Transcripts For CSPAN2 Mattie 20240705 : vimarsana.com

CSPAN2 Mattie July 5, 2024

The atlantic, bazaar, and more. The culture director and staff editor at l. Shes joining the conversation tonight with the editorial director. One of thehe foundational of the American Revolution. From the American Revolution itself to the Civil Rights Movement to Nuclear Disarmament protests through black lives matter she uncovers the unique strengthsps to fandom to intimae friendships to lay groundworks for movements that have often sidelined. As leaders andof visionaries. [applause] thank you so much. Im very lucky to be an early reader of this amazing book and i cant wait to hear more about it. Im going to ask what your elevator pitch for the book is since maybe not everybody has read it yet. Lets start with how did you conceive of this idea . First of all, thanks for doing this. I read the acknowledgments basically for every book i ever read so i felt a lot of pressure when i was writing my own dacknowledgment wondering if there was another person in the world thatat does that. I came up with the idea when i was writing the book over time and i worked at l and glamour and came into contact with a lot of incredible young women across the cultural and political spectrumwo. A young person organizing thousands across the country or the aroundnd the world but witha little bit of perspective i feel like there was something extraordinary happening organizing claimant strikes and i thought what i am i to do is write a book about what was so special about this generation of teenage girls and young women and then i started researching how long this work has been going on and i felt really inadequate. Im glad my agent isnt here tonight. Then it became a telling of all of these movements told through the lens of teenage girls. The project surprised me and got a bigger and biggerr and ended p with us being here. You had this reporting. What did that look like uncovering the stories that hadnt been told before . I think the timeline is helpful. I started during the research pays 2019, 2018, 2020 then i started outlining each chapter in detail when there was nothing but time. [laughter] i have more concentrated hours to do research than i ever would have wanted the end of the way i approached my work is always to start as wide as possible so when im thinking about what the chapters want to be or that i knew belonged in the book, i tried to read the most general that i could possibly find so everything you wanted to know. I used to say before i sold the book that my hidden talent was reading a huge book and finding the instance where a woman is mentioned. The Books Research really follows that process of reading and researching and finding the random clause and going deeper and deeper emailing librariansy who were the only people that were very happye to go on a wid goose chase because what else did they have to do in july 2020 and following my curiosity. Thats the nice thing about having that feeling of being a little bit of an amateur is you ask a lot of questions and find a lot of people are happy to share what they know. At the amount that this uncovered. Was there a story that you found particularly surprising or removing as we were doing this research . There were a lot of stories. Youve probably heard me talk about a chinese immigrant involved in the womens suffrage fighting for a ride she knew would be extended to her and i found her story very moving. Shes so charismatic in her audiences. I love that idea of this captivating young person she was a good example and one of the stories that also surprised me the first woman in her early 20s ever to address a house of f representative in congress and thesed were two girls identifid their time who both tried their best on the platforms extended to them in an unlikely way but also couldnt help but brush up against the constraints of that where you are given a microphone but not a lot of power. Finding so much heartbreak in this idea and charming but not taken seriously those were stories that surprised me and changed the direction of the rest of the book. These are stories that celebrate but i wouldnt ever want someone to read this bookhi and think is enough to just hear from young women. If you stop there there are many that help platform but never followup after that. You create a star in the work that she wants to do. We have this tendency and if you could speak a little to what you think. I think that idea has been around for each successive generation and here we are many generations later. I think one of the things that has helped young people remain connected to the work is Intergenerational Partnership so not just the kids are doing all right but asking how can we be with them sharing this work and be in partnership and i think if you looked for some of the activist elders they are committed to not just talking about themselves and not just applauding the next generation but figuring out how to improvise what people need. And the story can definitely attest to this. They bring new ideas. They make a lot possible. Older people bring perspective. They bring the knowledge that you can keep going even if it feels this isnt working but will look more kindly on it. You need both of those things. Good for them, we are done now because you cant really leave it to them. Im wildly impressed and have so much respect for them. I think that is totally right. Speaking of r these relationshis what patterns did you see emerge when you looked act the 1830s . We talk about the climate activists of today and what patterns have emerged, what is the same and what is different. That has driven so much culture and politics and social change into thinking of the girls who called like they were the first ever to strike out on their own. That feeling of invincibility is amazingly the same and people feeling like these problems and inequities. They get older and realize only when she became older did they see the generation had been a continuance. Its a great advantage to think you are the first person ever to do it because it feels exciting. One of the fun things about being a spectator in the book is reading the diaries and the journal entries and letters. There really is Nothing Better than realizing she had something to say. That is a commonality. What is different is the way that girls are heard and the kind of platforms. The people that are there toti listen to of the audience keeps getting bigger and that comes with a lot of power and a lot of abrisk. So when they were talking abouto evolution, she was making a lot of people mad and people were reading about them in newspapers but they were not responding on twitter so the confrontation i think people have is very immediate and can be very loud. Id like to talk about what makes it special. I work at team vogue and am always so surprised and impressed with the stories we get to tell about them. Not just activism but how did that come to be . I thought i would open in the the idea and i thought maybe i would start in 1901 with of the term adolescent but then its my book i can do what i want but also part of the reason i think the girls have conceived of themselves as something unique like that awareness of a something happeng there coming into focus. When i was working on the book sometimes they would say no boys have done anything and i felt like against all odds in terms of how theyve been socialized in their innate qualities that make them so capable because of the obstacles that they faced and some more l than others a lt of real estate in the book is spent on the different experiences. There are so many different experiences being underestimated and wanting to flex your power wherever that may be available. It doesnt have to be true but rightt now where we are at ther are so many protests and movements in the book that starts with two girls in the cafeteria or the school bleachers. Maybein you are talking about segregation and i think that quality so far didnt feel like. When it does come to activism one is in the chapter about civil rights and how adults get embarrassed easily and they dont have that sense of embarrassment and then the disarmament and id love to hear about what makes them protectors and activists. As you know i dont do karaoke but there was a time in my life i had no problem speaking loudly in public and that is when i was a teenage girl. Its a powerful force forth inaction. Or even to go to something where there might not be a lot of people there. Its a unique property and also doing things with your friends. We find the culture brace it back with women. Girls either in a podium and solving or the live demonstration in washington which happened on live tv. Theres a lot of competition on thed part of adults watching tt and i think even admiration for that kind of display and feeling. I think anyone watched a woman ru for office know in adult woman is supposed to do all these things that are may be ineffective but less in her as a communicator. Mo it makes them feel both more authentic and allows us to access a level of empathy that e shut ourselves off from looking at t people being ambitious in a way we dont like and it is a bad thing because they will not be given the latitude experienced as a young person but it does also give young women in particular this powerful place in society. You mentioned friendship and i think that is definitely something that is so special. Also feel free. It was such an important part of my girlhood and yours i would like to know about stories found and may be any particular moment in activism. Theres a great moment that i love that my editor was like we are keeping it in. There are three College Students coming home from school having planned a major demonstration on their campus and they are headed home in alabama and they are preparing and they know they are going to be identified as activists. The night before they headed back home they spend their time doing any number of things and they make themselves matching shirts. I felt like iem could cry throuh history because what can a teenage girl understand more than arming herself with that kind of protection . Who can possibly hurt a girl wearing matching shirts with her best friend . I would like to see you try. I like that idea how the friendship strengthens and the idea of fighting against that narrative of hierarchypr and protest that is ubiquitous in our telling of history and they know they drive strength. I really love the attention that you pay to the aesthetic traces of these girls and i would love to know why you felt it was important. Ki working in womens magazines will always be with a chip on your p shoulder and part of the reason to credit back with what the latest trends are and it was an advantage to come from a world that taught you you are powerful communicators and they are not listening so much to what you have to say but you have to get your message across. If you ever watch a president ial debate. If you wanted to look like you are taking it serious like youve done this work so we all think about how we show up in the world and i always quote the column in thene financial times. We all have to choose and we are all saying something when we do that. Sometimes the sad thing is if you know that is the first thing people are going to write about, its losing out. One ofio the examples that illustrates that while there is a protest in texas recently when a bill came up for debate and they went to the statehouse to protest and they wore their addresses, definitely more attention yet when a reporter asked one of them how do you decide to do this and how does it feel to be here she said it was really uncomfortable. About a girl knows if she wants to make a statement. What did happen to so many of the activists . Were there repercussions for that being a part of their childhood . For most of the girls before the Civil Rights Movement first ofco all there just werent a lt of places to become figures of society and i do think a bunch of the stories in the book were hard to research and i often wanted different endings for the girls in the book and thankfully the Civil Rights Movement and feminism expand the set of opportunities. They make it possible to continue tost be activists. Theres someone in the book who is the first girl to apply and to have a place there. She never ended up going and her parents foundol the whole trialo demeaning. When i spoke to her she said it is an extension of the work i did as a teenager so you dont have to be in activist or politician to have an impact. Of the amazing thing is that it made it possible to choose from any number of options to be activists and to become Community Doctors in their lives in that way. So i think its more a story of the progress weve made in terms of what is possible for a young woman to do. That is one of the reasons i love this wide range in history and the figures in progress both from the girls. Did researching the book now did any of that recast your own experience . I apologized to my mother. We are very close yet i felt i owed her a sorry order to. It is the luck of being born into a family telling me i could do anything i wanted. I never had trouble voicing my opinion and i felt like i could do whatever and felt a lot of the things my mother would talk about were ancient history and then i got up to the working world and experienced all kinds of life and i even find myself saying nothing terrible just questioning my own selfworth and i realize aul lot of the stf is not done. I wish i could protect that innocence. Obviously there are depression and anxiety and at the same time i dont think that at any point in the book is a time im not vouchingng for and i feel theres a better time to have been a young woman and how entrenched some of these problems are for people to feel but its the collective responsibility to do something about it and not pretend theres something we could go back to. For every progressive girl there is a girl fighting against the rights that she is fighting for so can you tell us about the choice to focus on the girls making progress in this one direction . For every image is definitely a girl on the other side of the issue. My first answer to the question is selfish. I want to spend five years with the girls making progress and not fighting against it. I also think that i wanted to there is the negative space of the book it isrl a story against abortion rights and those girls do exist. Iw want to show how progress hs been driven. Heres a teenage girl involved in every movement you can think of. When youip look at the flipsiden think about the plot against progress i dont think they were the first to know those issues. Teenage girls were the leaders and i wanted tot, show how they impacted the movement for social progress. That is totally right and the idea of weaponize inc. The image of the girl versus the progressive movements where it can also be dangerous. When it comes to teen girls and activism and something that is striking to me as the story goes chronologically we hear from the climate activists and theres a lot of discussion of how do you seek balance, how can you be in activist and also live in the world that you are trying to. There are no easy answers. There is the ability to be that singleminded so there is the risk of your entire adolescence and one of the people i spoke to in the book felt a little distance from the Climate Movement like she had never done the developmental stages that she felt her peers had done with thousands of people around the country then let me try to grow up a little bit so i think it is tremendously hard and theres not a moment of the day now that you cant be working and not a moment of the day you cant be organizing if you feel the world is at risk. People have been able to handle it the best are the people that found a way to put a boundary even if it is mental between what the work is. Being a teenager is an important time and its easy to have that boundary. They have mentors in this work and say heres where the movement begins and everyone knows its hard and it just starts younger now because the incredible advantages in technology so that is going to continue to be an issue and i think that its really helpful now. Somebody qualifies as an elder of the movement so you can imagine. I was told regularly how old i was in writing the book. No one will tell you the truth like a teenage girl will tell you the truth, so it was a humbling experience. So the older 25yearolds have things to teach the next generation of activists and in that age of technology and social media and when things little by little start towa improve that way. The last question before we open up to the audience about elders, onestory we havent spoken about and that i was struck by and i would love for you to share what youve done there and i feel like that story encapsulates the intergenerational equipment to each other. I think the one whose story has been told a little bit better over the past decade you dont know her name she is billed as nine months before on the montgomery bus and was a High School Student arrested and convicted out of the crime and it was a really traumatic experience for her not because of what she did but she felt really proud. Urshe was very surprised to see that didnt happen but one person who i think people dont necessarily realize is deeply committed to the activism in the Youth Council chapter and given up on activismsm completely acct the fact for the next generation they were so close that and i love thiste little anecdote. At rosa parks house when she couldnt make a meeting she really encouraged her to keep telling the story of what happened on the bus to the point where with all teenage fashion everyone knows already about the bus and then months later they know what rosa parks did and that was decided by the movement for many reasons. She became pregnant as a teenager a few months later and every one of the movements is visual as well as political and ideological exercise and they didnt want her to be the face of the movement. So in the end it was four women, two teenage girls and, you know, with a newborn son at home and every reason possible to the say no she testified in court and her testimony won the day. They saved her for last, they found her to be the most emotional, the most persuasive the best for the movement and she did it and after she did it when there should have been parade in her honor and every person calling her to thank her, nobody called. I think that the credit we give her now is partial and the way we understand the relationship with the movement is inadequate. But i have a lot of admiration for people who decided even when it wasnt going to benefit them that there was just something that they had to do and she is still alive and its an incrediblele legacy. She changed the world. That story is so powerful and there are many powerful stories in young and restless which you should all certainly read and pick up a copy and now we are going

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