Gender, Race & Code Switching | Building Credible Leadership Identity with Maya Rupert

What hidden ways are gender and race shaping how you show up at work? Maya Rupert, author of The Real Ones, breaks down code switching for women leaders—why authentic leadership matters more than the trad wife narrative, and how ethical decision-making begins when you reclaim your actual voice. Discover what real influence looks like when the room wasn't designed for you.

Connect with Maya: 

LinkedIn

Buy The Real Ones on Amazon: https://amzn.to/43ryXDS

Enjoy the episode, everyone!

How can you be part of the movement to equip women?
1. Share the podcast!
2. Leave a 5-star review!

Thanks for listening!

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to share this in your stories and tag me!  And don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.

CONNECT WITH LEMON:

• LinkedIn
• Visit the Website

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

We talk a lot about showing up authentically. And my guest today is going to make you question whether you ever actually have. Hi, I'm Lemon. Welcome back to the Well Live Society, where we talk about holistic leadership for women, because I do believe that leadership is a whole life practice. My guest today is Maya Rupert. She is a nationally recognized political strategist speaker and author, known for her work at the intersection of race, gender, and power. She is currently serving as the executive vice president at Blue State, where she is advising major organizations on strategy, advocacy, and impact. You may know her because she previously managed Julian Castro's presidential campaign, which actually made her one of the few Black women to lead a major U.S. presidential campaign, which is amazing, if you ask me. She has served as a senior advisor on other high-profile presidential races, and she has managed successful mayoral campaigns in one of the largest cities in the U.S. She is the author of The Real Ones: How to Disrupt the Hidden Ways Racism Makes Us Less Authentic, which is a really thought-provoking book exploring how systemic bias shapes identity and leadership. Maya is also the host of When We Win with Maya Rupert. This podcast has earned an NAACP Image Award nomination. As a former resident at Harvard's Institute of Politics, Maya brings a sharp and honest perspective to conversations about leadership, authenticity, and building more equitable systems. I am so excited for you to listen to this episode where we talk today all about code switching. It is an incredible show. So you're gonna want to really take your time with this episode, my friends. Hi Maya, welcome to the Well of Society. I'm so excited that you're here.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

I am so excited to be here. Seriously, thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Oh my gosh. I was literally the honor is all mine. I was so excited when I got your email because I just think you're an incredible person. And so I read, you know, everybody's heard your cool bio and all the fun things about you. But tell me a little bit about you that I wouldn't get from your bio.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Let's see. I have two calves that normally would be featured on this in this conversation. So the fact that I'm traveling means you're gonna save yourself from some errant meows and just cats climbing all over. But I mean, truly, I think the thing that doesn't sort of come out in my bio is I think the same thing that doesn't come out in anybody's bio, which is how many different sort of paths it took to get here. I think that, and especially I think as women leaders, we are very often, I think, professionally socializing in a way that does not always allow us to tell the full stories of like our paths into leadership. And so I like to demystify that sometimes if I'm if I'm able to, to just I think one of the hard things is when you tell the story about your life and your career in retrospect, it's so easy to see the through mine. But when you're living it, a lot of times it feels a lot more messy and disjointed. So I think a lot of times people will hear a bio or hear about somebody doing something and they're like, see, I can't do that because I don't know right now where I want to be. And I promise you, all of us felt that way. But then when you sort of look back, you're able to see the clearer path. So I think that's just a little something I like to remind folks.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Okay, I love that because nothing in my career when I was doing it would have, if you had told me, oh my gosh, how long ago did I graduate too long ago. Anyway, if somebody had been like, this is where you're gonna end up, I would have laughed completely at them because I had no idea this is where we would end up.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Absolutely. And I think it makes, honestly, I think it it contributes to the experience, but it's important to remember it because when you're living it, it won't feel, it will not feel as connected as it will feel later when you're sort of telling.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

Okay, I love this. So that kind of brings me into what I wanted to talk about is this idea of code switching and how we sort of have to play roles that we maybe didn't intend to play. Can you explain what code switching is for everyone?

SPEAKER_00 4:17

Absolutely. So code switching, it's so interesting now to have these conversations in in public spaces because for a long time I think code switching was something that you would talk about within communities. Like the black community, folks would talk about it, or even if you didn't say it, you knew it happened, right? There was a thing that was happening. I imagine it was the same thing in a lot of a lot of communities where people would basically say, there's one way you are around your people, and there's one way you are around a broader audience where especially like dominant gaze is going to be, right? So it wasn't, it sort of isn't something that needs to get taught. It's kind of like what it's the, it's what's known to need to be explained, right? So it's you just you learn, okay, I'll speak this way when I'm among people who I know and who get me and who have this shared experience and culture. And then when I go into a different setting, I'm gonna speak differently. So you'll have a work voice, a professional voice, right? And that has just been a reality for so many people for so long. And I feel like in the last like maybe 20 years, people started saying it more publicly, and then more people started talking about it. But I think what is important, to me, what is important to always remember when we're talking about code switching is well, I think there's two pieces. One is that it's a very conscious decision, right? In my book, The Real Ones, I talk about this sense of are you being real? Are you being fake? But a part of my discussion in the book is about what happens if you learn how to be who you are as a function of learning how learning who you needed to be at any particular point. So you might be being fake in quotes, but you uh but you're not sort of consciously doing it. You're just being who you are, and a part of that is performing for a dominant gaze. With code switching, you're conscious that you're doing it. You know, I'm not being my full self here. I'm more my full self when I'm with my people. The other part of code switching that I think is important is that there has to be embedded code switching. I don't think of it as simple as there's a way that I would like to talk to my mother versus my sister, right? I wouldn't consider that code switching because the issue there does have to be there is a marginalization that forces my full self will not be perceived the way I need it to be if I'm exactly who I am in this other setting. So there has to be a marginalization and there has to be a dominant gaze that you are somehow performing for a dominant gaze and saying, you know what? The way that I am among my cultural peers is not the way that I can present in front of this other audience. I will suffer some sort of penalty for it. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 7:23

Yes, I love this. I love that you brought this up because like the way I converse with my husband and my best friend is not the way I would show up when I'm at the university. And like not necessarily code switching, right? Because like the way I'm gonna talk to them is different than how I'm going to show up at the university, but it's more for me putting on like the professional academic hat as opposed to, but I'm not hiding necessarily parts of myself entirely, maybe talking about it differently. But I like that you talked about there has to be this marginalized piece and some sort of penalty for showing up as your true authentic self. Can you can you kind of talk more about that? Because I think as women, I mean, we were talking about it before we recorded, like there are some very interesting thoughts, which I know some of the people like I go to school with, they're very uncomfortable sharing their thoughts because there is a conversation happening that makes them feel like they can't truly be themselves in some of these spaces and they consciously suppress themselves a little bit because of it.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Absolutely. I think that so many women code switch, and we don't always say it in those terms because it wasn't, because there isn't that same sense of, well, among women I do this, but but when I'm in a group of men and women, or I'm conscious that men will be watching, I do something different. But I think it happens in so many different ways. I know women who will change their voice, who will deepen or lower their voice, or who will try to consciously take vocal fry or any other kind voice features that have now been associated with not being smart, largely because they are things embodied by women. I know women who will say things like, I would make a reference to this at work, but people are going to think I'm frivolous. Very often, I think the social penalty that women will pay for doing things that are culturally associated with femininity is that we are taken less seriously. We are told that we are frivolous, we are said we are told that we are not as smart. And that is because societally, we tend to take the things that are overwhelmingly embraced and embodied by women and say they make you frivolous, they say that you're not as smart because there's just a penalty associated with femininity. So I think those are the things when I think about code switching as a woman, I think that what women of any race are typically doing is taking out those. It's, you know, it's sort of the classic example of how many workplace, like the way we speak in workplaces, how many of those, how many of those phrases are derived from things that are traditionally associated with being masculine? Like people talk so much about the use of sports lingo in a professional works. And obviously, women like sports, but this idea that that's something that's acceptable and it was just sort of expected. Well, if you don't know what that means, keep up, look it up, and figure it out. But there are so many things that are culturally more feminine that we could bring into workspaces and say, and a lot of us would know exactly what we're talking about, but those don't get embraced in a professional setting in the same way. If you're talking, you know, before a meeting, a lot of women will describe not wanting to talk about like dating because they're not perceived the same way if the assumption is they're a woman who's actively dating versus being married or having kids. Women will talk about not wanting to make certain pop culture references or say they like a certain artist, Taylor Swift or Beyonce, or anything that will immediately get the eye rolls of people who think those are not real artists. Like there are so many of those kinds of things that we just learn to take out. And we know we're doing it because it's like I'm like, uh, you know, if I were in a different setting, I would say X, Y, and Z. We're conscious we're doing. And when we are among our peers, when we're among women or when we're around men that we trust to not view us that way, we don't do it. So there's definitely code switching that happens in those moments, but I'm always just conscious of what are the things you're taking out because you know how femininity is perceived, and because you know that a dominant gaze that assumes, in order to be taken seriously, try to embody things that we think are more stereotypically masculine. That's where the code switching comes in.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

Okay, I kind of love that you said this because for whatever reason, I just thought of my husband when you said this. My husband, like super, super masculine, like military veteran, you know, whole kit and caboodle with his friends, such a guy's guy. My husband, he'll nobody, uh none of his friends will hear this, but he's a secret Swifty. He loves Taylor Swift's new album. And he's like, I would never tell anybody this, but he all the time it's in the park. And Sabrina Carpenter. He loves he just her album last night because he loves Sabrina Carpenter. But when he's around other men, like he's it's performance and we're performing around certain people and the things that we talk, like he's like, I would never say that to anybody. And I I noticed that even with like my male professors versus my female professors, our conversations are different. What we're talking about is different, like than my male like counterparts, like it's just completely different conversations than we would have. Like there, we're talking about drinking and going out and all those things where like my female professors were having conversations about books we're reading, book clubs we're a part of, other hobbies that we have, interests outside of it. We'll talk about our children if we're together, but we're not talking about it with the men in the space at all.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Right. It's a really, it's a really frustrating thing that happens because one, I'm never going to criticize people for code switching. I think we do it, it's a survival tactic. We do it because we know it will happen. But it is hard in those moments when you see, gosh, if we'd all just sort of admit this more publicly, because part of what it is, is that is that there are a lot of Swifties who there are some who will say proudly, there are significantly fewer men who will say it proudly. And that means there is this sense of there's a debate about whether or not Taylor Swift is a talented artist. But if you said something like the Beatles, I can say I like the Beatles, but but what's gonna happen from that is not gonna be, huh, maybe the Beatles aren't great. It's there's an accepted understanding of the role that they play. And you can have different opinions about it, but there's sort of, I mean, it's an illusion of objectivity because all of this uh liking artists and art, it's all subjective, but there is this illusion of objectivity that we afford certain things and certain pursuits, and that illusion is almost never afforded to things that are overwhelmingly embraced by women. And part of what stops that from happening is every everyone is penalized for embracing things that are traditionally associated with feminine Indian women. It's not just women, and so it's one of the more silly examples of the way that misogyny hurts everyone, but it's a clear one because then people don't get to say, I love Taylor Swift, I love Sabrina Carpenter, I love music that they genuinely enjoy, they hide because we we can't get to that point. That's one way that, you know, it's fine. You can listen to the stuff at home. But there are a lot of other ways that we let misogyny just become the quiet background feature of our lives. And it hurts us in other ways. It tells men that they have to perform masculinity when it hurts them, when it kills them. And so it's not, I mean, this is one of the frustrating things I think about our cult, our public conversation around feminism and misogyny. It's that we talk about it like, well, misogyny hurts women and it helps men. It doesn't help anybody. And just and and trying to get ourselves to the point where we recognize how dangerous it is for everyone might get us closer to a place where we're trying to get rid of it for everyone.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

Okay, I love this conversation because misogyny does hurt everyone. And this is oh man, it's so interesting. Like we even just have this conversation with I have two boys, which is it's scary to raise voice in 12 and 14.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:46

So at the time, and so my youngest the other day said something. He was like, Oh, well, boys like aren't allowed to cry. And I was like, Whoa. And before I even said anything, my husband was like 110. He's like, I cry all the time, but you've seen me cry about things. Like, what are you talking about? But because of their peers and now you know, we're in the middle of yes, what they're getting from YouTube, right? Because I'm like, we don't allow YouTube, but if their friends have it on the bus, there's nothing I can do about it. And so they're listening to these people who are telling them to suppress themselves all the time. And women have to sub, and women have to look a certain way. And you do have the rise of, you know, trad wife influencers and that sort of conversation is happening. And so, I mean, we I could do a whole episode on just even like internalized misogyny and how it forces us to show up without even realizing that we're doing it. Because they do, I do think it's interesting the way that misogyny sort of is like not even, I don't even know that it's like the background anymore of conversation. Like, I feel like it's been pretty overt lately in the way that we do things.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Yeah, it's gotten much more overt. I think there are things that people say out loud, and then there are things that we just that have become so normalized that people aren't intentionally keeping them quiet. I don't know if we're, you know, if people are even really conscious of how much that stuff is operating there, right? I think, yeah, I mean, we're in a really culturally, I think, dangerous moment where we're seeing so much of the, so these messages are getting pushed, they're not getting questioned, and so they're getting accepted. But the sort of the other piece of that is that they are, there are things we aren't even conscious are. This is what propaganda does, right? It's the stuff that you just you just believe without even realizing. So you can be having a debate about trad wives. I think trad wives is such a great example of this, right? You're talking about whether or not this is good for women or bad for women, or can it be feminism? Can I choose to be a trad wife? And we're using the term trad wife over and over and over again. There's no real tradition, there's no real model of a traditional wife that operated that way. The idea that women did not have jobs that made money is a fiction. It's an entire fiction. There was maybe a small period of time for some families in the 50s where the idea was the man goes out and works outside of the home, and the woman is a full-time homemaker for her home, and that is it. For very few families, that was real. Traditional wives worked. They worked in different fields, but they took care of uh other children in the tenement, and then someone else cooked for everyone. There was always an exchange of I'll do this labor, you do this labor. There has all there's historically been, you know, when more when more jobs happen outside of the home, innkeepers, the woman is back keeping the books while the man is right. There has never been this idea that women just don't work. And that's especially true for women of color, for immigrant women. They worked outside of the home all the time. They worked in other people's homes very often. But again, we when we're debating whether trad wives are feminist or not, we're furthering a piece of that that this even ever existed for people, that there's a naturalness about this. And so it's that's the thing. It's the it's even as we're having the debate, we are swallowing some of the most damaging pieces of the propaganda.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Okay, I love that. Maybe we need to have you come back and talk about like doing some tribe wines. I like real tribe wines. I know it is so interesting. I mean, even if you look like biblically, the woman who started the first church in Ephesus, first of all, there's a woman who started the church in Ephesus, and she was like the wealthiest woman. She ran a business, she had people work for her, like she's rich. Proverbs 31 woman, she's rich. Like she's and it was her labor that it says like her husband's an elder, he's out doing his thing, but she's running businesses, she's got again people who work for her. She's able to be charitable, all these things because she worked and like ran. It said she makes smart business investments of that. Like, so that yeah, I agree. This concept of women are capable of like making fresh sourdough, which I do make. I make um listen, I love making my fresh bread. Don't get me oh my goodness, please. So sell it, and it makes me a good amount of money to sell my bread because it's a skill that I have. And so I really love that you're like, this is actually not real.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

And that and just the mere idea of that, because of course, like sell the bread, make some money. We're in the middle of an affordability crisis, and this idea that men should be providers, it's so funny because this conversation is divorced from reality. Yes, most families cannot live off a one paycheck and they're not. But what it does is again, sells the idea that women stay home, should stay home, should get out of a public workspace, but also that men should take on the entire labor of paying for lives we know can't be paid for by one person. Like, again, it doesn't help anybody.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

Okay. I love this conversation because again, it it's like forcing women again to switch into something different and be performative for something different depending on who they're talking to and what what role is being asked of them. And I'm seeing a wave of like very smart, intelligent women who are like, you know what, I'm just gonna go home at this point, you know, or because daycare is so expensive. And so they're like, there's uh there's honestly no point in me even going to work anymore. Like, I'm just gonna stay home and take care of the kids and all. I'm like, my gosh, it's so sad to see like so many people giving up the things they were passionate about and because of an affordability issue, because they're like, again, and it's oh and I would say primarily it's women who are doing it because they're like, my husband makes more than me. So therefore I'm gonna be the one to step back. Right. So we're like we're losing that conversation. We're losing, I mean, you you talked about it in the workplace, there being this, you know, undercurrent of misogyny. And so if women are leaving the workforce in droves because of an affordability issue, then the people who have these misogynistic viewpoints are not being challenged because there's no women in the workplace to challenge them anymore.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

And it's really, I think it's intentional. We're living through this moment where all of these attacks feel disconnected. They're going after TEI and they're going after like sex discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace laws. And they're forcing women out of the home through an affordability crisis. And then we get these sort of one-off remarks that feel disconnected, but they aren't. When JD Vance says women without kids shouldn't be running the country. And all these childless cat ladies who are the ones in charge. And it's all of those things form a very specific picture, right? And they're not, they're not one-offs. Like it's easy to see them as these little things when you connect them. It's actually this constellation that is forcing women out of the workplace. But what that means is that it forces women out of social and economic and political and public life. And that that's the goal has to be seen because we can't combat it if we don't recognize that's the impact of what is happening.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

Okay. I love that you said this. This is like policy writing for anybody 101. You have to like clearly identify the problem. And so articulate what the problem is, people tend to jump to solution without identifying the problem and what the results are.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

Yes, then you solve the wrong problem and you're solving these little one-offs instead of this conversation that actually is much bigger than even just code switching. And I'm I'm I could go on a bit full rant. This whole issue that we we could we guys, we could record like a 27-hour podcast, I feel like, on this topic because sign it up as our new keynote because it is such a hot topic. And so what do we do as women, maybe to be more authentic without being able to show up as a leader, be ourselves, and then not necessarily deal with these penalties or things like how do we how do we do it? What do we show up?

SPEAKER_00 24:18

I think the biggest thing is just recognizing that there are so many different ways to show up authentically. I think one of the ways that authenticity, and I talk about this so much in the book, is that authenticity winds up feeling for a lot of people more like a trap than a freeing idea. Because when we have more limited visions for what authentic leadership can look like for some people, then it forces everyone into one box. I think that as women leaders, one of the best things we can do is recognize how many different ways there are to lead as a woman and to like free ourselves from this idea that we need to have the exact same fight at any given moment, right? Because of identity, because of so many different things. At any given time, the way misogyny is going to show up for you and the way misogyny is going to show up for me can be completely different. We can be having two separate fights. They're linked by a common experience, but they don't have to have that much in common. And I think that letting ourselves have that freedom allows us all to be more authentic because then we're not trying to conform to a woman's experience. We are acknowledging that being a woman leader can create a certain set of challenges, but the way you overcome them should feel a bit like you and not like a common woman's experience. And I think that there are a lot of ways we can do that as leaders to try to like to model it and let other people sort of do do something similar so that they can do that elsewhere, but do it their way. And then beyond that, I mean, I think that so much of it is about naming. I think so much of the the challenge that we so much of the challenge that we face is it's silence. When it doesn't get named, it doesn't get called out, and therefore we can't, to your point, we can't solve it. And so so many, I feel like for so long, a lot of these ideas, code switching, the challenges of authenticity, what it really, what it feels like to be a woman leader, they didn't get named, and therefore we didn't get to address them. And so I think seeing a moment right now where we are seeing people talk about this stuff more publicly, having podcasts on it, I think what we start getting, we say it out loud, and so therefore we can fix it.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

I love that. That is like always my hope, right? Is that the fight that like we have is not the fight that like my children in their generation have. And I am quote that it's different, that we've done enough as parents to instill these ideas. But then, of course, on the same side, there are people I know that are instilling very different values in their children. And so, you know, but I have high hopes. I have high hopes that if we if we're having conversations now, it'll look different in the future, right? And that the fight that we have is not the fight that they will have.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

Absolutely. And look, I mean, we can't predict the like 12 and 14, we can't even predict the fights that your kids are going to be having. But yeah, here's hoping they aren't the same ones.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

Here's hoping. I'm like, I don't know, but it is it is interesting, guys. Before we got on, my and I were talking about the fact that like there are people that I know who will 100% come and share Nazi ideology, and they tell me that it comes from that Nazi ideology, and which is a totally different experience. I'm sure that like my nobody's anything coming up to you and is like, here are my Nazi beliefs. Like I don't and flat out calling them that. But we are we I and I love that you said that like we could talk about how misogyny should it's different. The our experiences are going to be different, and it doesn't diminish the experience of any one of us. And if we can recognize that this is a like a big issue for all of us, then we can combat it differently if we can name what the problem actually is.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

Yeah, the the I will not typically get the experience of someone coming up and and and saying so clearly, yes, this is where these ideas come come from. But I think to the point we were making before, we are entering a space where people don't feel they don't feel the same shame about bringing that kind of stuff up.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

Yeah, which is very interesting. And we were we were talking about this before we recorded. I'm like, maybe I should record every conversation too, but just talking about it beforehand. It it's a sp like I have mixed feelings on it, right? Like I'm grateful that people share those thoughts and feelings because I know where I stand, right? I know somebody who, again, they have these beliefs and they 100% see women as breeders. That is like our sole purpose is to replenish the workforce and breed children. So I'm grateful that that is like the viewpoint they have. I know that I know they don't respect me. Like, I know that my opinions won't ever be received well. My experience will never be received well, and I can know that going into the conversation. But then also what you said earlier, like it's also really terrifying that people are okay with sharing that and it's not really being challenged. Like, there's no checks on this necessarily anymore. People are just saying some very unhinged things, and it's acceptable now to say those. So I'm like, I'm grateful I know it, but also that's really terrifying that you're comfortable enough to espouse that to me on a regular basis.

SPEAKER_00 29:51

And again, I think that there's power in naming it. I think there's power in saying this is what we're doing. I think so often because we don't sort of want it to be true, or we want like optimism. I'm like a such an optimist, but optimism doesn't require us pretending things aren't happening, right? So it doesn't, I don't feel like I need to say, no, no, no, it's not that bad, or I bet people don't believe that. I think we all can see that we are shifting into a space right now where things that no one would ever have said out loud are now not just acceptable to say, but they've now been presented and sanitized and treated like there are two ways to approach this problem, like, and this is a valid one. And these are ideas that are being espoused by government officials and moves are being taken to adopt them. And these are ideas that would be horrifying five years ago, 10 years ago. And if we don't acknowledge that, we're not putting ourselves in a position to shift it.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

Yes, I really miss the days of when who was in office didn't actually matter because their ideas were so similar. It was just implementation that was a little different. I'm like, can we go back to that? I missed I miss like the 90s. Politics in the 90s was great.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

It's and it's funny because I always I like to be a student of history in the way that I know that groundwork was being laid. So I don't ever want to just be like, oh, well, it was great, and then it just suddenly wasn't. We don't get where we are right now if things hadn't happened along the way to make this to to sort of slowly degrade and get us to a point. But it definitely has been surreal to look back on like the reauthorization of the voting rights act and to see, you know, George W. Bush there and to hear the way he talked about voting and the way people talk about it now, that there was a point at which no one would have opposed the voting rights act. That was that was we we wanted people to have a voice in their elections. And now that's a partisan issue. Not everybody does. That is that's a shift. That is a shift we can look at and see. And and it's it's a worse one. It's we're this is not it's the situation we are in right now, it's not better. So yeah, it's um, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

It's very interesting.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

It's a hard moment.

SPEAKER_01 32:23

Yeah, it's a very interesting time to be living in. And I'm like, I can't wait to be old one day to see what history books say about this time period because what a time to live it.

SPEAKER_00 32:35

100%. Yeah, it'll be it will be interesting to say the least.

SPEAKER_01 32:41

Not that schools do textbooks anymore, which that's a whole other life problem. But that's okay. They don't no, they don't do textbooks anymore. Schools I know in Georgia at least have gone like full digital. Like it is Chromebooks for everyone, no textbooks, no.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

Wow.

unknown 32:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 33:00

Okay. So I I mean, yeah. It's very interesting, but they're also not reading whole novels anymore. They're not doing any of those things in school anymore. So I have a lot of feelings on the literacy rate. So I'm like, I one day maybe I'll do an episode on that. This is a deep problem that I have. Yeah. So I force my kid, my oldest or my youngest right now is reading The Odyssey. I'm like, go read that, go challenge your brain a little bit because this is not gonna fly for me. So I'm like, I gotta force you into reading some classics. And I always lure him. I'm like, it's gonna be a movie, so why don't you read it before the movie comes out in July? That's brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 33:41

I love it.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

Yeah, that's what we've got to do. We've got to trick our kids into, I don't know. My youngest one is good though. He hides books under his mattress so we can read after we go to bed. Oh, that's great. It's great, but I do have to search his room like before he goes to bed, which is amazing. Top tier problem to have. Absolutely. It's a top tier problem to have. Okay, so speaking of books, tell me about your book. Tell us where we can get it. Give me all the details on the book because I'm gonna go read it.

SPEAKER_00 34:08

Yes, okay. It's called The Real Ones, disrupting the hidden ways that racism makes us less authentic. And it does, it it explores the concept of authenticity and the ways that for a lot of us, authenticity operates more like a privilege than it does a freedom. And it kind of gives a new way of talking about authenticity that can be more accessible for more people. It is out now. It came out in February, so it is out now. You can get it wherever you find books. And I'm absolutely thrilled with it. I'm I'm so grateful for so many people who are reading it, and it's being, you know, very generously read and received, which I'm which I cannot say thank you for enough because creating something like that and then just putting it out into the world is a very kind of odd experience. But it's yeah, it just it explores the question. It's written. I tell personal stories, I tell stories about working with candidates. A lot of these ideas came to me like while I was working on campaigns. So I talk some about 2020 and the Democratic uh primary, but I also talk about pop culture and save by the bell. And a lot of there's a lot of hopefully stories in there that make the issues a lot more sort of approachable and accessible. I didn't want to write like a deep philosophy book on authenticity. I wanted to write something that people actually want to grapple with.

SPEAKER_01 35:36

Yeah, not a textbook. Like not a textbook. Not a textbook. Maya, you're amazing. If you could leave the ladies listening, maybe some men, but if you could leave them with like a piece of advice on how to show up authentically as themselves, what would you say to them?

SPEAKER_00 35:54

I would say, again, I think the biggest thing is remembering that authenticity is not one size fits all and it's not static. It's not you're either authentic or you're not, right? It's a it's a dynamic process and it's one that you constantly ask yourself. We change, people change. And I think sometimes when we think about authenticity, we privilege, well, this is how I used to be. So this must be the real me. And sort of stepping away from that concept and saying, you know what? Like there's a lot of there's a lot of things about me that are real. And the things that I value in a particular moment, those are the things that feel authentic and the most true to me. And giving yourself that freedom to rewrite things.

SPEAKER_01 36:42

I love this. Be adaptable to who you are becoming, honoring the story, right? Mai and I talked about that in the beginning. Our journeys do not, it's not linear. And it's okay. Yeah. There's success is not linear. So if anybody's telling you that you're just gonna, I don't know, we're not doing the same for your for 35 years and retiring and getting, you know, a clock as a retirement gift anymore. Like we're we're doing something completely different. And it's okay to be adaptable to that.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

Absolutely. And yes, be be adaptable and be and treat like I think there that's there's freedom in that. So I want us to like to celebrate.

SPEAKER_01 37:25

I love that. You're so fun. I'm gonna have to have you on like when campaign season is over for you, even though I know you'll probably be like deep in the next project.

SPEAKER_00 37:35

I just know I would yeah, I was like, I was telling someone the other day, it's like, okay, well, in November when things are over, and then I was like, but pretty soon after that, we'll basically be starting 2028. So there will be a little period in there though, where I'm like, I'm open and I would love to talk more about this theme and any others.

SPEAKER_01 37:54

Yes, you're amazing. I'm just so grateful for you being here and just sharing your voice and your experience and and really just serving the public. I mean, that's what you're doing. Like you are a public servant, and we need more women who are passionate about things, who are out doing good for the community that they are serving. So I just I thank you for you and what you're doing and just again, the authenticity that you bring to the conversation. Just thank you so, so much.

SPEAKER_00 38:20

Thank you. I really appreciate you. This was great.

SPEAKER_01 38:23

Oh my gosh. Well, we will see you guys next time. Thank you. My gosh, I just loved this episode with Maya. I just loved her personally. We had a lot of conversation off camera too, and she's just incredible. So please go connect with her for sure. I put her LinkedIn, her book, all of the fun things. So go connect with her, and I definitely am going to have her back. So if you like this episode, please share it. Tag me on LinkedIn. If you see me on Instagram, I'm not posting there anymore. So um go tag me on LinkedIn if you like this episode. Go share it with your friends, email it to somebody because, especially as women, I think this conversation needs to be had way more often than it is happening. So I really want to encourage you to do that. And if you like the episode, please leave a review wherever you're streaming it. Apple or Spotify. Listen, I hate asking for them. If I'm really honest, I hate asking for them because they see the listenership. So I know you guys are listening, but Apple and Spotify care about reviews and comments because it tells them that the show has active people who are engaging. So if you wouldn't mind doing that, I would deeply appreciate it because then more women can be hearing this conversation. And let's be honest, they need to hear this conversation. So I will see you all next week. Tootaloo trend.