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CNN Special Reports
Women Represented: The 100-Year Battle For Equality. Aired 10- 11:30p ET
Aired August 22, 2020 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: She leaves behind a husband and two children, Bonita was 63 years old. May they rest in peace, and may their memories be a blessing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The following is a CNN special report.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What is amazing to me is how much progress women have made despite trying to fit into a system that wasn't ever built to have us.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We've come quite a long way, but we're 208 years away from gender equality in our own country. Wow.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We've got to finish the business that was not finished 100 years ago.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: #MeToo made everybody stopped, pay attention and listen.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Part of the legacy of the Harvey Weinstein story is that we need to see these problems.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's all right at the surface.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's sort of been happening for a long time. And it's not just in Hollywood, it's across many different communities and cultures.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: So you're part of a very small group of women in the history of the United States who have actually run for president?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Carly Fiorina.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We all knew what was going on.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Senator Kamala Harris is Joe Biden's running mate.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The first black woman in the United States Senate.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm going to be very candid. I don't think I've ever said this publicly.
ROXANE GAY, AUTHOR, BAD FEMINIST: A lot of black feminists, myself included are very bitter about this suffrage anniversary.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The history for black women is one of perseverance and diligence but also deep racial oppression.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Typically, we think that history is what happened. History is not what happened. History is who tells the story.
BURNETT: There are more than 20 historical figures in Central Park, but not one of them is a real woman?
COLINE JENKINS, GREAT-GREAT-GRANDDAUGHTER OF SUFFRAGIST ELIZABETH CADY STANTON: No.
BURNETT: So the first statue of women in Central Park is going to go up right here. Tell me about how it started?
JENKINS: Well, I started with an observation that there were no women in Central Park. And so the question is, where are the women? And after 160 years of public space with no real women, we decided this is the 21st century women shall be represented. And we tied it to the hundredth anniversary of the 19th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
BURNETT: How does it feel now when so many statues are coming down? And there's such controversy over statues to actually be putting one up?
JENKINS: Well, actually, they're many going up with women, which is really exciting.
MICHELLE DUSTER, GREAT-GREAT-GRANDDAUGHTER OF CIVIL RIGHTS PIONEER AND SUFFRAGIST IDA B. WELLS: I was contacted by somebody on the committee to tell me that this statue was being built and that my great grandmother, Ida B. Wells was slated to be incorporated into the statue. But what I saw is the design was that Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, were on the statue, and my great grandmother's name along with 21 other women's names were on a scroll. And seven of the names out of the 22 were women of color.
BURNETT: How did you feel when you realize that?
DUSTER: I try to think about how my great grandmother would feel about having her name written on a scroll that's coming down off of a desk that Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony are sitting and I felt that she more than likely would not consider that to be an honor.
BURNETT: In American history as you fight for women's rights, there were many black women who were instrumental on that including Sojourner Truth and Ida B Wells.
JENKINS: Absolutely, absolutely and that's fine. Everybody should know the history. This park had zero women, so in my opinion, if we could have five in here, if we could have 20 in here, yes, yes, yes.
[22:05:01]
BURNETT: Did you see the issue though of race when you looked at it?
JENKINS: I don't always judge everything by race. I think it's actually denigrated if for instance, I've met the great, great, great grandson of Frederick Douglass. He's one of the most beautiful people I know. I mean, forget beauty. You know, it's just the beauty of soul, the beauty of spirit.
DUSTER: I think it's important for black people to see themselves in public spaces, women of color, were involved in the suffrage movement. Definitely black women, there were Hispanic, Asian and Native American women involved in the suffrage movement. So I just think in every way, it's important to tell the whole story of what this country's history is.
JENKINS: They built on 1776. And they made their own Declaration of Independence. And that's when they said all men and women are created equal, and that became the start of the revolution.
SALLY ROESCH WAGNER, AUTHOR, THE WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT": Matilda Joslyn Gage, who is one of the leaders of the National Women's Suffrage Association wrote, we are not asking for a new right. We are asking for the restitution of a right that our foremothers had. She knew, and the suffragists knew that women had voted in the colonies. It actually was a right that was taken away from women after the revolution.
I think typically we think that history is what happened. History is not what happened. History is who tells the story.
Part of I think our white arrogance is the idea that history begins once white people get here. Once white people arrive, the party starts. Well, in reality the party was going well before a white people got here. And in fact, it was a better party, even perhaps than we have today.
Women of the six nations of the Iroquois Confederacy had political voice on this land for I'm standing right now 1000 years ago on the shores of Onondaga Lake.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton saw women who were the agriculturalists, who had control of the economy in ways. She knew that they were the deciding factors in situations of war or peace. And so having a model allowed them really to dream the possibility not just to the quality, not just to vote, but have a transformed world.
It's really not even a process of women in the suffrage movement working for their rights. They were working for legal existence.
Once women married, they were considered dead in the law. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she called for a transformation of society. She called for an end to capital punishment corporal punishment. She believed that a woman should have control of her own body. She was reviled for talking about a woman's right to have a divorce. I want her to be remembered for those things, the progressive Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
But I also want us to remember the racist Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The woman was not perfect. She never acknowledged that she grew up in a slave owning household. And I think she never really took accountability for her racist statements. That's the imperfect Elizabeth Cady Stanton. And the centennial, the hundred year anniversary opens up the possibility of us really finally telling the honest true story.
[22:10:01]
KIMBERLE CRENSHAW, LEGAL SCHOLAR WHO DEVELOPED "CRITICAL RACE THEORY" AND "INTERSECTIONALITY": It's a perfect opportunity for us to talk about how barriers when they fall. Don't fall for everyone. The great failing of the suffrage movement was the platform was a platform of white supremacy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They made the argument give women the right to vote, because white women outnumber negros and immigrants, and women's suffrage is a way to maintain white native born supremacy.
WAGNER: African American women basically didn't get the right to vote really, until 1965. And the Voting Rights Act. Native American women who choose to vote really weren't able to in some cases until the 1950s. And even today, voter suppression continues on, especially for those groups.
GAY: I think that's why a lot of black feminists, myself included are very bitter about this suffrage anniversary, because so much is going on set like yehay, women got to vote, but which women?
BURNETT: When you put that perspective around it, how do you feel about this anniversary of 100 years? I mean, is it something to celebrate?
DUSTER: Yeah, I mean, I do think that it is something to celebrate 100 years of an amendment being made to the Constitution, but I also think it needs to come with an Asterix and a caveat and a footnote.
GAY: I'm glad that women got the vote, obviously, as a woman who votes but as a black woman, who knows how long we had to wait to get the right to vote. I want that acknowledgement to be public and consistent and ongoing. It's uncomfortable, but yes, most of our history is uncomfortable. I think we have to face it and sit in that discomfort to really create progress.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I do believe that we have made incredible strides towards equality in America for women.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can see that by looking at every sector of the workplace, whether it be engineering, or being a doctor or a lawyer or judge.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think there's a lot more to go.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are still hearing the posts when it comes to women in different positions. The first black woman is we're the first Hispanic woman that. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have immense fear of seeing anything other than a white dude in a position of leadership. So yes, progress has been made. There's still a long way to go.
BURNETT: This year is the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage. What does this moment mean to you?
MALINDA GATES, FOUNDER PIVOTAL VENTURES: Well, it marks an incredible passage of time. And in one sense, I feel like OK, we've made progress as women. But in another sense, I feel like we just haven't made nearly enough progress.
GLENNON DOYLE, AUTHOR, UNTAMED: I think it's interesting that this anniversary is coming right at this moment in time where I actually feel hopeful for the first time. I feel like so much of what so many women of color what so many activists have been pointing us towards for so long. It's all, you know, right at the surface. How broken our institutions are and how far we still have to go.
GAY: I think as a culture, we are becoming more literate in feminism and we're seeing more women in particular publicly claimed feminism, but I think it also shows again, just how virulent misogyny is that people consider the word feminist a slur.
DOYLE: I don't think that sexism and racism are just entrenched in our culture. I think they are our culture. It's not just like something we're trying to get rid of. It's not like an annoying fly that we're trying to get rid of it is the thing. It's going to take a lot longer to undo all of it.
GATES: In the United States, the World Economic Forum did a survey and look forward at the data. We're 208 years away from gender equality in our own country, wow.
BURNETT: When you talk about political power, there has been real progress there too, certainly. But you still have women far outnumbered by men in political office?
CECILE RICHARDS, CO-FOUNDER, "SUPERMAJORITY" POLITICAL ACTION GROUP: Oh, I mean, absolutely. I think we are still 83rd in the world for women's representation.
[22:15:01]
BURNETT: 83rd?
RICHARDS: 83rd. And we only have a quarter of the seats in Congress. So there's a long way to go. It's easy to see the things we haven't achieved yet. What is amazing to me is how much progress women have made despite trying to fit into a system that wasn't ever built to have us. Women are now the majority of voters. They are almost half the economy, half the workforce. And I do think it's exciting to think that we're at this cusp now, I think of women of being the most powerful political force in the country.
CARLY FIORINA, FORMER CEO, HEWLETT-PACKARD: Have we made a lot of progress? Yes. But as the first woman to ever lead a fortune 50 company, if I look at corporate America today, for example, there are more men named James, or John, take your pick who are CEOs in the corporate 500 then there are women. Think about that.
JESSICA ALBA, FOUNDER, THE HONEST COMPANY: We went from 20 employees to 100. Early on when I founded the Honest Company, I was saying why can't we get more executives that are women and why can't we get more leaders that are women and I did have some folks that worked with me that said, women, once they have kids don't want to work.
I think when you do have a lot of people who judge women in particular who choose to have any kind of personal life more or less decide to have a family and think that maybe they're less valuable. It was always sort of like you have to hide the fact that you have a family and entertainment, right, because you're not going to be looked at as desirable. It's very similar in business. It actually plays in both places.
BURNETT: How has Hollywood changed?
ALBA: I think that because there is an awareness of the injustices, it now allows space for more opportunity. But opportunity doesn't happen overnight. We have to make sure that we create many, many, many more pathways.
BURNETT: How are you making decisions on where to spend the money?
ALBA: I'm investing in taking down the barriers is not having things like good paid family medical leave, or looking more deeply at harassment barriers that hold women back. But then also key sectors where women we need them to come forward. So those would be like politics, finance, technology, because it's so important, and media telling our stories. If we can tip those four industries and truly get them over the mark of halfway gender neutral, wow, you would change society.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a new day in America.
BURNETT: Do you ever think to yourself, wow, I'm a trailblazer. And it's about wearing pants.
GATES: When I first showed up at the Senate, the guard didn't want let me in the door.
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[22:22:19]
CAROL MOSELEY BRAUN, FORMER U.S. SENATOR: So I came to work one morning, I had on a pantsuit. I thought I was looking cute. I get there and come to find out. It was this great hullabaloo behind the scenes about me having on pants.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let's welcome Senator Carol Moseley Braun.
BRAUN: So that's what started. BURNETT: Do you ever think to yourself, wow, I'm a trailblazer. And it's about wearing pants, right? I mean, you know, you wouldn't have thought that that would have been a place you had to blaze a trail?
BRAUN: Right, right. When I first showed up at the Senate, the guard didn't want me in the door until somebody told him, that's the Senator from Illinois. I guess he had never seen a black woman coming in the door of the Senate as a member.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a new day in America.
BURNETT: It took 25 years from your election as the first black female senator in the United States of America to elect another. That was Kamala Harris.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your next vice president United States.
BURNETT: Now she is the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate. How do you feel about that?
BRAUN: I think it's terrific. I'm delighted. And I couldn't be happier. The fact is having a black woman on the ticket for the presidency for the White House, I think is a major step forward. So, I'm thrilled.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have a chance to choose a better future.
BRAUN: It is very rare of a black women are sea to positions of power. And so for this to happen, we should not take this a moment for granted.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The first black female vice presidential pick and first Asian female vice presidential pick.
BURNETT: What were some of the biggest challenges about being first, being the only one and the first one in the room?
BRAUN: I'll tell you something, Erin. I'm going to be very candid. I don't think I've ever said this publicly. I stepped on the national stage and fell flat on my face.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The first black woman in the United States Senate given up for Carol Moseley Braun.
BRAUN: And I guess I was not prepared for all of the unwritten rules. And I wasn't prepared for the expectations.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi Senator.
BRAUN: Hello. Hi, how are you?
At the time, I was the only person the only black person in the Senate. So that was difficult because it's like, when issues came up, have news race I be expected to be the one to respond to it. It's like wait a minute, I've got to represent Illinois. I've got to represent every black person on the planet. You know, excuse me. So it's like how's this going to work?
[22:25:02]
MICHELE SWERS, AUTHOR, "WOMEN IN THE CLUB: GENDER AND POLICY MAKING IN THE SENATE": 1992 is what people will call the year of the woman. And what people don't realize is prior to 1992, there were only two women serving in the U.S. Senate.
Ultimately, you got four more women elected, and they were all Democrats. Women are currently still only about 23% of Congress. So the number of women in Congress rises very, very slowly over the years. And one reason for that is getting elected to something like Congress is a very difficult proposition.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It makes me very proud.
SWERS: Incumbent members of Congress get reelected at rates of well over 90%. And the other thing that's different about the United States is our elections are really expensive.
RICHARDS: It's cost well over a million dollars these days to get elected to a House seat. It's multi millions of dollars to get elected to the Senate seat. That's been a challenge for all types of new groups trying to break into office including women.
I'd like to introduce my mother, the next governor of taxes.
BURNETT: My mother influenced everything about my life and still does. I think the most important thing that she taught me and I -- and taught other women is don't wait your turn. Don't wait to be asked, start before you're ready.
JAY NEWTON-SMALL, AUTHOR, "BROAD INFLUENCE": Women really worry that they're unprepared to run for office that if they don't have the answer to every single question that a potential voter might ask them, that they're really not qualified. And this is not a worry that really I think any man has ever suffered from.
MARIANNE SCHNALL, AUTHOR, "WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO MAKE A WOMAN PRESIDENT" The other part that I would say, is the role of the media.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think America is ready for a president that is both black and a woman?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: America hasn't been ready for a lot of things.
SCHNALL: The media sends the wrong messages to girls and women.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you think in any way that the Soviets might be tempted to try to take advantage of you simply because you are a woman?
SCHNALL: And we've seen that in the coverage of many female candidates.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She's kind of compelling. She's kind of adorable. It's sort of in the way that a five year old child can be adorable.
DOYLE: When we see a woman who is outspoken when we see a woman who is ambitious, right, when we see a woman who is loud, who is bold, she makes us uncomfortable, because she is stepping outside of the roles that we have assigned for women. And what we do with that discomfort is we don't trust her.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hillary for President.
DOYLE: So it's absolutely no surprise that America is so far behind in embracing women leaders.
BURNETT: When you think about all the countries in the world that have had women leaders, and yet this country has not had a female president. Why do you think that is?
GATES: Well, I think we have an unusual view of women in the United States. And on the one hand, we don't want them to be too ambitious. And yet they have to show their power but also be very nice. That is a tremendously difficult balance to hold up. I think we haven't updated our norms and our thinking about what female leadership can and should look like. And there's not one type of female leadership.
CRENSHAW: Some of the people I admire are Chancellor Merkel in Germany, and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand. Those women have two very different styles. But both of them are tremendously great leaders.
BRAUN: I think it's meaningful that many of our allies and other countries have managed to break that barrier. We're supposedly the leaders of the free world but maybe not so free when it comes to gender.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The men have ruined our country is in mess. It's time to give a woman a hand, a chance.
BURNETT: You've run for president of the United States. What sticks with you now about that experience?
FIORINA: I can remember people bringing their daughters to my speeches.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We will take the men only sign off the White House door. And one guy said I just wanted my daughter to see that a woman could run for president.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Former Hewlett-Packard CEO, Carly Fiorina.
BURNETT: So you're part of a very small group of women in the history of the United States who have actually run for president. There was the moment during the campaign that well, you'll never forget it. I'll never forget it. When then candidate Trump referred to you, to a reporter, and he said, look at that face. Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that face as our next president? When you first saw that he said that about you, what went through your head? FIORINA: My first reaction was to laugh, honestly. And the reason I laughed is because I have been dealing with this all my life, been there, done that, men have complimented my appearance as a way to diminish me and men have degraded my appearance as a way to diminish me. So it was just one more time.
[22:30:14]
I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said.
(APPLAUSE)
DONALD TRUMP, (R) UNITED STATES PRESIDENT: I think she's got a beautiful face and I think she's a beautiful woman.
FIORINA: Many people asked me afterwards why I didn't turn to him and smile and acknowledge that compliment. And I said, because it was as inappropriate for him to compliment my parents as it was for him to denigrate my appearance. That's why.
HILLARY CLINTON (D), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And I'm going to fix it because I agree with you.
TRUMP: She walks in from, you know, and once you walked in front of me, believe me, I wasn't impressed.
Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear --
FIORINA: That last election was a wake up call, was discouraging for a lot of women.
DOYLE: What we have to remember is that misogyny is not gendered. Misogyny is just as deeply ingrained inside of women and it is in men.
TRUMP: Honestly, she shouldn't be locked up.
DOYLE: The fact that deep racism and misogyny is not a deal breaker in a candidate is stunning.
TRUMP: Such a nasty woman.
CLINTON: (Inaudible) social security trust fund by making sure --
GAY: I think it demonstrated that though we've made progress in terms of gender relations and gender equity we have a long way to go.
It was a way of saying we would rather have anyone, including a moron who wants to grab women by the pussy as president rather than elect someone capable who is a woman. And that's a really painful truth to reckon with.
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[22:36:01] FIORINA: When I became a manager for the first time, and I had subordinates, wow, that was a big deal to me. And my boss introduced me to my new subordinates. And the way he introduced me was to say, this is Carly, your new boss. She's our token bimbo.
BURNETT: I'm sure that was just one of so many attempts to humiliate or demean or minimize you that you had to fight.
FIORINA: So the short answer is yes, there were the very first time I was supposed to meet our client, my colleague said to me, you can't come meet the client because we're going to a place called the boardroom. It turns out the boardroom was a strip club. And so I ended up going, my male colleagues kept trying to get the young women to come over and dance for them. And three young women approached our table and all three of them said, not until the lady leaves. And I experienced this moment of connection and empathy. It was women that I didn't think I had anything in common with and yet we all knew what was going on. And honestly, that was a moment of grace for me.
BURNETT: You were the first female CEO of a Fortune 50 company, right, Hewlett-Packard. That was in the late 1990s. So now here we are about 20 years later, just over 37 of the Fortune 500 are women only 37?
DOYLE: I mean, 37 is shocking.
ALBA: So operation is here, social Marketing is there, digital marketing is there.
I guess I didn't really understand the gravity of how your sex and gender and gender biases really play into business until I was trying to raise money for the Honest Company and you know, walking into many rooms, venture capital rooms, and literally I think I can count, say one woman I ever met with, out of, you know, probably seven VC firms that we sat down with. And even today, when you look at the amount of investments that go to men versus women, it's quite the gap.
NEWTON-SMALL: Being heard is really only possible when you achieve a critical mass. Critical Mass is actually based in science. And it's the idea that it's the point of which you can no longer stop a chain reaction.
In fact, having one woman is considered a token. Having two women is actually worse for those women because they're considered either collaborators or arch enemies. But it is until you get to three out of 10, that sort of magical tipping point where it just becomes normal.
JOCELYN FRYE, SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS: As a woman and a black woman, you can't live your life in America for long without recognizing the reality and the persistence of discrimination and pay disparities in terms of access to opportunity.
Women earn 82 cents for every dollar earned by men. And when you break it down by race and ethnicity, you see that those gaps are even larger for women of color. Women of Color, you know, particularly black women earn 62 cents for every dollar earned by a white male. There are many different factors that drive that disparity. There are things like differences in education or how long a person has worked for a particular employer. That a reasonable way explanations for why a disparity might exist. But there's a portion of that gap in some estimates 38 to 40% of it. That is sort of unexplained by those factors. And it's that piece that people think is related to discrimination.
[22:40:18]
BURNETT: Why is this so difficult to fix when it is a very easy to measure problem?
GATES: Well, I think you have people who don't necessarily want to fix it. So what I do know is when you provide transparency on pay, and you actually show the data, it forces a company to change. And so we have seen a few CEOs say we're looking at our data, and then oh, my gosh, six months later, we have to come back and raise more women managers and raise pay more.
BURNETT: So you said recently, Cecile, that women are living with, in your words, we're an antiquated economic system. What exactly did you mean by that?
RICHARDS: We don't have any of the protections that we need, equal pay, access to affordable childcare, all those things, but women have just continued to forge forward.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Somehow I feel like this involves me.
ALBA: On the set of L.A.'s Finest I was -- I joined sort of took a 10 year kind of break as an actress, about 10 years.
You know, you don't see women starting an action. It's primarily men. And it's just fun, but I was breastfeeding my son and I had had him like two and a half months before. I have a great support system. And I went back to work, but I did say to everyone, I was like, look, I'm going to be taking breaks to nurse my son, or to pump.
BURNETT: You've said businesses today treat pregnancy as a nuisance. How could that change?
RICHARDS: We still don't have policies that require across the board regardless of your employer. Prenatal care paid family leave and paid care after you give birth. I mean, I hear heartbreaking stories. I'm sure you do, too, about women who have literally had to go back to work two weeks after giving birth.
BURNETT: I wonder why is something that is so obvious to any woman with children and hopefully any man who has children, the lack of child care in the professional environment? Why is that so difficult to achieve?
GATES: Part of it has to do with women's under representation in Congress. If we had more women with seats in Congress, this would have been passed a very long time ago. Women know the struggle of working and raising a family and it's very real. Most married couples now where they have a child 64% of them are both working. So we have to update this old mentality we have of the man goes off to the work and the woman stays home and cares for the children. That's just not the reality anymore.
DOYLE: Women embracing their anger is key. Angry people are the only people who ever get anything done.
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[22:46:51]
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As women are reports of harassment and abuse have been dismissed and ignored for so long.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It used to be reduced or limited because I'm a woman.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We need a resurgence of the women's movement.
MEGAN TWOHEY, JOURNALIST & CO-AUTHOR, "SHE SAID": When I joined the New York Times in 2016, I came in as an investigative reporter on the then team that was covering the 2016 presidential race. Some of the first and biggest stories were about Trump's treatment of women.
TRUMP: I see her barking like a dog. She's unattractive in every sense of the word. I made her like a bitch.
TWOHEY: What we realized over the course of many months of reporting were that there were numerous women who had allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assaults against the president.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: His hand started going towards my knee and up my skirt.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He then grabbed my shoulder and began kiss me again, very aggressive.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He kissed me repeatedly on my lip.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was against my will 100%.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh yeah, that's Donald Trump. He just stuck his hand up my skirt.
TWOHEY: I will confess that I was not quite sure where the country stood on the issues of sexual harassment and sexual assault heading into 2017. On the other hand, I also saw the thousands and thousands of women who showed up in Washington.
DOYLE: I was at the march with every friend that I have with my wife, with my mom. I remember feeling just so overwhelmed with hope and awe and love and I remember feeling so not alone.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is really been a day for the history books.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The pictures tell the story and the stories about women standing together trying to make their voices heard.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A powerful eclectic group bringing their message of equal rights for all Americans to the steps of the White House.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Accusations of sexual harassment against powerful movie producer Harvey Weinstein rocking --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Numerous allegations of sexual harassment.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stunning, New York Times report detailing multiple on the record accusations.
TWOHEY: And those first weeks and months of reporting Jodi and I were starting to hear more and more stories, like eerily similar stories of women primarily actresses who had had very troubling and disturbing encounters with Weinstein.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He opened the door to the room.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's fully naked. But naked, asking me to give him a naked massage in the bed. He was blocking the only exit out.
[22:50:01]
TWOHEY: Harvey Weinstein used a variety of tactics to try to stop our investigation. He used these high-priced you know, former Israeli intelligence agents, who were promised as hundreds of thousands of dollars to if they could stop our reporting.
JODI KANTOR, JOURNALIST & CO-AUTHOR, "SHE SAID": As we sit here with Harvey Weinstein in prison, over 100 women have come forward with allegations against Weinstein.
It is an incredibly shocking number and it speaks to the kind of moral horror of the Weinstein story. How could this guy have racked up 40 years of allegations and all of this for me in silent?
BURNETT: Can you help us understand the culture, you know, something that would make Harvey Weinstein and what he did not just possible but, you know, generally obviously widely known and tolerated.
ALBA: I think that the culture and community that is created in any environment, whether it's Hollywood or in corporate America or in any of these environments where you have a group of people that are at the top that just don't have to live by the rules but can implement rules on others.
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KANTOR: The question we're really asking is, what drives social change? And our answer to that is that facts do clearly documented evidence, people stories, women's stories, you can't solve a problem you don't see. And part of the legacy of the Harvey Weinstein story is that we need to see these problems much more clearly.
BURNETT: If you do have any story from your career, anything that you went through of sexual harassment that you had to endure and get through, and that was really hard for you. Is there any sort of a story that you might be able to share with some of the young women especially watching?
ALBA: I was told that after I had my kid I was not an executive who's running a studio. President in studio said that I wasn't. He's much cresar words. But basically, I wasn't desirable anymore. Because I was a mom now and moms aren't that. And I just can't believe that this person would say this.
I'm going to go have dinner with this guy and just like, let's just really talk about what is he actually talking about? And I went right in. And I'm like, what do you mean? Like, what are you talking about? Like, what is this? And it basically came down to him and his personal desire and his opinion of who I chose to have a child with and marry. And I think that's sort of what got me to stop caring so much about my career in Hollywood as it had been, and these assholes that are running this business, I don't need them. Then I spent about three and a half years dreaming up the Honest Company, and I really found my purpose in building this company.
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[22:57:47]
WAGNER: I really do want to do this. Just give me a minute.
I was sexually violated by my father as a child. This made it very difficult for me to trust. It took me years to recognize and acknowledge that fact and that it had affected my whole life.
BURNETT: Do you have anything that ever happened in your own career, in your own life, whether it was abuse or sexual violence or professional sexual abuse that happened to you that has influenced who you are?
RICHARDS: Absolutely.
BRAUN: I actually do. I mean, I don't know any women who don't. In my own case, and my father was an abuser with my mother.
FIORINA: I have been assaulted in my parents' home by one of their dear friends.
BURNETT: You have written very openly in your book about something that I can only imagine how hard it was to even acknowledge which is an abusive relationship that you had at one point in your life?
GATES: Yes, it was very hard to share that story.
TARANA BURKE, FOUNDED THE ME TOO MOVEMENT IN 2006: Sexual violence is a public health crisis. We are still living in a country where one in five women will experience sexual violence in their lifetime.
We are still living in a country where 60% of black girls will experience some kind of coercive sexual violence experienced by the time they're 18. We are still living in the country with native women, indigenous women have the highest rate of sexual violence in America.
GAY: Women still fight to be believed. Women still fight to seek justice.
RIA TOBACCO MAR, DIRECTOR, ACLU WOMEN'S RIGHT PROJECT: For many years until reforms in the 1970s reports of rape but not reports of other crimes were subjected to different and more stringent standards of proof.
[23:00:04]
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is a big deal and it's not in your head and that you're not crazy.
MAR: We saw in our nation's criminal laws codification of the skepticism of women's stories, the notion that false reports are common and that women are not to be believed.
In reality, we know the problem is actually too little reporting. Studies estimate that only between five percent and 25 percent of rapes are ever reported.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Actress Alyssa Milano sparked a powerful rallying cry heard around the world.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two words have now become a rallying cry on social media.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The hashtag Me Too give a voice to victims after --
TARANA BURKE, FOUNDER ME TOO MOVEMENT: Me Too was inspired by the black girls in Selma, Alabama, where I lived and worked and it was inspired by my life by being a black girl survivor.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Women have been responding in droves.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're seeing this all over the country in various professions.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Exposing the disturbing scope and sheer magnitude of sexual assault.
MAR: When Me Too went viral, you had 12 million people in one day, who came forward to say this thing has affected my life. That number ballooned exponentially over the next year, and it's continuing to grow.
JESSICA ALBA, ACTRESS AND FOUNDER, THE HONEST COMPANY: It's awful, but it's sort of been happening for a long time. And it's not just in Hollywood, it's across many different sort of communities and cultures.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Under the Me Too hashtag she --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whether it's the political world or the fashion industry or the --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: From Hollywood to the world of media to Capitol Hill and beyond.
BURKE: Hashtag Me Too made everybody stop, pay attention and listen. The Me Too Movement is about moving forward to do the work, to interrupt an end sexual violence.
MAR: Since the Me Too Movement erupted, we've seen Congress introduced legislation after legislation designed to address these problems.
We have the solutions available. The only problem is, are we brave enough to take them or are we afraid of too much equality.
BURKE: You plant the seeds and they grow and they grow. And with the Me Too Movement, the seeds grown to a point where what was acceptable in 1960 is not acceptable today.
ALBA: If only we can come together and understand the power that we have, if we Understand that if we just show up and vote for during all of the elections, then we can decide how we want to operate in the world, then we can decide who we want to put in positions, to fight for our rights, and to really, you know, face all of those injustices that are put upon us.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR, ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT: How are the barriers different for women of color?
CAROL MOSELEY-BRAUM, FIRST BLACK WOMAN ELECTED TO U.S. SENATE: Women of Color, have a double whammy. You have to deal with racism and sexism.
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[23:07:31]
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A race does affect my experience as a woman in America.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As a woman, I see progress. But as a black woman, I don't see progress.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What does it mean being dark have to do with anything?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everything.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I knew that gender equality and my race were two things that were being discriminated against constantly. And I really want that to be changed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am both black and a woman.
BURKE: And as a black woman, I find that there are days when I'm just not sure what is more of a pain in the ass.
BURNETT: How are the barriers different for women of color?
MOSELEY-BRAUM: Women of color have a double whammy. You have to deal with racism and sexism.
KIMBERLE CRENSHAW, LEGAL SCHOLAR WHO DEVELOPED "CRITICAL RACE THEORY" AND "INTERSECTIONALITY": I've been activists to demand greater opportunities for people of color greater opportunities for women, whether it was about racial equity or gender equity. There was a way in which the conventional thinking about it was not capable of including women who were people of color, and people of color who were women.
So, I went to grad school and came across a case that seemed to really explain what the problem was, and not in a good way.
The case was the graph and reverses General Motors. It was a black woman who represented several other black women saying that they were being discriminated against as black women. The court basically said they couldn't make the claim because the employer did hire black people. And they couldn't make the claim because the employer hired women. Now, of course, all the black people that they hired and promoted were generally men and the women that they hired were generally white. And so intersectionality was basically a metaphor for courts who consistently couldn't see that the way black women experienced race discrimination was sometimes different from the ways that black men experienced it and Lee couldn't see that the way black women experienced race discrimination was sometimes different from the ways that black men experienced it. And gender discrimination was sometimes different from the way white women experienced it.
[23:10:15]
JOCELYN FRYE, FMR. OBAMA DEPUTY ASST. TO THE PRESIDENT: The history for black women in the workforce is one of perseverance and diligence, but also deep racial oppression rooted in our history of slavery when black women were working, but not for pay.
And that history of being underpaid and undervalued and still being treated as if their own personal needs were irrelevant. That history continues to this day.
If you look at the data over a 40-year career, black women are estimated to lose just under a million dollars.
BURKE: I've certainly experienced pay inequity throughout my career. For example, I got an advance of $15,000 for that feminist, which is just a joke. To know that no matter how hard you work, you're still going to be paid pennies on the dollar for what your white counterparts are making is incredibly frustrating and dispiriting.
ROXANE GAY, NY TIMES CONTRIBUTING OP-ED WRITER: You know, women are increasingly breadwinners. But when you look at women of color, you find that those numbers are higher. Black women, more than 60 percent of them almost two thirds are either the sole or primary breadwinner for their families, compared to around a quarter of white women. FRYE: Women are incredible leaders.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're breaking barriers and succeeding and careers that our mothers and grandmothers never could have imagined.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And if you look at women of color across this country, they are fighting and leading in every corner of our country every day.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There is no story of suffrage. There is no story of women's lives without the story of black women.
CRENSHAW: When I think about Ida B. Wells, I think of someone who was fiercely courageous, someone who would go to places that almost no one would go male or female to try to get the real story about lynching.
MICHELLE DUSTER, GREAT-GRANDOAUGHTER OF RENOWNED JOURNALIST IDA B. WELLS: I started to become more curious about how my great grandmother navigated her world.
BURNETT: How did she do it? She investigated some of the most horrific crimes in American history.
DUSTER: She was very strongly influenced by her father in particular. She grew up watching her father, make his voice heard. And so I think she believed that her voice was also important.
CRENSHAW: She had to go up against white feminists who many times did not stand with black women and black people against lynching.
SALLY ROESCH WAGNER, AUTHOR, "THE WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT": And she joins a whole litany, a whole group of African American women that we need to remember.
Mary Ann Shadd Cary, who was the first African American woman to publish a newspaper in North America, the suffrages.
CRENSHAW: Reesie Taylor, a black woman who was raped and none of her assailants were ever brought to justice.
BURKE: In the civil rights movement, we don't hear about Ala Beka (ph) as much as we hear about Martin Luther King, or Diane Nash, or Amelia Boynton and or Victoria Grey. When we do hear about the women, we hear about them as helpers, even Coretta Scott King.
Over and over and over again, we get a race all the way up to Black Lives Matter. We have a movement that is born from the brains and ingenuity of three black women. And then we start hearing about men.
CRENSHAW: Say her name basically is a way of completing our understanding of what anti-black police violence looks like.
Many of us were caught up in the struggles against police misconduct, but hadn't been lifting up the names of black women who were killed by the police. It's the case of Tanisha Anderson. We can't forget Sandra Bland. And of course it's Breonna Taylor, who's killed in her own bed in her sleep on a no not warn (ph).
BURKE: And, you know Brionna Taylor's murderers are still walking around.
[23:15:02]
Black women have higher rates of excessive force at the hands of the police. Black women die at higher rates than other non-black women at the hands of the police. But black women are also sexually harassed by the police and raped by the police.
MAR: We find that when black women report having been sexually assaulted or harassed, they are less likely to be believed.
BURKE: And so we need theories like intersectionality to talk about the fact that I -- when I come to the table, I bring all of me to the table.
That's what it means to tell a fuller story that allows us to see both the way gender and race has played a role in creating the specific kinds of experiences of African American women in American society.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good morning. It's Thursday, last day of April. I'm in the 6:30 a.m. on my way down to the Urgent Care Center.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm doing a night shift tonight.
How are you guys doing?
And I will be responsible for critical care consults on COVID patients.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm about to go in. First thing I have to do is I have to change my clothes and efforts to protect my family.
[23:20:00]
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I Guess when I left my house today I sort of had mixed feelings. On one hand I left my kids at home so that I could I guess when I left my house today, I sort of had mixed feelings. On one hand, I left my kids at home so that I could go and fight this war along with my colleagues.
MELANIE MALLOY, DOCTOR: My name is Dr. Melanie Malloy (ph). I had a little bit of a stressful morning with my children, trying to get them set up for homeschool.
I am a widow, so I don't have a partner to help me with them.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One of the things that COVID has done is expose the gaps in our system. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For how many days over? Well, my hospital days over.
MELINDA GATES, AUTHOR, "THE MOMENT OF LIFT": I think that we need to completely revolutionize our caregiving system. How are we going to support you know women who are now juggling full time role, you know, roles and trying to work from home or have to go back to the workplace if we don't have you know, childcare in place.
MARIANNE SCHNALL, AUTHOR, "WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO MAKE A WOMAN PRESIDENT": If the students do come back into the building. It's really like a 90 percent chance right now that I'm probably going to end up resigning to make sure that my personal babies are safe.
MAR: Women are being squeezed at every end by this pandemic. Women were among the first workers to be furloughed and laid off. And at the same time, women are also more likely to be working in jobs considered essential.
CRENSHAW: COVID is a once in a generation catastrophe, for the world for our country, for vulnerable people, and for black women. Because the society is not one in which everybody has an equal chance to actually work from home.
Less than 20 percent of black workers were able to work from home and it's likely that that percentage is even higher for black women, as it is for other women of color. These are not simply natural features of our society. These are not simply the product of choices that people Made they are the product of structures, the intersectional vulnerabilities that COVID lays bare.
BURNETT: How will that day feel to you?
COLINE JENKINS, VP, PONUMENT WOMEN: It's a realization that women are a part of our country. We want representation. I don't think of it as just a moment. What I do is I think of it is something enduring.
BURNETT: What do you think the best way would be to honor to remember to teach people about your great grandmother?
DUSTER: Actually, I've been working for the past 12 years on a committee here in Chicago to have a monument created in honor of my great grandmother. And as I started doing research, about monuments, that's when I learned so much information about the great disparity that there is when it comes to women's representation and public spaces in every way. But then when it comes to black women specifically, there's just so much work to be done.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Dr. King had a dream, we held the candle and that candle does not extinguish.
The flame of justice does not extinguish.
CARLY FIORINA, FIRST WOMAN TO HEAD A FORTUNE 50 COMPANY: I think we are at a moment in our nation's history where we actually have to make progress on festering issues. Let us talk about the issue of systemic racism.
CRENSHAW: We have to have a robust commitment to racial equality. We have to have a robust commitment to gender equality and other forms of equality as well. And if one part of that commitment is moving forward, and the other parts are moving behind, then we don't have a fundamental platform for intersectional justice.
GAY: I think that one of the toughest things about the women's movements in the past have been that they were often elite women's movements and they didn't bring everyone along. And that to me, is when we're really going to have equality is when everyone's at the table.
CECILE RICHARDS, CO-FOUNDER, "SUPERMAJORITY POLITICAL ELECTION GROUP": We cannot leave the gay community and the queer community and the trans community behind because it's inconvenient. Civil rights are civil rights and everyone should have them.
GLENNON DOYLE, ACTIVIST, FOUNDER OF "TOGETHER RISING": What I feel about this new wave of feminism is that gender is just like one little part of it. What I feel and see now is that the attitude, the banner is all who are born are equal, not just to our women, but who are non- binary, but who are trans, but who are disabled, but who are Latinx, but who are black, but who are indigenous.
WAGNER: We're in the process of a revolution right now. And it is women's rights, but it's also the change in the whole social order and economic order. And we are going to decide which direction we're going.
CRENSHAW: If we're able to look at this moment where we're celebrating the hundredth anniversary, of one piece of the denial of the right to vote having fallen. If we can use this moment to say we've got to finish the business that was not finished 100 years ago.
The best days for this society are ahead of us, but they're only ahead of us If we can make good on the promise of what the 19th amendment was about, what the 14th and the 15th amendment were all about, that's got to be what we are about now.
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