Interview with Carol Moseley-Braun

By Political Parity on October 22, 2015

Download the full transcript and follow along as you listen.

Marianne Schnall speaks with Carol Moseley-Braun, who ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 2004. In the interview she talks about her experiences in politics as the first African American senator and as a female presidential candidate. She notes that women candidates still face challenges ranging “from the mundane to the silly to the profound. I mean the fact is that we still haven’t gotten beyond hair, hemlines, and husbands. And women get challenged or examined on a set of parameters the men, rarely if ever, are: what you look like, what your hairstyle looks [like], what your husband is doing.” But she also talks about the encouraging progress that the country has made in regards to women in leadership, citing some of her own positive experiences on the campaign trail.

In Iowa, [a] guy came up with his little girl after a debate and said, ‘I wanted her to see that girls can be president, too.’

Parts of this interview were used in a previous release, 3 Steps Closer to the Oval Office 

Former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun smiles as she meets with supporters at the University of Chicago Law School, Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2003, in Chicago. Moseley-Braun is expected to file papers in Washington on Wednesday formally creating a campaign committee to seek the Democratic presidential nomination. (AP Photo/Steve Matteo)


Marianne Schnall is a widely published writer and interviewer whose writings and interviews have appeared in a variety of media outlets including O, The Oprah Magazine,TIME.com, In Style, CNN.com, EW.com, the Women’s Media Center, and many others. Marianne is a featured blogger at The Huffington Post and a contributor to the nationally syndicated NPR radio show, 51 Percent: The Women’s Perspective. Schnall is the founder and Executive Director of Feminist.com, a leading women’s website and nonprofit organization. For nearly 20 years, Feminist.com has been fostering awareness, education, and activism for people all across the world.

Marianne’s latest book What Will It Take to Make A Woman President?: Conversations About Women, Leadership and Power, features interviews with politicians, public officials, thought leaders, writers, artists, and activists in an attempt to discover the obstacles that have held women back and what needs to change in order to elect a woman into the White House.