The Small and the Mighty - with author Sharon McMahon
Breaking Down Patriarchy
Amy McPhie Allebest
4.9 • 654 Ratings
🗓️ 7 January 2025
⏱️ 55 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In our first episode of Season Five, Amy is joined by Sharon McMahon to discuss her book, The Small and the Mighty, honoring the histories of overlooked but world-changing women in America's history and discussing how we can all gain wisdom and take heart from their bold examples.
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Sharon McMahon is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, educator, and host of the chart-topping podcast Here’s Where It Gets Interesting. McMahon became known as "America’s Government Teacher" during the 2020 election for her viral efforts to combat political misinformation. Her knack for breaking down complex topics with clarity, humor, and a steadfast commitment to facts has attracted a community of one and a half million followers—affectionately called the “Governerds.” McMahon's newsletter, The Preamble, is one of the largest publications on Substack, providing historical context and non-partisan insights to help readers navigate today’s political landscape. Her debut book, The Small and the Mighty, has been celebrated as one of the year’s top reads by Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and Goodreads, highlighting the unsung heroes who shaped America.
Beyond education, Sharon McMahon has led philanthropic initiatives that have raised over $11 million to address critical needs, from medical debt relief to disaster recovery. She inspires audiences with a message of hope: history shows us that even small actions can create powerful change.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Breaking Down Patriarchy. I'm Amy McPhee, all the best. For those of you who would like a little behind-the-scenes story today, I am recording not from my normal library setup in my home, but from a sound booth in the Delta Lounge at the Salt Lake City Airport. I am about to record with a hero of mine, Sharon McMahon, |
| 0:23.9 | who is the host of the Sharon Says So podcast. |
| 0:27.2 | She's the author of the preamble substack. |
| 0:29.8 | She is America's government teacher. |
| 0:32.1 | She is on all the big podcasts and doing a huge book tour for her book, |
| 0:35.5 | The Small and the Mighty. |
| 0:36.9 | And I am recording from the |
| 0:38.7 | airport today in a very, very stressful situation. I'm meeting with Sharon in about 25 minutes, |
| 0:44.3 | and I'm going to tell you what happened that led to this situation, where I brought this microphone |
| 0:49.2 | and my laptop and all of my gear in my backpack with me as I'm about to fly to New York. So this episode was |
| 0:56.5 | scheduled for last Thursday. I was over the moon thrilled, like star struck, so excited when |
| 1:03.0 | Sharon accepted my invitation to be on the podcast. And we scheduled for like a month ago. And then |
| 1:08.8 | she's been just crazy busy with her book tour so she had to |
| 1:12.6 | push it and reschedule. Then it was on the calendar for last Thursday. I was nervous leading up to it. |
| 1:18.4 | I read the book so carefully. I did my outline. I planned the day around. I double checked my |
| 1:24.6 | calendar to make sure I had the right time. And then as I was getting |
| 1:28.3 | ready for it, and I went into the library where I always record and was kind of combing through my |
| 1:33.8 | outline. And suddenly I was like, oh, do you know what? I should double-check on the separate |
| 1:39.1 | breaking down patriarchy calendar that Sam are wonderful, like, editor and kind of like podcast behind the scenes extraordinary, |
| 1:47.1 | who keeps everything going. Sam had created a separate breaking down patriarchy calendar, |
| 1:52.0 | which I didn't know how to sync to my personal calendar. And so I was just like manually transferring |
| 1:57.6 | the dates onto my personal calendar. This was at 1130 a.m. And I was planning on |
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