“We’re Either Whole Human Beings or We’re Cogs in the Wheel”—feat. Julie Kashen

OFF-KILTER with Rebecca Vallas

This week, Off-Kilter continues our ongoing series of conversations with social justice leaders digging into why, in the famous words of Audre Lorde, self-care is political warfare—and the role radical self-care plays in their own lives to sustain them in this work. And this week, Rebecca sat down with Julie Kashen, a friend and a colleague at The Century Foundation who’s a leading voice in the movement to bring policies like universal paid family and medical leave, paid sick days, and child care to the United States, and a senior fellow and the director of women's economic justice at TCF. She's the mother of an almost-nine-year-old, a board member of an organization called Vote Mama Lobby, a certified life coach, and someone who calls herself a "practical idealist" in how she approaches her work.

They had a far-ranging conversation about how the lack of paid leave and other holes in America's social contract show up as some of the biggest structural barriers to self-care and basic dignity in U.S. society, particularly for parents and caregivers; how self-care shows up in her own life as a mom who's also a leader on care policy; what she's learned about self-care and listening to her intuition from her work as a life coach; how she came to host Full Moon circles as a self-care practice that's also building power within the women's community; how a book called Rise Sister Rise has influenced how she understands and approaches her work and what it means to be a woman leader in the modern world; and more.

For more:

• Connect with Julie on Twitter @JulieKashen and check out her work at TCF

• Read more about the care executive order signed by President Biden this week (and here’s the tl;dr in a great tweet thread by Julie)

• Check out Off-Kilter’s last conversation with Julie for more on America’s “house of cards” child care system and the push to strengthen it

• Check out Rise Sister Rise by Rebecca Campbell

• Learn more about the American Association of Health and Disability’s “nothing about us without us” All of Us research program