Episode Description
Darcy Totten will tell you: we’re only one grandmother removed from women not being able to open a bank account without a husband’s signature.
Darcy leads the California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls, one of the state’s most important advocacy bodies, representing 20 million women and girls. She writes economic blueprints. She convenes rooms. She tells stories that turn data into decisions.
In this episode, Darcy and host Mary Daffin talk about what it takes to change a room once you’re in it, why representation requires more than just showing up, and what the UN’s 33% threshold actually means in practice. They talk about the enormous wealth transfer currently underway to women and what it would mean if women used it the way men have. They talk about mentorship, solidarity, and the particular skill of building consensus among people who have nothing obvious in common.
And they talk about hope. The progress is real, and there is genuinely a lot to be hopeful about.
“Storytelling is how we make change. You have to help people see what the problem is and how it impacts them.”
Key Takeaways
- How Darcy turns complex policy data into stories that move elected officials to act
- What the largest wealth transfer in history means for women and what it would look like if women used that power differently
- Why showing up in the room is the first step, not the whole project, and what comes next
- What a future of collaborative, solidarity-based leadership actually looks like
Guest
Darcy Totten is the Executive Director of the California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls, an independent state agency representing 20 million women and girls across California. With over 20 years of experience in public policy, crisis communications, and external affairs, she has built nationally recognized research, campaigns, and coalitions for the Commission — including authoring the award-winning California Women’s Economic Blueprint for Pandemic Recovery and helping advance more than 50 pieces of legislation stemming from its recommendations.
Darcy is also the co-founder of Activism Articulated, a Sacramento-based crisis communications firm, and serves on the boards of Leadership California and the Sacramento LGBT Center. She is an alumna of the Coro Fellows Program, Leadership California, and the Nehemiah Emerging Leaders Program, and was named one of the Sacramento Business Journal’s Women Who Mean Business in 2023.