Corner and through others with peer groups.

I've done it at the systemic change level when I was at Sorenson.

And this made me realize if I actually go, you Know, back to kind of education and where we first start talking to our kids in elementary school about history.

And I deliver that in a way that's much more modern and approachable.

And, by the way, not angry.

Like, the most important thing I say to my team all the time is we are here to have a message of unity and oneness.

We are not burning bras.

We're not getting angry.

We're not saying it's not fair.

There's plenty of things that aren't fair.

Right.

But that's not the point.

If we want to change paradigm, we have to approach it in a different way.

Positivity.

Yes, absolutely.

People can embrace that.

Yes.

Well, frankly, I think they can embrace it.

And if you throw a little bit of humor in there and you throw a little clever wink, I think people will like it.

Yes.

It's hard to say sometimes about history.

You know, most people are like, I don't want to remember, blah, blah, blah.

Right.

So, yeah, it's the way history was presented when we were sitting in school.

You know, when was the War of 1812?

I always thought that was a dumb question.

People remember dates.

They don't remember the people that made those dates significant.

It isn't showcasing the people that made the history, and that's what makes it relatable, because they're human beings that made history.

Yes.

You have to know the story, not just the history.

The history's important, but sometimes it's the story that you learn behind the history and that historic change or moment, you know, that really makes it relatable.

Stay tuned for more of women road warriors coming up.

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Welcome back to Women Road warriors with Shelly Johnson and Kathy Tucaro.

If you're enjoying this informative episode of Women Road Warriors, I wanted to mention Kathy and I explore all kinds of topics that will power you on the road to success.

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We want to help as many women as possible.

We're talking with Frederic Irwin, president and CEO of the National Women's History Museum.

That's an organization that for nearly three decades has been working to bring the stories of extraordinary women out of the shadows and into the spotlight where they belong, not a footnote at the bottom of a page.

As we mentioned before the break, the museum has helped drive national awareness about women's history, even playing a key role in the effort that led to the authorization of the Smithsonian American Women's History Museum by Congress in 2020.

And today, through its digital first approach, national exhibitions and community programs, the organization's reaching millions of people with stories of women who've shaped our past and continue to shape our future.

FREDERIC Women have always been central to history as leaders, innovators, mothers, entrepreneurs, and change makers, even if those stories weren't always fully told.

In our previous segment, you said we need to know the story behind the history and that date that we remember, that's what makes it relatable.

I mean, when everything's said and done, we're talking about human beings.

Can I give you one quick example that I heard myself last week?

Yes, absolutely.

Well, there's a woman who is, in my humble opinion, one of our national treasures, Doris Carnes Goodwin.

She is really one of the, if not the leading American historian.

And she was speaking last week at an event and I was listening to her speak.

She's amazing and, and a great speaker.

And someone asked her about, you know, do you it was the closing question.

Somebody said, do you have hope for where we are in this moment?

And her answer, of course, was yes.

But what she then said was, you have to remember that any inflection point in our history or major moment started with one person, and frankly, often women, but.

But one person who made a decision that created a ripple, that created change.

And she said, for example, we all know about Rosa Parks who chose to sit on the bus at the front, she goes, but if you read the interviews and hear the stories of Rosa explaining that, apparently what she said was, oh, my gosh, I was so tired that day, and I didn't want to fight, and I just was going to move to the back of the bus.

But then I thought about Emmett Till's mom who left his casket open during his funeral for all to see what had been done to him.

And apparently she said, and I decided to sit down and do my part.

And when you begin to have the context of that story and you.

You imagine what this hardworking, tired woman probably felt and the choice she made in the face of that because another woman had done something hard, all of a sudden, that history of Rosa Parks takes on different meaning.

It becomes much more relatable.

It does.

People can see themselves in the same position.

They can empathize, they can identify.

And it's a motivational moment, isn't it?

Yeah, absolutely.

And frankly, I think it provides some hope, which we all need.

You know, it reminds me of this quote that I actually wrote inserted into my book in 2017.

It's because I felt it really related to me because of just when I.

When I had enough, I had enough, and that's when change happened.

And the quote is.

I guess it's an old Chinese proverb.

It just says, when sleeping women wake, mountains move.

And I love it.

Exactly.

And, you know, doesn't it feel like women are waking up right now?

It does, yes, in different ways, but intergenerationally, too.

I mean, today I was speaking to a woman in her 80s who was saying, you know, I feel like I've been kind of not paying attention for the last 15 years, and now I'm looking around and my daughter's in her 50s, and all this stuff is still going on.

And I'm going, what have we been doing?

How is this still happening?

I feel like there's intergenerational levels of awareness and awakening right now.

Kathy.

I love that.

I love that quote.

I love it, too, Kathy.

You know, when you think about it, Women's History Month hasn't been around all that long.

It's been under 50 years.

And women's History Month was what?

Signed into law in 1980 by President Jimmy Carter.

And I was reading that the origins of this was actually in Santa Rosa, California, with Women's History Week.

It was a celebration in 1978, which I thought was very interesting that the movement basically spread around the country as other communities started to start their own Women's History Week.

So it was the ripple effect that eventually gave birth to Women's History Month.

Yeah.

Isn't that wonderful?

Yes.

And at the same time, it remains frustrating.

I mean, I'm grateful that there is a month in our classrooms where kids are encouraged to learn about things outside of their textbooks.

But it's also frustrating that 50 years later it still exists and is necessary.

And my biggest fear, honestly, if you look at what's happening with some of the large public institutions like Texas A and M, they just canceled all of their gender studies and women's history programs, effective immediately about 40 days ago.

And so a lot of these large populations, public schools, are really kind of rolling back women's history education, gender studies education.

And my fear is, you know, maybe Women's History Month is going to go away too.

We need women's history.

Without women, we wouldn't have history.

If you go back thousands of years, women played a huge role.

They weren't talked about.

But if you really delve into it, I produced a couple documentaries, one for the Civil War and one for the Revolutionary, and I focused on women.

I really had to do some digging, but it was amazing.

Even in the Revolutionary War, did you know that there were women who impersonated men so that they could fight in the war?

Yeah, I did.

Well, by the way, I only learned that when I took this world.

I did not know that previously.

So I think I'm an anomaly, Shelley.

I don't think everybody knows that.

I was amazed it was more prevalent during the Civil War.

As a matter of fact, I can't remember her name.

There was a woman who was.

She got all kinds of accolades and honors for her bravery in the Civil War, fighting for the north and the Union, and she was living in officers quarters.

And it wasn't until she had to have an appendectomy that it was discovered she was not a man.

I remember this story.

Yes, yes.

Dylan of Arki, something like that.

Like the cut off her hair was the.

Remember, I think.

Yes.

Wasn't she like the very first woman to do something like that?

Yes, that rings a bell too.

Yes.

At least one that was showcased, but yeah, yeah.

Really, Right.

Yeah.

With the woman that was discovered to be a woman after fighting in the Civil War and all of that, it Made national papers.

I mean, national headlines.

People were shocked.

And some people are like, you know, she did a wonderful job.

Yes, yes.

And she had to fight to keep her pension.

Yep.

And then when they gave it to her, it was only half of a man's, I think, or something like that.

Oh, there was something.

It wasn't equitable.

Yeah.

I mean, no surprise.

But, you know, Shelley, you said something about earlier.

You said, you know, we need to.

We need women's history.

And I'm curious if you've ever really kind of thought of, like, well, why?

What's the consequence of not having it?

Because that, for me, is really kind of the crux of.

A lot of us will say, oh, yeah, we know, we know, we know, we need women's history.

It's so important.

But I'm not convinced that most people understand the flip side of that coin, of what's the consequence.

I'm curious to hear if you've thought about that or what your thoughts are.

If we don't feature women, we're losing a huge part of humanity.

In my personal opinion, I think women are the most impactful in so many different ways.

Let's face it, if it wasn't for women, we wouldn't have future generations.

We do so many things and we offer so much, we lose the compassion, the humanity, the innovation.

There's so many aspects.

If we don't have women involved and we don't talk about them, that's not an accurate description of who people are and what the world is all about.

Exactly.

Exactly.

When I came out of the Sorensen Impact Institute, I came out of a, you know, I was doing a lot of impact strategy and impact measurement.

And so who's coming out of a world with lots of frameworks and, you know, theories of change and things like that?

And so I sat down with that question, and where it led me was something that you just touched on, which is that the consequence of not telling women's story, starting at an early age, is you begin to see girls and boys early on, make assumptions.

Well, you know, if they're not in my books, then maybe they weren't there, or maybe they didn't exist, or maybe their roles were secondary and that kernel of a thought evolves as that person grows.

And the way it shows up, if you pull the thread on, you know, the next 10, 15, 20 years, the way it shows up is in this massive underrepresentation gap that we have in this country, which means that we are still 100 years away from having equal representation in politics from the top to state and local governments in access to health care, equitable costs for health care for men and women, equitable access to education and we've done pretty well.

But if you start to see which fields men pursue versus women and who's encouraged and who's paid what coming out of college, it's not equitable yet.

And economic parity, the wage gap, number of women on boards, et cetera.

And we are when, when the World Economic Forum says we're over a hundred years away from equality, gender equality, what they're saying is we will, we will get there when you have more women not only represented but who are in equal positions.

And the consequence of not encouraging women, which I think we do quite a lot of these days, but not changing the paradigm of the little girls and the little boys early on, is this underrepresentation.

And the significance of that, as you were saying, is we will not have our brightest minds, half our population at any table, whatever table you care about, we will not have equal representation of our brightest minds at any table for another hundred years.

That's the consequence I think about.

Stay tuned for more of Women Road warriors coming up.

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Welcome back to Women Road warriors with Shelly Johnson and Kathy Tucaro.

Our guest today is Frederic Irwin, president and CEO of the National Women's History Museum.

That's an organization that for nearly 30 years has been working to ensure the achievements and impact of women are recognized as a central part of our history, not just a footnote.

Through digital storytelling, national exhibitions and community centered programs, the museum is helping bring the stories of remarkable women leaders, innovators, entrepreneurs and activists to to millions of people across the country and the world.

The organization also played an important role in advocating for the creation of the Smithsonian American Women's History Museum, which Congress authorized in 2020.

Frederic Women have always been shaping history in powerful ways.

They haven't always been talked about, but you're bringing their stories to life.

I love that.

Frederic in our last segment you were talking about how there continues to be a gap when women are underrepresented in history books.

That can have dire consequences and it keeps some of our Brightest minds from having a seat at the table.

It changes perceptions of who's important.

When you think about it, I'm going to go out on a limb here.

In terms of population.

Aren't there more women than men worldwide?

Don't be.

Yeah, I think it's 51%.

You know, it's always been a little bit more skewed to met women versus men.

Yeah.

So we're in the majority, but we're marginalized in the corner.

Yeah.

And the thing is, if we don't feature women and their accomplishments, it's going to be the perception that women don't do as well.

Oh, my gosh.

So can I tell you a little story, a sidebar story here?

Sure.

So I have three kids.

My youngest is in middle school.

He's in seventh grade.

And about two weeks ago, I said to him, hey, Julian, what are you studying right now?

And he said, in social studies.

And he said, oh, you know, mom, Revolutionary War.

And I said, okay, well, what about the Revolutionary War?

And he said, mom, you know Paul Revere?

And I was like, well, like, have you ever heard of Sybil Levington?

Because, you know, some would say that she had even a greater impact than Paul Revere in terms of warning people that the British were coming.

And this little stinker turns around and says to me, mom, you're just saying that because of your job.

My book is based on.

My textbook is based on primary sources, and if she's not in there, she probably didn't exist.

Oh, and she did.

Oh, my God.

Did.

But this is the.

This.

So this.

I was like, oh, my gosh, Julian, I am your mom.

And.

And no.

Even.

Even with a mom like me, you are beginning to internalize a message that if she wasn't in the book, she must not have been there or doing anything.

What?

That's the perspective.

Yeah.

She rode twice as far as Paul Revere in worse weather.

Yes, I know.

Yeah.

And maybe we have to ask ourselves, you know, who gets to write the history?

You know, and when I was putting everything together for that documentary for the Revolutionary War, I had to dig to find her.

Yes.

And I had not heard about her until I was doing that.

So.

Yes.

I mean, we're burying valuable pieces of history which can change perspectives 100%.

And, you know, there is some truth to the fact that during that time, the Revolutionary War, early on in the history of this country, it is true, we didn't have as many primary sources on what women were doing as men.

I'll give them that.

You know, there were more primary sources that were being written about what the men were doing, but we do have some.

And that's where the National Women's History Museum is so important, because everything we've done is based on primary sources.

So it is.

It is proven, it is true.

You can use it, you can resource it, you can count on it.

You know it's the truth.

What can people find on your website?

How can they experience all of this?

Well, first of all, if all goes well, I'm hoping that our website gets a full transformation this year.

I am really hoping that we can relaunch it and leverage AI to make it something that's even more than what it is right now.

And I can go into that later if you want.

But right now, to answer your question, well, you can go and search anyone.

You can also search a topic like the suffrage movement or, you know, even a topic word like Nevada.

Is there any.

Is there any historical woman who came from my state?

We have hundreds of biographies of women that you might not otherwise have access to their stories.

We have a number of lesson plans for our educators because one thing that we've learned is that not only do our educators not have women's history in the books that they're asked to use to teach, but they also weren't taught how to teach women's history.

It's very interesting.

So many of them are a little bit, you know, not nervous, but they're just a little bit more uncomfortable about teaching a subject that wasn't taught to them as they were learning to teach whatever age group of social studies in history.

And so we provide a number of lesson plans.

We try to make it as simple as possible.

We work every summer with educators to figure out what they need the most and how we can provide that.

But then I always say we also have story times for what we call brave girls for young girls and boys starting at 5 years old.

And then for folks like us, we host events, we host book Talks, we host 101s, you know, all sorts of things that if you really think I want to get smart about this topic, you'll find something for you.

Wow, you are a treasure.

Your organization is offering so much for people, and people definitely need to go to your website now.

That's womenshistory.org correct?

Yes, womenshistory.org I really appreciate that.

You know, it's.

We are privately funded, which I have to say, between us, is one of the things I'm most grateful for right now because we have stayed true to Our mission over the last 12 plus months.

We are not bound to some of the executive orders and the new definitions, if you will, of history.

We work with educators and historians and curators, and we take their lead on what history should be published.

And that's hard.

Sometimes it can be frightening.

I mean, there's times where we're trolled online for what we do.

And so I appreciate you saying that because as a private institution, you know, every donation counts.

It's.

It's hard.

Can people make contributions directly to your organization?

How would they go about doing that just directly?

On womenshistory.org There's a big donate button.

Yeah.

And we thank everybody, anyone who does.

But can I.

Can I tell you, though, about this idea of how to use AI in women's history?

Yes, I wanted to touch on that and then I wanted to have you maybe feature a couple stories of some interesting women.

But.

Yes, what is AI going to do with your website?

But that could be really phenomenal.

Well, there was this young woman who completely rocked my world the other day.

I met her at the company Canva, and we were.

She's 24, and she was talking about, you know, being an ambitious young woman today.

And she was asking me about what we do and the curriculums we build.

And she turned around, you guys, she said to me, well, how do I get my curriculum?

And I said, what do you mean?

She said, well, I want to be able to go to your site and say, you know, I want to be a data scientist.

I live in Texas.

I want to.

And then I want your site to build me a curriculum.

These are the women maybe you weren't taught about.

These are the women who have written books about women in data science.

These are the podcasters you should be listening to.

These are the resource, you know, a curriculum.

And I was like, oh, my gosh, we can do that with AI.

There's so many things we can do with AI that we haven't been able to do yet.

So that's just one example.

Excellent.

It's going to be interesting how everything changes, right?

I agree.

It's changing quickly.

I think a lot of people are nervous about AI, but it offers a lot of benefits, too.

The virtual experience that people can have online and the amount of impact that you're going to make.

And you're going to change the perspective that my textbook doesn't have this.

No, but we do.

And this is the accurate history and you need to know about it.

Creating awareness, I mean, if people are educated, I love that.

Yes, Yeah, I really, really do.

Shelly, you just said, said that really well.

Well, thank you.

But with what you're doing, Frederic, with your, with your website is like that young girl, well, you know, who can I reference?

And it just puts it together.

It gives connections to something that you would never think about.

Right.

Had I not gone to that career planning workshop, had I not done all those tests.

Right.

That you did before you became a heavy equipment operator, that was a great resource.

I would never in a kazillion years ever even considered being a heavy equipment operator.

And it's been the best career change ever.

So by what you're doing, I think it opens up so many possibilities and you're like, oh, yeah, I love it.

Yeah.

Stay tuned for more of Women Road Warriors.

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Welcome.

Welcome back to Women Road warriors with Shelly Johnson and Kathy Tucaro.

Our guest is Frederic Irwin, president and CEO of the National Women's History Museum.

That's an organization that's been working for almost 30 years to shine a light on the women whose leadership, courage and innovation helped shape the United States.

Women have always played a vital role in history as mothers, entrepreneurs, inventors, advocates, and change makers.

But too often, their stories haven't been fully told.

The National Women's History Museum is helping bring those stories forward through a dynamic digital first approach, national exhibitions, and partnerships that are reaching millions of people every year.

The organization also helped lead the effort that resulted in the Smithsonian American Women's History Museum being authorized by Congress in 2020.

That was a huge milestone in recognizing women's contributions on a national stage.

You know, Frederic, having a repository of women's history all in one place that's accessible to everyone opens up so many new horizons for women and changes perceptions of the contributions we've made.

That's so valuable.

I also feel it's really important to arm people and arm.

I hate that word actually, too.

Or whatever the.

Whatever the synonym would be with the stories.

Because if you are.

I spoke to a young woman today who was working in corporate America and she was up against a lot of misogyny and just stupid comments about what women can do or can't do.

And are you sure this is a.

You know.

But just the ability to rattle off.

Yes.

Have you ever heard of this person and this person and this person?

No.

Well, yeah.

Those are examples of women who did it, too.

It's been done.

It's been proven.

I can do it.

Mm.

The stereotypes that still exist.

I remember in second grade, the teacher asking everybody, what do you want to be when you grow up?

And you heard this traditional stuff.

Firemen, policemen, blah, blah, blah, from the boys.

And then the girls are like, teacher, nurse, blah, blah, blah, mother.

And it came around to me, and I said, I want to be a movie star or president of the United States.

And the.

And.

And the amount of laughing that went on, and primarily from the boys.

And even some of the girls look kind of embarrassed.

Like, why would you say that?

You know?

But I remember one of the boys saying, you can't do that.

I said, why not?

You know, why not?

Why not?

That's crazy.

Shelly is.

You still remember that moment.

Yeah.

You still carry that in some way, shape or form.

Those who laughed, the girls who were embarrassed on your behalf, the boy.

And your response was perfect.

But the emotional response of a second grader is.

It's sensitive, you know?

And that's the thing that breaks my heart, is that in some place like that, even if you overcame it, someone else heard that and maybe thought, oh, they're right.

You know what I mean?

Sure.

Yeah.

Unfortunately, that shapes perspectives and limits.

It's limiting.

And what you're doing is creating potential and grow as humanity by doing that.

So that's why your organization's so important.

We have maybe about eight minutes or so.

Do you have a couple stories or at least one really juicy story you could tell us about some women that people may not know about?

Well, yes.

One of the things I've learned is.

And maybe people know these stories, by the way, I don't want to take anything for granted, but my favorite bit of stories are those kind of juicy nuggets that you hear.

Kind of what I was telling you about Rosa Parks, what makes the story come to life.

And these days, I think women in sports.

It's so relevant.

Everybody, if you say, who's Caitlin Clark?

I bet you most people can tell you who she is.

And so I think it's important to try to attach history to relevant moments.

And so that's kind of how I try to approach it.

When people say, tell me a story, I said, well, you know, Caitlin Clark, but do you understand the women who fought before her in order for her to be where she is today.

And I don't just mean the athletes of, you know, the last 10 years.

I mean the people who made it possible for her to be playing basketball in college, in a public university with federal funding.

And, you know, the woman behind that, of course, is Patsy Mink.

And I'm not sure that everybody knows who Patsy Mink is or what her story is.

And she was a big deal.

You know, she was the first woman of color elected.

She was from Hawaii, first of all, first woman of color Elected the U.S. house of Representative, First Asian American woman to serve in Congress, first Asian American woman to run for president.

But on her.

On her personal side, you know, she was rejected from every single medical school she applied to.

She was smart, very smart.

So then she said, well, I guess I'll go study law.

And she did.

She studied law.

She got into a law school, and then she was discriminated against and couldn't find a job because she had an interracial marriage.

You know, again and again, she kept facing all of these barriers.

And so she is the one who was really kind of the one who designed and wrote the bill for Title ix, which essentially said, look, if the federal government is giving money to any institution, whether it's a school, could be a hospital, it could be a church, it has to be equally accessible, regardless of your race, your gender, et cetera.

And that was the law that she passed.

But the story behind Title 9, that people don't necessarily know, is she spent months, you know, writing the bill, socializing the bill, trying to get it passed.

And it was the day the bill was going to get voted on.

And this is the story I heard, actually, from Speaker Pelosi.

She was telling this story, and apparently she was about.

They were about to vote, and they at the time had like, a big yellow phone on the floor or something like that.

And it rang, and somebody said, you know, Patsy, you have to take this call.

It's an emergency.

She took the call and her daughter in Hawaii.

And by the way, she used to fly from Washington to Hawaii every two weeks while she was serving in the House of Representatives in order to still be present in her daughter's life.

So she picks up the phone.

Your daughter's been in a tragic car accident.

She's in the icu.

You have to come.

She left right away.

She got on a plane, she got to Hawaii, and she spent the next two weeks by her daughter's bedside.

And then through the recovery, and today, her daughter's fine and has become a documentary Writer and had a wonderful career, but she, they lost the vote by one vote because she wasn't there.

And for one of the only times in the, in the history of Congress, the Speaker of the House asked for a revote a few months later when she came back.

And it was that second vote that allowed Title 9 to be passed.

And it, it talks to the humanity of the person behind the bill.

Right.

What kind of person was, was Patsy?

You know, she had so many barriers against her own in her own life, but she was a mother.

She was trying to juggle work and family, too.

And when push came to shove, she was there for her daughter.

And people saw that and they gave her another chance.

I mean, God bless that speaker who gave her that second chance.

Right.

We need the good men, too.

And he understood what she was fighting for and served as an ally.

So that's, that's a story that I really love because it's kind of the.

We always say, like, we stand on the shoulders of the women before us.

That's who Katie Clark stands on.

Wow, that's phenomenal.

And I don't think a lot of people realized that it was such a close vote and that all of that went on.

It was first passed, what, June 23, 1972, correct?

Yeah, yeah.

It hasn't been around all that long.

And without, without Title ix, we wouldn't have the sports that we have for women.

I think a lot of people take it for granted, and you can't take it for granted.

It's still being defended, it's still being questioned.

Yeah, absolutely.

I'll tell you another quick story.

I think we're all approaching the semi quincentennial in July, the commemoration of the 250 years of signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Or we're all thinking about that time period and it's hard sometimes to think of who, who, what were women doing?

And there's a woman named Phyllis Wheatley who many people have heard of, but many people have not.

And what's remarkable about her story is that she was.

She was born in Gambia, Africa, and she was captured by enslavers.

She spent two months on a slave ship.

She arrived to United States and she was immediately sold to a family, the Wheatley family in Boston.

And they named her Phyllis because that was the name of the ship she was on when she came.

And this young girl, she was eight years old when she was taken from her homeland, put on the ship, sold, and arrived in this family.

But she was so smart.

And the Wheatley family Realized that she was actually extremely bright.

And so they asked their daughter or one of their children to start tutoring her.

And within 16 months of her arriving in the United States, she could read the Bible, she could read Greek, she could read Latin, she could read British literature.

Like, she was incredible.

She studied astrology, geography.

And she was a teenager.

I believe she was 13 when she published her first poem that actually brought kind of great notoriety to her name.

But you have to understand, she was still a young teenage black woman enslaved.

And so she actually then traveled to London with the son of the Wheatleys to publish her first collection of poems.

But what blows my mind.

And so she is today one of the.

She.

She is the.

How do I put it?

The first book.

What she published was the first book ever written by enslaved and enslaved black women in America, which.

That in and of itself, is a wonderful feat.

But guess what?

Nobody believed her.

Nobody believed.

And they knew.

They knew that it would not be believed that an enslaved black woman, 13 years old, had published this book.

And so they had to get a number of white men, including John Hancock, to write and sign the foreword saying, yep, this was actually written by Phyllis Wheatley, 13 years old, enslaved black woman from Boston, Massachusetts.

Can you believe that?

She was amazing.

I'd read about her and Benjamin Franklin and President George Washington, read her work and revered it.

She be.

She dedicated her life to abolish slavery.

Edie really was a major, major force for that.

And, yeah, I think a lot of people don't know who she was.

Was.

I mean, that's you.

You begin to understand the stories, the humanity behind, you know, in a book.

So, by the way, we have a campaign called she's not a Footnote.

Because in a textbook, there might be a footnote that says, phyllis Wheatley was the first enslaved black woman in America to publish a book.

But you don't get the full story.

You don't understand, like, eight years old being.

Being taken on a ship for two months.

That's what.

That's what inspires people and gives them hope to think, if she did it, I can, too.

Absolutely.

I love the name of that program.

She's not a Footnote.

How appropriate is that?

We have been a footnote in history for far too long.

We all need to say, I am not a footnote.

We all need to scream that, you know.

Exactly.

You are not.

And neither were they.

Exactly.

So where do people go to see some of these wonderful stories?

Read about it.

It's womenshistory.org they just go to the website and they can find some of these wonderful stories and insightful information that will get them motivated.

Yes.

And on social honestly, we've put a lot of effort this year into bringing on storytellers, starting a TikTok channel, Pinterest channel, really reimagining how to tell these stories in ways that resonate with the audiences today that spend so much time on those channels.

This is wonderful.

I love what your organization's doing.

I love what you're doing, Frederic.

This is.

Well, I love what you guys are doing.

And that's why I said this was My socks were going up and down.

When I knew I was getting to talk to you guys, I'm like, these are my prank people.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes.

Kathy and I are definitely dedicated to empowering women, and this is how you do it.

And if our history's forgotten, we're forgotten.

And forgotten people don't get ahead.

And we have so much to offer.

What your organization is doing is inspiring people, girls, women, and that's what it's all about.

Yeah.

Well, thank you for helping me spread the word.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you, Frederic, for being on our show.

We really appreciate it.

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