June 3, 2021 • 34 mins
People have been asking Hillary to change ever since the 1970s, when she defied the stereotype of First Lady of Arkansas. And she was willing to change...just never in the way people had hoped.
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Speaker 1 (00:14):
Pushkin pushkin. It is a constant balancing act. It's everything
(00:44):
from how you dress and you know what your hairstyle is,
to how loudly you speak or how loudly you laugh,
or you know who you are seen with or I mean,
it's just a constant judgment. Hillary Rodham Clinton's had a
complicated relationship with the public. It started in the nineteen
seventies when she challenged the cookie cutter roll laid out
(01:06):
for her as first Lady of Arkansas. Follow her to
me that you really don't fit the image that we
have created or the governor's wife in Arkansas. You're not
a native, you've been educated in liberal Eastern universities. If
you're less than for it, you don't have any children,
you don't use your husband's name, you practice law. Does
(01:26):
it concern you that maybe other people feel that you
don't fit the image that we have created for the
governor's wife in Arkansas. No, that doesn't bother me, and
I hope that it doesn't bother very many people. But
it did bother many people. Hillary being Hillary made people uncomfortable,
(01:48):
and so one by one, her critics started asking her
to change herself. Despite all her extraordinary accomplishments, including senator,
secretary of state, first woman to be nominated for president
by a major political party, and I mean she even
won the popular vote in the twenty sixteen election. Despite
all of that, people kept at it. They wanted Hillary
(02:10):
to be different, for her to change, and she was
willing to change, just never in the way that people
had hoped. I'm maya Shunker, and this is a slight
change of plans, a show that dieds deep into the
world of change and hopefully gets us to think differently
about change in our own lives. Hi, how are you. Hi.
(02:53):
It's great to meet you, Secretary Clinton. I just wanted
to welcome you formally to my closet. I always dreamed
it would be this way, you know, the first time
I met Hillary Clinton would be from my makeshift recording
studio with clothes everywhere. But I guess this is the
world we live in right now. It is the world
we live in. I have been privy to many closets
(03:15):
over the last year because as I've been doing my
podcast and talking with friends on Zoom and everything, people
are in closets. They're in corners of their bedroom, they're
in kitchens, I mean, it's just been quite a tour
of everybody's living space. Yeah, exactly. You get an intimate
glimpse into people's lives exactly. So I'm just going to
(03:37):
jump in. Do you mind if I call you Hillary?
Not at all, Not at all. So I love to
rewind the clock to your twenties. We can take the
little time machine back in time. So you're a lawyer
in DC, You've just wrapped up your work on the
Nixon impeachment hearings, and then love gets in the way
and you end up moving to Arkansas and Bill becomes governor,
(04:02):
and you are not the typical first lady, and that's
met with some resistance, right. Do you mind sharing what
it was that people were taking issue with? Well, I
think that back in what would have been the nineteen seventies,
it was still, you know, somewhat unusual to have graduated
(04:23):
from law school to be teaching law or practicing law.
I did both, and I really saw that, but I
didn't think it would impede me in any way. And
then when I married Bill in nineteen seventy five, you know,
I determined that I would keep my own name, which
(04:44):
seemed to me to make a lot of sense, because
that's what I had written under at law school, that's
what I had practice law undertaught, etc. And I think
it was really at the point that our daughter was
born in February of nineteen eighty and Bill was having
(05:09):
to run for reelection because there were only two year
terms for governors back then, and the front page announcement
was Governor Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham announced the birth
of their daughter, Chelsea. It was probably that moment that
really pierced people's public consciousness that oh, my gosh, she
(05:34):
has a different name. And then that became a really
big issue. And so when Bill lost for reelection in
nineteen eighty in the Reagan landslide, among the top reasons
people said that they didn't vote for him was because
I didn't take his last name or change my name,
as they would say. And it was a truly surprising
(06:00):
revelation to me that that would matter so much to people.
But now, frankly wouldn't make that big a difference to anybody,
but it was significant, and I had so many people
come to me and say, you really have to take
your husband's last name. You're really stopping him from being
able to run again and be governor again, and there's
(06:22):
a lot at stake with him being governor. And the
one person never asked me to do that was my husband.
He thought it was pretty ridiculous also, but I concluded
that it was, you know, for me, something that I
was willing to do, and I made an announcement that
I would be Hillary Rodham Clinton. And obviously it went
(06:48):
against what I thought was my decision, but I balanced
all of the pros and cons and decided that on balance,
it was the right thing for me to do. Yeah.
I think a lot of people, women, especially face the
same kind of tension, which is knowing when it makes
sense to compromise. Right, Do I do I take a
(07:09):
principled stance at every turn, but then risk getting kicked
out of the arena altogether and then lose my ability
to have impact. Or do I try to more thoughtfully
pick my battles and stay in the arena and just
play the longer game. Well, that's exactly right. I was
not going to stop practicing law. I was not going
to stop being outspoken about a lot of issues that
(07:32):
really mattered to me. And when Bill was reelected in
nineteen eighty two, I dove back in and shared a
task force to reform education in the state, and it
was I'm sure easier for some people to hear the
changes I was advocating for because I was all of
(07:56):
a sudden truly understood to be the governor's wife. So
it is a constant balancing act, and I'm sure that's
true for all people, but I think you're right to
say that as women, we make those decisions constantly. And
it's everything from how you dress and you know what
your hairstyle is, to how loudly you speak or how
(08:19):
loudly you laugh, or you know who you are seen
with or I mean, it's just a constant judgment both
internally you're judging yourself, but most importantly how you're being judged,
because there continues to be a rather active double standard. Yeah,
(08:39):
there's some really telling footage from back in the day
where you're getting interviewed about your role as first Lady,
and underneath your face it says Hillary Rawdon, and underneath
that in parentheses it says missus Bill Clinton. I mean,
I just laughed out loud, right, But I'm part of
a different generation where it just seems like, of course
(08:59):
I'm going to keep my last name. But I recognize
that at the time that was a truly bold feminist statement.
So I want to dig into that a little bit more.
Which when you did first marry Bill, what fueled your
decision to keep your last name. I was just you know,
feeling like he was going into politics and he would
(09:23):
have a very public life. At that time, I never
thought I would personally run for office, but I thought
I would stay as an advocate. I'd been, you know,
working for the Children's Offense Fund, I'd been a lawyer
on the impeachment inquiry staff. I'd had really fascinating important
jobs for me, and I wanted my professional life to
(09:45):
be considered separate from his. And I will tell you
a funny story. Before I took his last name, I
was helping on a big lawsuit in my law firm
with one of the senior partners. And we went to trial.
And we went to trial in this rural county outside
of Little Rock, and the judge was at that time
(10:10):
under investigation, and the office investigating him was the Attorney
General's Office, headed by my husband. So we were in
the courtroom and this was the kind of judge back
in the day, who would say how pretty I looked
and asked me to stand up and twirl around to
(10:30):
show everybody what a pretty dress I was wearing. On
and on, we made our case and we moved to
be dismissed from the case, and we were successful. So
we get back to our office and the next day
the senior partner calls me in and he said, well,
I'm sure glad we got dismissed yesterday because on one
of the breaks, the judge was cursing out your husband,
(10:51):
talking about how terrible the Attorney General was to be
investigating him. So one of the other lawyers said, well,
you know, your honor, that young woman that was in
the courtroom, that's Bill Clinton's wife. And the judge said, well,
if I'd known that, I wouldn't have dismissed the case
against your client. Now that to me and apsolated. You know,
the challenge of being married to a public figure but
(11:15):
being very committed to my own professional career. I mean,
I love that Bill never asked you to change your name.
So when you finally when you finally took the plunge,
what did he say to you? Was he kind of
like thanks? But yeah, yeah, he basically said, look, you know,
I wish you wouldn't have to do this. I wish
you didn't think you had to do it. Please don't
(11:37):
do it for me. And you know, he said everything
the right thing, but he also encountered from a lot
of you know, his male supporters, you know, men who
would say, you know, Bill, I always thought of you
as a really you know, strong guy, and how come
you don't make your wife take you know, take your name.
(11:57):
I mean, it was such a flash point, and it
it was, you know, something that I guess both of
us should have predicted. Now we would be you know,
laughing at it. But look at what they make big
issues out of today. So I guess we shouldn't be
surprised that anything which touches a cultural hot point is
(12:23):
going to provoke a reaction. Do you remember the first
time you introduced yourself as Hillary Clinton? Oh, sure, I would.
I did a press conference. I mean, you know, I
was at an event and I said, look, I know
this means a lot of a number of people, and
I don't want their concern about you know, my last
(12:47):
name to interfere with doing what's right for the state
and making some tough decisions. So from now on I
will be known as Hillary Rodham Clinton. I just did it,
very matter of fact. I didn't make a big deal
out of it, and you know, I assumed that. Okay,
now you can argue about me about other things. Why
(13:11):
is she still working? Why why is she, you know,
telling people to raise their taxes to pay for teachers?
What is she doing? And then later why is she
fighting for healthcare and the you know when Bill was president?
So fine, if this gets you to focus on what
I actually think is important, and that is how we're
going to live together, make tough decisions together, let's do that.
(13:34):
It's interesting. I mean, there was an element of a
slippery slope which used to change her name. It's that
with positive reception and then all of a sudden people
are like, oh yeah, but what about your hair and
your glasses and makeup and can we get you a stylist.
I'm curious to know whether changing any of these parts
of yourself ever affected your self perception. You know, I
(13:57):
never thought any of it affected my self perception or
my identity, and there were parts that I ended up enjoying.
You know, I finally got around to forcing myself to
wear contact lenses. You know, it made a big difference
and how I could actually see as well as be seen.
I had a lot of fun all of a sudden,
(14:19):
you know, thinking, well, you know, I don't have to
just wear turtlenecks and and baggy vests and you know,
skirts and pants or whatever. So yeah, they're parts of
it that were interesting that, you know, maybe I wouldn't
have pursued had I not married Bill, or had I
not ever married anybody. But I didn't ever feel like
(14:45):
it affected my core as to who I was. I
never and I give my parents credit for this maya.
I never. I never really felt like anybody was damaging
me or undermining me or subverting me, because I just didn't,
(15:09):
you know, either respond to that or didn't frankly allow it. So,
you know, maybe it's stubbornness. Maybe it's just the strength
of you know, two parents who never told me that
there wasn't anything I couldn't do as a woman. And
so I don't feel like any of the sort of
small choices compromises that I made along the way were
(15:31):
that significant. I did feel so strong in my own
sense of being in purpose. I think that also caused
a reaction, and I think that was hard for people,
men and women to understand. But it's just who I am. Yeah,
(15:52):
I do wonder whether this is so interesting because it
almost seems like the people of Arkansas wanted you to
suffer a bit more from that name change, Like I
would have almost felt more satisfying if it had been
a really challenging thing for you, Like maybe they were
they were hoping you were going to give them something
meaningful to show how much you. I don't know is
(16:16):
how wrong i'd been. How Yeah, it's like the fact
that it was easy in some sense because you're such
a pragmatist right to change your last name left people
feeling like, Okay, she changed the last name, but damn it,
but she didn't do enough. Yeah, we were trying to
change her and she's not willing to change. That's one right,
that's really perceptive. Maya, that is exactly right. And this
(16:40):
has been a constant theme through my adult life. You know,
there's something about women stepping into the arena, particularly being
unapologetic about it, being willing to stand up against or
call out strong groups or interest groups or forces at work.
(17:03):
Whatever that is in and of itself, still I'm what, um,
surprising and even uh not fully acceptable and and so
I I really did experience that, um, and I think
(17:25):
I paid a price for it. I mean I think that,
you know, being unapologetically outspoken and willing to challenge conventional wisdom.
You know, it's discomforting for a lot of people. Yeah,
did I put up with a lot of stuff? Yeah?
Did I put up with a lot of stuff when
(17:45):
I ran for office? Yeah? Did I put up with
you know, all kinds of you know, sexism and misogyny. Absolutely,
some I just ignored for you know, all the reasons
that people women of my age ignored that stuff. Uh,
it just wasn't worth the battle. Even in the case
(18:06):
of Arkansas, you made all these superficial change just to
your look and you changed your last name. But it
didn't it didn't do what people were hoping to do,
which is to break you a little bit, you know,
to like expose some deep vulnerabilities. Because what do bullies want. Ultimately,
they want to get a rise out of you. They
want to see you crack a bit. But you know,
it's so interest This is so interesting to me because
(18:27):
in the twenty sixteen campaign, like for example, the famous
incident of the second debate where Trump is looming over me,
leering at me and trying to intimidate me, and I'm
madly going through what are my options here? Do I
turn around and say, back up, you creep? You know
you don't intimidate me? Do I, you know, try to
laugh it off? What do I do? How do ideal
(18:50):
with what is a clearly signaled effort on his part
to his supporters that he's got the little lady in hand,
because he's a master manipulator. And it was hard, and
eventually I decided, no, you know, I'm not to respond.
I'm not going to either laugh it off or try to,
(19:13):
you know, expose it, because I don't want people to
think I can't take it. I mean, I'm trying to
be president of the United States, for heaven's sakes. So
this is a highly complicated calculation as a woman, and
I probably would guess that women make that calculation dozens
(19:35):
of times a day. Yeah, you know, I think this
constant critique that you've gotten over the course of your
whole life is we don't know the real Hillary Clinton.
And I just wonder, in having this conversation if that's
a euphemism for we don't accept the real Hillary Clinton's
That is exactly. She is not like me, or she's
(19:57):
not like the women that I know, or she's not
like what I want a woman to be. You know,
I used to laugh when people in the media would say, oh,
you know, she yells. Have you ever gone to a
rally where any man is running for anything and he
(20:17):
doesn't at some point yell, I mean, good grief, look
who I was running against in twenty sixteen, and all
of the yelling that went on. But you know, that's
not what we want. So this is one of the
areas that is really rich for further research and understanding,
because how do you communicate about that. You know, you
(20:38):
don't want to sound like you're whining. You don't want
to sound like you can't take it. You don't want
to sound like you're asking for special treatment. But how
do you begin to unpack that. We'll be back in
a moment with a slight change of plans. When Hillary
(21:03):
Clinton moved into the White House after her husband became president,
she again challenged the cookie cutter role laid out for her,
this time as First Lady of the United States instead
of Sticking to her ceremonial duties, Hillary was asked by
her husband to lead the Task Force on National Healthcare Reform.
It was an ambitious role that had never been given
(21:24):
to a first lady before. She said yes, and almost
immediately the public criticism began to pour in. You've been
under this glaring spotlight. Right, It's unimaginable for a lot
of people to be under such sustained scrutiny for so
many decades. And it's almost like you've had this mirror
(21:46):
permanently stationed in front of you that's just been reflecting
things back in the form of a constructed Hillary, right,
I mean, And so I do wonder like, obviously many
of the things reflected back to you had been false,
had been distorted. But was there ever something reflected back
to you over the course of your long career that
(22:06):
taught you something new about yourself? Yes? And And you know,
I think I say this often because young people ask
me all the time, how do you get into politics?
How do you take you know, all the attacks and everything.
And I said, look, I learned to take criticism seriously,
but not personally. And by that, I mean your critics
(22:27):
can teach you things that your friends either won't or
don't know. Tom, you have to be careful about where
the criticism is coming from, because a lot of times
it's not well meaning. It's not it's not well intentioned
at all. But you do have to at least understand
(22:51):
and try to figure out how best to deal with it.
So with respect to healthcare, I, you know, I learned
a lot about the perceptions shaping reality. You know. My
view is that we had all these really hard working,
(23:12):
incredibly smart people from all over the country who were
coming up with a plan that would make it possible
for us to get to universal healthcare and make it affordable.
So I mean, I worked on that very hard to
help shape it and then to help present it. But
I really believe that because I was the President's wife,
(23:38):
it was hard for a lot of people to accept
the plan for what it was. And if I had
known that going in, I still would have worked really
hard on it, but I wouldn't have headed it. Somebody
else would have been the face of it, because all
I cared about was trying to get it done. And
(24:00):
you're taking it on as the first Lady of the
United States unpaid volunteer, but nevertheless in that role that
may just be too much for the body polo tick
to absorb. And what did that teach you about yourself
in terms of, you know, where a specific blind spot
was or something that you just needed to learn the
hard way, like well, I mean, it was a very
(24:23):
big learning curve to be in a position that was
totally vicarious. You know, everybody in a White House is
there for only one reason. The President wants them there.
And who the president marys ends up in the White House,
who the President picks as vice president ends up in
(24:44):
the White House. All these people end up in the
White House. So I didn't have agency in a way
that made it my responsibility as I did when I
became a senator. I do wonder whether learning this lesson
when you were first lady in the White House and
(25:05):
recognizing that you maybe didn't love playing that vicarious role
ended up fueling your interest in, you know, untethering yourself
and running for senate. Was that was that part of
the evolution for you? Yes, it was. And I'll tell
you the exact moment that it all came together because
(25:25):
I had, as I said, no idea that I would
ever actually run for office. And then, you know, having
been in the White House and knowing that it was
going to end, you know, trying to think about what
I was going to do next was pretty much on
my mind. And after the nineteen ninety eight midterm elections,
(25:47):
when then Senator moynihan said he wasn't going to run again,
immediately Democrats in New York started calling me asking me
to run. And I'm sure some of them thought I
would be an excellent senator, but a lot of them
thought that I was the only person they could think
of who was available, who could beat Rudy Giuliani, who
(26:07):
was running. So, you know, he had been mayor, he
was obviously controversial, he was obviously tough and all of that.
So we hadn't seen anything yet, which is well, he
lost he lost his mind. I think, I don't know
what happened to him. But so people started calling me
members of Congress and others, and I kept saying no, no, no,
(26:28):
no no. And then in the spring of ninety nine,
I was as first Lady in New York City at
a high school to promote women's sports. It was like
a Title nine event, and there was a new documentary
coming out about women in sports, and the name of
(26:52):
the documentary was Dare to Compete. And of course, you know,
the New York papers are filled with people trying to
get me to run, and my saying, you know, no, etc.
And the young woman who introduced me captain of you know,
basketball team, she introduced me, and then she bent over
and she whispered in my ear, dare to compete, missus Linton,
dare to compete. I was so astonished by that, because,
(27:17):
you know, I had spent many years urging women to compete,
you know, in sports and academics and science, in politics.
I'd campaigned for dozens of women running for Congress or governor,
whatever election it was. And I suddenly thought to myself,
maybe you're afraid to compete. Maybe you are telling people
(27:41):
to do something that you wouldn't do yourself. And it
was literally at that moment that I took seriously running
for the Senate and working through it and trying to
be as honest with myself as I could. I thought, Okay,
I'm going to try this, And I had no idea
whether it would work or not, because when you're supporting
(28:06):
somebody else, and I'd support it, not just my husband,
but you know, hundreds of people, you know, it's always
about them, and then all of a sudden, you know
it's about you. And so it was. It was a
big transition. But it was that well, that young woman
at that moment that really, I think turned my head around.
What do you think you were scared of? I think
(28:28):
it was just the unknown. I think it was knowing
how hard politics is, because honestly, I'm kind of an
expert on that. I thought, you know, I'm just going
to be walking into the meat grinder. It's been you know,
a very eventful eight years. I could go teach, or
write or do all kinds of interesting things. Why do
(28:49):
I want to do that? You know? Why do I
want to subject myself to that? And remember I had
been burned in effigy well with other things, so I
knew I was already again because of all the stuff
I represented as a I don't know, baby boomer woman
who you know, didn't know her play. I guess I
(29:10):
had been, you know, subjected to so many a text
from Rush Limbaugh and all the people like that. Why
did I want to do that? Why? And then I
kind of thought, Okay, you have been and you also
believe that there's a lot of things we need to do.
You've had a front row seat on history, So get
(29:31):
out there and try. You never know until you try.
So that's what I ended up doing. Yeah. I think
it's easy for people to think of you now and
say Hillary Clinton came out of the box this way, right,
she was she always had the courage and bravery to
run for these big offices. But you know, you had
to go through your own personal evolution just like every
(29:53):
other person out there, right, Well, what were some if
you don't mind sharing, like, what were some insecurities that
you had along the way that you had to work through? Oh?
My gosh. You know, once you're out there on your own,
you're not there to advocate for a program or advocate
for a candidate. You know, I think where you're going
(30:18):
to be anny good at it? You know, you go
from behind the scenes to the front of the stage.
And how are people going to respond to you? And
are they going to believe you, listen to you, agree
with you? Is your personality? Is it going to be enough?
(30:40):
So yeah, I mean there's a lot of criticism, and
then you know, you get all of the gendered criticism,
like don't wear that color, wear this color. Don't wear
flat shoes, wear heels or vice versa. Don't let your
hair grow, don't let your hair be short. I mean,
everybody feels like they can critique a woman in the
(31:01):
public arena. They don't do that to men, you know,
ninety nine point nine percent of the time. And I
had some of the same experience when I practiced law,
because you know, there were expectations about what a woman
lawyer should look like. So I wasn't totally surprised, but
the amount of unsolicited advice that you start to receive,
(31:23):
and people say things like, you know, learn to talk
like then they always fell on a man's name, like
learn to talk like Bill Clinton, learn to talk like
Winston Churchill. I remember somebody said, you know, all of
these kind of you know, expectations that are not at
(31:44):
all who you are, and what you have to do
is just learn to be yourself and just be yourself
and do the best you can, and then you know
you'll either be successful or not, but at least you'll
be true to yourself. Yeah. I have been pretty much
the same person says I was a little girl, and
(32:04):
I think your insights into how that rattled a lot
of people in terms of what was to be expected,
but I also think that it still is affecting women
across the board in every walk of life, and so
you have to first of all be at peace with
who you are, then try to translate that into the
(32:28):
role you're playing in an effective way, whether it's private
or personal or public, and just get the most out
of every day. Hey, thanks for listening. See you next
(33:02):
week when I'm going to be talking to change expert
doctor Katie Milkman about science based strategies to help you
inspire change in your own life. And I was in
this seminar and a graph went up, which normally doesn't
change your life, but this graph changed my life. The
graph just showed a breakdown of how many premature deaths
are due to different causes, and forty percent of premature
(33:26):
deaths turn out to be the result of decisions that
we can change. A slight change of Plans is created
an executive produce by me Maya Shanker. Big thanks to
everyone at Pushkin Industries, including our producer Lola Board, associate
(33:50):
producers David ja and Julia Goodman, executive producers Mia Lavelle,
and Justine Lange, senior editor Jen Guera, and sound design
and mixed engineers Ben Taliday and Jason Gambrel. Thanks also
to Louis Gara, who wrote our theme song, and Ginger
Smith who helped arrange the vocals, incidental music from Epidemic Sound,
(34:12):
and of course a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee.
You can follow a slight change of plans on Instagram
at doctor Maya Shanker. If we hadn't talked so much
about me, I have a lot of questions for you.
(34:32):
I think you're slightly more interesting than me, so I'm
glad we spent the time this way. It was such
a pleasure. Good luck to you, and I hope I
get to meet you in person. Take care, Yes, I
hope so too. All Right, take care, okay, bye bye
Pushkin pushkin. It is a constant balancing act. It's everything
(00:44):
from how you dress and you know what your hairstyle is,
to how loudly you speak or how loudly you laugh,
or you know who you are seen with or I mean,
it's just a constant judgment. Hillary Rodham Clinton's had a
complicated relationship with the public. It started in the nineteen
seventies when she challenged the cookie cutter roll laid out
(01:06):
for her as first Lady of Arkansas. Follow her to
me that you really don't fit the image that we
have created or the governor's wife in Arkansas. You're not
a native, you've been educated in liberal Eastern universities. If
you're less than for it, you don't have any children,
you don't use your husband's name, you practice law. Does
(01:26):
it concern you that maybe other people feel that you
don't fit the image that we have created for the
governor's wife in Arkansas. No, that doesn't bother me, and
I hope that it doesn't bother very many people. But
it did bother many people. Hillary being Hillary made people uncomfortable,
(01:48):
and so one by one, her critics started asking her
to change herself. Despite all her extraordinary accomplishments, including senator,
secretary of state, first woman to be nominated for president
by a major political party, and I mean she even
won the popular vote in the twenty sixteen election. Despite
all of that, people kept at it. They wanted Hillary
(02:10):
to be different, for her to change, and she was
willing to change, just never in the way that people
had hoped. I'm maya Shunker, and this is a slight
change of plans, a show that dieds deep into the
world of change and hopefully gets us to think differently
about change in our own lives. Hi, how are you. Hi.
(02:53):
It's great to meet you, Secretary Clinton. I just wanted
to welcome you formally to my closet. I always dreamed
it would be this way, you know, the first time
I met Hillary Clinton would be from my makeshift recording
studio with clothes everywhere. But I guess this is the
world we live in right now. It is the world
we live in. I have been privy to many closets
(03:15):
over the last year because as I've been doing my
podcast and talking with friends on Zoom and everything, people
are in closets. They're in corners of their bedroom, they're
in kitchens, I mean, it's just been quite a tour
of everybody's living space. Yeah, exactly. You get an intimate
glimpse into people's lives exactly. So I'm just going to
(03:37):
jump in. Do you mind if I call you Hillary?
Not at all, Not at all. So I love to
rewind the clock to your twenties. We can take the
little time machine back in time. So you're a lawyer
in DC, You've just wrapped up your work on the
Nixon impeachment hearings, and then love gets in the way
and you end up moving to Arkansas and Bill becomes governor,
(04:02):
and you are not the typical first lady, and that's
met with some resistance, right. Do you mind sharing what
it was that people were taking issue with? Well, I
think that back in what would have been the nineteen seventies,
it was still, you know, somewhat unusual to have graduated
(04:23):
from law school to be teaching law or practicing law.
I did both, and I really saw that, but I
didn't think it would impede me in any way. And
then when I married Bill in nineteen seventy five, you know,
I determined that I would keep my own name, which
(04:44):
seemed to me to make a lot of sense, because
that's what I had written under at law school, that's
what I had practice law undertaught, etc. And I think
it was really at the point that our daughter was
born in February of nineteen eighty and Bill was having
(05:09):
to run for reelection because there were only two year
terms for governors back then, and the front page announcement
was Governor Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham announced the birth
of their daughter, Chelsea. It was probably that moment that
really pierced people's public consciousness that oh, my gosh, she
(05:34):
has a different name. And then that became a really
big issue. And so when Bill lost for reelection in
nineteen eighty in the Reagan landslide, among the top reasons
people said that they didn't vote for him was because
I didn't take his last name or change my name,
as they would say. And it was a truly surprising
(06:00):
revelation to me that that would matter so much to people.
But now, frankly wouldn't make that big a difference to anybody,
but it was significant, and I had so many people
come to me and say, you really have to take
your husband's last name. You're really stopping him from being
able to run again and be governor again, and there's
(06:22):
a lot at stake with him being governor. And the
one person never asked me to do that was my husband.
He thought it was pretty ridiculous also, but I concluded
that it was, you know, for me, something that I
was willing to do, and I made an announcement that
I would be Hillary Rodham Clinton. And obviously it went
(06:48):
against what I thought was my decision, but I balanced
all of the pros and cons and decided that on balance,
it was the right thing for me to do. Yeah.
I think a lot of people, women, especially face the
same kind of tension, which is knowing when it makes
sense to compromise. Right, Do I do I take a
(07:09):
principled stance at every turn, but then risk getting kicked
out of the arena altogether and then lose my ability
to have impact. Or do I try to more thoughtfully
pick my battles and stay in the arena and just
play the longer game. Well, that's exactly right. I was
not going to stop practicing law. I was not going
to stop being outspoken about a lot of issues that
(07:32):
really mattered to me. And when Bill was reelected in
nineteen eighty two, I dove back in and shared a
task force to reform education in the state, and it
was I'm sure easier for some people to hear the
changes I was advocating for because I was all of
(07:56):
a sudden truly understood to be the governor's wife. So
it is a constant balancing act, and I'm sure that's
true for all people, but I think you're right to
say that as women, we make those decisions constantly. And
it's everything from how you dress and you know what
your hairstyle is, to how loudly you speak or how
(08:19):
loudly you laugh, or you know who you are seen
with or I mean, it's just a constant judgment both
internally you're judging yourself, but most importantly how you're being judged,
because there continues to be a rather active double standard. Yeah,
(08:39):
there's some really telling footage from back in the day
where you're getting interviewed about your role as first Lady,
and underneath your face it says Hillary Rawdon, and underneath
that in parentheses it says missus Bill Clinton. I mean,
I just laughed out loud, right, But I'm part of
a different generation where it just seems like, of course
(08:59):
I'm going to keep my last name. But I recognize
that at the time that was a truly bold feminist statement.
So I want to dig into that a little bit more.
Which when you did first marry Bill, what fueled your
decision to keep your last name. I was just you know,
feeling like he was going into politics and he would
(09:23):
have a very public life. At that time, I never
thought I would personally run for office, but I thought
I would stay as an advocate. I'd been, you know,
working for the Children's Offense Fund, I'd been a lawyer
on the impeachment inquiry staff. I'd had really fascinating important
jobs for me, and I wanted my professional life to
(09:45):
be considered separate from his. And I will tell you
a funny story. Before I took his last name, I
was helping on a big lawsuit in my law firm
with one of the senior partners. And we went to trial.
And we went to trial in this rural county outside
of Little Rock, and the judge was at that time
(10:10):
under investigation, and the office investigating him was the Attorney
General's Office, headed by my husband. So we were in
the courtroom and this was the kind of judge back
in the day, who would say how pretty I looked
and asked me to stand up and twirl around to
(10:30):
show everybody what a pretty dress I was wearing. On
and on, we made our case and we moved to
be dismissed from the case, and we were successful. So
we get back to our office and the next day
the senior partner calls me in and he said, well,
I'm sure glad we got dismissed yesterday because on one
of the breaks, the judge was cursing out your husband,
(10:51):
talking about how terrible the Attorney General was to be
investigating him. So one of the other lawyers said, well,
you know, your honor, that young woman that was in
the courtroom, that's Bill Clinton's wife. And the judge said, well,
if I'd known that, I wouldn't have dismissed the case
against your client. Now that to me and apsolated. You know,
the challenge of being married to a public figure but
(11:15):
being very committed to my own professional career. I mean,
I love that Bill never asked you to change your name.
So when you finally when you finally took the plunge,
what did he say to you? Was he kind of
like thanks? But yeah, yeah, he basically said, look, you know,
I wish you wouldn't have to do this. I wish
you didn't think you had to do it. Please don't
(11:37):
do it for me. And you know, he said everything
the right thing, but he also encountered from a lot
of you know, his male supporters, you know, men who
would say, you know, Bill, I always thought of you
as a really you know, strong guy, and how come
you don't make your wife take you know, take your name.
(11:57):
I mean, it was such a flash point, and it
it was, you know, something that I guess both of
us should have predicted. Now we would be you know,
laughing at it. But look at what they make big
issues out of today. So I guess we shouldn't be
surprised that anything which touches a cultural hot point is
(12:23):
going to provoke a reaction. Do you remember the first
time you introduced yourself as Hillary Clinton? Oh, sure, I would.
I did a press conference. I mean, you know, I
was at an event and I said, look, I know
this means a lot of a number of people, and
I don't want their concern about you know, my last
(12:47):
name to interfere with doing what's right for the state
and making some tough decisions. So from now on I
will be known as Hillary Rodham Clinton. I just did it,
very matter of fact. I didn't make a big deal
out of it, and you know, I assumed that. Okay,
now you can argue about me about other things. Why
(13:11):
is she still working? Why why is she, you know,
telling people to raise their taxes to pay for teachers?
What is she doing? And then later why is she
fighting for healthcare and the you know when Bill was president?
So fine, if this gets you to focus on what
I actually think is important, and that is how we're
going to live together, make tough decisions together, let's do that.
(13:34):
It's interesting. I mean, there was an element of a
slippery slope which used to change her name. It's that
with positive reception and then all of a sudden people
are like, oh yeah, but what about your hair and
your glasses and makeup and can we get you a stylist.
I'm curious to know whether changing any of these parts
of yourself ever affected your self perception. You know, I
(13:57):
never thought any of it affected my self perception or
my identity, and there were parts that I ended up enjoying.
You know, I finally got around to forcing myself to
wear contact lenses. You know, it made a big difference
and how I could actually see as well as be seen.
I had a lot of fun all of a sudden,
(14:19):
you know, thinking, well, you know, I don't have to
just wear turtlenecks and and baggy vests and you know,
skirts and pants or whatever. So yeah, they're parts of
it that were interesting that, you know, maybe I wouldn't
have pursued had I not married Bill, or had I
not ever married anybody. But I didn't ever feel like
(14:45):
it affected my core as to who I was. I
never and I give my parents credit for this maya.
I never. I never really felt like anybody was damaging
me or undermining me or subverting me, because I just didn't,
(15:09):
you know, either respond to that or didn't frankly allow it. So,
you know, maybe it's stubbornness. Maybe it's just the strength
of you know, two parents who never told me that
there wasn't anything I couldn't do as a woman. And
so I don't feel like any of the sort of
small choices compromises that I made along the way were
(15:31):
that significant. I did feel so strong in my own
sense of being in purpose. I think that also caused
a reaction, and I think that was hard for people,
men and women to understand. But it's just who I am. Yeah,
(15:52):
I do wonder whether this is so interesting because it
almost seems like the people of Arkansas wanted you to
suffer a bit more from that name change, Like I
would have almost felt more satisfying if it had been
a really challenging thing for you, Like maybe they were
they were hoping you were going to give them something
meaningful to show how much you. I don't know is
(16:16):
how wrong i'd been. How Yeah, it's like the fact
that it was easy in some sense because you're such
a pragmatist right to change your last name left people
feeling like, Okay, she changed the last name, but damn it,
but she didn't do enough. Yeah, we were trying to
change her and she's not willing to change. That's one right,
that's really perceptive. Maya, that is exactly right. And this
(16:40):
has been a constant theme through my adult life. You know,
there's something about women stepping into the arena, particularly being
unapologetic about it, being willing to stand up against or
call out strong groups or interest groups or forces at work.
(17:03):
Whatever that is in and of itself, still I'm what, um,
surprising and even uh not fully acceptable and and so
I I really did experience that, um, and I think
(17:25):
I paid a price for it. I mean I think that,
you know, being unapologetically outspoken and willing to challenge conventional wisdom.
You know, it's discomforting for a lot of people. Yeah,
did I put up with a lot of stuff? Yeah?
Did I put up with a lot of stuff when
(17:45):
I ran for office? Yeah? Did I put up with
you know, all kinds of you know, sexism and misogyny. Absolutely,
some I just ignored for you know, all the reasons
that people women of my age ignored that stuff. Uh,
it just wasn't worth the battle. Even in the case
(18:06):
of Arkansas, you made all these superficial change just to
your look and you changed your last name. But it
didn't it didn't do what people were hoping to do,
which is to break you a little bit, you know,
to like expose some deep vulnerabilities. Because what do bullies want. Ultimately,
they want to get a rise out of you. They
want to see you crack a bit. But you know,
it's so interest This is so interesting to me because
(18:27):
in the twenty sixteen campaign, like for example, the famous
incident of the second debate where Trump is looming over me,
leering at me and trying to intimidate me, and I'm
madly going through what are my options here? Do I
turn around and say, back up, you creep? You know
you don't intimidate me? Do I, you know, try to
laugh it off? What do I do? How do ideal
(18:50):
with what is a clearly signaled effort on his part
to his supporters that he's got the little lady in hand,
because he's a master manipulator. And it was hard, and
eventually I decided, no, you know, I'm not to respond.
I'm not going to either laugh it off or try to,
(19:13):
you know, expose it, because I don't want people to
think I can't take it. I mean, I'm trying to
be president of the United States, for heaven's sakes. So
this is a highly complicated calculation as a woman, and
I probably would guess that women make that calculation dozens
(19:35):
of times a day. Yeah, you know, I think this
constant critique that you've gotten over the course of your
whole life is we don't know the real Hillary Clinton.
And I just wonder, in having this conversation if that's
a euphemism for we don't accept the real Hillary Clinton's
That is exactly. She is not like me, or she's
(19:57):
not like the women that I know, or she's not
like what I want a woman to be. You know,
I used to laugh when people in the media would say, oh,
you know, she yells. Have you ever gone to a
rally where any man is running for anything and he
(20:17):
doesn't at some point yell, I mean, good grief, look
who I was running against in twenty sixteen, and all
of the yelling that went on. But you know, that's
not what we want. So this is one of the
areas that is really rich for further research and understanding,
because how do you communicate about that. You know, you
(20:38):
don't want to sound like you're whining. You don't want
to sound like you can't take it. You don't want
to sound like you're asking for special treatment. But how
do you begin to unpack that. We'll be back in
a moment with a slight change of plans. When Hillary
(21:03):
Clinton moved into the White House after her husband became president,
she again challenged the cookie cutter role laid out for her,
this time as First Lady of the United States instead
of Sticking to her ceremonial duties, Hillary was asked by
her husband to lead the Task Force on National Healthcare Reform.
It was an ambitious role that had never been given
(21:24):
to a first lady before. She said yes, and almost
immediately the public criticism began to pour in. You've been
under this glaring spotlight. Right, It's unimaginable for a lot
of people to be under such sustained scrutiny for so
many decades. And it's almost like you've had this mirror
(21:46):
permanently stationed in front of you that's just been reflecting
things back in the form of a constructed Hillary, right,
I mean, And so I do wonder like, obviously many
of the things reflected back to you had been false,
had been distorted. But was there ever something reflected back
to you over the course of your long career that
(22:06):
taught you something new about yourself? Yes? And And you know,
I think I say this often because young people ask
me all the time, how do you get into politics?
How do you take you know, all the attacks and everything.
And I said, look, I learned to take criticism seriously,
but not personally. And by that, I mean your critics
(22:27):
can teach you things that your friends either won't or
don't know. Tom, you have to be careful about where
the criticism is coming from, because a lot of times
it's not well meaning. It's not it's not well intentioned
at all. But you do have to at least understand
(22:51):
and try to figure out how best to deal with it.
So with respect to healthcare, I, you know, I learned
a lot about the perceptions shaping reality. You know. My
view is that we had all these really hard working,
(23:12):
incredibly smart people from all over the country who were
coming up with a plan that would make it possible
for us to get to universal healthcare and make it affordable.
So I mean, I worked on that very hard to
help shape it and then to help present it. But
I really believe that because I was the President's wife,
(23:38):
it was hard for a lot of people to accept
the plan for what it was. And if I had
known that going in, I still would have worked really
hard on it, but I wouldn't have headed it. Somebody
else would have been the face of it, because all
I cared about was trying to get it done. And
(24:00):
you're taking it on as the first Lady of the
United States unpaid volunteer, but nevertheless in that role that
may just be too much for the body polo tick
to absorb. And what did that teach you about yourself
in terms of, you know, where a specific blind spot
was or something that you just needed to learn the
hard way, like well, I mean, it was a very
(24:23):
big learning curve to be in a position that was
totally vicarious. You know, everybody in a White House is
there for only one reason. The President wants them there.
And who the president marys ends up in the White House,
who the President picks as vice president ends up in
(24:44):
the White House. All these people end up in the
White House. So I didn't have agency in a way
that made it my responsibility as I did when I
became a senator. I do wonder whether learning this lesson
when you were first lady in the White House and
(25:05):
recognizing that you maybe didn't love playing that vicarious role
ended up fueling your interest in, you know, untethering yourself
and running for senate. Was that was that part of
the evolution for you? Yes, it was. And I'll tell
you the exact moment that it all came together because
(25:25):
I had, as I said, no idea that I would
ever actually run for office. And then, you know, having
been in the White House and knowing that it was
going to end, you know, trying to think about what
I was going to do next was pretty much on
my mind. And after the nineteen ninety eight midterm elections,
(25:47):
when then Senator moynihan said he wasn't going to run again,
immediately Democrats in New York started calling me asking me
to run. And I'm sure some of them thought I
would be an excellent senator, but a lot of them
thought that I was the only person they could think
of who was available, who could beat Rudy Giuliani, who
(26:07):
was running. So, you know, he had been mayor, he
was obviously controversial, he was obviously tough and all of that.
So we hadn't seen anything yet, which is well, he
lost he lost his mind. I think, I don't know
what happened to him. But so people started calling me
members of Congress and others, and I kept saying no, no, no,
(26:28):
no no. And then in the spring of ninety nine,
I was as first Lady in New York City at
a high school to promote women's sports. It was like
a Title nine event, and there was a new documentary
coming out about women in sports, and the name of
(26:52):
the documentary was Dare to Compete. And of course, you know,
the New York papers are filled with people trying to
get me to run, and my saying, you know, no, etc.
And the young woman who introduced me captain of you know,
basketball team, she introduced me, and then she bent over
and she whispered in my ear, dare to compete, missus Linton,
dare to compete. I was so astonished by that, because,
(27:17):
you know, I had spent many years urging women to compete,
you know, in sports and academics and science, in politics.
I'd campaigned for dozens of women running for Congress or governor,
whatever election it was. And I suddenly thought to myself,
maybe you're afraid to compete. Maybe you are telling people
(27:41):
to do something that you wouldn't do yourself. And it
was literally at that moment that I took seriously running
for the Senate and working through it and trying to
be as honest with myself as I could. I thought, Okay,
I'm going to try this, And I had no idea
whether it would work or not, because when you're supporting
(28:06):
somebody else, and I'd support it, not just my husband,
but you know, hundreds of people, you know, it's always
about them, and then all of a sudden, you know
it's about you. And so it was. It was a
big transition. But it was that well, that young woman
at that moment that really, I think turned my head around.
What do you think you were scared of? I think
(28:28):
it was just the unknown. I think it was knowing
how hard politics is, because honestly, I'm kind of an
expert on that. I thought, you know, I'm just going
to be walking into the meat grinder. It's been you know,
a very eventful eight years. I could go teach, or
write or do all kinds of interesting things. Why do
(28:49):
I want to do that? You know? Why do I
want to subject myself to that? And remember I had
been burned in effigy well with other things, so I
knew I was already again because of all the stuff
I represented as a I don't know, baby boomer woman
who you know, didn't know her play. I guess I
(29:10):
had been, you know, subjected to so many a text
from Rush Limbaugh and all the people like that. Why
did I want to do that? Why? And then I
kind of thought, Okay, you have been and you also
believe that there's a lot of things we need to do.
You've had a front row seat on history, So get
(29:31):
out there and try. You never know until you try.
So that's what I ended up doing. Yeah. I think
it's easy for people to think of you now and
say Hillary Clinton came out of the box this way, right,
she was she always had the courage and bravery to
run for these big offices. But you know, you had
to go through your own personal evolution just like every
(29:53):
other person out there, right, Well, what were some if
you don't mind sharing, like, what were some insecurities that
you had along the way that you had to work through? Oh?
My gosh. You know, once you're out there on your own,
you're not there to advocate for a program or advocate
for a candidate. You know, I think where you're going
(30:18):
to be anny good at it? You know, you go
from behind the scenes to the front of the stage.
And how are people going to respond to you? And
are they going to believe you, listen to you, agree
with you? Is your personality? Is it going to be enough?
(30:40):
So yeah, I mean there's a lot of criticism, and
then you know, you get all of the gendered criticism,
like don't wear that color, wear this color. Don't wear
flat shoes, wear heels or vice versa. Don't let your
hair grow, don't let your hair be short. I mean,
everybody feels like they can critique a woman in the
(31:01):
public arena. They don't do that to men, you know,
ninety nine point nine percent of the time. And I
had some of the same experience when I practiced law,
because you know, there were expectations about what a woman
lawyer should look like. So I wasn't totally surprised, but
the amount of unsolicited advice that you start to receive,
(31:23):
and people say things like, you know, learn to talk
like then they always fell on a man's name, like
learn to talk like Bill Clinton, learn to talk like
Winston Churchill. I remember somebody said, you know, all of
these kind of you know, expectations that are not at
(31:44):
all who you are, and what you have to do
is just learn to be yourself and just be yourself
and do the best you can, and then you know
you'll either be successful or not, but at least you'll
be true to yourself. Yeah. I have been pretty much
the same person says I was a little girl, and
(32:04):
I think your insights into how that rattled a lot
of people in terms of what was to be expected,
but I also think that it still is affecting women
across the board in every walk of life, and so
you have to first of all be at peace with
who you are, then try to translate that into the
(32:28):
role you're playing in an effective way, whether it's private
or personal or public, and just get the most out
of every day. Hey, thanks for listening. See you next
(33:02):
week when I'm going to be talking to change expert
doctor Katie Milkman about science based strategies to help you
inspire change in your own life. And I was in
this seminar and a graph went up, which normally doesn't
change your life, but this graph changed my life. The
graph just showed a breakdown of how many premature deaths
are due to different causes, and forty percent of premature
(33:26):
deaths turn out to be the result of decisions that
we can change. A slight change of Plans is created
an executive produce by me Maya Shanker. Big thanks to
everyone at Pushkin Industries, including our producer Lola Board, associate
(33:50):
producers David ja and Julia Goodman, executive producers Mia Lavelle,
and Justine Lange, senior editor Jen Guera, and sound design
and mixed engineers Ben Taliday and Jason Gambrel. Thanks also
to Louis Gara, who wrote our theme song, and Ginger
Smith who helped arrange the vocals, incidental music from Epidemic Sound,
(34:12):
and of course a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee.
You can follow a slight change of plans on Instagram
at doctor Maya Shanker. If we hadn't talked so much
about me, I have a lot of questions for you.
(34:32):
I think you're slightly more interesting than me, so I'm
glad we spent the time this way. It was such
a pleasure. Good luck to you, and I hope I
get to meet you in person. Take care, Yes, I
hope so too. All Right, take care, okay, bye bye
Host
Dr. Maya Shankar
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Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.