Welcome to Nobody Told Me. I'm Jan Black.

And I'm Laura Owens.

It's a pleasure to welcome journalist and women's leadership advocate Mary Ann Schnaul to this episode.

Marianne is the founder and executive director of Feminist.com, which is a leading women's website

and nonprofit organization. And she's also the author of the new book, Leading the Way, inspiring

words for women on how to live and lead with courage, confidence, and authenticity.

And she's also written a new book for girls called Dare to Be You, inspirational advice for girls on finding your voice, living fearlessly, and making a difference.

Marian, thank you so much for joining us today.

Well, thank you for having me.

Talk to us more about your background and why you've been so motivated as a champion of women in leadership.

I sort of came at it not in a direct way.

I had started out as a reporter for Us magazine.

It's one of those people you saw on the red carpet doing kind of celebrity interviews about really mostly fairly

stupid stuff. But it was, you know, obviously it was in my 20s. It was very glamorous and exciting at

the time. It's where I definitely got comfortable. Sort of just awakened in me, you know, both sort of just

a little bit of an activist awareness, particularly around women's issues. and then also this idea that I could interview

well-known people, but about the causes and organizations and, you know, more important things

that they wanted to, you know, advocate for. So that sort of became a little bit of my niche.

And, you know, I did that for In Style Magazine and, you know, interviewing like Meryl Streep about

mothers and others for livable planet and Bet Midler about the New York Restoration Project. And it was a

great way to sort of just learn about all these different causes. And as part of that, I also got to

interview in depth, well-known women, whether it was from a Gloria Steinem to a Malin Albright to Melissa Etheridge and Maya

...