Towards An Inclusive Congress

Joanne Freeman: Congress wasn’t built for someone like Tammy Duckworth. As a woman of color, a new mother, and a disabled veteran, Tammy Duckworth has had to make Congress work for her. I spoke to Senator Duckworth and started by asking her what it felt like to first enter the male-dominated space of Congress in 2013.

Tammy Duckworth: Well, it was really interesting in that we had Leader Pelosi, and so we were led by a woman, a very strong woman who had been Speaker. It was, I think, very fortunate to have that role model that you could look to someone who was very active in teaching new members, especially the women members, to speak up. One of the things she always said was when you sat around in a circle … Especially as a freshman, you’re afraid to say something because the imposter syndrome is very real. When I would go into the chambers, even though I’d served in combat, I’d often been the only woman in an all-male unit, I had this real strong sense of imposter syndrome like, “What am I doing here? There’s so and so. There’s Sam Farr,” who’s been a congressman for literally in the decades, and all of these people that I’d seen on TV.

Tammy Duckworth: It was very intimidating, but Leader Pelosi was one who she didn’t let your turn pass by without saying something, and then if you said something and then the next person … The conversation moved on, and two other people, and then somebody else, a man picked up what you had to say, she’d be sure to say, “Wait a minute, Tammy said that,” and direct it back.

Joanne Freeman: Wow.

Tammy Duckworth: She really left it on you to push yourself-

Joanne Freeman: But, she was back up, basically.

Tammy Duckworth: … but she was back up, which it was a good example to have.

Joanne Freeman: Wow, that’s powerful actually, and I would wish for that in a lot of moments in my life too.

Tammy Duckworth: Yeah.

Joanne Freeman: Now, I wonder then, thinking more recently, I know that you somewhat recently had a daughter.

Tammy Duckworth: Yes, my second one.

Joanne Freeman: How did you think about that knowing the rules that were in place at the time? What went through your mind as to how you might have to adjust, maybe changing things or hoping to change things to allow for you to bring your daughter on the floor? How did that progress?

Tammy Duckworth: I had my first daughter at 2014, so the second year of my first term in the House of Representatives. It was actually while I was on maternity leave with her that I decided to run for United States Senate.

Joanne Freeman: Wow.

Tammy Duckworth: I will say that with my second daughter, I was definitely much more of a rule-breaker. I should say, maybe I was more of a rule-follower my first term because there’s imposter syndrome, I’m new, and all of that. I actually had my first daughter at home and was out from Washington for three months, and took my maternity leave then, but I missed all those votes. Now, here we are in 2018, and I’m about to give birth to my daughter. I’m now in the Senate, and the difference in votes was two, so every vote counted. We couldn’t afford to have me out for three months.

Tammy Duckworth: If you go on maternity leave, the Senate rules say you are now allowed to vote, and you’re not allowed to introduce legislation. Whereas in the House, I was able to, but in the Senate, I couldn’t. I couldn’t officially take maternity leave, and I, in fact, had to decide to give birth in Washington, D.C. so I could be nearby for votes.

Joanne Freeman: Wow.

Tammy Duckworth: Knowing that, empowered me to say, “Well, dammit, then if these are the rules, then I’m bringing my baby when I come to vote.” In fact, when she was just 10-days-old, they needed my vote.

Joanne Freeman: Wow. So, you came with her …

Tammy Duckworth: So, I came with her, yeah.

Joanne Freeman: How did that feel?

Tammy Duckworth: It felt fabulous. Fantastic. It also felt long overdue. It was funny because I received support leading up to it that the fight to be able to bring her onto the floor from … There was definitely a lot of strange bedfellows. Certainly, the Democratic women were very supportive, but then I had some of the Republican men came forward. It was almost generational. Some of the younger members … Remember Marco Rubio, whom I don’t think I ever voted the same with him on 10% of our votes, came up to me on the floor and said, “Tammy, I hear you want to change the rules and bring your daughter onto the floor,” and I was steeling myself for what he was going to say. He goes, “I will support you. I’m backing you up, whatever you need. I wish I could have brought my children,” because his kids were young too. I was blown away.

Tammy Duckworth: Roy Blunt of Missouri, whom I campaigned against, came up to me and said, “Tammy, as soon as I’m the chairman of the Rules Committee, I will change the rule for you because I remember when I could bring my children on the floor when I was in the House and how great that was. I want that for here.”

Joanne Freeman: That’s so important to say, that as much as we’re sitting here talking about gender issues, that there’s a generational component in this too for sure.

Tammy Duckworth: Right, and yet, some of the members who were a little bit older had questions like, “Well, is she going to breastfeed on the floor?” Like that was some horrible thing, or that would be such a scandal. They asked what the dress code was going to be for the baby.

Joanne Freeman: No!

Tammy Duckworth: Yeah, yeah. Because there’s a Senate dress code. You have to wear blazers, and you have to wear closed-toe shoes and no hats. I said, “Well, she’s a baby so probably a beanie, and I’m not taking that off of her.”

Joanne Freeman: Oh, my gosh!

Tammy Duckworth: She’s probably be in a onesie. I guess I could put a blazer on her if I need to, and she’s too young for shoes, so socks.

Joanne Freeman: Wow!

Tammy Duckworth: Literally, it was the most inane questions. Why are you asking this?

Joanne Freeman: Rules.

Tammy Duckworth: Rules.

Joanne Freeman: Some people are just thinking rules. Right.

Tammy Duckworth: I did put a blazer on her that day.

Joanne Freeman: Oh, my God! I’m going to go online and find that just to see if there’s an image of that because that’s wonderful.

Joanne Freeman: I also want to say, as a woman who works in a largely male field, seeing you sitting here and talk about imposter syndrome, as you have a couple of times, on the one hand, is infuriating, and, on the other hand, is really empowering to hear you say that since I feel the same thing. I also don’t necessarily bring it up because I think, I don’t know, I guess I feel I want to have people not assume that I’m worried about that sort of stuff. But, you’re right. Actually, related to that, when you were saying that Speaker Pelosi was backup, are there ways in which you think as a woman legislator that your strategy is different in how you address or interact in Congress?

Tammy Duckworth: It’s a cliché, but I think it’s definitely consensus building, and really working a lot of those relationships. We are very fortunate in the Senate that we do have the women’s senators group, so we do support each other as much as possible, and try to back each other up across the aisle. You’ve seen there have been some images of Lisa Murkowski or Susan Collins who voted on some choice issues or some things like that, where it was Democratic women senators who stood next to them to provide them with support as they were making some really tough votes that they were really being harassed for by their male colleagues. Yeah.

Joanne Freeman: Does that feel different in the Senate then it did in the House on that account?

Tammy Duckworth: It does because there were many, many more women in the House. Again, we have a female leader. In the Senate, Chuck is great, but we just don’t have that type of leadership over in terms of … We have Patty Murray. She’s the first. She’s the first woman leader over here on the Senate side, so we certainly could use more representation.

Joanne Freeman: Now, looking in from the outside and seeing the large number of women that came in in this last election … I was on the outside cheering and thinking, “Yay!” But, what I’m really curious about is, did that offer a different sense of a we to you being on the inside? Did that awareness, above and beyond the fact that we need more representation from women, did that change the ethos for you in any way?

Tammy Duckworth: I just felt like we had more center of mass. I don’t get to go over to the House side very much, as we’re just over in the Senate side. So, the total number of female senators didn’t change. I will tell you that on the House side, I was over there, I don’t know, before the State of the Union or something, and there was a waiting line for the female stalls in the female bathroom. It was the first time that had happened. There’s so many of us now, we actually have to wait again.

Joanne Freeman: Oh, my gosh!

Tammy Duckworth: I was like, “Well, then you need to change it. Get some more stall over here.” But, it was nice. We’re all standing around talking to each other, and that was really nice. There’s a lot of shop talk going on as you’re just chatting with each other-

Joanne Freeman: That’s hilarious.

Tammy Duckworth: Yeah, it was a good feeling.

Joanne Freeman: I wonder also, given what we’ve been talking about here, in looking at the historic number of women right now who are running for president, what are your thoughts at this moment?

Tammy Duckworth: I’m so proud, and I’m so proud that there’s no questions of whether or not they’re qualified as there was with Geraldine Ferraro or for the women before her. I think Hillary Clinton and all the women who ran prior who showed that women are just equally qualified … What I really like is the fact that no one has questioned these women’s ability to do this job. Maybe it’s a reflection on who’s in the White House right now, but I don’t think people look at any one of the women that are running and think, “Oh, she’s not capable.”

Tammy Duckworth: It’s definitely more how to rack and stack the various people who are running in terms of almost more experience. Some of these women are seen as having more experience as many of the men who are running who are very young.

Joanne Freeman: I guess I’ll ask one last question, and it’s kind of a goofy question, but I’m going to ask it anyway. If you were bestowed with magical political powers and could do anything right now to make the space in Congress feel more inclusive, what might you do?

Tammy Duckworth: I would get more diversity in the staff at the highest levels because that’s not there. We’re trying very hard to do that. The staff are even, I think, in many ways less diverse than the membership, especially if you look at the House. It’s still a largely white, male workforce, and there are not very many female chiefs of staff. There’s not very many female legislative directors. These are people who are advising their representative or their senators on the bills to write, so if you have … Even though you could have a female senator, if her advisors are all white men, they’re not going to be as attuned to criminal justice reform issues, economic injustice issues, equal pay, and all of that.

Tammy Duckworth: I’ll give you an example of how it makes a big difference even though it’s not about the loss. My chief of staff, Kaitlin Fahey, has been with me from the time she walked on as an unpaid volunteer. My deputy chief of staff is a woman as well. They belong to the women’s chiefs group who get together in a bipartisan way and try to solve some of these issues, and agree to bring up some of these legislation, work together on the legislation, and nudge their bosses in the right direction. Also, Kaitlin is the one who’s been my right-hand person developing my own leave policies.

Tammy Duckworth: We have 12 weeks of paid family leave for birth of a child, adoption, fostering, also to take care of an ill family member. So, it’s open equally to men or women in my office, and this is something that Kaitlin helped me develop. Having a female chief was really important as part of that process. She and I were pregnant, and we gave birth within three months of each other.

Joanne Freeman: Oh, wow!

Tammy Duckworth: My deputy chief is pregnant now.

Joanne Freeman: On, my gosh!

Tammy Duckworth: That changes the ethos in the office because now the young men in my office sees it as perfectly okay for a woman to go have a baby, and take time off, and then come back to work. The senator did it, and the chief-

Joanne Freeman: It makes it pregnant [crosstalk 00:40:14] real-time.

Tammy Duckworth: And, it actually didn’t hurt anything. Everybody was just fine. Now, I’m waiting. I’m just praying that one of my male staff members actually has a child and takes the family leave and sets the example.

Joanne Freeman: Tammy Duckworth is the Junior Senator from Illinois.

Brian Balogh: Joanne, what is it about the executive role in politics that seems, at least, to be an even greater barrier to women than the legislative role?

Joanne Freeman: I want to say two things in response to that. One of them is, if you’re talking about electability, you have to complicate that question because the fact of the matter is, Hillary Clinton won votes. She proved that she was electable. There are larger questions here that we need to talk about, but the question of who is electable and who isn’t is a more complicated question that I think maybe we can come back to.

Joanne Freeman: Before we do that, the second thing I want to mention here has to do with the bigger reason why I think it’s hard to elect a woman president, and part of it I do think that has to of with the symbolism of the job. More than that, I think that has to do with the fact that if you’re talking about an old boys’ network, that certainly seems to me structurally, that’s going to be much more in play running for president than it is going to be running for Congress when you can have something like a grassroots campaign. You are the source of 20th and 21st-century political wisdom here, so tell me, am I making sense?

Brian Balogh: Well, I think you’re making a lot of sense, especially for the past. The ever-growing number of Democratic candidates, obviously, suggest that dozens of people feel it’s become easier to throw your hat in the ring at any rate, if not actually become president. I think some of the older barriers around fundraising and networks are changing in front of our very eyes, but I think that the other factor, which you didn’t get to, is this whole question about electability. I think it’s often code for, well, we’ve never quite down that before, or we can’t be sure of that.

Brian Balogh: My question for you is what did that look like in the 19th century? There must have been versions of that, right?

Joanne Freeman: I think I would add to your description, before I plunge into my late 18th-century example of that, I would add to that part of that same message is that person doesn’t look like what I think that position looks like, right?

Brian Balogh: I think right now, it’s worse than that person doesn’t look like what I think that position is. I think it’s, that person doesn’t look like what I think people are going to think that position looks like. That drives me crazy.

Joanne Freeman: Yes, it’s people passing judgment on what they think the ethos is.

Brian Balogh: Exactly.

Joanne Freeman: So, they’re saying over and over again, “Well, we collectively are not ready for this, even though I personally maybe … ”

Brian Balogh: Okay, take us to the 19th century.

Joanne Freeman: I’m taking you better. I’m taking you to the 1790s. This stands out in my mind because of this guy’s name. In the late 18th century, in the 1790s, in the first ten years of the government, there’s pretty much a standard elite, white, male guy in positions of leadership. Generally speaking, those people were from a certain class of society, although they wouldn’t have identified themselves as belonging to classes. People weren’t quite talking in that way yet.

Joanne Freeman: In the late 1790s, there was a fellow of slightly lower social status who had the wonderful name Swanwick. The reason why I know Mr. Swanwick existed is because when he got elected to Congress in the late 1790s, there’s this chorus of outrage that a fellow of the like of Swanwick could be elected to Congress. There are all of these letters from people saying, “Swanwick! Really? Swanwick!” We’re not talking about a vast sea of difference. We’re talking about someone who a group of elite men thought was slightly less elite than they were. Seemed like the wrong sort of person to be in Congress, and not the sort of person they wanted to be in Congress with. Certainly, who is the us and who is the them version of electability goes back to the beginning of the republic.

Brian Balogh: Well, Joanne, since I’ve been in the history business for a while-

Joanne Freeman: History biz.

Brian Balogh: … it has occurred to me that when I started, there were not a lot of female professors. Is this something that you encountered your own “electability” dilemma in? Was there a moment when you thought, “Gee, I’m interested in history, but I can’t be a history professor. I’m a woman”?

Joanne Freeman: I guess I would say it wasn’t … In a sense, it’s a cliché that you hear so often, representation matters. Representation matters and so many people say it so often that it’s easy to forget the meaning behind that. I would say in my case as a woman academic, that proved to be very true. I think it wasn’t so much that I thought to myself when I began grad school, “Huh, there’s a surprisingly small number of women surrounding me here, and my classes are all taught by men.” I don’t think I thought about it because so many things really are populated by a majority of men. I don’t think it struck me until I knew I had to get up in front of a group of people and give a lecture at a prominent institution.

Joanne Freeman: It suddenly dawned on me that I didn’t know what a woman sounded like standing up in front of a group of people with authority and talking about history. I didn’t know what that was supposed to sound like. I had wonderful images in my head of men and what they sounded like, but I couldn’t envision myself doing it. So, I actually went and found two really prominent women historians who were together on a panel, and drove … I think it was about an hour away … to sit in the audience and watch these women hold forth, which they did. They were powerful women.

Joanne Freeman: It was Pauline Maier and Joyce Appleby, and they held that room. The room was largely male. They were in control, and I just absorbed that, and I just thought, “Okay, there. Okay, now I can … If I’m Swanwick, I’ve just seen some other Swanwicks doing what I want to do, so I know it can be done.” It’s so cliché to say representation matters, but, in my personal life, I couldn’t have a more powerful example of that really shaping what I believed I could do.

Joanne Freeman: Here’s my question for you then. Obviously, you’re coming as a white guy from a very different perspective here, but you’ve had experience in your past working with legislators and female politicians. In what sense have those experiences shaped your understanding of these kinds of questions?

Brian Balogh: Yeah, I worked for City Council President, Carol Bellamy, City Council President of New York City, back in the late 1970s, early 80s. It did shape my understanding of politics a lot. First off, I hadn’t really thought very much about politics in gender terms. Superficially, when I joined Carol’s staff, I learned an entirely new vocabulary quickly because there were not mailmen in Carol’s world. There were letter carriers. I, in my first week on the job, learned an entirely new nomenclature for every government job out there.

Brian Balogh: I will tell you this felt, does this matter? I spent at least a day or two thinking, “I don’t know if this matters.” Within three or four days, it became so natural, and it became very important to me, and I began teaching other people about gender-neutral nomenclature. Now, that was relatively superficial. I’m not saying it’s not important, but the real takeaway was watching the way Carol had to avoid issues that she was passionate about and very expert at because they were associated with what women care about. Daycare, for instance, vaccinations, public health for children, all associated with women.

Brian Balogh: Carol was great at that, and she made a real difference in those areas, but she had to go out of her way to be seen doing things that are associated with guys at the time. I was her budget advisor. I probably wouldn’t have had a job if Carol wasn’t at pains to demonstrate that she was actually really expert at finance and budget, stuff that were associated with guys in the late 1970s and early 80s. So, this whole world of meaning and association and assumptions opened up for me just from working for a female elected official. I was somewhat savvy about politics at the time, but I had no idea until I actually worked for Carol Bellamy.

Joanne Freeman: That’s interesting because it drives home for me the fact that we’re talking about a two-step process here, and the first step is women getting in these offices so that they have power. But, the second step is women in those offices being able to behave in a natural manner, and be passionate about what they’re passionate about, and do what it is that they chose to do, and act as they choose to act, without trying to counteract or prove how male-like they are.

Joanne Freeman: It’s that second step that it’s intriguing to think about right now, I think, because of the very thing that you mentioned, the fact that there’s a group now of people. In that idea of a group, there’s power, and a lot of these women are aggressively stepping forward and saying not just I’m here and I’m a woman, but I’m a woman and I’m going to behave like a woman in office here. That, in an of itself, has a special strength to it. I’m really intrigued to see how that’s going to work itself through, and what’s going to be the outcome of that.

Brian Balogh: I think that’s such an important point, Joanne. You talked earlier about the importance of representation. I don’t think we get the real pay off from representation until we get to what you call the second stage, until women can get beyond demonstrating that they can do what a man can do, and are free to do what they actually want to do as a human being. Joanne, are we there? Are we in stage two? We know we’ve reached the Swanwick stage, but are we in the Freeman stage two of the political process?

Joanne Freeman: I think there are glimmers of stage two. I think I can see them, and I think I want to see more of them, and I want to see them outlast this election. I guess I can say that I certainly see more of that second stage now then I remember seeing in my time of being aware of politics during my lifetime.

Joanne Freeman: That’s it for us today, but you can keep the conversation going online. Let us know what you thought of the episode, or ask us your questions about history. You’ll find us at backstoryradio.org, or send an email to backstory@virginia.edu. We’re also on Facebook and Twitter at backstoryradio. Whatever you do, don’t be a stranger.

Brian Balogh: BackStory’s produced at Virginia Humanities. Major support is provided by an anonymous donor, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Executive Vice President and Provost at the University of Virginia, and the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Tomato Fund, cultivating fresh ideas in the arts, the humanities, and the environment.

Speaker 11: Brian Balogh is Professor of History at the University of Virginia. Ed Ayers is Professor of the Humanities and President Emeritus at the University of Richmond. Joann Freeman is Professor of History and American Studies at Yale University. Nathan Connolly is the Herbert Baxter Adams Associate Professor of History at the Johns Hopkins University.

Speaker 11: BackStory was created by Andrew Windham of Virginia Humanities.