014 – Challenging Identity and Progression of Women – with Tina Tchen, Michelle Obama’s Former Chief of Staff

Show Notes

Why have so many of us failed to support opportunities for women and girls?

Michelle Obama’s former chief of staff and long time civil rights attorney, Tina Tchen, highlights how everything from systemic work place policies, harassment, and backwards health care laws have challenged the identity and progression of American women, and the responsibility all of us (especially men) have in creating.

Christina M. “Tina” Tchen is an American lawyer who most recently served as Assistant to the President Barack Obama and Chief of Staff to First Lady Michelle Obama. While devising and implementing the First Lady’s policy priorities — including improving access to health coverage for underserved women and investing in the economic opportunity of veteran families — Tchen also served as the Executive Director of the Council on Women & Girls, which advanced initiatives to minimize the gender pay gap, empower men to own their role in speaking out against sexual harassment and abuse, and invested in ensuring access to education among young girls in developing countries.

An Ohio native, Tchen graduated from Northwestern Law and became a partner in the Chicago office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. She was active on the boards of entities such as University of Chicago Medicine and Chicago Public Library and celebrated for her public service and civil rights work by the Anti-Defamation League and the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois.

Tchen recently began leading the Chicago office of the Buckley Sandler law firm, and is spearheading a practice dedicated to weaving diversity and inclusion policies into the DNA of workplace cultures.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What is American Enough?

America's identity is evolving in real time. Immigrants are being scoffed at for looking a certain way and not being "American" enough. Transgender individuals are being determined not "fit enough" to serve in our military. Sexual assault and neo-nazi behavior is being condoned by the Oval Office. The First Amendment is being ridiculed. And, America's moral authority is eroding internationally, begging the question of who is "enough" of an American ally.

Former Obama White House senior advisor and Chief of Staff to the Under Secretary of Commerce, Vikrum Aiyer, is joined by journalists, comedians, politicians, activists, and listeners, to unpack this crucial existential moment for our nation's identity.