Julia Louis-Dreyfus

My high school was so different, but just as foundational. My high school and elementary school was a private all-girls school. I went there for 10 years. And then, my God, my father, I do not know why, he wanted me to go to an all-girls college, which I definitely did not want to do. He absolutely insisted that we go tour Wellesley College.

So we did, and we ended up having this huge fight about the school while walking across the quad. And all of a sudden, a bee flies up my skirt and stings me on the ass. This is a true story, you guys. No kidding. And I started screaming in front of the whole tour group like a crazy person. The good news is I didn't have to go on the rest of the tour. So that was excellent.

But anyway, back to my all-girls high school. My school has a roster of wildly successful female alums, and maybe that's because at a school like mine, everyone who is the captain of a team or the star of a play or president of the class or the valedictorian or whatever is a woman.

And when you look at lists of successful women, CEOs, members of Congress, musicians, journalists, the percentage that went to all-girls schools is considerable. Kind of stunning. I mean, everybody from Pink to Michigan Senator Alyssa Slotkin to Ambassador Susan Rice and Melinda Gates to, I don't know, the Wicked Witch of the West, Margaret Hamilton. Yes, it's true.

They all went to all-girls schools. So am I making a pitch for all-girls education? Well, no, not exactly. I'm making a pitch for putting women in charge.

It's a pitch for an even playing field because I bet the powerful and successful women who did not go to all-girls schools were also at some point in positions where their leadership was allowed or maybe they powerfully insisted it be allowed to flourish. Success followed. Of course, not everyone is a leader, obviously. But when women lead, everyone benefits, men included.

It's good for everybody. At my all-girls high school, which was far from perfect, it had its own stupid rules and prejudices and very conservative ideology, my experience of seeing women lead without apology, myself included, by the way, instilled in me an expectation of female leadership, a normalization. That's the word. That was just how it was, and it was wonderful.

And then out in the real world, my classmates and I just expected to be taken seriously. And when we weren't, we would put up a hell of a fight. I mean, if I've learned one thing from Wiser Than Me, it is that the women we have been so honored to talk to from everywhere. every walk of life, they know how to put up one hell of a fight. They know how to lead.

They have, every one of them, earned our deep, deep respect. So as I've said many times, listen to old women, motherfuckers. And we're just scratching the surface of each of these individuals' life story, the tons and tons of wisdom they can pass along to us.

What a loss it has been for our country, our culture, to not hear from all of the women with brilliant ideas and tons of talent and genius, the women who have been kept from leadership, from flourishing by stupid rules, by what is now almost laughingly called the patriarchy. Well, fellas, you're lost because women in leadership roles, well, I mean, obviously, we're not 100% fabulous.

I'll grant you that. I mean, you do get your occasional insanely crappy congresswoman, your idiot female pundit. We're not batting 1,000, but we're batting in the high 400s, and even Ted Williams never did that. Well, how perfect then.

that we talk today on the last show of the season to a fellow all-girls high school graduate and one of the greatest female leaders of our time, maybe even the greatest female leader of our time, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi. I'm Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and this is Wiser Than Me, the podcast where I get schooled by women who are wiser than me.

Hey folks, before we begin, we wanted to let you know that this episode was recorded before Speaker Pelosi's recent accident in Luxembourg. We are keeping her in our thoughts and sending our love for a smooth and speedy recovery.

It is an axiom, an undisputed truth that in the developing world, the fastest, most effective way to bring a village, a province, a nation out of poverty to reduce disease, crime, and violence is to empower women. But right here in our own rich, supposedly sophisticated nation, we're too stupid to apply that same axiom. We need more women in positions of power.

And of course, I'm not saying men should stay away from politics. I mean, we've had 45 male presidents and almost two and a half of them were great presidents. Right. And one of those wasn't even named Washington or Lincoln. I'll let you guess who that was. I'm just saying if you want to get stuff done, hire women. Elect women.

Case in point, Nancy Pelosi, the first and only female Speaker of the House and arguably, and I'm going to make the argument, the most effective speaker and leader in a century. Nancy Pelosi didn't run for public office until she was 47 years old. Can you believe what I am saying? and think of what she has done.

Always a fierce advocate for the unseen and unheard, starting with the AIDS crisis in the 80s through the Affordable Care Act, which she, through her magical political jujitsu, somehow worked through Congress and now insures millions of Americans. Her stupendous tenacity has led her to become the most powerful woman in the Western world.

It is no surprise that Nancy Pelosi grew up in a family that lived and breathed politics. Her dad, Tommy D'Alessandro Jr., wasn't just a visionary Democratic congressman. He was also a great dancer and the mayor of Baltimore. Her mom, Big Nancy—I love that name—was a whip-smart strategist, inventor, and I'm guessing—guessing, possibly—the brains behind her husband—

And Nancy, she was little Nancy, the shy youngest of six children and, of course, the only girl. When Nancy became a public servant, she showed us what tough, unwavering, principled persistence looks like. She leads with agility and ferocity and does it while taking zero crap.

My God, the threats and real violence she has had to put up with throughout her career, the classless, insipid, dangerous way that the people who are taking power right now think they can talk about this great woman. I don't know how she perseveres, so let's find out. I can't wait to talk to someone who I have been...