In this episode, President Elizabeth Cantwell talks to Susan Madsen, the founding director of the Utah Women and Leadership Project and the Karen Haight Huntsman Endowed Professor of Leadership in USU’s Jon M. Huntsman School of Business.
Dr. Madsen speaks, coaches, writes and consults around topics related to developing and advancing women as leaders, and the Utah Women and Leadership Project is leading a statewide social change movement titled "A Bolder Way Forward."
Dr. Madsen and President Cantwell talk about "A Bolder Way Forward," and how all of us can cultivate women into becoming leaders.
Full Transcript
Elizabeth Cantwell: Hello and welcome to Future Casting with Utah State. I'm Elizabeth Cantwell. I'm the president of USU and the host of this podcast.
Today, I'm going to be talking to Dr. Susan Madsen, the Karen Haight Huntsman Endowed Professor of Leadership at USU Jon M Huntsman School of Business. She's also the founding director of the Utah Women and leadership project, leading a bolder way forward, a statewide social change movement. So we'll be talking about her books, we'll also be talking about the Utah Women and Leadership Project. Welcome, Susan.
Susan Madsen: So good to be here. Nice to meet you.
Elizabeth Cantwell: So let's get started. I mean, I have a bunch of questions for you. But I'm actually really interested in having you just give our audiences two cents, you know, in the timeframe we have of the Utah Women and Leadership Project, because I think that's kind of the cup that holds a lot of, you know, the other things I'd love to bring to the absolute podcast.
Susan Madsen: Absolutely, I actually started the Utah Women and Leadership Project in 2009. So it's been, you know, 15 years, and still lots of work to do. There's still lots of work to do, but I started it. And it was supposed to be a one year project, the Commissioner of Higher Education had asked me to do some research on why more women in Utah, were not going to and completing college, and that was in 2009. And then I said, Okay, two years. And then after two years of doing research around the state, people started asking me for data on other topics of women, the women in leadership and different roles. And so I started that, and it's continued to go and it's gotten grown, based on really the needs of Utah. So our mission is to strengthen the impact of Utah girls and women. And I moved the project from Utah Valley University to Utah State University about three and a half years ago. And so that mission, again, to strengthen the impact of Utah girls and women, we do that in three ways. Our biggest thing that we're known for is that we do research we to relevant, trustworthy research, lots of research, we publish it in different formats. Number two, we then create resources. So some people just don't read long documents and research, but we do curriculum, we do research based podcasts, and all of those kinds of things. And then third, we create and, and do events and gatherings and convenience, and to really inspire educate people towards change. And that's my focus that was part of my doctoral work is organization development and change. And I've been studying societal change for years. And we need changes here in the state of Utah.
Elizabeth Cantwell: Can I ask you if it's even possible to do a tiny bit of distinguishing the situation, if you will, in Utah versus other states in the US that have been studied, that have data about them? Because I do think we have some unique challenges.
Susan Madsen: We do. We do. And I have studied the religious element for years. I happen to be a very strong active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, but our presence in this religion, and we're not alone, there are other states that are religious and conservative like we are. But you see the same things. And by the way, other countries, so there's been research to look at more religious societies, more conservative societies, and what differs us from other states. And they're definitely we tend to, let me just give you an example. For instance, everybody pretty much has a pay gap on gender. But when you look at more religious societies, that pay gap is wider. Many of the issues, we talk about women's businesses and women's leadership roles and women in politics, you see less women in politics, and more religious and conservative societies. So maybe this was too much to tip. But there's a piece that I think is really critical here. And that is when there's a big distinction between what women should do, quote, should and what men should do, whatever culture that might be in, you tend to see some of the same issues. And so in our culture, we tend to say women should do these kinds of things some men should do. And that's when you see some of the power dynamics, you know, that men have significantly more power than women in the in the public space.
Elizabeth Cantwell: I do think those social climates that you're discussing, women also make different choices. Absolutely. But so let's talk for a minute if you could sort of give us an introduction to your book series, women in leadership in higher education, this is the world we are in. Yes. I mean, I think it's a great sort of microcosm in some ways, but I would say that because I live in it and I and I work in that and I'm a leader in it. I'm really interested in having our listeners understand what we mean by social change. And what we mean by the sort of social constructs that that are that we're talking about here.
Susan Madsen: First one I've actually published now nine books, but two of them were specifically on women in higher education settings. My first one was I interviewed some of the top women, higher education presidents in the country on their lifetime journey of developing leadership. And my second one, it was an edited book on women in higher education, with many chapters from different researchers around and so it's, though both of those are older books. But I've had such an interest in those topics, specifically around women and leadership and higher education. Most of the time, women and men do lead differently, we have differences in our brains differences in our styles. And, and that's important to, you know, consider and look at. But let me just tell you, like, has anything changed in the last 10 or 20 years since I've been starting on this? I do think we are seeing more women in leadership roles. Of course, in Utah, we lag in, in women's president, most I'll tell you, I've had a lot of people in the state of Utah, though, because they see more women at the presidential level. And we have quite a few. I mean, it's shifting all the time, we're losing one in the next little while, which is sad, because Denise Huff Dillon is a good friend of mine. But we have seen some shifts. But the one thing I want to say is sometimes when we see a woman at the top, we assume all of the issues are resolved. But when we dig down into the dean level, and other levels, we see a big disparity. In fact, in the state of Utah, you will see more women and not just in our state, you will see more women as lecturers, you'll see more women as assistant professors, but it just drops off associate professor and then full professor, especially can I say, in STEM areas, non traditional areas?
Elizabeth Cantwell: You have a lot of those. And maybe you mentioned that because well we have an and I'm an engineer, yes. And came up at a time when there were really just so few women in engineering, let alone in leadership roles. I get asked by students a lot about being a woman in leadership. And and I usually answer it through my, my sort of personal because I'm not a scholar of women in higher education. So I don't answer from a scholarly perspective.
Susan Madsen: I found one of my students, can I just say, she interviewed you.
Elizabeth Cantwell: Okay, yeah, she was lovely. She was lovely. I know exactly what you're talking about. So one of the things I said to her, though, was, you know, there is an enormous body now of scholarship about how in the aggregate or in the average the brains of women in the brains of men sort of process information. And I said, I think women are remarkably good higher ed presidents now, because the nature of the position is so yes, and the complexity has increased radically in the last 10 years, our brains are well suited to amalgamate lots of different vectors of information, and vectors of decision making.
Susan Madsen: That is so true, what we know, from MRIs and other kinds of research, there's deep, I'm not a scientist in that area. But what we know is that men typically, you know, process separately on the right and left sides of the brain. And when you look at the activity in the brain, women's brains are going across both of both the right and yes, all the time, so much more than men. And so it's interesting to think back on, you know, early, early days of, you know, the hunters and gatherers, I mean, men and testosterone, honestly, I've studied hormones and some different things in the past, you know, their testosterone rises, they run and kill the buffaloes, and bring the food and women are like, let's multitask. Let's get the children. Let's protect the children. Let's make sure we have snacks.
Elizabeth Cantwell: I have three boys. For decades, I always had a little car in my purse. Isn't that fun?
Susan Madsen: I used to have a little car for church. You have to you do multitaskers. So biologically, it's very fascinating. And when you shift to like today, it's fascinating to look at what men and women do differently. And sometimes similarly, what we know from the research is that when women walk into a room, they actually scan the room differently than men. And they look for different things. They look for body language and nonverbals and all kinds of things and and then make the Your choices. And men typically, not all women are the same. Not all men are the same, but men will just like focus on one thing and then go for the seat they want. And we're like, Okay, should I sit here? Or should I sit over there? Or am I wanted at this table or two, I sit in the back, and sometimes to our disadvantage, because if we are not conscious of things, and we've been socialized by what we see, we're going to sit in the back, we're going to sit on the side instead of at the table, taking up space, even the way we sit is gendered isn't that interesting?
Elizabeth Cantwell: It's, it's very interesting and I have taken pretty much every vehicle available for sort of personality assessment in like, gyms and you know, all the all the all the things that are spider if you don't know that I am statistically out on the edge for women, or on the sort of, I'm gonna find my seat have a seat at the table.
Susan Madsen: I was raised with six brothers and sisters. So I'm Anna and I was an athlete, which means there's fascinating research about Yeah, athletes, do you know that like 90, what, what is it today 92% of female fortune 500,000, fortune 1000 companies were athletes in high school or college I didn't.
Elizabeth Cantwell: But that sort of discipline to a goal. Especially the way we do with with athletes now, which is you start them when they're kind of five, six years old. So let's let's continue down that path. I'd really like to spend a fair amount of time talking about A Bolder Way Forward and tell us what that is. And really, I will, I will play the role of the neophyte, kind of because I think for my community, this will be a really important thing to hear about. Now.
Susan Madsen: Thank you. I love the question. So I've been doing this work on women and leadership in the state but broadened it. I mean, women in leadership is my academic study area. But I brought in that because what I realized is that so many things impact women and leadership from the basics of getting an education, finishing high school, going to college getting I mean, degrees in college lead to more, more leadership. But then I also started and continued to, to look at things like domestic violence, sexual assault, and entrepreneurship and so forth. Anyway, we published in so many of these areas, but in 2022, right at the end, I read a book, I don't have too much time to read unless I'm on flights, and I love flying with you, with you. So I've read a book called and I've studied societal change for decades. But I read this book called How Change Happens, why some social movements succeed, while others do not. By the time and I two flights to Costa Rica, I did some speaking to Congress down there, actually two flights back by the time I landed, I said, we've got to do something new. And in 2022, I really was unsettled. Thinking about, we're doing so much research, we're doing so much stuff, Utah's having conferences, everybody's doing so much stuff, but the needles not moving. We're still seeing so many issues around the pay gap around the violence issues against girls and women in the state that I said, we've got to do something different. So that had been on my mind, read this book. And then by the time I landed, really, and I'm a religious spiritual person, the Bolder Way Forward came, things came, maybe it's because I'm close to the heavens, or maybe I'm just locked in a seat. And I have to reflect and meditate. But I loved that. And so basically, I my journal was full of notes. And the premise really is and I studied in my doctoral work, and through the year systems thinking, so we're doing lots of parts and pieces in the state. There's conferences, there's parts all over, but we're not moving the needle. And the research that was presented in this book, and I've read it in other places, is that the key is the whole is greater than the sum of the parts that you can do pieces on parts, but but if you unite in various ways, be strategic, move together, where are the gaps, what hasn't been done, appreciate and lift everybody else's efforts to that a really, you know, have are based on good research are based on good theory that everybody can lift each other in unique ways. And so I know that sounds like pie in the sky to some people, but in general, we have the appetite to do this right now. We have the appetite. So what the books talked about were efforts like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, very successful. marriage, gay marriage was very successful National Rifle Association the one I remember with my age is when everybody used to smoke not everybody, but and then that smoking, so and then compare them against or with those that even had a lot of money that just didn't move the needle, what was that difference, and it was that Systems Thinking it was bringing in the partners bringing in everybody doing things and then shifting and we call it a wheel of change. Instead of moving the needle move, let's move this wheel up this hill that's been really hard for girls and women in the state of Utah. Let's move the wheel up the hill, and really make a difference. So these movements had really only taken one thing, one big thing, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, but by the time I landed, and really, you know, thought through it, it's like, we can't take one piece, and just have that for seven years make a difference. And by the way, I forgot a really important piece. One of the things that really had me reflect is, you know, had done work at the United Nations for years and European Union. And we look at trajectories like how long would it take us to get to this point with parity between men and women. And for the first time, I brought it back to Utah at the rate we're moving. And, and what it came to me is it's three to four decades to make any notable progress. If we keep doing things the way we've been doing them, even with stuff happening. To me, that's unacceptable. The violence rates, the different issues that we have. And so to me, it's this movement, the boulder way forward. It's a seven year. So we started in 2023. And 2030 is where we're going and we want to shift what would take four decades and seven years and but we can't do that alone. You know, us USU we can't do that alone. It's bringing state government nonprofits stay stay at home moms, families, government, local government businesses together to say no, this is the time Utah's the place for A Bolder Way Forward.
Elizabeth Cantwell: So I'm going to ask you sort of a question that has just come to me, because I've been observing as a, you know, a university administrator here. Something that distinguishes and I've been, I've had a hard time articulating it. So I'm gonna try it out on that distinguishes Utah to me, and it probably comes from both the predominant religion and the large number of people who are just religious generally, whether it's, whether it's LDS or I mean, it really is a spiritual state. We invest a lot in the principle of redemption. And yet, so to come back over to either sexual violence or, or aspects of the way that what the data says about women and girls in Utah, those two things have to come together in a way that that works. And I'm not sure I mean, I think that has to be part of the system thinking it has, because I haven't seen it integrated.
Susan Madsen: Absolutely. It surprises some people when they hear and I love living in Utah, I love women. And and, and there are great things about Utah. But there are things that are a mess. I'm just going to be frank, I'm a frank person and honest candidate there are things that are a mess. And as we have dug in and I've spent a lot of time thinking about this through the years, because as I said, I'm I'm both spiritual and religious, is what is different because what we know is right now we are ninth worst in terms of sexual assault and rape. Ninth we're state Alaska is the word is not something that inspires No, and we don't want to brag about that. We're slightly above the nation, which is terrible on in domestic violence. I mean, one in three women and one in five, one in six men, but one in three women will do that on child sexual abuse. One in seven kids in this state will be sexually abused. And I that's unacceptable to me. Can I just say that that is unacceptable. People sometimes have that surprises to them. They're like what? Like we are and more and more people are understanding this. But what I have to teach people is that when you are in a society, which I love, in some ways, in many ways, where there is a separation in power between men and women, and there is a distinct difference between what is acceptable through or has been socialized on what men do and what women to and anytime men, women don't make any money. Can I just say that you have less power to typically stand domestic violence, but anytime you do that there's there's is often a an abuse of power. And so men are seen as more powerful than women. And we can say all day long. I'm being blunt here that we appreciate women, there's a lot of what's called benevolent sexism in our state, not hostile, but benevolent sexism. And so when you're in a society that has this, we have to be so much more vigilant to say, Yes, I mean, we love our religion. But we there's this edge that you have to be aware of, to change the violence. So more. In fact, there's a book that's fairly recent out from someone, a professor from Harvard Divinity School on world Christianity and women. And she's got a whole chapter on Christianity and violence against women. Can I just put that out there? So to change, which we have to do this? Can I just say, again, I've said, I'm religious, this is not acceptable to God, I'm just going to be clear, and I think we have to change that
Elizabeth Cantwell: Is something we have to speak to open frequently open.
Susan Madsen: Openly. Yes. And that is, and we're not alone in this. We're not the only state. But when you hide when you silence when you and that's what we've done, not just Utah, but other states, we don't talk about uncomfortable things. We don't like that. Right. A lot of women don't like that, in a lot of ways. But unless we break the silence, I've been writing a lot on this, breaking the silence about these violence issues and some other issues as well. Because we know that when we get more women in our political process, including higher percentages of women in our state legislature, that allocations and policy change, those states with more female legislators allocate more money to do you want to guess, K through 12, health, health care, and social programs, like helping survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and so forth. Do you know that our legislature has never given any money to prevention of sexual assault and rape prevention, we don't have any prevention funding. So but states who have more women in their state legislature do give those kinds of things. So I'm, so even though I'm talking about one issue, the other one about making solutions is to get more women in positions of influence. And I can I just say power, even though that makes the women uncomfortable in positions like yours, but in positions like being a mayor or city council, or state legislature or governor, we have a lieutenant governor, that's a good friend of mine. And that's making a difference right there. Not all women are the same, though, I have to say.
Elizabeth Cantwell: I have two different sorts of questions in my mind. So let's go to like you're just starting to talk about things that I think about as measures of or signals signs that that we're getting a little more, they're more women in elected positions.
Susan Madsen: We're seeing some slight increases, but we want to see more.
Elizabeth Cantwell: What are the other ways that we can look to that we're getting more successful?
Susan Madsen: So in the Bolder Way Forward, you know, I talked about this wheel, a wheel of change, we actually have 18 spokes. So I started saying before that, that some of the movements we've looked at, have one main focus. And when I was like, how do we move? I've been connecting with so many areas, and I'm like, we've got to shift together. So to answer your question, the issues, the three issues I brought up are all three, those are three of 18 what we're calling spokes in the wheel, so child sexual abuse, domestic violence, sexual assault, all critical and important, along with a couple of others that we have in one of our categories. The others are homelessness and poverty.
Elizabeth Cantwell: So homelessness that was sort of one-sided really automatically I think goes to an another intractable systemic.
Susan Madsen: We're actually better on on those than most other states were number two was some rough summering because at number two on poverty unless you are a woman that's a single mother or over over a certain age, but also sexual harassment and domestic and sexual harassment and gender based discrimination. So those are some higher education attainment is another one. We have groups, leaders, organizations involved in all of these. Finances is important women in finance, that's that's critical, as well as some K through 12 initiatives. The workplace has seven Far spokes and childcare Can I just say that cat is that's huge in Utah, but you've I'm sure read and and talked about this in Arizona when you were I mean, it's a problem every place quality assessable childcare.
Elizabeth Cantwell: And it's something that we, every institution of higher education that I've been at has struggled to massive challenge because for us, for students and employees and employees, both of which, and on our campus are equally important. We have a huge number of parent, undergraduate students more than any more than any state, and they are incredibly valuable members of our community. And we fail to deliver for a lot of rational reasons, the level of childcare that that we would like to have here. And it is complicated.
Susan Madsen: It's it's very complicated. Other ones are the pay gap in that workforce, entrepreneurship, organizational strategies and workplace structured entrepreneurship.
Elizabeth Cantwell: That's an area that I am very familiar with. And it is historically I mean, looking at the data, there are shamefully few women involved in things like startups in your components of the innovation ecosystem, including the financial component are really against stem.
Susan Madsen: Can I say that's another one of our spokes is STEM fields. So that's you're passionate about that.
Elizabeth Cantwell: That area, for sure can say that, in my reading, it is an area I know just a little bit about is women and girls in the US are in a parity position, or even much stronger than boys in, in grades K through six, and it's still to this day falls off like a clip.
Susan Madsen: Puberty studied that in girls, and what's so hard and sad in on many fronts is that the age of puberty for girls is decreased. And in fact, seven, can you imagine seven, two, it used to be 10 to 14. And now it's like seven to I don't know what the top is. But that just means so much. In fact, the research on confidence that boys and girls are confident didn't at the same level until puberty, and then most girls never catch up at that. So there's some complex things in terms of, of not just genetics and biology, but socializations. But we have right now this year, the biggest gap in math scores in the whole nation between boys and girls in eighth grade. Now, I want you listeners to think about that because sometimes people dismiss that your confidence with math, you would know this more than me, goes into your decisions in high school on what courses college all the way.
Elizabeth Cantwell: And the amount of times I have heard here, I'm just not good at math.
Susan Madsen: That's socialization. That's not genetics, genetics, it's socialization.
Elizabeth Cantwell: Those of you listening, there is no such thing. It's a muscle that you use, you exercise it or not. But there is no such thing as I'm just not good at math, even for those of you that are math dyslexic, and that's a number dyslexic is a real thing. There is no such thing as I'm just not good at math.
Susan Madsen: Now, before I forget, I want to give you one more stat in terms of Utah, we've caught up in a lot of ways and are slightly girls or young women in bachelor's degree attainment, we're slightly above men. And we don't necessarily want that we want boys and young men and men and, you know, and women to all get more degrees, right. But we have the biggest gap in the nation significantly. Nobody's even close in the graduate degree attainment before between men and women in the state.
Elizabeth Cantwell: That doesn't surprise me. The other thing we are seeing, and I always because I have so many boys, is we're seeing we are seeing, even here in Utah, the percentage of girls and boys, women and men in our undergraduate programs is shifting really quickly to more women than men we need men to Absolutely. However, that's also means that we are graduating less STEM majors. Yes, that's so it's a really bad combination. It's bad for men who should be getting those degrees. Yeah, it's bad for all of us in that we're socially we're not delivering into the workplace, the STEM majors, and we're high at the rate that we needs. We are very high in the state of Utah, very high. We have a lot of great job.
Susan Madsen: It's awesome. Yeah. But we need to make sure I mean, people are asking me all the time Why? Why don't more girls go into STEM and I'm like, there is socialization that happens that parents and influencers of all kinds at young ages there may be not saying that, but there's messages that happen. So in turn I need to figure out how to dig into those. And they're subtle things by parents a lot.
Elizabeth Cantwell: But there's also I mean, I also have two girls and so the influence how many kids do you have? I five kids did not know that. Yeah, the influence of social media which is a term mean yes. That what I'm talking about really is the rather and it's true for boys as well as girls obsessive focus on bodies and more for their body image and is destructive it's it's really hard to watch. Because it is so obviously destruct.
Susan Madsen: The research, we've had some events and brought in specialists and have them on our website, by the way, YouTube, utwomen.org, get you over to the Utah Women in Leadership Project and and the complexity in and it crosses over into another spoke that we have, and that's called health across the lifespan. And one of the sub spokes is mental health.
Elizabeth Cantwell: An intractable systemic problem that probably has 25 spokes. Yeah. But I would love to sit down with you as whiteboard what are those spokes, yeah, and mental health, homelessness.
Susan Madsen: We have eight chain, but our health across the lifespan, which by the way, are anchored by Intermountain Health. And University of Utah health and regions Blue Cross Blue Shield says a major partner in this and we're pulling in all of the others. These are massive things that that the healthcare industry is coming right to the boulder way forward to be part of this because of how important it is. But each of these is massive. And what we're talking about is, again, to go away from the pieces and parts, people still need to do their pieces and parts. But can we do, quote, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts to be able to shift everything together. And that's we have to do something, not we're not the only state with mental health issues. Everybody's got them in the world right now. But we see some, some that were worse in some ways and mental health, we have had a history in the state of Utah, with more anti depressants, with more prescription, you know, abuse, prescription drug abuse, some some other things that are disturbing. And I will tell you that body image issues are high on cosmetic surgery were high on things that relate to body image. And so there's some interesting messages. I'm like, we know in my religion, I'm Todd, I am a daughter of Heavenly Parents. Yet, in this internal worth is the most important yet there's this external, I don't have all the answers can I just say, but we just have to have our daughter, I have a daughter, I have three granddaughters. And I will tell you, I think about them every day. And I want the state to be better for my daughter, and for my granddaughters and for the other people. I love that our boys and girls, men and women, right? Because when we lift and strengthen girls and women, it's not scarcity, it means that we're lifting our boys and our families. And that's correct.
Elizabeth Madsen: The boys and men do reflect that.
Susan Madsen: And there's work to do there too. Sometimes people say to me, what are you doing for boys and men, I'm like, I'm called to do the work for girls and women. And I support and would love more work on boys and men, because you're not going to get the violence rates down. You're not going to get the opportunities up unless we work with men to become male allies and boys so that they understand these things.
Elizabeth Cantwell: I mean, I actually think we measure the thriving, what are the measures of men actually thriving? Not the appearance of power power instance, but literally mentally thriving? Because I think that's, I mean, that's what I think about for for my boys and our students. Yeah, we get, we have so many different ways of knowing that as time goes on, the students that we are getting fresh out of high school in particular. So for instance, no mission fresh out of high school are less and less mentally ready for the for the education and the experience that we offer.
Susan Madsen: There's so much noise, it's yes, growing up these days. I mean, the video games, everything is impacting boys in really disturbing ways too. But that noise and parents are at a loss in a lot of ways. And that's why it's so important to not just believe that we'd have all the answers, but we seek like at USU Extension there's so many resources about healthy relationships.
Elizabeth Madsen: What people we ask our communities, what do you need, or rural communities in particular, that is what they ask us for more help in that area.
Susan Madsen: Yeah, so many you and I are just going all over the place. But I love it. I love it. What you know, back to the boulder wafer, when you brought up entrepreneurship, let me close the loop on that we actually have mixed things in your top out women and entrepreneurship, some we rank high. The one that WalletHub uses actually, we were like 46. And they. So we have a lot of opportunities for businesses and entrepreneurship for women. Yet we're very low on women businesses that they have another employee other than themselves. So I wanted to close the loop on that interesting. So and we have less, you know, lots of businesses with very low revenue. Yet, starting businesses, there's so much help. In fact, in extension two is the SBDC has so many good resources there that most people don't even know about, check out USU extension and also the Utah women and leadership project. But But let's go back, if you don't mind to to let me just put a couple of of those 18 spokes in the boulder way forward, there were just a couple more that I wanted to highlight that big health across the lifespan. But I don't want to forget to mention that one of our spokes is home and family. That is so critical because of social media, all of these the mental health, there's all kinds of things for home and family. And we're not just talking about getting women into the workforce. Yes, they need to do that they want to do that let's support yet women choosing to stay at home and raising kids is such a valuable I did that for so many years. And so that is important. And again and again, you know, getting more women engaged in political right now, that's important political offices, boards and commissions in their communities. Also, just using their voices, don't you think that's like, understanding that their voice matters, I meet girls and women all the time, who do not believe that their role is to use their voice and, and be an advocate. And I'm saying that is the role of every mother of every individual to let's get that confidence lien in, use their voice. That's how we protect home and family. That's how we, you can tell I'm passionate about these things. Right, I could go on and on.
Elizabeth Cantwell: But I think that's also a large part of how we provide the seeds in children for even you know, moving through some of these social change scenarios that you've talked about. Even having the mental capacity to do that is to see it in their mom with whom they spend maybe most of their time.
Susan Madsen: And that's important for young women to see and for young men, both need to see that the research is very clear that the more educated mothers you have, and I love it when moms come back to school, I love that I'm like Welcome, welcome. Yeah, but the more they, the more their sons and their daughters are more likely to go to college and graduate. And I just can't help myself to make a quick pitch, that no matter what the people say, in Utah, it is still critically important to go get post secondary education. And if you get certificates go to an associate next and then you can move into that bachelor's, and it's not or you can be a mom and be in school, part time for a graduate degree.
Elizabeth Cantwell: You can and you can get that graduate degree or that even that a degree Yes, at any point in your life. In one class at a time, we completely welcome that. And I all the data says that even if you have had been in remain either a stay at home mom or a woman who raises your own family and then helps raise your children's families. If you have some form of degree, those children and grandchildren will be economically better off even if you never go into the workplace yourself. And it's really good data. I mean, it is lots and lots and lots of data points.
Susan Madsen: And I have some good reports out there that as I started really that conversation a lot in the state of Utah but not just economic, but the research on people who vote and get engaged in the community. The more education the more you do that. Parenting benefits and nutrition and, but smarter. We're all smarter the more we learn, and when I was a stay at home mom, you see I was still making economic financial decisions. There's so much work for, you know, your brain when you're a mom.
Elizabeth Cantwell: And I will, I will maybe end this by sort of going down the line of what something you just mentioned, which is that engagement in the sort of the political life of the state becoming a viable citizen, knowing enough about the issues. And voting that's more important comes as much from your home life, as it does from what you in fact, probably more than what you learn in college or your peers, once you get into your 20s is really what you see happening at the dinner table, in your in the home in which you are raised, which is so so vitally important.
Susan Madsen: Can I just say it might get elected? But in my first book, there is information about the dinner table conversation and how critical that was. After I did this research, I have four children.
Elizabeth Cantwell: I'm like, come to the dinner. We are having dinner together.
Susan Madsen: My kids are like, what's wrong with mom, like I need to cook farm. It's it's fun and our impact as women are children and on other people's children and, and men have that impact too. But our daughters and sons and neighbors, and students need to see men and women in our classrooms teaching, they need to see researchers who are men and women, they need to see political officials who are men and women, that it's just important. There's so much research on the benefits for society. And homes. And workplaces, when men and women are, are both in the conversation and more equal numbers. Here here, I love it. Can I just say before we but I want to make sure if people are listening and that they know how to get involved with the builder.
Because that right now we have a couple thousand people already engaged, but to really shift things in home and family, in workplaces, in society, whatever it might be of all these folks have been talking about, we will need tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of Utahns to engage. We can't get violence down unless every home knows this. So how do you do a bolder way? forward.org is the easy way to get that and you can look around and watch a 15 minute video that I do. Look at what's happening all in that and I'll tell you welcome in whether you're a student, whether you're a faculty or staff or community member, welcome. And we have a coalition here in cash County for a bolder way forward.
Elizabeth Cantwell: Abolderwayforward.org. I also encourage everybody listening to take a look. And even if women and girls are not your special thing, there are so many ways that this work can impact the what feels like intractable problems to us. It is a bolder way and it is a way forward. So thank you. We've been talking to Dr. Susan Madsen about the Utah women and girls Leadership Project and a boulder way forward. And thank you Susan for finding some time for me.
Susan Madsen: Thank you so much for the invitation.
Future Casting with Utah State is a production of Utah Public Radio and Utah State University sponsored by the Office of the President. Thanks to Justin Warnick, the USU Marketing and Communications team and producer Hannah Castro.
