question, did hillary clinton have more power as first lady or now as secretary of state? plus, mitt romney with endorsements like these, does he even need opponents? i'm going the try to help white folks feeling less nervous about, you know, race. but we will begin with this question, how perfect does a victim need to be. good morning. i'm melissa harris-perry. now, before we get to our top story, i want to make note of something that will become very obvious shortly. all of our guests this morning are women. march is of course women's history month, and as today is the last day of march, we decided that we and you deserved to hear women's voices talking

about the stories of the day. as consumers and producers of television news we don't always realize how underrepresented women are on the tv boxes, so today, we want you to take notice of women at our table, because nerdland is a girls allowed zone. okay. let's start with the news in the trayvon martin case. right now protesters are gathering in sanford, florida, for a march to the police headquarters there demanding that george zimmerman who killed trayvon martin arrested. we will bring you more this morning as it happens. meanwhile this week we found out that trayvon martin was suspended at the time of his death because traces of marijuana were found in a bag that he had in his backpack. he was suspended twice for being late or graffiti at school. we have seen floating around the various nooks and crannies, pictures of trayvon martin's

gold teeth or gold teeth grill while he was playing around. and pictures of the tattoos, and you see that one here, and also a site showing him a picture of the bird. and although it has not surfaced i would be willing to admit that trayvon martin had a temper tantrum and wet the bed, and also what we know that he was holding a bag of skittles and can of iced tea. now, we are supposed to believe that he was wrong because the photos showing undisputably that he was human and imperfect and acted out like to teenager that he was.

now, this is a dangerous and common practice, one where we assume that certain people, but especially black people have to be perfect in order to earn the rights due to them simply, because think are citizens. now, much has been made whether trayvon martin beat up, struggled or fought with zimmerman. so if he struggled with zimmerman, then he and not zimmerman should have been protected under the stand your ground florida laws. he was breaking no laws, and walking through the neighborhood, and he was being followed by someone who was a stranger who was not a police officer of any kind. he is a stranger who is armed and so if he had been fought zimmerman, wouldn't he have been fighting his ground? why do we assume that zimmerman is innocent, and trayvon is guilty as if he were an 80-pound weakling who never threw a punch. why is his death less tragic if

he fought for his life rather than crouching in fear. to help me understand that are jessica va llenti, author of "women in politics", and also joy who will be my colleague next week, and also andrea zimm zimmer. let me thank you all for being here. why are we caught up in the issue of respectability, and the notion that in order to count as a victim, trayvon martin, though he was a 17-year-old boy needed to be perfect and angelic in some way? >> well, in part, trayvon martin has become a casualty of the

overall cultural war that oddly enough is around barack obama. i think that once the president spoke about this case, you suddenly saw people divide into the ideological camp, and if you are conservative, you are supposed to dislike him, and supposed to be for zimmerman and couched in a political context. so that the rage that exists around the politics has been injected into the case where it does not belong. so i think that you have seen a lot of the conservative web sites digging for dirt for trayvon martin, and that is odd, because there is no reason to support george zimmerman. right. i mean, they are putting out that he is a democrat. they are trying to -- i don't understand what it is, but it feels ideological. >> it does feel a little painful and icky that is it is dividing along the race lines and the illogical ones, and fun to exclusively blame the right for

this, and professor, i want to ask you that it feels like what we are doing, needing to have a conversation about race and inequality, that an opportunity like this becomes a moment for us to talk about it in real terms, but then if the facts of the case somehow are not exactly aligned with our analysis, does the whole analysis go away? >> no, of course not. in any case our analysis of what happened in this case is not based on the premise that trayvon martin was an angel. it is based on the premise that he was not a menace walking through this community. >> right. >> and therefore shooting him incredible. but i think that there are two things about this case which deserve reflection. one is that i think that a lot of the people in the united states are horrified by the

killing of this boy. so we could take some satisfaction in the fact that 40 or 50 years ago, the conclusions would have been simply and much more racist. so, maybe things are better. i think they are. on the one hand. on the other hand, gated communities, you know, in the

trayvon martins and the unsolved murders of black men where the murders did not get the attention of the men.

>> and a lot of constant reinforcement that this is not a racist community, and you understand that we don't have a race problem, and a different sense of the racial dynamic and also a lot of fear that the community would suffer as a tourist community, and sanford depends on the tourism, and you talk about the shopkeepers in downtown sanford and lovely people and friendly with empty shops and so the sthaens people were there and so i did get a sense that the people in that gated community, it was not and upper class community, but a middle to lower class, and the 1

100,000 con dose and it was racially mixed so having a black person in that community was not odd, but you had other things going on there, and one of them was a lot of housing projects outside of that community near it closed. you had 120 families sift out into the general community and tension in all of the pockets where they landed. so there was a sense that the outsider is not necessarily the racial outsider, but the economic outsider, and so you had all of that going on. >> joy ann, as you are talking about that, i am having so many thoughts about new orleans and the post katrina moment, and we want to talk about how the trayvon martin case connects with the other cases. this morning, there is a march scheduled to honor trayvon martin, and you arem looking at the preparations for this. and bruce springsteen will be joining us. you'd be targeting stocks to trade. well, that's what trade architect's heat maps do.

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as we discuss the killing of trayvon martin, many are revisiting other shooting deaths such as that of amadou, diallo who was killed by four police officers who fired 41 shots at him at his apart mement in the bronx because they thought he had a gun, but he didn't. bruce springsteen wrote a song called 41 shots in his honor and now springsteen is dedicating that song to trayvon martin. ♪ is it a gun ♪ it is a knife ♪ it is a war ♪ this is your life ♪ it ain't no secret ♪ it ain't no secret ♪ no secret my friend ♪ you are just an american in

your skin ♪ >> joining me is the mother of mr. diallo and also jessica vicente, and joy ann reid and also francis fox piven. i want to start with you, because your son was shot by police and not by a rogue man, and how valid are the comparisons? >> thank you, melissa. i can relate to trayvon martin's mother, because in many ways the murders of trayvon martin and my son is different, but the same. because the night when my son was walking down the street to go back to his house where he lived, they, four police

officers with civilian clothes draw their guns to come after him and never thought in their head that ammidou may have lived there. h he was going about his own business, but they talked about him as being a criminal, and suspicious. trayvon martin's case, i understood through the reports that he was also holding -- let me go back to say that amidou had only his keys and wallet. trayvon martin had the skittle and iced tea, and he was speaking on the cell phone and just walking and going back to the house where his father resides. and this is in a many different way similar, because of the fact that the tahinking of this mr. zimmerman and the people who

ki killed my son, i can't relate it is the same, because in their head, they never talk about amidou and trayvon martins as normal guys walking down and doing their own business. they just think about that there might be a criminals or s suspicious or doing something wrong in the neighborhood. that is wrong. i think that this is the time for the country to come together and for us to seize this opportunity and the unfortunate senseless killing of the young males in this past decades has traumatized many families. now is the time for us to reflect on this, but also to bring the conversation back, because i remember in 1999 when my son was killed, his case has galvanized the whole country. but i can say, melissa, after a few years, it seems that people

have forgotten about this issue. this is why sean bell was killed after that, a nd this is why stn barry was killed after that, and many young men have been killed after that, and it is the same fact, that there is racial stereotyping, a nd this must en. >> and thank you so much, because this is so helpful for us. i have been hearing dr. michael dyson on the air to talk about how exhausting and pain fful th feels that all of what we are asking for is an arrest. at this point, we have spent weeks of media coverage, and marches and letter writing and pleas and if we step back to 1999, the diallo case, and she brings out sean bell and all of these other names, and what does

this this do when you feel like the justices, and feel so hard and even the initiation feels like? >>le well, to me, it does feel like the diallo case, and i lived in new york under rudy giuliani as mayor. there was a constant fear of this, a young black man would be shot in this case, by undercover police officers and suddenly the victim's past with law enforcement would come out and a total justification of the shooting as if somebody deserved it, and never any sympathy of the families and the mayor would not go to the decedent and said, i feel your loss, but that era was so stark for those who lived under the giuliani era. it feels like or almost like black male life is undervalued and devalued unless as you said earlier, it is complete ly the

ron goldman standard. when he was killed with nicole simpson he was found with his knuckles raw from trying to beat the person, and nobody ever said, well, he did hit them. >> i think that if trayvon martin did struggle for the life, and if there was a struggle and if any of what does n appear to be true from the video we have seen, there is more pathos than we have seen, and what reasonable person would not struggle for their life in that circumstance. >> well, it is unfortunate that we focus on the victim instead of the accountability aspect. when we talk about what were

they ding? what is the behavior and how did the body take up space? we are seeing the victim-blaming tactics talking about the press communities in how they are often blamed for the violence perpetrated to them. >> and professor, your work goes back to the early 20th century, a when you think of ms. diallo's son, and other names she gave s us, does it go back for a longer narrative? >> well, it is almost inevitable with the sort of demographic changes that brought large numbers of african-americans into the cities where the whites lived there would be a lot of tension and conflict and fear and insecurity. that is what is in the background of this case. this guy who shot and murdered trayvon was partake iing in thi drama about external threats and the external threats have dark

faces. this creates a situation where terrible things can happen and do happen all of the time. >> let me back up -- and mrs. diallo, i hear you in my ear, and i would like to finish up, so please, jump in. >> what i wanted to remind everyone was that for me, they, when my son was gunned down, do you remember the label that was put on him? i had to come in through another country from campus to campus to give my son back his story, because the headline was that the street peddler, unarmed street peddler was gunned down. to me, what they showed him and labeled him and killed him as an

unarmed street peddler, it was stealing his story, so i had to go back there to show the public that my son was more than that. he was a college student working hard to save money to pay his way for college. and he was also working and paying his bills and just never have a criminal recordment. and everything was just -- it was hard for us to go out there and defend his memory. and for right now, martin has been labeled as if he was suspended from school, and he has been arrested before. i would like the people to know also that background of the man who was involved in his martin's killing, because you cannot have just one way. the young man has been killed. his parents is grieving for his

death, and at the same time, they have to come out to defend their son. this is heartbreaking. it has to stop. i remember listening to the when mr. zimmerman called for help and saying that he is looking at this man, and he is up to no good. the first question the police asked mr. zimmerman was, "is he black or white?" and the racial stereotyping is the key here. we need to bring this back to the issue of racial stereotyping, need to be debated. >> thank you so much, mrs. diallo. i appreciate, that and awill use what you say, giving back trayvon martin his story just as you are working and have worked to give back your son his story. we want to show you more live pictures in sanford, florida, where people are gathering to march calling for justice for

trayvon martin. the march is under way at 11:00 this morning. now, switching stories, mrs. kennedy gives us a tour of the white house. you don't want to miss that. about building this extraordinary community. american express is passionate about the same thing. they're one of those partners that i would really rely on whether it's finding new customers, or, a new location for my next restaurant. when we all come together, my restaurants, my partners, and the community amazing things happen. to me, that's the membership effect. [ male announcer ] from our nation's networks... ♪

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if you are a nerd land regular then you are aware of my keen interest, and check that, burning desperation to have an opportunity to interview beyonce on the show. what you may not know is that the nerd land crew and i have been diligently courting the white house for a chance to have first lady michelle obama to join us. and first lady obama has no problem hitting the talk show circu circuit. she promoted the let's move campaign with push-ups on ellen and heck tonight she is on nickelodeon kids choice award. and next week she is on the bigger loser. are you kidding me? we do political science here and race and gender, and what does a tv show host have to do?

push-ups? tug of war? mrs. obama, i will run the new york city marathon with you, if you want, but i actually get it, because the talk shows and the reality contests and the children award programs are the platform for the modern day first lady. they have an appeal to the american everyman, and every woman, and that got me thinking about one of television's fir memorable first lady appearances. this aired simultaneously on nbc and cbs to 46 million viewer es, and this appearance is the subject of this morning's vault. let's take a look. >> this state dining room symbolizes your duty as an official hostess. do you have serve many meals here? >> yes, this is where all of the state dinners an luncheons are given. >> tell me about the silverware and the china, mrs. kennedy? >> it is not silver, it is all gold. they used to use monroe's

silverware, but so many have been lost or copied. and you see so many of the old services that the presidents had were destroyed and broken, so now that the truman and the eisenhower china is all that there is enough of to use. >> mrs. kennedy, this administration has shown a particular affinity for artists, musici musicians, writers and poets, and is this because you and your husband feel that way, or do you think that there is a relationship between the government and the arts? >> that is so complicated. i don't know. i just think that everything in the white house should be the best. the gruffy voice, and the mad man suit, and this is hardly a example of a woman exercising political power, but don't be fooled. this is not a glorified housewife showing off the decorations. as part of the restoration

effort, jackie kennedy worked to restore the property of the white house, and her tour was distributed to 106 countries as a coordinated propaganda effort. you see in the heat of the cold war, making sure that everything at the white house was the best was actually an act of politics. even if you whispered while you did it. in the election year, even push-ups can be politics. coming up, our first lay disor ldi -- ladies or ladies first? [ donovan ] i hit a wall. and i thought "i can't do this, it's just too hard." then there was a moment. when i decided to find a way to keep going.

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two of the most important are energy security and economic growth. north america actually has one of the largest oil reserves in the world. a large part of that is oil sands. this resource has the ability to create hundreds of thousands of jobs. at our kearl project in canada, we'll be able to produce these oil sands with the same emissions as many other oils and that's a huge breakthrough. that's good for our country's energy security and our economy. remember the last time that the white house tried to advance a health care agenda. it was 1993 and america's first lady was leading the effort. the country not quite ready for the white house with the reins of power pushed back and now

hillary clinton the secretary of state rose to issues more palpable to the american people, and now fast forward to 2012, the proponents of the president's health care plan have fought him all of the way to the supreme court this week. and meanwhile, michelle obama a former hospital executive has spent the last three years steadily staking out her own stake on the health care agenda. but her hope is to challenge the obesity epidemic, and thus is the stealth power of the first day. thus when martha washington first joined her husband in the country's then capital city of new york. many of the 45 women who occupied the role of first lady have been leveraging the indirect access of power to push agendas of their own. back with me at the table is jessica valenti, and also

victoria defransoto and betty karolyi who is author of "first ladies" and a book i am currently teaching in the "first ladies course" at tulane university. i have to say that this day, the last day of women's history month, the part of what i wanted to do was to maybe revive the understanding of how women use power when they have not had direct access to power, and it is actually on this date march 31st in 1776 when abigail adams admonished her husband "remember the ladies." let me start with you dr. karolyi. from that moment until this one, until the pushing up first ladies, are the first ladies actually exercising power? do we see real power in this position? >> well, abigail was outstanding, because she insisted that they called her mrs. president, some people, because she talked about the political divisions, and she was

really assertive, but then there were many who absolutely stayed in the background and most americans don't know their names. >> although they would know the names if they had my trusty first lady's fan given any first lady emergency there. >> and you get the birth dates, and what they did. and the major accomplishments and projects were, but there was a period when they were invisible. what has happened since 1960, particularly since lady bird johnson in 1963, they are a viable part of the presidency with their own projects and they have all campaigned and write their own book p about the white house when they leave. it is hard to study the presidency since 1960 without talking about the role of the first lady. >> yes, and victoria, you are at the lbj school at the university of texas. lady bird johnson and also her own lbj, was an amazing first

lady and the one who shaped the idea that a first lady could impact her husband's campaign when she took that whistle stop tour through the american south. do you have a favorite first lady. is it lbj give ten connection? >> of course, it s. we were just talking about it. lady bird johnson is emblematic of that activist, and one thing that5a÷ we talk about when we about the first ladies is the descriptive representation that first ladies bring about. i was going back to look at the stats that over the course in history since 1789 only 2% of congress have been women which shows why it is so important t~o nqladies. the influence has been growinghz we are seeingv michelle obama

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feel better? yeah...thanks for the tip! i hope that on that day the first lady or the first gentleman of 2112 will also have the privilege of joining with our friends from japan and planting another tree. >> that was first lady michelle obama speaking at this week's cherry blossom tree planting at

the white house. she is one of many first ladies to view her informal influence to advance the personal and political agendas. joining me is my guests to discuss this. i mentioned before i am teaching a course on american first ladies and one of the students, miss katy smalley, has a question for the panel. >> i am katy smalley, and the role of the first lady seems to be a delicate balance of the ceremonial duties and agenda setting power on the other. how do you believe that the roels and the expectations will change once we have the first female president, and consequently the first man in the office? >> well, i have thought about it a lot, and i thought that we would have a first man before now. i thought it would happen by the 21st century, but it has not

happened. i hope that the first man or the first gentleman, and i hope we get rid of the titles for both of them. i hope he does what a good first lady does now. he assists and campaigns really hard for her to win, and not like some people who sort of tossed off the wives' attempts to be a president, and has his own projects and extends the presidency, and it is a two-person president as much as we hate the two-fer term, but it is an ed a vadvantage to have t people in the photo-op, but reaching out to the audience and extending the office. >> it is interesting that we talked about projects and lady bird and the wild flowers, but she disliked beautifyication term, because she thought of her work as early environmental, and

cosmetic, and she says that beautifyication makes it sound cosmetic, and it involves much more, clean water, clean air, clean roadsides, safe water, and it means a lot more. it is the value of the future. that is a bigger agenda that planting flowers. >> women are just more comfortable with the docile sense of power. i remember back in florida when the moderator said, why would your wife make a first lady, and the answer is that were infuriating to me, well, she is a great homemaker, and she plays the french horn or whatever, and nothing that she is a powerful woman and plays in this issue or that issue. >> well, to be fair, romney did say my wife is a breast cancer

survivor and as a survivor she would have something to contribute. i would think that callista gingrich is fascinating and like some of the women that you write about, callista gingrich seems to have kept newt gingrich in the game, and pushing and making whatever legacy he has is at least in part because of her. >> let me pick up on the issue of the gop, and what i have found so fascinating is the policy discrepancy between the former presidents and the first ladies. so for example, since pat nixon, every gop first lady has been pro choice. to the degree to whether they say it while they are in office or wait to come out to really go -- i am just so surprised by that policy discrepancy. >> even laura bush. >> not only with abortion, but gay marriage. it is indicvyt

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and more victories at the polls. >> we just discussed the hidden power of american first ladies, but i don't want to leave you with the impression that the east wing is the closest a woman can get to the oval office. have you heard of shirley chisolm? if not, this is a teachable moment. shirley chisolm is a first woman to run for president in the democratic party. in 1972, shirley chisolm, the first black woman elected to the house of representatives announced her bid for the white house prompting walter cronkite to say, she tossed her bonnet into the presidential ring, and also appointed al sharpton as her youth director. she campaigned vigorously in state after state including california. california, and you see that california rules declared it a winner-take-all contest, but the national democratic party rules required that the delegates be apportioned. california gave all of the

delegates to mcgovern even by national rules she had earned 12 delegates. the campaign led the battle of winner take all versus the national proportional rules at the national convention, and ultimately she won 152 delegates to the convention. and that fight over how the delegate rule changes continued for three decades. rule changes critically important for a young senator from illinois who secured the democratic party nomination 36 years later. shirley chisolm said she wanted to be remembered as a catalyst for change. indeed, she was. on a personal note, shirley chisolm inspired my daughter's fourth grade project. i accompanied her to the brooklyn college, and check out more from on our blog at the mhpshow.com. and coming up, what if shirley chisolm had won her bid

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welcome back. you are looking at live pictures now at the naacp march for trayvon martin that is starting in sanford, florida. residents are marching from police head quarters to town hall to demand justice. the rally will feature msnbc's own al sharpton and other civil rights leaders. we will bring you more on that today later on msnbc. if you were just joining me at the mhp table, we have a full female round table here to cap off women history's month. in the last segment, i was indulging in fantasy, what if shirley chisolm had won, and what if the same were true in

other parts of government, and women really did rule the world? we have seen strides where women are democratically re-elected or put to power like angela merkel or president ellen johns lelen from nigeria. women can continuing to be raped as a tool of warfare all toef world, and in many places women are barred to participate in society, so is the answer to increase women's participation? imagine that the balance of power was shifted here in the united states and the number of men and women in the congress would be reversed, would the power be the same or different?

there is a lot of qualitative evidence that shows that women rule different, and fostering change is key, and we are ruled by multinational companies and yet a johnstown university study showed that only 14% of executive positions were women compared to 4.5% to other firms. in comparison to the rest of the world, women do lag behind. what is the game-changer? more women in government? more women running companies? a shift of attitudes. here to discuss the possibilities is jessica vicinity, and ellen fox piven and erica from the ethnic

equality. what do you think? >> well, sarah palin. and you know, of course, i would like to see more women in politics burk i do not fool myself to thinking that is the going to make the world a bet e or more just place. often people in power have to accept the dominant ideology and assimilate themselves into that culture of power to get there and so i don't know fit is the gender, but maybe more feminists in power. >> i would like to add to that to be in a position of power, they have to be aggressive or they wouldn't have gotten there. if i didn't know anything else, and it was not possible for me to find anything else, i would rather have women in power, and this is because most women have been part ly socialized by the caring, responsibilities, their child's raising

responsibilities, and that i have been influenced by that. they are in the mass that is a little bit kinder and more caring at least for now. but women who push ahead to get to be angela merkel or sarah palin, and those are the women who are going to be the most effective and the most exposed to the influence of the rout. >> okay. i'm back with you. >> nice to see you this morning. >> yes, a good strong cup of coffe coffee. >> and it is about women who take a pro woman stance. i'm egyptian and egyptian american and i have lived in the country and i have seen the war

against women in this country and i direct it to a similar war in egypt where we are going through a revolution. we have women in the egyptian parliament. who belongs to the islam brotherhood movement which i equate to the christian fundamentalist, and i call rick santorum the american salif. and when i say these things to the women, they say that things such as female mutilation of women is powerful. i am all for women in positions, but what kind of women? i want someone who is pro-women and not just a woman. >> i appreciate your drawing the difference of the domestic american context and this broader international context,

because we very often want to imagine that america is somehow separate from this, and not only do we image iine it, but it is basis of intervention for the initial ramp up of the war, there was a language that we need to go liberate the women of afghanistan. talk to me, then a little bit about how we manage on the one hand women in leadership, but also women as tools, women's bodies as tools for international discourse. >> our bodies are the battlefields upon which geopolitics are forged. here in the united states, you kept hearing, save the women, but look at the women of afghanistan. no one has saved them or thinks of them. when i think of the women in north africa rising upside by side with the men against the dictatorship, and these are dictatorships supported by the united states. my country here supports that country over there, and i am sick and tired off that support. so we have to remove the idea

that someone is coming in to save me. the women there in that part of the world are fighting just as hard as mad, so dissociate that and make a distinction between the anti-women policies and make an alliance with those who do support women, and not because this is america or iraq or afghanistan or anywhere else. >> one thing that happened was the komen versus planned parenthood and purportedly both women organizations and this counts as what counts as women's interests. >> this was interesting to watch out not only as a woman, but as an activist, and to see the anger play out. it is the idea that reproduction just isn't important to american women, and obviously, it is. they were so angry and so put off by komen's politicizing of something that they think of kind of separate. >> right, right. this idea of women's health is

separate from that. and so we came out of the conversation of america's first ladies, and here we have a former first lady as secretary of state in the body of a woman, and just spent the last two days in saudi arabia, and talking to the officials, and does it matter that hillary clinton as the secretary of state is a woman in this moment, in this space or would it make no difference if it were her or bill clinton in this role? does it make any difference who she is? >> in a country like saudi arabia, it absolutely does. in saudi arabia, you have two choices when you are a woman, lose your mind or become a activist. my arms were broken and i was sexually assaulted and many women continue to be sexually

assaulted in egypt, and again, we have hillary clinton supporting people there in saudi arabia, and this is difference than in other areas, and we have to make a distinction. >> the woman's body is not only a metaphor, but hillary clinton is not only complex, but the role she takes in different spaces. talk to me about how you might imagine what a 50% female senate or 50% female u.s. house of representatives or imagine this, an all-women supreme court. would that make any difference? yes, maybe not if it is sarah palin, but wouldn't it be different even if it were irp a sarah palin and hillary clinton? we would not expect all women to agree. >> i think it would make a difference and obviously, with hillary clinton we have brought more of an emphasis on women's issues, and the same would hold

true, and you do see in incorporations and businesses when women are at the top of the collective level, you will see work and home balance and work leave policies, and it is not -- well, i amming aming ing agreei >> you began with shirley chisolm, and when she announced that she was running for the presidency, that was a bold and rhetorical and brave announcement, but she represent ed in herself not only herself, but the women movement and not only the women, but black people, and represented poor people. she represent ed a left in the united states, and that is the

way that the early effort of women politicized women today where representation in the democratic party guarantees a proportion of delegates and the way that it is all thrust for women in politics was understood. it was not understood the way, the way that angela merkel or margaret thatcher. this was not a feminist leadership. this was a leadership taking advantage maybe of the idea of representation. which was also included in feminism to advance particular individuals who had gone as far as they did because they were being holden to big business in germany and central bank in england and thatcher's famous

quote, there is no such thing as society, there are individuals and families. that is not a feminist or a woman's perspective, because we believe in relationships and collectivity as women, but not all women do. and women who are pushing their way ahead by catering to the conservative interests do not cater to that at all. >> that is right. "unbought and unbossed" is a book you should own. e keystone e will provide secure and reliable energy to the united states. over the coming years, projects like these could create more than half a million jobs in the us alone. from the canadian border, through the mid west, to the gulf coast. benefiting hundreds of thousands of families

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okay. here's a little thought

experiment. think about the supreme court of the united states right now, and remember the supreme court is deciding the constitutionality of the affordable care act. now, right now the court looks like it is actually diverse, one-third of the court members are women. elena kagan and sonia sotomayor and ruth ginsberg bader, but the supreme court is not just these folks that you see here in the class photo, but the supreme court, because it builds on the decisions made by every court before it means that the court is the whole history of the court going back to the first courts which were all of course male, white and presumably heterosexual, so let me suggest this that in order to get balance on the court, you'd have to have an entirely female court for say 100 years. and do that thought experiment with me, and keep pushing. imagine that every member of the court is not only a woman, but a woman of color, and imagine that

not only every person on the supreme court is not only a woman, and a woman of color, but a woman, a woman of color and is gay, a lesbian. you would think they would all choose the same laws and they would always rule the same way, but my bet is in a court of all women of color who are identified gay, each decision of the court would contain the same complexity that behave seen with all white male supreme courts. talk about this, and other possibilities of how our identifies intersect with the structures i'm back with jessica vicente, and jessica fox piven, and also erica is here from international studies. if we had different cultures who are gay or straight, they would

see the world in different and unique and complex ways and is that the only way to understand how to get purity? >> well, i like this thought. it would take something that extreme to undo years and years of domination and oppression. i think that the structures would be different, and all women are different and it is not just the vagina votes or the vagina aspect, but something that radical to undo the patriarchal aspects of the political system. >> and the assumption that the women would have the right to sit together, nine of them to, sit together to make a interpretation, and something that is not seen as problematic as nine men, and we don't look back at the courts and say, they were not representative, because we assumed that these men could represent all of us. when we think about women. >> they obviously didn't. >> good point. >> they obviously didn't. for the thought experiment, can

we introduce another condition that the women be poor women or working women, but low income working women would be better with the thought experiment. >> yes, thinking about the other relevant identity factors. >> there were disagreements and long history of disagreements with the courts, but the court defended the interest of property, and in fact, it was understood by the founding fathers as a body which would first be con sservative and the defend the interest of property against the voting masses. why do we have to have the court at all? because we had a representative government, and we had some system of representation for the chief executive, the president, and the court was there as a safeguard against democratic forces, and this is even before women or african-americans got the right to vote.

>> that is an interesting point. >> and we are going through the process of writing a new constitution, and i love that thought experiment, because not only does it speak to the compl complexity and the diversity of views among women, but how long does it take to erase years and years of patriarchy. i was last in cairo on march 8th for international women day and i marched with thousands of women and men to parliament to hand over the demands that 50% of the constituent assembly be composed of women. of the people in thes a semle bli, only six are women. six. we are talking about on the ground now and actually going through this in egypt. when you talk about you want 50% of the assembly to be women, and we say, it is 52% of society, and it will take years and years to undo the patriarchy and what

it has done. i love the show here in the u.s., because the sunday morning shows have not a single woman. all white men. how in the united states in the year 2012 do you sit there and discuss world affairs with just men? where are we? why aren't we in the conversation, and so whether it is on the ground-up in the case of egypt going through the revolution, but here, we need a revolution of the mind and we need gender issues to be front and center. whether you are in the fourth wave of feminism or the second or the third in egypt or where wherever we are, we are not done. we need many women around the table. >> and it is stunning that you don't notice that we are not there. and we are skwus having the newsmakers on, and you feel like, this is not 1959, so that the newsmakers are in fact women. let me ask this question, are ordinary women, and you asked me to add the class piece, and the working women focus, and are ordinary women, citizens,

workers in the world better off in the material circumstances in their likelihood of getting the education, in the physical safety, in the economic capacity and the liberalization of the family laws, are they better off when there are more women leaders or not? >> silence. >> well said. it is hard to say. greek women better off in the past few years, because greece has been so under the influence of germany and therefore angela merkel. i don't think that they are better off. i don't think that she has been particularly concerned about the women in the rim of the countries around the mediterranean suffering the blows of austerity policies. >> think of scandinavia though, where many years ago they implemented a quota system which for feminists that is problematic, but the quota system allowed society to

normalize that women could be in the positions of power. and when you have this, there is a cut of a poi sayboy saying, cn be president? because it is always a woman. >> and there is a conversation of finland, and thank you, mona, and the rest of you are sticking around. up next, it is going to be uncomfortable. and why? because we are going to talk about race. do your lashes want volume or length?

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last week, i introduced our mhp dress code for black safety and the response was overwhelming. now, if we could teach young black men how to dress and not look suspicious and what else might we accomplish, and it hit me. for what jon stewart call made

jedi for which i call thank you, obi-wan. even he talked about trayvon martin. >> the controversial shooting of trayvon martin one month ago in sanford, florida. >> dick cheney got a new heart. that is the headline. >> well sh, he came around, butr those of you who are doubting your verbal approach on the topic, i am proud to introduce the mhp guide for how white people can talk about the trayvon martin. well, you didn't think i could say that? well, my mom is white and i thought i could say that. conot change the channel or tune out. do not flee the discomfortable, but embrace it. once you have decided to

participate, here are the rules. it is okay to say black and okay to call attention to people's race in the conversation, but it is not embarrassing to mention when a black person is, you know, black. rule two, black is always an adjective and never a noun. black people is fine. the blacks, not so much. which brings me to rule three. if you were trying to sound insightful or connected or plain brag, don't mention your black friends or relatives, because your black friend is not an emissary and for all you know, they are not that into you. and take your time to think before you speak. because white guilt can make you say stupid things like, i don't even see race. here's the deal, if you voted for jesse jackson and al sharpton and barack obama, you still noticed that they are black. in fact, all of the data show that we all see race and react

to it even if we are not aware of it. so racial bias is not the exception, but racial blindness is. that leads to rule five. remember, you are white. it is okay. it is not your fault, and acknowledging the whiteness as you acknowledge trayvon's blackness is half of the battle. you are almost there. and rule six, and this is not a joke. in a conservation of trayvon martin and race, silence is gold golden. listening can be more effective than talking. rather than defending, just listen. if it is hard, it is okay to soothe yourself with a cup of tea with a shot of whiskey. so just follow the mhp guide for how white people can talk about trayvon martin, and you won't be able to avoid all of the awkward moments, but i am there to cheer you on, because the most important rule is to not stop trying, because understanding

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with more flowers and vegetables. guaranteed. everything changed with miracle-gro. for you are these flowers, like soap is for showers. everyone grows with miracle-gro. i want the take off my jacket, because it is a little warm. [ applause ] i am here not just because i need your help. i'm here because the country needs your help. >> it is almost too easy, right? that was president obama yesterday at the university of vermont while in the state fund raising for t raising for the re-election campaign, and do not forget that the president is also a

candidate in the race. as you saw, he has a one distinct advantage and it is that he is, well, the president, and you could see clearly the charm of the incumbency working, and leading to taking off the jacket leading to the enthusiasm. and the latest poll shows the president leading mitt romney in the battleground states in florida and ohio and pennsylvania. those states matter. no candidate has won the white house without carrying two of those states, and who is carrying women? president obama. and women prefer the president over mitt romney and rick santorum by 32 percentage points. and what is on the mind of the lady voters? women issues? no, it is big factors like economy and health care. joining me is i have sand joy a

and alexis desoto and what do you see? >> the gender gap is back. it is the big news in 1980 when everybody saw that women were more likely to be democratic and not republican, and there is something true about the gender gap and it is true again, and the reason for the gender gap was not for the issues of reproduction or wasn't women's issues, but it was everybody's issues, but issues like the economy. issues like war. that were pushing the women into democratic columns when ronald reagan was running to president. women lost the common sense that they showed in the years perhaps, but they have regained it. that is the good news [ laughter ] >> women are the ceos of the household, so women are not just turn ought the vote because of

the contraception issues, and the abbrortion, but it matters, but women are the hardest hit, and they need to get the family back on track. >> and we have racialized communities in part who find themselves overwhelmingly democratic, and it is some of the people in that group that are part of that system, and the jendel gap and the racial and the ethnic policy gap reens for on this. >> well, it is partly style, too. and barack obama being there, black women were the backbone of the support. they were enthusiastic about him four years and the polling from the grio finds out that he is still more popular among the african-american women. they love michelle obama, and sky high ratings. and there is a question of style. the republicans have had a retro

style, and my daughter is 16 and she is taken aback like they are in mad men, and want to go back to the 50s. >> and not a good way. not entertaining. they want to go back to the era for black people, that is not the good old days. we don't want to go back there and women for the first time are saying, hold on a second. contraception. so it is not the issue of the contraception, but it is the style. >> speaking of style. it is interesting to see mitt romney have trouble stylistically with the e men and the women of the party. clearly, i havi have to show th say this quote of marco rubio, and hopefully not get victoria going, but i love this. there are a lot of people out there that a lot of us wish had run for president, but they didn't. and then you have new jersey governor chris christie telling

oprah that he would be ready to run in four years. so that presumes either a primary challenger to a republican president or that he believes this president obama is going to finish the second term, and he is ready to run. what is happening here? >> well, the republican party has gone crazy, and everybody knows it. a bunch of lunatics have taken over the party. they don't care about the big money backers and killing legislature in the congress these tea party maniacs. that is what the business wants. >> under the umbrella crazy, they alienated two key constituents who in the past can sway one way or another, women, particularly independent women, and latino. so there is a big chunk of independent latinos who we saw came over the vote for bush. in the last few years the republican party has alienated latinos. they won't turn out for mitt

romney, sure 15 or 20%, but it is not what we have used to seeing in the gop. the attacks are personal and not only hurting them economically in terms of the women's issues, but it is a personal affront of women. >> this is a rule and the show that we try not to dismiss the opponents or the folks with whom we disagree as crazy, but it does feel like bad strategy in that, this idea that the folks that you need to win, you are going against their interests? >> well, the republican party is going through a moment, and democrats do it as well. when you lose a big presidential contest and people were invested, and they were invested in sarah palin and not so much john mccain. and when you lose, you are to go through the tantrum stage, and there was a anger and rage and disappointment, and they didn't do it in 2010 when they said, give us the most conservative plan that you can and at that

point people like jeb bush and chris christie will run. >> my enthusiasm is about 2016 and the people of color in the gop who are undoubtedly going to run, and the nikki haleys and the marco rubios and sand vals, and it is going to be fascinating. up next we will tackle the superficial part of this campaign. prepare yourself. ♪ it is a little bit of history repeating ♪ [ male announcer ] can febreze set & refresh make even this place smell fresh? [ facilitator ] what do you smell? takes me outdoors. sort of a crisp, fresh feeling.

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please do not. i live on a second story, so it would not be good. here, it is the homogenizing of the latino population, and we are not all cuban and a vast majority are mexican dissent or puerto rican who vote democrat or lean democrat, and very few crossover with the affiliation with rube yoer. in the general, you are running to the middle, and rubio is a tea party baby. >> and my guess is new mexico's governor? >> too extreme, too. she is a tea party baby. if anybody, it is brian sandoval out of nevada who got elected in 2010 and not on the tea party ticket and bashing immigrants, because that is what is happening. >> and what about the folks still there, what will happen with newt gingrich? is this the end? i e mea-- i mean, even sheldon

aidelson is saying, it is time to go. what is next for gingrich? >> he would love to be on the ticket, but he is too unstable, and maybe they will dangle head of nasa to him or secretary of state. >> over the moon. and we could follow the mhp show, and nerdland and the newt gingrich hour, and maybe he could come on to co-host, and that would be fun. beyonce and the first lady and now newt gingrich. that would be -- >> and throw in mike petraeus, because where does he need balance? foreign policy. he never served in congress, so romney needing somebody on the national theater, i have the experience, but on the international theater, i need petraeus, and move him to the middle. >> but petraeus has talked about being a potential candidate in

his own right, and there is a reluctance to being on a candidate that is not viable. if you run and lose, that is not going to set you well for the future. so it is interesting who accepts that. i could see more of bobby jindal because he has flamed out as a potential presidential candidate, but i could see somebody like him from the south. >> and there is a vote, and the decision will come down in june and if women are thinking of questions of health care, and women are thinking of issues of the jobs and the economy, how do you suspect that either the obama camp or whoever the other candidate is, how will they spin however this turns out around gender and trying to get the women voters. >> i don't know how they will get out of this women issue stuff, and no coming back for romney. i see that obama takes advantage

of the issue, and comes out strongly for planned parenthood. >> finally. >> i don't know if any v.p. can save them at this point. i can't imagine romney going for it. >> and i want to pause, because it is an important response. president obama was initially elected and there was a lot of excitement about where he would stand on these issues, and then with the affordable health care act and some of the decisions to be made and the compromises, it would be angst producing for the reproductive rights folks, but by going to the right, the republicans have given back president obama the space as an advocates. >> the republicans are campaigning wonderfully for barack obama, and democratic congress, including the house and the senate. we don't -- i'm afraid we have the republicans to thank for where we stand now in the polls more than the democrats. >> this could do very well, bode well for women candidates if the

women were to seriously look at the house races, because one of the issues that there is not enough women there to speak for the women, so we are talking about men in washington to stand up for us, et cetera, so maybe you could see potentially a galvanization of taking back the house, a woman speaker again. >>? a good point of saying what if the women ran the world, and assuming they have to do it from the position of being in office, but women could run the world by being the choosers. >> exactly. >> the deciders. >> there you go. >> and especially after 2010, the aggregate we saw women represented go down in congress. >> for the first time since the 1970s, the number of women in congress reduced during what was meant to be the gop year of the woman. >> absolutely. >> but, melissa, i want to get back to the point of health care, because the importance may be overstated, and regardless of how the ruling comes down, it is

going to galvanize both of the bases. if it is struck down, the republicans will claim glory, democr solidify behind it. and the women in the middle, and the independents will lean right, because they don't like the fact that health care coverage penalizes them. and even is holding the breath for the summer, but i don't see the gravity of it. >> it is not just voters at issue though. it is the big health care interests working for two years now. >> strategically for the election and looking for the process of the election. >> yes. >> and either way, it is going tole gal galvanize. >> if children can stay on the parent's insurance until 26, and women looking for the parents and the insurances and filling out the forms and worrying about the children's health care and taking them to the pediatrician, and the only way that health care matters, as a political matter, it is not a center issue, but the women impacted.

>> we have one more woman's voice to bring into this conversation and that is alex wi witt. >> well, thank you very much. i wish i could join that table. feeling lucky? at least three people are big winners. we'll give you details on the historic day for the lottery. the battle for the badger state. two of these three candidates are taking a new approach on the campaign trail as another big primary day awaits. the health care showdown, what did we actually learn from the proceedings this week? and depending on the court's decision, who stands to gain politically? and we'll bring you live coverage of that trayvon martin march in sanford, florida, today. back to you. thank you so much. next, we're going to come out in the most courageous way. [ female announcer ] experience dual-action power, with listerine® whitening plus restoring rinse. it's the only listerine® that gets teeth two shades whiter and makes tooth enamel two times stronger. get dual-action listerine® whitening rinse.

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every weekend here on mph, we take the opportunity to acknowledge the work of those

fighting the good fight, those standing up for fairness, justice and progress. we call them our foot soldiers. often our foot soldiers are those whose names would otherwise go unreported. but today, we shine the light on those forced to go nameless, uncounted and unprotected, those deemed illegal and thus illegitimate members of society. this week, three young women had the strength to come out as undocumented. and as they say, unafraid and unapologetic. three women named themselves in order to bring human faces to the insecurity of undocumented status. their coming out is part of a campaign by the new york state youth leadership council. along with national partners to empower undocumented youth to openly state their immigration status. now, seeking to take ownership of this tenuous identity and gather support from their communities, this week, roers

yy rosario, janet -- during wednesday's protest against new york governor cuomo's unwillingness to include the dream act in the state budget, rosario, sarah and janet were arrested while blocking a busy city street with their nonviolent action. lacking a state-issued id, they spent the night in jail and are facing charges and as always possible deportation. so let's be clear, these young women immigrated at very young ages -- 7, 2 and 11 months. they came to the united states with their parents and have lived here most of their lives on the federal and state level, opponents to the dream act argue that it's a reward for illegal actions. but these women, like other undocumented youth, are blameless. they seek the american dream that they grew up on but without

access to higher education, we all know that that dream can deferred. the new york bill has been before the state legislature for the past year and has the support of the state senator, bill perkins, mayor bloomberg, christine quinn and senator kristin gillibrand. this week, we acknowledge rosario, sarah and janet and the efforts of undocumented youth leading change. for more from our interview with rosario and to nominate your own foot soldier, go to our blog at pmhshow.com. that is our show for today. thanks for all of you for sticking around and i'm going to see you all tomorrow morning, 10:00 a.m. coming up now, "weekends with alex witt." ahhh, now that's a clean mouth. i wish i could keep it this way.

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