America Ferrera and the First CEO of Time’s Up

all walks of life came forward to tell their stories. Hollywood, Katie seemed to be ground zero for this movement, and within a few months, women there decided to form a coalition to combat sexual harassment and assault in the workplace. They called it Times Up, and the idea was to harness their power to stop sexual misconduct not just in

the entertainment industry, but across a multitude of industries. That's right, and Times Up made a big splash, as you remember at this year's Golden Globes, when dozens of celebrities showed up to the awards wearing black and Times up pen But they also brought with them women who don't usually show up on the red carpet, those who represent domestic workers or have been toiling on factory floors across the country, Women who have had no voice about the abuse they faced.

So we wanted to know where are we one year later? And at this moment, there's a new leader in the movement who was just announced as the first CEO of

Times UP. Her name is Lisa Borders. Lisa is joining that organization after three years as president of the Women's National Basketball Association, and I had a chance to talk with Lisa in front of a live audience at the Vanity Fair New Establishments Summit last week, and joining Katie and Lisa for that conversation was an actor who has been instrumental in Times Up since the very beginning, America

Ferrera and Brian. Because of my daughters Ellen and Carey, I will always think of America as Kerman from Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. But since then she's been very busy. She's formed her own production company, she started an Ugly Betty and now superstore. In her spare time, she put together a new book called American Like Me, reflections on life between cultures. But what's taken a big chunk of

her time is her political activism. She spoke at the Democratic Convention and of course as an outspoken critic of the Trump administration. And by the way, I hope he doesn't decide to attack her looks on Twitter or something similarly mature like that. Yes, here's hoping, But Brian, no, Lisa has a very interesting backstory. You'll find what she did prior to coming to the w n B A

I think fascinating. Meanwhile, I talked to both of them about the work they've done so far and what they planned to do in the future, and America's passion for everything political made me ask her if she'd ever consider running for office. After all, Brian, her name is Taylor, made for a campaign slogan right America for America lutely. But I began by asking these two powerhouses to describe

what Time's Up actually is. Time's Up started about a year ago, at the critical moment where um stories were breaking and women were coming forward and sharing their stories, and this incredible thing started happening in our industry, which was that women started gathering in rooms in these unprecedented ways, women across disciplines and across studios and across networks and across agencies showing up and saying what are we going

to do? Because we can't let this moment go by and not harness our anger, our fear, our pain that we have all been living with silently and and and isolated from one another. And it's a sisterhood, is what it is. And we didn't know what we were building. All we knew was that we we needed to use our voices, and use our access and use our platform to stand up and say that we no longer could sit silently and accept the imbalance of power that exists in our industry and that we know exists across all

other industries. So times Up is that it's a sisterhood, and also it's a brotherhood for any man who stands with us and believes in women having the right to be safe and dignified in their workplaces. UM, that's what Time's Up is, And it's a movement that has expanded outside of our entertainment industry. UM, women in in the tech industry, in the advertising industry, in the venture capital industry, in the health care industry have all started organizing around

times Up in their own organizations. So it's bigger than any of us could have ever imagined and harder to explain than in one short center. And we'll talk more in a minute, America about some of the other things that you all have been able to accomplish. But Lisa, I wanted to ask you, what may do you decide you were going to take the helm of Times up? Did you have an aha moment that made you think this feels right. I have to be more involved in

this movement. Absolutely So. I was watching the Golden Globes and I heard Oprah Winfrey the Oracle say, a new day is on the horizon. Very good, that residination. But I already had the privilege of leading the W. N b A had twelve teams, a hundred forty four elite athletes who are some of the best female athletes athletes, not just female athletes in the world. So I had

the privilege of steward ng A League of Women. So this is a continuation of work not only from the W but work that I've been doing for four decades. It seems very natural. I had the privilege of being at the W, which was sports, one sector, one industry. Times has the ability to impact multiple or all industry, women of all kinds across the globe. So it's not only in the US or North America. This is a global movement here and now, and I know that in

many ways activism really runs in your family. Tell us about that, Lisa, and how that inspires you. Sure. So, my home city is Atlanta. Katie knows that I love my city. It's the cradle of the civil rights movement, and I'm a civil rights baby. We all have benefited from the legislation that was passed in the nineteen sixties. But I personally helped integrate independent schools in my home city,

just like many other African Americans across the country. But my grandfather, who was a minister in Atlanta, really led many of the marches in the city during the sixties. The clan burned across on his yard in the late nineteen fifties. I was called racial slurs from seventh grade to twelfth grade every single day. So I have real personal experience with being treated improperly or poorly or mistreated, or having folks have perceptions of me that weren't true,

that we're in their head. So the notion of social justice or of treating people fairly or ensuring that they are safe, that they have their dignity intact every day when they come to work and when they live their lives. More importantly, comes very naturally to me because I grew up in this environment in Atlanta, which was segregated growing up, but which integrated during my lifetime, and I had the

experiences all the way through. Uh. Dr King's church is one block from my home church, and he would come and listen to my grandfather preach, and frankly, he was just Marty's dad or Yoki's dad. He wasn't Doctor King.

And I think I was forty Katie before I really understood that I had lived through history, including his assassination and witnessing his funeral, and watching my friend Bernice, the youngest of the King children, walking down the street, a very quiet street, holding her mother's hand, with her father's casket being pulled, an American flag draped, and two mules

pulling that wagon. So moving to hear you talk about that, Lisa. Honestly, you know, America talked about sort of all these different verticals, if you will, all these different industries getting together. By the way, if you need somebody in media, I'm your girl. But but but what about some of the other things that are happening behind the scenes, Because I think that a lot of people recognize the sort of public, forward facing actions that you all have taken at award shows

or things like that. But a lot of hard work is going on behind the scenes that I feel like people don't know about. Yeah, yeah, And you know, when when we're us figuring it out, it's hard to explain it and present it when you know this is unprecedented. The women in our industry have never organized in this way before, and certainly not women in my position who are actresses. And we've been taught to be the face of of issues or the face of movements, or the

face of some charity. You know, you would all be so surprised to learn about the names and the faces that you know, you expect to see on the Golden Globe carpets, But you don't expect them to be meeting four times a week after a long day of work to roll up their sleeves and say, Okay, what's the language of the tweet that's really going to cut through this moment? And how are we you know, how are we working with our unions to get them to adapt codes of conduct? How do we um figure out how

to implement inclusion writers in our contracts? And and one of the things that is really in the DNA of times up from the very beginning is this notion that it is not just about us as women in entertainment. It is about women all across the country and the world, and it's and it's about the dignity of every person being able to show up and be safe in work.

And and the way that manifested for us from the very beginning was that the president of the National Women's farm Workers Alliance wrote a letter to the women in Hollywood after the Weinstein investigation started breaking. She wrote a letter on behalf of seven hundred thousand farm workers. These are women in the field who are the most invisible and marginalized and sidelined among us, to say to the women in Hollywood, we see you, we know your pain,

and we stand with you as your sisters. And this lit a fire under us and and called us to action to not just do what was right for us and the women in our industry, but to say, we have an access that so many women will never have, but we have got to include them and every single thing that we do. And one of the first steps that we took before we were anything was establishing the Legal Defense Fund with the National Women's Law Center and raising twenty two million dollars to help women and men

across all industries fight their cases of sexual harassment. And so that's not sexy golden globes, you know Oprah empowering speeches on television, But that is the on the ground, behind the scenes work that is getting done every day by by women who have never come to this work before, but are rolling up our sleeves and figuring it out.

And we're only a year in and we get to say that we have this amazing woman who is stepping in to lead us, and seeing as we've accomplished so much in just one year, it thrills me to a man gin where we're going to be in a year with the leadership of Lisa. Well, that's an excellent segue to my next question, America, So thank you. I know you haven't officially started yet, Lisa, but when you look at this organization and you see what has been built in this period of time, how do you hope to

bring it to the next level? I mean, what are sort of some of the gaps that need to be filled structurally and and just tell us sort of what you're envisioning, knowing that you're it's very early. Yes, it is very early. I start officially on November one, but clearly I have started. We are all in this together, so I think before you can address any problem, America said it so beautifully. We have acknowledged that there is

a problem, and it's not just an entertainment. It's across sectors, it's across industries, it's across all geographies, all socio economic groups. So awareness of the problem has been built in a amazing way, and I think Hollywood has done a terrific job of that. So one of the things we must pivot to, though, is to demonstrate empirically that this problem exists beyond Hollywood, because a lot of folks still think it's only in one place. So that's number one. We

have to then address the problem. We've decided we can't boil the ocean. We're gonna focus in three areas, culture, companies, and laws. What happens in culture gets normalized in our everyday lives. So we're not just trying to mitigate bad behavior, we're trying to eliminate bad behavior. So how do we address that from a cultural perspective? We want women and enlightened men, or anyone who is interested in the same thing philosophically that we are interested in, and this is

about valuing women, valuing their voice. Oftentimes we hear comments about our actress sisters, well they should just act. Well, now that's what they do. That's not who they are. What America is talking about is what they do and who they are. The same thing was said about our athletes in basketball, they should just dribble and shut up. I think not. I think not. In fact, you made

a pretty pretty vocal statement about that. Absolutely. So addressing the issues, whether it's through the courts, which is a page right out of the civil rights playbook, right passing laws, let's go back to and fifteen Amendment, looking for people's rights to be codified. That's one thing you can do. But after the laws are passed, you must remain attentive and open the hearts and minds of people that that law governs, or over a time it will be eroded.

So fast forward fifty years from the civil rights movement. People are now trying to deconstruct those laws and take the teeth out of them, one tooth at a time. So we made a ton of progress in civil rights for people of col are primarily African Americans, we still don't have an equal rights Amendment for women. We don't. We still have situations where we have sexual hassault and

harassment at work and other places. We should not tolerate that. So, whether we address the remedies through large companies who have big blocks of employees or the laws on the books, that's going to be stepped to addressing the problem and then acting to ensure that they are sustainable, sustainable solutions. We can't just have a one off solution, one program, one memo goes out to every company and then oops,

we're done. I think not If we are not vigilant and attentive on an ongoing basis, the movement will not be sustained and the work that we do will not endure. But changing cultures is so hard. You know, we're talking about institutionalized misogynists and sexism, and really I think learned behaviors, cultural conditioning. Uh, and how do you really do that? I mean, I don't think diversity training is necessarily the answer. Sexual harassment training I don't think worked very well, at

least in my industry. And also I think that the power powers that be are so invested in maintaining the status quo. They don't want to let go of that power. So it just seems to me so challenging to go from activism to action and really institute these changes. It's really not I think at the end of the day, the powers that be, maybe they shouldn't be the powers that be. Well, sometimes you know, nobody tells them that, you know, and even if they did, they're not going

to go anywhere. Well, we don't have to have them go anywhere. We move them out and bring new people in. That's called voting in this country typically, But I'm even talking about that. You know, the heads of companies and everything. Do we have to wait till they retire it or die? I think, if I may, I sure we are living a change in culture at this very moment, and I think that no, we're not. No, No, companies have taken the lead and said we're changing in these big, massive ways.

But we have begun the cultural and mental shift among ourselves as women in this country and on this planet. And I would say, I don't know about you, but for me, for the women in my life, I have seen an awakening in the women in my life just to be able to a speak their truth, be know that their sisters are gonna be there with them and see just say, we are not going backwards. And that is a cultural shift that I've seen in my lifetime,

and I think it starts there. We have to be willing as women to give ourselves the permission to be angry enough to say to say what the problem is, to call it what it is, and then to call each other to action. And I think that comes first, and I think we are living that moment right now, and things like the confirmation of Kavanaugh are are exposing this moment for what it is and constantly fueling that

awakening and that fire. We'll take a quick break now, and when we come back, I'll ask Lisa and America about how recent news has affected both me too and time's up and America hence what might be next in her career. That's right after this. Now, let's get back to Katie's conversation with Lisa Borders and America Ferrara. So let's talk about Brett Cavanaugh. In in many quarters and in many offices in the U. S. Senate, uh Dr Christine Blassie Fords testimony was discounted, dismissed, and in the

case of President Trump mocked. So how much of a set back to the movement in general was Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation. I don't think it was a setback. I think, you know, so much of what has happened um in the past couple of years, starting with the announcement of Trump running for president, was for so many people a painful awakening and illumination of what so many other people have known

has existed forever. And and I think that things like the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh are telling us exactly where we are, and we can no longer kid ourselves about what is happening and how it has happened and how it has been allowed to happen for so long. If you put yourself in the position that Christine blasi Ford was in on that day, she was staring at a panel of white men, that is not an accident, it

was It's like that by design. I think what Lisa was going towards is we have the power to change what that room looks like. Who Christine blasi Ford has to speak her truth to. We have the how we're to change that, and and I think we the first step is reckoning with what is our reality Okay, this is our reality. This is what the room looks like. Now, how do we take our anger with the view of

that room and change what that room looks like? From times up perspective, We'd like to see systemic change, right, we want enduring change. So to that point, as we think about what the Judiciary Committee looks like today and what the Judiciary Committee could look like tomorrow. Because women are more than fifty percent of the population here in the US, but as we look at women running for office, they are running in record numbers and they're winning in

record numbers. We were looking at some statistics just before this together and we noted that if women win at the case that they are winning right now, they will be thirty eight percent of the elected officials in public office. That is an amazing number. Do we want more of horse?

But when we look today and see how many governors are female, how many representatives, how many senators, And it's not that only women can support women or lead women or represent women, but we need those folks who are centric and central and sensitized to what women need and

what women want and what we all deserve. We expect not just in the mid terms here, but in twenty and beyond that, more people not only will vote, but they will vote for those candidates who understand what the real challenges are and who will begin to reflect the values that we all hold dear rather than the extremes

on either side. Frankly, it's interesting, you know, I found it very disconcerting that President Trump, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Grassley, or in Hatch Marco Rubio, I'll describe female protesters at the Capitol as an angry mob, and they're clearly using it as a wedge issue to motivate Republican voters to go to the polls in the mid terms. It seems

to me that time's up. What started me to end time stuff, What started as a as a movement that I think was for the most part universally supported and seeing as unacceptably bad behavior just full stop, has now become so politicized, and I'm wondering it can Can it return to being an issue that's not a left right issue but a right wrong issue. I'm so confused by the notion that our lives and the laws that govern our lives could in any way be separate from politics.

Like I my life has been politicized since I was nine years old. I didn't choose to politicize my life. I was nine when legislation in California made it okay for my teachers to pull me aside and asked me if my family was documented or undocumented in this country. So the notion that our day lives aren't completely linked to the laws that govern how we live our lives and what we are able to do with our lives.

I don't know how you de politicize the issues that impact us every day, because I've never been able to live it. And so maybe there are some people who have had that privilege of living their lives devoid of politics, or at least the illusion that their lives are void of politics. But when you're someone like me, you're very

aware that politics govern your everyday life. And I don't know that we can separate women seeking dignity and safety in their everyday lives from what's happening in the halls of power. They seem one in the same two to me, I'm with you, and at leasta, you know when I talk to you about sort of the people who did not believe Dr Ford or did not find her experience even that really didn't even acknowledge that it ever happened.

And you said, you have an interesting technique of dealing with people who are so hell bent on not listening or not hearing or not seeing. Right, I do, Katie? So may I try it here? Sure? Are you ready? So let me invite everyone to close their eyes and imagine that the female member of your family. Let's start

with your mother. Is it home and she is alone, it is nine o'clock at night, someone comes crashing through the door and begins to beat her and rips her clothes off and throws her against the wall and gropes and rapes her. How do you feel open your eyes? Is that not the most painful thought you could possibly have?

Is that not a thought that would make you want to spring into action on behalf of your loved one at the end of the day, Katie, what I believe is people have to be have something feel relevant and resonant for them as individuals. It cannot be an abstract concept that we talk about or a social construct. It must be something that you either feel happen to you

or happen to someone you know, love and respect. Otherwise it becomes an inanimate object or something that you can put to the side because you cannot relate in any way. So I invite people to try and listen first and internalize what might have happened, and to that person, whoever he or she might be, because that pain is real, that trauma is real. And the challenge with politics today is that we are so polarized we refuse to even listen.

We think we have the answer before someone else can speak their truth, whatever it is, whether you disagree with it or not. And I guess, as you had to, I guess in the civil rights movement, do you just have to say there are going to be certain people out there who just don't get it and it can't stop this from moving forward. Well, that's exactly right. There's always in any situation that I have found in my sixty years of living, ten of the people are early adopters.

Of the people will follow the ten percent they're the majority under the curve, and ten or what are called lacks, they will never get it and they will never join. You have to forget the laggards and move on with It's just that simple. And what we tend to want to do is have the people come with us. That's

just not happening. We have a question from the audience for you, Lisa, given your experience on the front lines of the civil rights movement and the hall team progress of racial equality in this country, how long is the Times UP movement going to take? Boy? I wish I had a crystal ball and could answer that one two and a half years. No, I can't say two and a half years um. As we look back at the Civil Rights movement, it's probably the one most recent that

I recall in terms of duration. But you could also look at the Arab spring in North Africa and see these movements are often started by a disenfranchised class. Often they are very young, and it takes a very long time, I mean generations to get things done. We do not want to move at glacial speed, but we also know that challenges that we see on the horizon that have been here for centuries. The patriarchy that we live in

has been the status quo for generations. We cannot snap our fingers and have it be corrected in no time flat. We also can't do it by ourselves. America and I and all of our sisters at Times Up are deeply committed to this challenge. But we need those of you in the audience and plokes around the world to help us and support us to push back on what we are now because beginning to normalize this bad behavior, we

cannot normalize that by any shape, form or fashion. So I don't know, Katie, the sooner people join us in this fight, the fat stir it will be to rectify and remedy what is going on today. And also maybe American Lisa, you can talk a little bit um the importance of having male allies and making this movement inclusive for men whose support gender equality right. The folks who disagree with us, or who are deeply fearful of what we are trying to do, they have this misnomer that

we are just attacking men. We are attacking bad behavior. We want women to be valued along with their male peers. So we are inviting not just women, but enlightened men and those who wish to be enlightened. Do we have enlightenment in the audience? Great, because we understand in life peer to peer interaction is more impactful than someone outside the peer groups. So you have only to look. I come from sports teams when the captain of the team

says do this. The players respond much more quickly than if a fan in the stands tells a player to do something. So peer to peer interaction is very powerful. So we would like to see that in times of particularly with our male allies or any allies. We understand that everybody's not going to be with us, we invite them to listen, first, learn, and then lead alongside us. We have another question from the audience. You said, we have the power to change leadership in government and companies,

but how will you actually affect that change? Number One, we want folks to be civically engaged, period, full stop, whether you're a Democrat or Republican. And you want folks to be fully informed about public policy on both sides of the aisle. And at the end of the day, we as Americans have to make decisions about what type of country we want this to be. If you look back historically, we often swing from the left to the right.

I'll just start with the abolition of slavery in eighteen sixty three, then reconstruction, then the Jim Crow era, so we had black skating rights. They were taken away during Jim Crow, only to be put back with the Civil rights movement. There are many insights to be learned from that history. One step forward, two steps exactly, which is why we reject the notion that the Supreme Court justice is a reflection or somehow hurtful to this movement. I

actually think it's helpful to this movement. Yeah, and I would I just want to add to Lisa's point about peer to peer. You know, I think it's it's crazy for any of us to think that one organization, or one movement, or one hashtag is going to change these numbers. Right, We're at an inflection point in history where we all have to ask ourselves not just am I part of the problem? But am I a part of the solution?

And so many of the people sitting in this room who have access and privilege, and and and circles that they influence, really need to be asking themselves how am I part of the solution? As a woman of color, I have had to walk into every single room not as an individual, but as a representative of millions and each of us who come from these groups. Whether you are a man, whether you are a white woman in this country, you have a responsibility to speak to your

peer group, to speak to us. It's not enough to say, well, I'm a wokeman. I I I have women I love and I support them and I'm good. No, it's your job to go out and to speak to other men about what you've learned and about because they're going to listen to you more than they're going to listen to us.

And and the times of movement and the me too movement, and so I really do think that that is each one of our call to action in this time is not just am I on the right side, but am I doing everything that I can to influence the individuals in my life to see more, to know more, to be more a part of the solution, Because that's the only way we change one hundred and seventy million people's minds. That showing up and voting matters. You know, we have

to take responsibility in our day to day lives. It's not enough to sort of put your head down on the pillow and said, well, I feel good about myself today. Well that's a great way, a great call to action and a great conversation. Why don't and would you ever run for office? Were you asking as I'm asking you? As LEASA just got a new job. You know. Um, my response to that question has always been no, no, no,

But I have to to be perfectly honest. I think if every single one of us hasn't asked ourselves that question in the last you years, you're not asking yourself the right questions. Because it really is about it really is this whole movement is about balance of power and who is represented and who has a voice, and whose stories get told and who tells those stories. And and we can't just go around saying, let's make that world you know good enough for the people coming behind us

to step up and take those positions of power. We have to be willing to step into those positions ourselves, and we have to acknowledge and recognize that when we have extraordinary leaders like Lisa and the and the thousands of women who are stepping up and running for office, it's our responsibility to have their backs and to support them and to show up. And I think so many people think it's this terrible thing to say, yeah, I could run for office. I think women in particular are

afraid to say that. So I will say, for the first time in a public audience, that's sure, I've asked myself the question there or not I should be running for office, and I think you should be asking yourself that question. Is the answer. Yes, The answer is I have thought about it all right, so it's not all right. Lisa Borders America for thank you so much, Katie Lucki Lisa,

thank you. That was Lisa Borders and America Ferrera. And a big thank you to everyone at the Vanity Fair New Establishments Summit for inviting me to moderate that panel. It was a great conference. I also want to thank our team at Stitcher, our producer Emma Morgenstern, our associate producer Nora Richie, and of course Jared O'Connell, our trustee engineer.

A big shout out as well to our team at Katie Currict Media, Beth Demas, my fabulous assistant who has the hardest job on the planet, and Julia Lewis, who helps me with all of my social media, which keeps her very busy as well. What an exhausting job that must be anyway. Mark Phillips composed our theme music. You can find me on Twitter under at Goldsmith b and you can find Katie almost anywhere on the internet as Katie Kirk, particularly those Instagram stories which have gone so viral,

they're so fascinating. If you have thoughts about our show or questions for Brian and me, please reach out, particularly if you have questions about the upcoming mid term elections, because we're going to do a podcast devoted to understanding what's at stake and why it's so important to vote. Our email address is comments at current podcast dot com, or you can leave a voicemail for us by calling nine to four four six three seven. As always, thank

you so much for listening, and Brian, bye bye. That's my best John McLaughlin impression mold on and for those of you under thirty, just google John McLaughlin