Hillary Clinton: There Are Unconscious Biases And A Double Standard
ZAKARIA: Today is International Women's Day, fitting then that my guest was the first female Presidential Nominee of a major American political party. I wanted to hear her thoughts on the state of women in America and around the world. Do you think that the United States today is still misogynistic in many aspects of its life?</s>CLINTON: I think that the unconscious biases that exist in our society, in any society, even ones where on paper they have advanced much further with things like paid family leave, for example, paid child care and the like to empower women to make their own choices that still is at work. And the double standard, particularly in public life and not only in political public life but business life, the life of the media and the arts and so much else, yes, there is some absolute misogyny that certainly lives online. I was so appalled to read about a sticker that had been made depicting Greta Thunberg, the young woman who has been trying to sound the alarm about climate change, being literally subjected to sexual assault, a sticker that was being passed out at a company that is involved in the oil industry in some way. Now, look, I - I understand that we're still fighting over climate change, although that seems somewhat absurd to me, but to fight by objectifying and having a picture that demonstrated a level of violence towards this young 16-year-old girl who has every right in the world to stand up and say, you know, world, you're not doing what needs to be done, that's misogynistic. That's not - I don't agree with her - I don't know why she has a big platform. I want a big platform, you know, to repudiate that. Instead it's like let's show her being assaulted. That's misogyny, pure and simple. So it goes from that kind of overt example of misogyny to these unconscious biases. So we carry it with us, it's sort of deep in the DNA what we expect women to be, and we're okay with kind of opening the doors and allowing our daughters, our granddaughters, you know, to get great educations, compete for great jobs.</s>CLINTON: But there's still is something inside that when a woman says, wait a minute, I would like to lead, I'd like to in charge, I'd like to be your President or your Chief Executive or whatever it might be, little alarm bells, little unconscious alarm bells start to ring.</s>ZAKARIA: There are people who look at the persistence of feminists, things like me too, or the cancel culture, and they say this is spawning a backlash that is electing Donald Trump, that is empowering these kinds of forces. Is that something to worry about, or is this just a price you have to pay?</s>CLINTON: You know, I think that forward movement, kind of the law of physics, will always produce a reaction. So whatever the reason might be, there are going to be people who are - who feel that, you know, demanding one's rights or demanding accountability for behavior that is out of bounds is somehow inappropriate or has gone too far is outside the comfort zone. This is all new to society. Everybody is working this out trying to make sense of it, but I don't think that the process of trying to understand. How do we truly respect and value women in the workplace which is really at root what this is about without objectifying them, without harassing them? How do we best do that? And if that requires people to be more conscious about their behavior and to think well, you know, maybe that's not a welcome pat on the back or comment, okay. That's not a huge price to pay, so this is - this is where we are in this ongoing debate about how best to empower women, to be the best that they can be under whatever circumstances they find themselves. I think the backlash which you see in different places around the world is out of fear and it's out of a sense of losing control. In many countries, you know, women working outside the home is seen as incredibly threatening. Until recently women driving a car was seen as incredibly threatening. This is happening across the world, and there are lots of both serious and kind of amusing ways people are fighting back so for example, in Japan, an advanced economy, they would have an even higher GDP if they could get their educated women in the work force. That's very difficult because of the way their family structure works, and so women are often taking care of both the young generation and the older generation without much help because the business culture really consumes most of the day, six days a week, of the husbands and providers in those families. So the women who are in the workplace, they are kind of a pioneering set. And they have been a recent couple of controversies because women have said we don't want to have to wear high heels to work. You know, after a while, it really hurts your back to walk around in the high heels, and as I understand it the Labor Minister said no, employers can demand that you wear high heels. Or we want to wear glasses, you know. Some of us can't wear contacts and we can't do our work without wearing glasses. No, we don't want glasses in the workplace so trying to govern even advanced society how women appear says volumes about how women are viewed? So you can go from, you know, the worst circumstances for women where they are still, you know, basically marginalized and shut out to advanced economies where they are still viewed as something of an oddity. And that's what those of us who believe in the equality of men and women and openness of opportunities to men and women based on ability and work ethic and all the rest of it are going to have to continue speaking out. So that, you know, we don't lose progress and go backwards.</s>ZAKARIA: Thank you for speaking out here, Hillary Clinton, pleasure to have you on.</s>CLINTON: Thank you.</s>ZAKARIA: If my interview leaves you wanting to hear more of Secretary Clinton, there's a new documentary series about her on "HULU". It's called simply "Hillary" and it uncovers her life up through the 2016 campaign. Next here on "GPS," the Trump Administration has spent three years upending American immigration. Now they have just made a major change in the rules that you might not have heard about. That consequential story when we come back.