Reshma Saujani on why there’s no better time to redesign the workplace for women

present for systemic change. We were told that if we leaned in hard enough, if we girl bossed our way, there was an express train to the top. We have just set women up to fail. And so if you believe like never ways to go to crisis, like there's never then been a moment for us to redesign the workplace, then there is right now. And Rushma has a plan, which she lays out in her new book called Pay Up. The Future of Women and Work and Why It's different

than you think. We'll get to all of that and more in this conversation, but first let's talk about you, Rushma, because I learned some things about you that I didn't quite realize. Tell us about your parents and about your journey as a kid and going to law school. Just give me the Rushma story and for five seconds, Okay, let me make it quick. My parents came here as refugees. They were two of a thousand engineers who got to come here because they were kicked out by Idi aman Um.

My father worked as a machinist and a plant My mother sold cosmetics, and I my dad would read to me about these incredible people like Dr King and Mahama Gandhi, and so from the time I was little, I wanted to change the world, like as sappy as it sounds, Katie, like I wanted to give back to this country that

saved my parents life. I graduated three, was knowledge to loan bet did what every good Indian girl thinks she should do, was listen to my parents and got that safe job, you know, so I could get married and have that middle class life. And I was miserable the whole way because I just always wanted to run for office and be a public servant. I decided to try that and I ran for Congress. I basically did what

AOC did except ten years earlier. And she lost. I mean I should say I lost, she won, um, But it was the best experience of my life because I failed for the very first time. And when you run for office like you can't I that like everybody knows when you lost, and I was broke, I was humiliated.

I had piste off everybody in the democratic establishment. But I was free and that feeling of being like wow, like what are the other things I told myself I couldn't do, and let me go do them and let me fail at them too, and it just it started this life of just brave, not perfect, I say, starting girls who code when I didn't code, and I didn't bother to learn, you know, building a movement to teach, you know, to talk about moms and say they should

get paid. Though I'm not an economist, and so I think it's just like it freed me to say what I want to say, not care what other people think, and to be a warrior. Was that scary though, rush my, I mean you you say it like no big whoop. I failed and I was okay with it and it was liberating at the same time. It must have been as you said, it's humiliating to fail, especially on a public stage and I something I can relate to. It was scary well also because I was, you know, as

the first South Asian woman to run for office. You know, my parents had taught me to like not call attention to yourself, right not, you know, like basically drawn the lines. And here I was going out there. I had no idea what I was doing. You know, I didn't have friends and fancy places. I didn't know how to hire a campaign manager. I'd never asked anybody for a check before, and so all of it was like the first time.

I remember even going into senior centers and like having to pronounce my name and you know, and just knowing what to say. And I didn't know what I was doing. And I remember my first you were gonna appreciate this, My first television interview ever was with Chris Matthews and he was so mean to me. I didn't even know like where to look in the screen. I was looking in the wrong place. I mean, it was right, it was about it. I'm still still I cannot watch that interview.

Uh so it was it was high stakes, high fear, but high excitement. And I think when you do something like that at age thirty, three, and you're kind of like, well, okay, I can do anything. And even the public failure was so interesting because I mean, I'm not it hurt, I cried. I you drank Margarita's for like a month, being like what happened? What happened? What happened when I do wrong? And then I moved on And and that was the their lesson about failure. Like you, I'm sure you can

appreciate this, right. You can't keep thinking about it and reliving it. You gotta let it go. And I learned that lesson. You know, at a young age. Girls Who Code was a phenomenal success that you launched. And you just said I didn't know how to code. I hadn't you know, I didn't really you weren't familiar with the tech world. Just take us back to why you wanted

to create Girls Who Code. Well, when I was running for office, I would go into New York City schools and I would go into computer science classes and I would see like lines and lines of boys trying to be the next step jobs or Mark Zuckerberg. And I was like Gates for Bill Gates, and like, you know, I knew that the valley was a boys club, But I didn't know that that club started in high school.

And then I started learning about like what you make as a software programmer A hundred and twenty thousand dollars what like, and as as I've had a job since I was twelve, like basking Robbins, walking dogs, like retail, and so the idea that you could make that much money and maybe even like make a difference, I was like, why does every girl I know, like, you know, we know about this? And so I made it my mission

to kind of make that happen. So I really approached the problem from an equity perspective and from a perspective of also like, wow, what if if girls had this arsenal of being able to code, Like what are the problems that they could solve? Cancer, climate, COVID everything? And that's what got me excited about it. And here's the other thing, you know, Katie, I wasn't a coder, so I didn't know any better. I wasn't in those computer

science classes with those microaggressions. I didn't go to a Google interview and people get asked, you know what am I doing afterwards? Like I didn't face the sexism and the discrimination you know, and all of the barriers. So I went at it like let's go do this, Like let's go build this massive pipeline and like infiltrate every single tech company. And it was a little bit of that nativity right that I think enabled me to build this massive movement when we come back. Why we can't

just girl boss our way to the top? Reschma's action plan right after this, let's talk about pay up your new book and this call for action. You believe there's no time like the present to rethink policies, attitudes, behaviors, etcetera, etcetera. Why Because I don't think it's ever been a worse time to be a woman, you know, from reproductive rights to you know, our job losses, to our mental health. Like we women are in crisis, and I think we

realized that no one is coming to save us. You know, at the start of the endemic, almost twelve million women were pushed out of the labor force, and when the job's report came out, men had joined the labor market at twenty seven times the rate of women. You know, one in three women are now thinking about changing their jobs. You know, of women say that their mental health has actually declined like, we are not okay, and this isn't just a pandemic story. We've always been juggling too much.

And so if you believe like never wats to go a crisis, like there's never then been a moment for us to redesign the workplace, then there is right now. Tell me about the twelve million because I keep hearing three point five million women have left the workforce. Can

you help me understand the difference and those numbers. So at the beginning of the pandemic, you know, from March of you saw almost twelve million women leave, and then women would come back and then you know, basically I would say a couple of you know, at the beginning of the fall, we were still missing three million women, and I think the latest numbers say we're missing one point one million. But here's the thing, Katie. The women

that have not come back our moms. So a lot of childless women are re entering, but parents are not. And so part of what you know, I was just talking to um the Secretary of Commerces team right now and this I was saying, I'm like, we need a women's jobs are because there's so many numbers being thrown about, But we need to exactly understand who's re entering and if they're not re entering, what do they need? Is it because of childcare? Is it because their job has

been automated, you know? Is it because their schools are shut down or their kids are in crisis? Are they down shifting? You know? But the the interesting thing is is we know that more women are leaving, you know, even in the great more women are quitting, and we know some of the reasons why they're quitting. And you then the thing that keeps coming up is childcare. And you say, this problem predates the pandemics. So what is the root of it? Why does it suck to be

a working mom in America? Well? I think part of it is because we've been sold what I call the big Lie. You know, we were we were told that if we leaned in hard enough, if we girl bossed our way, you know, there was an express train to the top. And you understand this as a mother, we have never been able to balance being the type of mom we wanted to be with the type of worker that we are expected to be. And so we have

just set women up to fail. And if you even look at historically, you know, from Rosie the riverter right to the Girl Boss today, it's like we were always expected to hide our motherhood and to do it all, and to you know, basically have it all was just a euphanism for doing it all. And so I think we need to expose the big lie and again redesign workplaces so they actually are, you know, essentially are the

reality of how we live and work as moms. The US has the artist drop and marital happiness after kids and the world. Can you unpack that for us? Rushima, and you talk very honestly about your own situation and the frustrations you experienced. Steven, though you have a really good marriage. Yeah, I mean I was dying to have kids. I had more rounds of I v F than I could actually count. All I wanted to be was a mom.

And again I think because I bought into the big line, I didn't realize how hard it was going to be being a mom and running girls who code. And I think part of what what drove my husband and I into couples counseling was, you know, I took all my paid leave off and he didn't. And so those first couple of months while I'm breastfeeding, I was the one doing the laundry and doing the shopping and figuring out

whether the diaper bad was packed. Like my to do list got bigger in his got smaller, and we did become that household where I was doing eight six percent of the domestic labor, all the while maintaining my big job. And he had hits and so, and I didn't understand it because I thought that, like everywhere I looked on Instagram or social media, it seemed like you could have right, these perfectly equitable marriages, And so why was it mine? What was wrong with me? What had I not trained

my partner, you know, good enough? And then COVID made it worse because I think what a lot of us told ourselves, Well, they just don't know how much we do. But now they saw us in between running the largest women and girls organization in the world, doing the laundry, doing the dishes, doing the homeschooling. Right, it wasn't that they didn't know, but that it didn't matter because part of the problem had always been that that work, that domestic work, has never been valued, and so it hasn't

been prioritized for them. So they didn't do it. In fact, Melinda Gates rights that him and do an average of seven more years of work if you account for everything they're doing inside the home in terms of taking care of things that you just mentioned in terms of raising kids. I mean, couldn't you just have a heart to heart with your husband and say, listen, honey, this is not working for me. And if you don't start, you know, pulling your weight, this isn't happening. That's what I would

have done. Well, I think that's I think I did, and I think we have. I mean, look, look, I'm outing him in a book, right, So it's like, you know, he's definitely his to do list past gotten bigger. But the point is still, Katie, right, why is that our that becomes our problem to fix? I got another job and I gotta fix my partner. And part of what in writing this book, you know, what I'm excited to talk about, is that it is not just a personal problem. Society has set it up that way for men not

to do the character taking. Think about the paid leave, and we're gonna talk about solutions later. But so many companies, including Apple, still don't have gender neutral pay lead policies. So they corporations, companies are not setting up relationships to

start and have a fighting chance at gender equality. You know, it's not until fairly recently that even if you think about the images you see on television and in magazines, right, it's like we praise then you know, when they are strolling down a baby down the streeter changing a diaper as if it's you know, exceptional. You know, I can I can post that, you know, I walk my son

to school, and I'm not getting five hundred likes. So so again, like we just have to really shift essentially who does the character taking, whether that work is actually valued, and have a really honest conversation if we're going to get to gender quality. It's not about just getting a sponsor or a mentor or even figuring out pay equity. It's about how do you shift the balance of work

in every single household. I mean, even the debate that we're having in Congress around the child tax credit is insane, right that, like Joe Manchin says, well, you shouldn't get a child tax unless you're working, As if the work that I do every single day at home it's not work. Explain that for us, for people who may not be following the legislation, what the tax child credit would do,

and why it is problematic if it's only for working moms. Yeah, So for a long time, we we in the United States, you know, we have been against giving a child tax credit to parents who are not in the workforce. And in COVID President Biden changed that and said essentially, any parent of a certain income you know what I mean, gets uh, you know, thirty a month, right, you know, if they have a child, and it is set to expire. And there's a big debate in Congress about whether we

should extend it. And Senator Mansion has been against extending it because he thinks that you should only get it if you're a parent in the workplace. And so what he's saying is that you should only get it if you are a parent that is working, and that if

you're not working, you're not entitled to a benefit. And why this is deeply problematic is the United I means, it's a very it's not the typical perspective that you see in other nations like the United Kingdom for example, or you know, the Nordic countries, where in the UK you got a parental income every month if you had a kid, and so because it is very expensive to be a parent. But in this country, we see deciding to be a parent as a choice. It's your personal

problem that you have to solve. Not the government, not your employer, not even your partner is obligated to help or support you. And young women are looking at that saying not me, I don't want to do it. There are a lot of problems that are exacerbated Reshma by that attitude. I mean where does that Where does that

leave us as a country? Yeah? I mean one it leaves us of I think, never getting to gender quality unless we start investing in in these types of policies, whether it's the government or whether it's you know, um companies like let's take childcare for example. It is very clear by the data that the that the million women that are not entering the workforce re entering or who have downshifted, right because we're not talking about that either, um,

it's because childcare is not affordable. We still have half

of our daycare centers that are shut down. I think they say childcare costs have gone up by you know, for you know, during the pandemic, and so you know, if we do not solve childcare, you'll never get women to return to the workforce in the same place that they have been historically in the past, which means we're gonna lose out in the diversity, you know, and by extension in you know, the innovation of our country and the long term economics success of our nation is actually

going in to suffer. And so right now in government, you know, President Biden have proposed that we have a seven percent ceiling on the amount that you'll spend on your childcare. You know, that bill is not being passed in Congress right now, and so you have rising childcare costs, no intervention by the government. And so one of the things I argue in the book is that we've got to start asking companies to start subsidizing childcare. You know,

right now less than companies subsidized childcare. But as we're having a race to the bottom in terms of salaries and we're in the middle of the talent war, one of the things I think that companies should be considering is starting to pay for childcare as a way to retain and attract talent. Don't you think on the one hand, the pandemic made things terrible. On the other we have some additional forces that seem to be encouraging people to make a change. We have work at home policies. It

seems like employers are having to be more flexible. As you said, there's a worker shortage. Aren't all these things going to push companies in the right direction? Reschma. I mean it's interesting, like my books coming out at the two year anniversary of the pandemic, and I have not seen as many policy changes from companies as I would like. You know, they're still offering like free museum tickets and

egg freezing, but they're not paying for my childcare. They're not incentivizing men to take pay leave and tying it to their compensation. There's still resisting flexibility and remote working. So I do think that while one would think, right if you were a CEO today, I mean certainly as a CEO right, that this is the time to start maybe redesigning and rethinking about how we've traditionally done things.

I think the knee jerk reaction is to go back to where it was before, and part of that is because I think that the folks who need the most amount of redesign are working moms, and we are the most tired you're having, uh you know, constituency group that is exhausted, higher race of mental anxiety and depression, you know, and and and at the same time, we're the ones who need the change. And so this is also why, which is very fascinating, Katie, that the that women are

quitting it at a much higher rates than men. So I'd rather quit my job and say, hey, know what, I need flexibility, you know what I mean, I need support here or there, because we're so used to this being told to us is our personal problem, that you don't get to ask for support. That we're still breastfeeding in closets, you know what I mean, and hiding pictures of our kids and lying about going to our kids soccer game or doctor's appointments because we're supposed to hide

our mother and we're not crazy for doing that. That is what we have been taught that the way to succeed, the way to get the corner office is to basically pretend you not a mom. Are any company is doing it right, doing it well. That can be held up as a model for others to say, hey, you know, you're not going to sacrifice productivity or the bottom line. In fact, you may increase it if you're more accommodating

to working moms. And you know, ps, I think you're not going to get gender equality if they're not more accommodating to working dads. Yes, there are. You know, Walmart had introduced something, uh, basically for salary workers. A lot of salary workers want flexibility, but if you're an hourly worker, what you want is predictability. You work in retail, Walmart, you got the seven pm shift, you arrange for childcare, You show up for your seven pm shift, and guess what,

It's been canceled. Now you're out money. So what Walmart had done is basically designed an app that allows employees essentially switch shifts with one another and so that they can get more predictability over their schedule. Simple. Everybody should be doing this. Petigo only has always been doing incredible things in terms of their paid leave benefits. You know a handful of companies like Google, like Disney, you know, have offered on site care. So I do think that

there are companies. You know, Google just announced that they've increased the amount of paid leave in sick days that they're offering for their you know, employees, and so I think that there are companies that have been innovative and have been pushing this issue, but we definitely definitely need more. What I worry about is we don't want it to be a band aid fixed for the pandemic. So I'm gonna offer you know, I'm gonna pay for your child

care now. I'm gonna give your predictability and flexibility now. But when things go back to normal, we go back to normal. And so I think what we want to do is really connect the economic cost of not actually changing these structures, you know, for companies, in terms of attrition, in terms of innovation, in terms of diversity, so that we get wholesale changes you know that we embed into our workplaces forever. Have you seen evidence that some companies

are seeing this as a band aid and a temporary fix. Yeah, I mean you're seeing You're there are a bunch of articles that came out, you know, a month ago about how companies have started pulling their paid leave policies, you know, like Amazon, And I definitely think that when I talked to CEOs here in New York City, everybody is jonesing for people to get back into the office. It's just it's it's the way things have been, you know, listen.

I just think that we think that. One of the other fascinating things in writing pay Up that I really learned was that we've been trying to solve the pay gap forever, and the pay gap really exists between moms and dads. There is essentially no pay gap between childless women and childless men, because when we think about a mom and she enters the workforce, we think that she's not as focused, she's not as committed, that she's distracted, and we dock her and pay or in opportunities because

of that. I do think the negligence, you know, one of the not silver linings of the pandemic is everyone's seen everything you've seen that I do have kids, that they do interrupt me how I do operate in my house, and you've made more judgments about my commitment, my dedication to my job. And so I think that women are being more penalized, you know what I mean, for their caretaking than they were pre COVID because we were hiding

it before then. And so I do think the cultural shift of like you know, like you would think right that we all would have gotten a memo being like, what do you need? I see that schools are closed, you know what I mean. And all the data has been out there, there's an article written every one minute about this. But none of us got that memo. There has not been this declaration of companies who are saying we stand up for moms. We're going to bail out mops and we're gonna ask them what they need, and

we're going to redesign our workplaces, you know. And so we have got to demand that. And so one of the things I'm trying to do with pay Up is ignite this, you know, this workplace organizing in to say to mom's you, it doesn't have to be this way. You deserve these things. These are the tools for you to ask for these things and and start raising that

consciousness level. Right. Um. But it goes very much against everything that kind of feminism and these workplace books have basically to including myself, you know, I've been preaching the gospel of you know, corporate feminism absolutely. I mean, Katie, I remember like when I'd be speaking at a conference and a young woman would raise her hand she said, Mr Johnny, you know, but how do you balance, you know, your family and your job. I would literally waive her away.

I'm I'm embarrassed that I actually acted and and made her feel like it was not something she should be concerned about. And so when she became a mom and she struggled with that balance, she thought, gosh, there's something wrong with me, and there was nothing ever wrong with you. This system was always stabbed against you. What should you

have said to that young woman. I should have said to the young woman, one give yourself grace to how do you ask your employer and your partner and our government, you know, and for what you need and for what you deserve, and that that the system is staffed against you, and that instead of like spending all that time trying to just you know, lean in and you know, climb your way to the to the corner office, figure out how you can basically be both pieces of yourself in

a way that is healthy. We'll be right back. You talk about corporations, but tell us the status of the Martial Plan for Moms and just review what's in it.

Although we've talked a lot about the events of it already. Yeah, you know, when we we when we launched from really focused on making sure Build Back Better passes, and the components of Build Back Better had the things that my pt mom said that they needed to return back to work better, you know, which was affordable childcare, paid leave, opening up schools safely, you know, reach training for women who have been automated out of the workforce, and getting

rid of the motherhood penalty. And so listen, this has been a tough year for us as activists in terms of the fact that it is so you know, it couldn't get any worse for moms and for women, and we still couldn't pass that bill. Wow, what does that really say about what you think about us? And so I think we've had to turn and say, but we can't leave moms out there like that with no support. So what's the other way that we can get them changed?

And so we're really focused now on the private sector and figuring out whether the private sector can step in and off for you know what I mean, the support levers that that moms and working women need right now. So one, you know, we're building a campaign to push companies to start subsidizing childcare, and we're doing the math that the cost of attrition is actually gonna higher then

if you started paying for childcare. You know, one of the impediments to subsidize in childcare has always been real estate.

Well there's plenty of open real estate now because you know, we're never gonna go back to five days of work a week, right probably, so this may be an opportunity right to start building you know what I mean in you know, in office care, you know, for working parents, and we need to start exploring that, you know, in second or other lovers, like providing cash, you know, backup care again, all the different ways that we can actually

start taking on that piece of childcare. You know. The second thing is it's not enough to talk about paid leave without basically starting trying to push companies, to push men to take it to at the same levels as us. How do you make that happen? Well, one basic thing is you should have gender neutral paid leave policies. There's no reason why any company should be offering tweeks to women in four weeks to two. Dad's no no reason,

you know. And secondly, even more so, I think we should be tying performance or compensation to whether you do take leave. You know, you don't. Companies shouldn't get to tout, oh, we offered paid leave. Well, and I want to know who's taking it. Who do you offer it to? Who takes it? What's your culture? Do you gaslight men when they do, because all the data shows that like men, you know, less diabetes less heart attacks, live longer when

they spend time and care for their kids. They want to do it, but they're penalized, but they're penalized when they do. And I'm sure you've seen this right. You know, you've admitted to having an anti mom bias at points in your career. And I have to say, I remember somebody taking paternity leave when I was working at Yahoo

and thinking, what you know? So it's one thing to to want to support these policies, but when push comes to shove and like somebody you need at work is gone for twelve weeks, you're like, shit, really, I'm not digging this. Yeah, I listen the same thing for me. I mean at Girls and Crowd, like almost of my employees were women, and somebody was pregnant all the time, somebody was out all the time, and there were moments

I'm like, why have I offered this generous? You know, and I'm a nonprofit but I think the thing is is like it is the right thing to do for society. And I will say every time we did, we inspired loyalty. We had low rates of attrition, and people people stayed with you because you helped them during a to off time in their lives, and it mattered. And so I think the benefits essentially outweigh the costs um and so I think we just have to keep reminding ourselves. I

also just think that, like, you know, it's interesting. I think Norway is a good test example for this is that when they started putting policies like this into place where essentially you would have to take it or lose it or tying it to compensation, you know, they went from like a small percentage of men taking it to the overwhelming amount of men taking it, and the entire

culture of caretaking changed dramatically. You know, I have two boys, and I I want I have to make a conscious effort every day, every day to get them to be caretakers. One of the reasons why we have a shortage of nurses and teachers is because we don't have any men going into those professions, you know, and those professions, especially in home care, are the future. So like men rather go on unemployment than work in those jobs. What is that saying about our society? What we have taught men?

And so that has got to shift. And you know, and finally, the thing I've think been thinking again we've talked about the book is mental health. You know, I know, I've had a lot of friends who have gone, you know, into rehab, you know who addiction issues have popped back up, you know, during the past couple of years that are just really really struggling. You know, they're losing their temper, losing their patients, are just not sleeping, exhausted, just all

of it. Are the worst kind of health state that they've ever been. And now we're saying we'll come back to work and doors are open, and women are coming back not fully there because at the same time we're having to manage what's happening with our kids. I mean my two children. You know, my two year old, you know, uh, I can't talk and I have a someone, a speech therapist come he's too and I had to take him.

He is like zero percent weight. So, like all of this pandemic related, My seven year old has anxiety and eats his clothes. You know, and and so I my mind is always focused on and them and how am I helping them? How am I healing them? And then I know we're about me. And so I think so many of us as parents are in this state of mind. And I do think that companies to acknowledge that there's that I I I bear that burden of my kid's mental health a little bit more than my husband does.

And not because it is he doesn't love and care them and all that, but but there it weighs on me, and I think it weighs on mom. And this goes back to like we're not gonna stop being who we are and moms and are worrying or are carrying or are obsessing, right like, it's who we are. And I

think that that's going back to companies. I feel like they have to accept us for who we are and recognize and provide us the support in this moment, you know, so we don't have to downshift our careers and we don't have to choose between our job and our it. What about government solutions? Have you given up on that now? And you can't. We can't give up on that, right because even if the Priva Center starts offering some of these solutions, it won't reach everyone, and we've got to

reach everyone. It's not right if the corner office personal works in Walmart, you know what I mean, gets paid le even affordable childcare, but the person working in this tour doesn't. And we don't want to create a society where depending upon you know, how much money you make or the color of your skin, you know, determines whether you can or cannot have a child or thrive, you know, in your mental health. And so we need government to act. I think though, that moms we need to organize too.

You know, if you think about every major mother's movement that's out there, it's always moms organizing for their kids, drunk driving, guns, you know what I mean, climate, you name it. But moms have to start organizing for moms. And maybe it was too much to ask right for us to do that this year, but we start have to start. And I think workplaces is where moms are focused because that is so deeply connected to their everyday

life as mothers. Am I going to get time on flexibility so I can take my kids to their therapy

appointment at three o'clock? Right? Am I going to be able to spend some time with their kids doing their homework because they need my attention right now, or is my office going to tell me that I need to be there from nine to six and that's it, right And so this workplace activism and organizing is really critical to moms right now, and we're going to teach them how to do it and what can be done right now by moms and bosses while we wait for the

government to hopefully give more support. And when you say the government is needed, so some people don't have these advantages and others don't, are you suggesting the government needs to mandate these things? I think part of it is the government can provide benefits. Let's just say you are a digital you know you're in the digital economy, right or the gig economy. You don't work for one of these big companies, you know, you may not get the benefit of paid leave, and your benefit may come from

a federal benefit. So there are gonna be people who are left out by just private sector solutions. And that's what I'm talking about, and that's why it's important for the government, you know, to play a role also for us when we think about so and This didn't happen with paid leave in the way that I think we would all have wanted it to, which is, when you know Google is offering paid leave, who are they offering

it to? Should they be making me sure that every single one of their suppliers and customers, you know what I mean, get access to it as well? How are we making sure of that companies that have hourly employees and salaried employees offer the exact same benefits to both.

And I think in this moment that's what we have to actually demand, And I think the government can actually help put the pressure on the companies to make sure that when they're providing those benefits, they're providing them to all of them, almost like an osha if you will, but for employment. Does that make sense? Yeah, that makes sense. I think we have to. Like, the data has always been clear that that childcare in particular, like is very

similar to health care. If you start providing early education to children, they live longer, right, they're healthier, it's less of a cost and attacks on society. So the data and the evidence that companies should be investing in this is there, and uh, and so now it's time for them to actually start acting on it. And I think if we didn't have this pandemic and then we didn't have the great resignation of the Great quit, companies could

have been like, let the government deal with it. But now, I mean, you have Amazon increasing base salaries from a hundred and fifty to three hundred thousand dollars. Now, if those same workers leave within six or seven months, which is what the rate is now of how long people

stay at companies, you're out money. But if you start providing and paying for their childcare, you're more likely to retain them, you know, for a year and a half or two years, and so you're there's a savings and so again, I think the incentives in this moment are leaning towards you know it making a lot of business sense right for you to like pay up right and start offering you know, these benefits services support to what

will ultimately be to working moms. Because two out of three caretakers are women, it's business as usual in terms of what you're dealing with RUSHMA deeply entrenched attitudes that have existed for a very long time. UH, business practices that haven't been challenged. And so are you still optimistic that things can change. Because if I were you, I think I feel overwhelmed almost every day. Oh my god, I I oh, I'm so fired up every day. I'm so fired up every day because I feel like we

have a once in a lifetime opportunity. It's the way I felt like when I start a Girl through Code ten years ago. Like I think, if you could marry the fact that businesses have to do something with the fact that I think working women and our allies have finally seen that like this is not working, and I got something has to change and we're at our breaking point. If those two things can come together, it could be a perfect storm for that, you know, for us in

a good way. And that's what I'm betting on um. And so in some ways, not passing Bill back better was kind of like this, See they really don't give a shit about us, right, and like that no one is going to save you. That we have to start demanding and asking for the things that we deserve. And see that's always it's like goes back to that's always

something that we as women have had. You what I mean to do in the first place, And I do think I was I was a straight a student, went to Harvard, and Neil thought if I did everything right and had the perfect resume, that I would just get to be a CEO. They would just pull out the red carpet. It didn't matter, though. It didn't matter how smart I was, how hard I tried, how prepared I was. It was always stacked against me and all of us.

And when I say me, I mean us. Let's talk about this looming uh likelihood that roe v Wade will be overturned. Um, how does that fit into the equation and and where does that put working women in general? I mean I wrote a not bet about this that

that essentially this goes back. This is now the Priva Center has kind of not dealt with Roe v. Wade and reproductive rights because I think they never thought maybe the moment would come where we would be sitting here with a very weally quid chance that Roe v. Wade is going to be overturned. And so yet again now it's up to businesses because is to provide you know,

basically provide abortion access to their employees. I mean, I think I wrote in the MyD like one out of three employees will have an abortion at some point, right, So this is like the vast majority, you know, of their population. So they have to think about how they're going to actually protect support, you know what I mean,

the right to choose. How can they do that the rushima you know, if if, if it will be okay for states to ban abortion and working women having to go, you know, get the day off and travel to another state, and many of them can't even afford abortions, right, I mean, it's it's just saying the companies need to help, Like what does that mean? And what does that they to

pay for it? Like if if I'm employed and I live in Texas and that Texas is now you know, outlawed abortions, You're going to have to pay for me to get to New York City, you know what I mean, my flight, my airfare, the cost of it, you know, it is now your problem. And I think that this is also the cost of when companies actually don't stand up and speak out, you know, and join the fight. I think we have to, you know, they have to basically play a role in the play a role in

making sure that this right exists for women. It's such a political hot potato. I have a hard time imagining even if it should be done. Companies being like, come to us if you need an abortion, We're going to take care of it for you, and we're going to help you. Some have salesforce. I'll tell you this. When

I wrote this article, I have. I am still getting emails from your g's basically being like, we had a big conversation about this, you know, at a human resources meeting, because I think they know that it's coming, and also millennials are asking them what are your policies on this? So going back to the great resignation and who's actually coming back into the workforce, it's childless women. It's the

very women. I mean, actually it's not true, because the vast majority of those who have abortions are others, you know, but it is women who who care about this right and want to know your position and want to know whether you are going to actually help them pay for protecting that right because you're choosing to stay in a stay in the state, and do business with the state who has taken away my right to choose. It just

is kind of amazing that we're even discussing this. Yes, I never thought we'd be discussing this as a real as like a real thing. What is the solution, Reshima, when all is said and done. You know, we've tackled so many different aspects of this problem just in this conversation. But to wrap things up, what what can we all do? And what can moms do? What can businesses do? What should the government do? How can we make things better? Yeah?

I mean, I think the first thing you have to realize is one we've all been sold a big lie and and that's the way that we've been thinking about women's equality in the workplace. Um, it's just been wrong. And I think COVID exposed that. And so there is no express train to the corner office. You know. We have to have the support that we need from the government, you know, from our partners to thrive, not just in

our careers, but like in our lives, you know. And we've got to have choices to re enter and exit

the workforce without penalty. You know, we have to be able to not have to hide our motherhood and work at a place, work in a society where we're free from bias and where motherhood isn't viewed as a distraction or you know, to this uh denigrated, but it's actually lifted up and celebrated where our mental health is viewed as important as our output, right, and will we have to stop asking women to do more and start asking

institutions to pay up. And in my book I talked about some real clear ways what we need from the government and what we need from our employers to actually get there, and what we need to do for ourselves. I mean to protect our mental health. Um and to stop feeling like this is our problem. We screwed up, We've made a mistake, We're not good enough, we just can't handle it. None of that is true. I have to ask you also if you'd add to the list

what we need from our partners. It seems to me that this should be a discussion as important as do you want to have kids? Are you willing to share in the responsibilities that it You know that it takes to raise kids and to keep and to keep a home. Yeah,

that's right. And and and look if I when I had that conversation with my husband, because again I'm Indian, you know, very paternalistic culture, right like, and so I was very clear that if I was going to marry an any man, and I was going to do what I wanted to do, in the world that we had to be clear on what are like, you know, what the ratio was right like? And I was I was wanted him to do sixty and me to do forty.

You know, that was like my dream. But I do think that when you actually get married and you know, the things shift, and not because you didn't make the deal or didn't have the conversation, but also you know, I'll find and I write about this in my book. You know, the Hall and I have a deal where you know, he does nights and I do mornings. But if I'm sitting around, you know, at six o'clock and then I said, hey, can you warm up the bottle? We just pay gives the sigh his dinner real quick.

And so even though we've had the conversation, so I got to leave the house and I walk around the block, go for a drink, maybe do my work out. Then but I'm gone and and and so there's there's no argument, and he's not like where are you right, It's just like if I'm there, I'm gonna just go get it done. So part of it is not just our partners, but are you telling ourselves? You know, as my friend Tiffany to do food says to like to drop the ball.

You know what I mean, to center ourselves to you know, for lack of a better word, be selfish about our own self care right in in my case, you know, to leave the house. A lot of women, I think pretend like they want their partners to do more, but if their partners holding the baby, they're gonna make a bee line to the baby and say no, I'll take care of it, or you're not doing it right. I mean, I have a lot of couples who have told me stories along those lines. That's why I think it needs

to start early. I think you should start teaching your seven year old how to do laundry, how to wash dishes, how to do all these things around the house so it won't be seen in his eyes as a woman's job. And similarly, I applaud companies like tied and and they're not sponsoring this podcast, by the way, but where they show a stay at home dad playing with his daughter and doing the laundry. You know, I think a lot of our ideas of what's a man's job and what's

a woman's job really has to be upended. It's true.

I mean, my dream is to have like you Lebron James and like you know, Snoop Dogg doing like you know, doing the laundry and the dishes, and like our entire thing about like masculinity and what it means to be a man and to be a successful man who does what you know, it was very funny to me and some of these surveys that came out during the pandemic about homeschooling that you know, women would be like, I'm the one who's doing the homeschooling and then would be like, no, no, no,

I'm the one who's doing it. But there's this real kind of perception amongst men that they are doing this work. You know, they are doing and you know, for us every time and you survey that's done across the world, it's, you know, pretty like we're doing eight six of that unpaid labor over and over and over again. I don't have time for midlife crisis. I mean yeah, but I mean it's funny. It's like you you see the reports of men during the pandemic, like I've learned how to

play the guitar. I've never read more in my life. You know. It's whereas we are mental health is in the toilet. How can that be when the same surveys when you ask men and women that they're doing the exact same thing. So that's the and part of the whole conversation with your partner. It's hard to like, you know, like you can talk about it, but like you might

as well saw where he still thinks he does fifty. Well, you've given a lot of people a lot of food for thought, and I really admire the energy and passion that you've used to to really immerse yourself into this issue. Do you feel like you have a lot of other people who are joining forces with you? Rushma? Do you feel alone in this battle? And something not at all?

I feel like I have this massive like Mom's community on LinkedIn right of just like like you know, like people who are were talking about this and seeing it and feeling seen. And I think that that's really important. I was, you know, I think that there are a lot of leaders out there, you know, both in government and in the private sector who are passionate about this issue. You know, we've been obviously raising money because we're nonprofit. I mean, my first ten big checks were men, you know,

some of them who had single moms. So I think people really get the issue. I think the thing is is that the approach that we're taking at it is fresh, and you know, it's new and it's not been done before. And I think so we're trying to figure out, like what's the right model? How do you approach this? How

do you do this? I too, and we talked about this when we first started, when you first talked to me about the Marshall Plan, right when we launched it, which is like, you know this, you know, can the private sector actually really change? You know? Are they Are they able to? And and here I am again talking about private sector solutions and feeling like they can change.

But there's I wouldn't feel that way if it we weren't in this moment, this exact moment again to your anniversary of COVID, Looking at the job numbers, looking at the mental health, looking at the talent wars, looking at the great resident all of it has led to a perfect storm where I think there's an opportunity for real change. But yeah, I need Mary Bara, I need Vice President Harris, you know what I mean. I need Melina de Gates.

She's supporting her work. So we got her right, But we need women, philanthropists, women in business, women's CEOs, and just all of us moms and working women in our allies to stand up and say, all right, let's go like, let's let's change and redesign work for places. Let's finish this fight once and for all. How have you changed your workplace and the face of this because I'm thinking, gosh,

I started a media company with my husband. Are we doing enough to support working moms and working dads for that matter. I mean, listen, I if you had asked me two and a half years ago whether this is what I'd be doing, I would have been like, no way, Katie.

I wasn't focused on this issue. Even writing Payoff, I learned so much and I feel like I'm a well read educated woman that I just didn't know how many close misses, you know, how many, how many wrong turns, how m much of this had not been focused on in the way that we needed to in the feminist movement. I do think that there are a lot of c e o s, even females CEOs, who are not focused on this issue or have not been focused on this

issue before. You know that need to be. I want people to read this book to help them re examine the way they have approached leadership, you know, as met as, as managers or as CEOs or as employees and then to say, Okay, what's the opportunity to do something different? So instead of doing a talk about, you know, how to get a mentor how to get a sponsor, let's just talk about how to create gender equality in your home. You know, like we need to have very different conversations

than we've been having in the past. Reshmashni, the book is pay Up. And um, I'm I'm exhausted just listening to you. H But if if moms need an advocate, you are the perfect one. So thank you for all your hard work and thanks for for talking to us today. It's always great to see you, rush my mom. I'm always full of pride after I talked to you and

and just so impressed. So thank you, Thank you, Katie, and thank you for everything that you did to elevate the voices of so many of us that are fighting. You are the original energizer Bunny. Just so you know we learned from you. Next Question with Katie Kurik is a production of My Heart Media and Katie Kurk Media. The executive producers are Me, Katie Curic, and Courtney Litz. The supervising producer is Lauren Hansen. Associate producers Derek Clements

and Adrianna Fasio. The show is edited and mixed by Derrek Clements. For more information about today's episode, or to sign up for my morning newsletter, Wake Up Paul, go to Katie Currek dot com. You can also find me at Katie Curic on Instagram and all my social media channels. For more podcasts from Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H