00:00How much time do we give men to solve our problems? I think that 14 years is
00:04more than enough time. Yeah, I'd say so. I'd say 14 is enough.
00:08Meet Alessandra Biaghi. She's running to outseat a New York senator who's been in
00:13power for 14 years. I know, he hasn't changed his job title in 14 years, but it
00:20gets better. He was elected as a Democrat, but he repeatedly votes Republican.
00:25And now, Alessandra wants his job. And she's one of many women coming after the
00:30long-held seats of white guys in power. I'm Elisa Kreisinger, and as a white woman on
00:36the internet, I have a lot of opinions. Each week, I set out to prove myself wrong
00:40by talking to an expert who might not have all the answers, but they certainly
00:44know more than I do. That's why this is Strong Opinions, Loosely Held.
00:50The silver lining of the Trump presidency is that it's propelled an unprecedented
00:54number of women, like Alessandra, to run for office for the first time. In fact,
01:00there are over twice as many women running for Congress this year than there
01:03were in 2016. And there are more women of color and more female vets running than
01:08ever before. And this year's midterms also include a number of immigrants. Now,
01:13we've all heard white men's cry that we will not replace them. And look, I
01:18understand the fear of losing centuries of power that were so easily handed to
01:24you. But white dudes, you hold 65% of all elected offices, yet you are 31% of the U
01:30.S.
01:31population. Just to put that into context, that means that you have eight times more
01:35political power than a woman of color in this country. Look, I'm not saying you're
01:40bad, some of my best friends are white guys, but your representation far outweighs your population.
01:45Even Conan O'Brien is ready for the all-female reboot of America. Well, Alessandra is working
01:52on that reboot. So I talked to her to see what it was like to be in the thick of
01:55it.
01:56What's happening is a lot of women across the country are seeing a problem,
02:00and their solution is to run to be able to solve that problem. And that's exactly what I'm doing in
02:05this race. How many times did you have to be asked to run before you actually decided to run?
02:09I had to be asked to run more than 20 times. And what was it about that 21st time
02:15that really got you? I think it was, I was thinking about working for a friend,
02:20a male friend who was running for office, running for Congress. And I just remember sitting with him,
02:26and he was talking about all of his policies and the things that he was going to prioritize,
02:30and the team was around us. And I stopped and I looked around the room and I was like,
02:35I can do this. It almost had to be like thrown into my face for me to stop and say,
02:41this is possible. He's doing it. I can do this. Research shows that women must be asked repeatedly
02:47to run for office before they decide to, in fact, run for office. For example, Vote Run Leave is an
02:53organization that trains female candidates to run for local and state level offices. And they say it's
03:00not unusual for two-thirds of their resources to be devoted to convincing women to run.
03:07I think that every single woman probably feels that sense of, as soon as you decide to run,
03:11what am I doing? And how did I get here? And also, am I worthy? There's a whole conversation
03:16of worthiness, I think, that also surrounds this. Do you think Trump ever, like, questioned,
03:20am I worthy to run? No, of course not. I think he literally woke up in the morning and put
03:23his feet
03:24on the floor and was like, I'm going to run for president. Right, right.
03:26And yet, when women like Alessandra finally do make the decision to run,
03:30they receive some interesting feedback from the public. What was the opposition that you faced
03:35when you were like, hey, I'm going to run? What was the shit you were getting from people?
03:39I was told I shouldn't do it by men, by people in the establishment who told me it wasn't my
03:44turn,
03:45that I should get in line, that I was crazy, he was too powerful. Really, what it indicates is a
03:51level of fear tactics, right, that's been used or, honestly, rhetoric that has been used to keep
03:57people out. Do you think that that is something that women all over the country are facing?
04:01It is. I think, I honestly think because deep down we know that we could do a better job.
04:07There is no shortage of qualified women across this country to run. It's just now it's being invited.
04:14According to a 2013 study, college-age men who doubted that they would be qualified to run for office
04:20were 50% more likely to run than a woman who felt the same way. And that's because research shows
04:27that women have less confidence in their abilities. They judge themselves harshly and they focus on
04:32their failures more than men do. I think we'll always have doubt. There are days that go by now
04:37where I stop and I think I can't believe that I'm doing this because I'm so in the weeds of
04:42it and I
04:42have my head down focused so much. But what you'll realize is that the hardest part of the process is
04:48going from should I run to running. It's just taking that leap. Once you take the leap you're
04:52still yourself. Nothing changes. You are just able now to take all the things that made you angry
04:58and and kind of swirl them into action in a way that can create change and that's such an important
05:05thing to keep in mind and it's the thing that grounds me. So if you're a woman running for office
05:09ignore the bullshit. Ignore it. Yes. And just stay true to why you're running in the first place. Exactly
05:15and and surround yourself with people who are going to tell you as my grandma my old Italian grandma
05:19would say that you have dirt on your nose because what's happening now is all these elected officials
05:23are part of the boys club and no but not not one of them is telling each other hey like
05:27your nose is
05:27dirty and all of their noses are filthy and it's like what is going on here like this is not
05:33okay
05:33and if believe me if there were women in these roles they would tell each other they had lipstick
05:38on their teeth similarly. A recent MTV poll found that young women were far more likely than men to
05:44have participated in political activity in the last year and according to the New York Times half of the
05:50women running in the house primaries have already won so far. Look I could keep going with the stats
05:56and the studies but maybe it's just time for you and all of the women in your life to run
06:01for office.
06:02Consider this one of the many asks you'll be receiving.
