International Women's Day: Influential women reflect on their journeys on the "CBS This Morning" podcast
All week leading up to International Women's Day, the "CBS This Morning" podcast has featured conversations with inspiring and influential women with backgrounds in entertainment, sports, politics, business and food.
The women we spoke with discuss the determination, skill and grit it takes to succeed in each of their male-dominated professions. They explain how they have carved out opportunities for themselves and how they are inspiring the next generation of women.
Listen to the conversations below and subscribe to the "CBS This Morning" podcast on any major podcast platform including Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, SoundCloud and TuneIn.
Chef and James Beard award-winning author Samin Nosrat
Growing up in San Diego, California, Samin Nosrat says she didn't fit in. Her parents had moved from Iran to the United States just a few years before she was born and as Nosrat put is, she didn't look like anyone else, her family's food didn't smell like anyone else's food and nothing about her family's home life was reflected in their community.
"That stuff really gets to you as a kid and it really affects how you are in the world," she tells CBSN anchor Reena Ninan. "So I really think that my bubbliness and my personable-ness and the way that I am able to enter any situation and be a chameleon and be a person who fits in and makes myself sort of welcome is in response to the fact that I never did feel welcome."
Her warm personality now captivates viewers of her Netflix documentary series "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat," which is based on her New York Times bestselling and James Beard award-winning cookbook of the same name. She wants to teach people how to master the use of these four elements in their cooking to make their meals more delicious.
Nosrat spent years watching cooking shows and noticed that, just like her childhood in southern California, nobody on screen looked like her. With the Netflix deal, she was able to take one step toward changing that narrative for other women, particularly women of color.
"I felt like I had one shot and I was going to make the most of that shot and you know, put women on camera, put people who aren't professionals on camera and show that their cooking is valuable and valued too."
Oscar-winning costume designer Ruth Carter
In February, Ruth E. Carter became the first African American to win the Academy Award for best costume design for her work on Ryan Coogler's Marvel super hero film "Black Panther."
"I knew that even coming into this field that there had never been an African American woman to win in my category and I always thought, 'there's a goal,' and I always felt like I could do it," Carter says. "I always wanted to be the first and so that was my dream come true."
As she said on stage during her acceptance speech, the win was a long time coming. Carter has worked on more than 40 films in her career and garnered two other Oscar nominations: in 1993 for Spike Lee's "Malcolm X" and in 1998 for the Steven Spielberg-directed, Debbie Allen-produced historical drama "Amistad."
In her work with Lee early in her career, Carter says her designs were "empowered by blackness and afro-future and African diaspora." She called upon those influences when creating the iconic designs of the fictional African land of Wakanda. Carter tells "CBS This Morning Saturday" co-host Michelle Miller that working with Coogler was exciting because he "represented a newer generation, a newer empowerment, a newer voice."
Now, Carter hopes her work inspires a new generation of artists.
"I'm opening up the field for anyone who is inspired by the visuals of costume design and wants to do some type of art," she says. "Maybe someone looks at Wakanda and the visuals of Wakanda and they want to draw or they want to paint or they want to be a costume designer. It's not, I don't think, limited to one thing."
World champion cyclist Rachel McKinnon
Rachel McKinnon won a cycling gold medal in the 2018 UCI Masters Track Championships in October, but she didn't get to celebrate right away.
Her victory, McKinnon tells CBS News business analyst Jill Schlesinger, was largely overshadowed by controversy. Some of her competitors claimed the six-foot tall athlete had an unfair advantage because she is a transgender woman.
"Elis Ligtlee is an Olympic gold medalist in track cycling in my event and she is 6'1", 200 pounds," McKinnon says. "She's bigger than me and she's much faster than me. So the idea that just because I happen to be 6 foot that it's unfair, but when a cis-gender woman is, it is fair — even when that person's faster than me — doesn't quite make sense."
McKinnon, who is also an assistant professor of philosophy at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, considers the calls to ban transgender athletes from women's sports to be transphobic. She says people only care because she won an event, but points out that not a single trans person has ever qualified for the Olympics, won an elite gold medal or currently holds a world record.
"So the idea that trans women will suddenly take over women sport and we need to defend it from trans women is an irrational fear of trans women," McKinnon says.
She continues to advocate for transgender athletes and says that despite the backlash, sports and society are moving in the right direction.
"I think we are in a moment of profound pushback, which always happens whenever civil rights make significant advances. History has shown us this. But it's clear to me that organization after organization and all the legal decisions are in favor of trans people and our rights for equality and we will not take one step back no matter how dark it looks now."
U.S. Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Washington)
After six years serving as chair of the House Republican Conference and 10 years on the party's leadership team, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington says she was ready to lead in new ways.
"I'm excited for people to see me more individually now versus being a member of House Republican leadership," she tells CBS News Chief congressional correspondent Nancy Cordes. "They can see me as Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a national leader on her own."
Part of her focus is recruiting Republican women to run for office. A record number of women were elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in November, but the number of Republican women actually went down.
"Women are seen as being trustworthy, willing to work across the aisle, problem solvers, they're approachable," McMorris Roders says. "Many of the qualities that people are searching for in their representatives are ones that women naturally bring and that's where the Republican party needs to make sure that we are continuing to communicate to women, engage with women, and make sure that they know that they're valued."
McMorris Rodgers, the only woman to have given birth three times while in office, says more Republicans need to adopt a framework similar to the one she developed in her eastern Washington district. She launched a coalition called Cathy Represents Me, which now includes hundreds of women that are engaged in policy.
"We have to continue to recruit more women to run," she says. "We also need to make sure that we are supporting them and retaining them once they are in office and giving them a chance to shine giving them a chance to be in leadership positions."
Rent the Runway co-founder & CEO Jennifer Hyman
Before the sharing economy became a billion dollar businesses, Jennifer Hyman and a classmate at Harvard Business School came up with the concept of offering women the ability to rent designer dresses for a fraction of the cost shipped directly to their door. The idea was to make the closet a "living thing."
Hyman tells CBS News correspondent Elaine Quijano, "A closet first of all exist in every home all over the world regardless of one's income. And a closet is essentially an archive to the past. There is nothing living or dynamic about it."
Nine years later, Rent the Runway is a multi-million dollar company with over 1,600 employees. The company continues to grow and evolve, including a recent partnership with West Elm.
"We really found that what's important to our customer is self expression and not only do they use clothing to express themselves, but more frequently they are starting to use their home as a place of self expression. You don't want your home to be static either," Hyman tells Quijano.
Along the journey Hyman has faced sexism and misogyny. As a young woman entering the workforce she was "told to shut up and speak less in meetings because it was unbecoming as a young woman to be as vocal and to have as many opinion" as she had. Even as a CEO, Hyman says we "still have a long way to go."
Recently while making a presentation to a large investment company, a man commented on the company's prominently female leadership team by saying, "I don't understand why don't you have more grey hair sitting around the table? You need some older men sitting there advising this team. This team doesn't seem like it has the experience to become a hundred-billion-dollar company."
You can hear how she responded to that man and what advice she gives to younger woman on the #CTMPodcast.
