Madam Policy

Kate Mangino, Ph.D., is a gender expert and newly-minted author of Equal Partners: Improving Gender Equality at Home. Kate has been a leader in the gender equity space for over 20 years and has worked in in women's empowerment, HIV prevention, and forced childhood marriage prevention. This week, Kate sits down with hosts Dee Martin and Caitlin Sickles to discuss the importance of couples sharing both good and bad stories, how language and set terms can help enable conversations on gender equity in the home, and her new book which serves as a guide to facilitating hard conversations with friends, family, and yourself.

Kate also gives advice for new and aspiring writers to become a part of the community and the importance of trusting yourself. This is an episode you won't want to miss!

Sarah Maguire is a trailblazer who is committed to empowering others. As the global director of safeguarding for international development company DAI and the first person to hold such a role at any private development organization, Sarah is not only strengthening DAI's policies and practices around the prevention of and response to sexual exploitation, abuse, and harassment, but she is also paving the way for other organizations to improve their standards. Her work serves to protect women and girls in conflict zones as well as ensure that victims can report issues and perpetrators can be identified and held accountable.

In this episode, Sarah joins co-hosts Dee Martin and Caitlin Sickles to share incredible anecdotes of humanity, bravery, and resilience from her 20 years of experience in fragile and conflict-affected states.

Stay until the end to hear how Sarah, also a trained clown, makes a key lesson in clowning - "It's always your turn" – a core part of her leadership style, empowering others by taking the first step and showing them their own strength.

If we took every woman who has ever served as governor in American history and put them on a DC metro car, they would not only all fit, but also would get their own seat. This is compared to the more than 2,300 men who have served as governor. Amanda Hunter is on the frontlines of the efforts to change this picture. She serves as the Executive Director of the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, where she leads the Foundation's nonpartisan efforts to advance women's political equality and increase women's representation in state, local, and federal government positions. This week, Amanda joins hosts Dee Martin and Yasmin Nelson as they discuss the impact of the recent Dobbs decision on the midterms, advancing women of color candidates, internalizing failure, and more. Amanda's commentary is especially relevant, given the upcoming midterm elections. The Foundation's polling finds that 3 out of 5 women believe that November's election will be more important than most. Don't miss out on this new episode of the Madam Policy Podcast with Amanda Hunter, a leader in achieving gender parity in politics.

Tune in to this special edition of Madam Policy which features an episode of our sister podcast, The Lobby Shop, as they interview Madam Policy’s own Yasmin Nelson.

Dee Martin is joined by Yasmin Nelson to recap the historic congressional launch of the Mamas' Caucus. Before diving into the Lobby Shop episode, Yasmin also shares details about what's on the horizon for advocating for mothers of color and their families, including the formation of a coalition. 

Read more about The Lobby Shop episode featuring Yasmin.

On this episode, the Lobby Shop team is joined by very special guest, PRG Senior Principal Yasmin Nelson! Tune in to hear about Yasmin’s transition from working in the Senate, where she met with advocates who wanted to bring awareness to their issues, to her work now at Bracewell’s Policy Resolution Group, where she is on the other side advocating policy issues by connecting with staffers, members of Congress, and members of the administration. Yasmin also shares details about some of the important work that she is currently doing with Mothering Justice, including the historic launch of the Mamas’ Caucus. The newly formed congressional caucus advocates for mothers of color and their families and empowers them to be engaged and hold those in charge accountable to make the changes they want to see. This is an episode that you won’t want to miss!

From a young age, U.S. Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA) dreamed of making a difference in people's lives. Now, as the first Hispanic Member of Congress from Washington state, she is living her dream. This fiercely independent advocate for her district, constituents, and the nation, sits on the powerful Appropriations Committee and co-founded the bipartisan Maternity Care Caucus, the first of its kind in Congress. This week, Congresswoman Beutler joins hosts Dee Martin and Anna Karakitsos from the U.S. Capitol to tell her story about her journey to DC and her bipartisan leadership on maternal health, mental health, promoting American jobs, and more. Plus, she advises young people on how to get involved in causes important to them and explains why you need to "invite yourself to the party."

Estimates published by The Trevor Project in 2021 show that at least one LGBTQ youth between the ages of 13–24 attempts suicide every 45 seconds in the U.S.

As the Senior Fellow for Advocacy & Government Affairs for The Trevor Project, the world's largest suicide prevention organization for LGBTQ young people, Casey Pick is on a mission to change that reality by leading efforts to advance policies supporting LGBTQ youth. 

Casey sat down with hosts Dee Martin, Emily Schmidlin, and Grace Kessler to discuss the launch of the 9-8-8 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, banning conversion therapy, and other policy efforts needed to save lives. Also, Casey shares how her personal experiences and background has helped her to relate to people from a variety of backgrounds and become a leading voice in policy. You don’t want to miss this empowering episode of Madam Policy with Casey as she shares with listeners how she shapes policy and creates history through advocacy for the LGBTQ community. 

As the world continues to prioritize a cleaner and more energy efficient future, large-scale clean energy projects have taken center stage. But who is behind the policy and implementation of these types of projects?

Meet Cordi O'Hara, President of National Grid Ventures—the unregulated, innovation arm of National Grid—and the woman leading the charge for developing and operating large-scale clean energy projects like offshore wind, solar, onshore wind, and transmission in the US and electricity connectors in the UK.

Cordi sat down with hosts Dee Martin and George Felcyn to discuss her pathway to becoming the President of National Grid Ventures and how her continuous work contributes to groundbreaking National Grid projects—like linking England and Norway through the world's largest subsea interconnectors (450 miles!) and supporting National Grid's plan to go fossil free by 2050. Don't miss this special episode of Madam Policy with Cordi, a 2019 Officer of the Order of the British Empire recipient, to learn more about how she shapes policy and creates history in the energy industry.

“The world is a crisis for women and girls. There is no safe place for women,” - Mendy Marsh, Co-Founder and Executive Director of VOICE.

It is estimated that nearly 30% of the population of Ukraine is displaced as a result of the Russia-Ukraine war, most of whom are women and girls now at great risk for gender-based violence and exploitation.

Join hosts Dee Martin and Caitlin Sickles as they unpack the findings of a new VOICE report, “Waiting for the Sky to Close,” on the experiences of women and girls in the Russia-Ukraine war, alongside VOICE Co-Founder and Executive Director Mendy Marsh, Assessment Ukraine Team Member Yana Tovpeko, and Women’s Rights Ukraine Crisis Response Team Member Michelle Girard.

VOICE is a feminist organization and disruptor in the humanitarian aid establishment, focused on the unique needs of women and girls and members of the LGBTQ+ community in modern-day conflicts and crises.

In the episode, Mendy, Yana, and Michelle share their on-the-ground perspectives of the conflict in Ukraine, their analysis of what needs to be done at a broader level to respect and protect women and girls, and their own strategies for coping with trauma and building healing.

The Airbnb of file storage. That's how Marta Belcher—who is the President and Chair of the Filecoin Foundation, the General Counsel at Protocol Labs, and Special Counsel at Electronic Frontier Foundation— describes Filecoin. As a leading voice in civil liberties and blockchain law, Marta is consistently working to find new and innovative ways to bring the blockchain and the next generation of the internet to the forefront of the policy agenda. What's next in the policy arena for Filecoin? Marta shares Filecoin's top policy priorities and how she is working to achieve them. Tune in as Marta joins hosts Dee Martin and Anne Termine to explain the overlap of law and regulation with the evolution of the blockchain, cryptocurrency, and the decentralized web, along with her vision for preserving humanity's most important information in a decentralized world. Don't miss out on this new episode of the Madam Policy Podcast with Marta Belcher, a trailblazer in the blockchain legal space.

An early morning idea, four women pursing doctorate degrees, and an evening meeting in a D.C. bookstore … want to know how this sequence of events led to the creation of a program that has helped over 100 women of color earn higher education degrees? Tune in for the latest episode of the Madam Policy Podcast to hear from Dr. Shireen Lewis, Executive Director of EduSeed and Founder of EduSeed's SisterMentors Program. Shireen joined hosts Dee Martin and Rachael Marsh to discuss the origin story of SisterMentors, the successes of the program, and how the organization will celebrate its 25th anniversary in September. The episode also features discussion of how Shireen's Trinidadian upbringing has influenced her views, what sparked her passion for education, and details of her writing career, including her upcoming book. Don't miss out on this episode with champion of education equity, Dr. Shireen Lewis.