From the Slant Podcast: Do we need Women’s History Month?

March is Women’s History Month, and New York Slant columnist Alexis Grenell is deeply conflicted about what that means. So for a special episode of our New York Slant podcast, she invited three other journalists for a gender-balanced discussion with Gotham Gazette’s Ben Max and Politico New York’s Azi Paybarah and Gloria Pazmino. Here are some highlights of their conversation:

On replacing Women’s History Month:

Grenell: I’m not trying to say that Women’s History Month to me couldn’t possibly serve a purpose. OK, I do hate it, and yes, I want to get rid of it so – full disclosure.

Paybarah: What would you replace it with?

Max: March.

Grenell: Feminist History Month? Could this be about gender? Gender Awareness Month? I feel like the problem with Women’s History Month is that left out of the conversation are men. And that problematizes the issue of gender equality as a “women’s issue.” It also makes it the responsibility of women to advance the equality agenda when – it’s a relational issue. Right? It’s like saying civil rights are for black people. To me, that’s ridiculous. White men are told they don’t have standing in this conversation, like they need to shut up and sit down and let women speak, and that to me is the opposite of inclusion.

On how to really celebrate:

Paybarah: It’s much harder to integrate the idea of Women’s History Month into what you’re doing and it’s much easier and quantifiable to tell reporters and the public, “I like women, I went to Women’s History Month. I had an event in the council chamber or the surrogate’s court, I’m done with that checkbox.”

Max: I think you can want to have the month where you’re really focused on this and also push for year-round parity and inclusion and acknowledgement. And both should happen.

On changing norms:

Max: The real way for elected officials to celebrate the theme of Women’s History Month is to have a staff or a cabinet that has as many women as it has men! It’s (not) just about having an event, it’s about showing it in real practice throughout the year. And I also think as part of this conversation we get at it with race, we get at it with gender. We just saw it with the announcement the mayor made about bathrooms. We’re getting to a place where we’re not seeing everything in such a binary way. We’ve known that about race for a long time, and we’re seeing that now with gender as well.

Paybarah: It’s a much more complicated thing to address women’s issues. It’s like a messy, nuanced thing that you don’t answer in a single story or a single appointment of somebody to office. It’s like, you’ve got to get messier. The issue about whether checking the box is fair and adequate is not something that you can even address. You need to look at this thing in a much longer view.

On males and machines:

Pazmino: When we’re talking about local office and the (New York) City Council, if we look at the way the power structure is built, if we look to county politics and those kinds of machines that are still, in some cases, putting people in power – I mean we just saw it in the case of (former City Councilwoman) Maria del Carmen Arroyo, who stepped down. There were two women in the running, but ultimately the guy who won was backed by the county party, which is led by a man. The same is true in Queens. It happened with Barry Grodenchik, who got elected to replace Mark Weprin. He was backed by county, county is led by men. There was a woman running in there, a young woman from an outer borough, Rebecca Lynch. And when we talk about who someone like the speaker is going to back, she, as much as she might want to back the woman who’s running for office, she also has “higher powers” to answer to. Depending on what the election is, you’re supposed to line up with the county party or not.

Quotables:

Grenell: For Women’s History Month, what I’d like to see is more men being like, “Equality is a shared struggle!” But that’s not what happens.

Grenell: If you want to give me something for Women’s History Month, discount everything for me 78 cents!

You can hear the full conversation below, and to subscribe to the podcast search New York Slant on iTunes or Stitcher or by going to NYSlant.com.