Transcripts For CSPAN Women In Politics 20131129

I know it is not the only answer, but behavior modification is one piece when people start to be rewarded by observation. And i can speak from being a midwesterner myself and seeing a lot of people in this area of the country and this age group specifically respond very well to that. I do not disagree with you at all. My mother had a famous saying a minute on your lips, forever on your hips. I got that a long time ago. Still, that is the way it goes. The bottom line is you can only change your behavior if the environment allows for it. When 600,000 food items have 80 adulteration by added sugar, it is awfully hard to change your behavior in a toxic environment. The toxic environment has to improve in order for you to be able to manifest those changes in behavior. That is what i would say. And to sustain them over time. That is all, thank you. That is all the time we have. I would like to remind you rob will stick around a little bit to sign his book. Finally, i would like to thank him. Thank you. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] on the next washington viard talksan about changes in the tax code. Then criminal Justice Reform with mark mauer. And then author of lincoln in the world, kevin peraino. Atshington journal begins 7 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. On many campuses, many women are taught to live in a Patriarchal Society where girls arent shortchanged in school, robbed of their self esteem in adolescence, and then channeled into lowpaying field. Once in the workplace, they are cheated out of 25 of their salary, they face visible barriers and all sorts of forces that hold them down and keep out of thekeep them high echelons of power. This picture does not fit reality. It is distorted. Her critiques of late 20th century feminism and feminism of have ledary culture critics to label her anti critics antifeminist. Sunday on indepth, your question for Christina Hoff sommers. To the year ofad indepth, book tvs in depth, the first sunday of every month on cspan2. In 1838, a white southerner became the First American woman to address a legislative body. She spoke about the slavery and womens rights before the massachusetts state legislature. Coming up, event honoring this early feminist including a panel looking at women in politics. From boston, this is just over two hours. [applause] welcome, everyone. I will be your evening moderator. We are here tonight to explore how women become political. We will look at the past in the present and consider the future, too. There will be some remarks and a panel. Regretfully, senator Elizabeth Warren is not able to join us because she needs to be in washington. Someone has to work. She is there to work in the senate. [applause] however, she has made a short video for us that we will share in place of the remarks she would have given. Now, during the evening we invite you to tweet and send your questions at womenpoli2013. Also a reminder. Silence your cell phones right now. Everybody moving to silence the cell phones . Good. And for those who could not attend tonight, the good news is that the event is being taped by the grimke Event Committee for viewing the event at the website and by cspan for viewing later on this fall. This event has come together through the tremendous efforts of a great many people and organizations. The program book gives a complete details. We want to highlight the three most important. The first is the grimke Event Committee. The group of Accomplished Women who were the prime movers. They hope it will inspire girls and women of diverse backgrounds to embrace politics as their world. You will find them and their message in the program book. For second, ambassador swannee hunt. Her vision for woman in politics has helped to transform the landscape. She will be joining our panel. The third is the cohost for this event. Simmons college led by president all right, it is ok. Simmons college is led by president helen [inaudible] and simmons has provided financial, operational, and logistical support. The 8th president of Simmons College has used her business and leadership experience to guide the institution to a competitive strength operationally, financially, and academically. She is a steadfast advocate of womens education as a pathway to success and has used the platform of College President to advance and highlight the importance of women in leadership positions. President helen drinan of Simmons College. [applause] thank you. Good evening from all of us at Simmons College. We are honored to serve as the major academic sponsor for this event. When Gloria Steinem visited simmons last spring, she explained to us that anyone who believes in equal rights for both men and women is a feminist. Surely the woman we celebrate this evening, Angelina Grimke was not only an abolitionist, but also an early feminist. I would also like to suggest to that the founder of Simmons College, john simmons, a true ally of women of his age, was also a feminist. At the very time in 1838 that Angelina Grimke was speaking to the massachusetts state legislature, against slavery and for a womans right to vote, only a mile away in the north end, john simmons was actively growing his tailoring business, employing many women here in boston and in the countryside around the city. Having observed that most of his customers fell into standard sizes, he departed from custom tailoring and innovated the Retail Industry by creating a mans off the rack suit. At the end of the civil war, john simmons had become the largest clothing manufacturer in the United States. At the time of his death in 1870, his will records his intention for his great wealth. To found and endow an institution to be called simmons female college for the purpose of teaching branches of art, science, and industry, this calculated to enable the scholars to acquire an independent likelihood. Recognizing the importance of being able to move beyond the menial work and menial wages to which most women of the day were subject, john simmons has enabled generations of women to be empowered. Those of us who have edited so enormously from john simmonss philanthropy are delighted to be with you to witness the work of our founders contemporary, Angelina Grimke. Thank you for joining us. [applause] we have got some powerhouses in the audience with us tonight. Not just here on the stage. We want to acknowledge some of the remarkable women officeholders who are present as well as their male allies. I will ask each group to stand and remain standing. Please hold your applause until the end. I know that is going to be tough but really try. We are honored to have present tonight a number of women who were each the first woman to hold a different statewide office. I ask that all of them stand again while you hold your applause. Eveline murphy, the first woman elected Lieutenant Governor. Shannon obrien, the first woman elected state treasurer. Jane swift, the first woman to serve as governor. Martha coakley, the first woman elected state attorney general. Suzanne bump, the first woman elected state auditor. And Elizabeth Warren, the first woman senator from massachusetts and the u. S. Senate. Lets have a little applause right there. [applause] in addition, we have a number of other important female elected officials who have led the way for women in the state. Female great and General Court elected representatives, female mayors and other femaleelected officials we are honored to have present as well. Steve grossman, treasurer of the commonwealth. And would other male elected officials stand in support of the cause of women in politics. [applause] tonights event was sparked by a milestone in womens political activism. 175 years ago, right here in boston, Angelina Grimke, a white southerner from charleston, South Carolina became the First American woman to address a legislative body. Tonight, we are honored to have her great great grandson, mark mason here with us. Please give him applause. [applause] Angelina Grimkes purpose was to present petitions bearing the signatures of 20,000 massachusetts women. Black and white, to a joint committee of the General Court. The petitioner sought to have congress and slavery in the district of convio but before Angelina Grimke spoke about the issue of slavery, she knew she had to address the elephant in the room. The fact that she was a woman giving a speech to group of elected officials, not to mention her other audience, all the men and women who had crowded into the house chamber. Hers was a radical act in 1838. Not only because women could not vote or run for office, but also because of the firm societal conviction that women do not belong in what was called the public sphere. Indeed, a woman who spoke to a mixed audience of men and women gathered for any purpose was considered a seductress. Since she was putting her body on display before men. And their marks we will hear tonight, which are the only part of the speech that exists today, she tackled the charge of seductress headon by distancing her unorthodox action from that of another petitioning woman, the famous a local figure, queen esther of persia. The audience knew that queen esther lived in the harem and served him sexually. It was not her place to request anything of her king. But one day, risking her life, she begged him to save her people, the babylonian jews. Here is actress anne gottliebe to share the opening of the speech that day. [applause] february 21, 1838. Mr. Chairman, more than 2000 years have rolled their dark and bloody waters down the rocky, winding channel of time into the broad ocean of eternity. Since a womans voice was heard in the palace of an eastern monarch and a womans petition achieved the salvation of millions of her race from the edge of the sword. The queen of persia, if queen she might be called, who was but the mistress of her voluptuous lord, trained in the secret abominations of an oriental harem, had studied to deeply the character not to know the sympathies of his heart could not be reached except through the medium of his sensual appetites. Hence, we find her arrayed in royal apparel, standing in the inner court of the kings house hoping by her personal charm, to win the favor of her lord, and after the golden scepter had been held out, and inquiry was made, what wilt thou, queen esther and what is your request . It shall be given thee to half of my kingdom. Even then, she dared not ask for her own life or that of her people. She felt that information of if her mission of mercy was to be successful, his animal propensities must be still more powerfully wrought upon. The luxurious feast must he prepared. The banquet of wine must be served up and the favorable moment must be seized. When gorged with gluttony and intoxication, the kings heart was fit to be operated upon by the aesthetic appeal. If i have found favor in thy sight, o king, let my life be given at my petition and my people at my request. It was thus, through personal charms and sensual gratification and individual influence that the queen of persia obtained the precious boon she craved. Her own life and the life of her beloved people. Mr. Chairman, it is my privilege to stand before you on a similar mission of life and love, but i thank god we live in an age of the world too enlightened and too moral to admit of the adoption of the same means to obtain as holy and end. I feel it would be an insult to the committee if i were to agree array my person in gold and silver and costly apparel, or by inviting them to partake of the luxurious feast or the banquet of wine. I understand the spirit of age to well to believe that you could be moved by such sensual means. Means as unworthy of you as they would be beneath the dignity of the cause of humanity. Yet i feel if you are to be reached by all, it would not be by me but by the truth i shall endeavor to present to your understanding, and your heart. The heart of the eastern despot was reached through the lowest propensities of his animal nature by personal influence. Yours i know cant be reached but through the loftier sentiments of intellectual and moral feelings. I stand before you as a citizen, on behalf of the 20,000 women of massachusetts whose names are enrolled on petitions which have been submitted to the legislature of which you are the organ. These petition to relate to the great and solemn subject of american slavery. A subject fraught with the deepest interest to the republic, whether we regard it in its political, moral, or religious aspects, and because it is political, it has often been tauntingly said that a woman has nothing to do with it. Are we aliens because we are women . Are we bereft of citizenship because we are the mothers, wives, and daughters of a mighty people . Have women no country . No interest, state in public weal, no partnership in a nations guilt and shame . Let the history of the world answer these queries. Read the denunciations of jehovah against the follies and crimes of israels daughters. Trace the influence of woman of quarters in an mistress in those mysteries ancient and modern and see her wielding her power, too often to debase and destroy rather than to elevate and save. It is often said that women rule the world through their influence over men. If so, then may we will hide our faces in the dust and cover ourselves with sackcloth and ashes. It has not been through womens moral and intellectual power, but through the baser passions of man. This dominion of women must be resigned to this, the sooner the better. In the age which is approaching, she should be something more. She should be a citizen. And this title which demands an increase of knowledge and of reflection opens before her a new empire. I hold, mr. Chairman, that american women have to do with this subject, not only because it is moral and religious, but because it is political. Inasmuch as we are citizens of this republic, and as such, our honor, happiness, and our well being are bound up in its politics and government and laws. I stand before you as a southerner. Exiled from the land of my birth by the sound of the lash and the piteous cry of the slave. I stand before you as a repentant slaveowner. I stand before you as a moral being endowed with the precious and inalienable rights which are correlated with solemn duties and high responsibilities. As a moral being, i feel i owe it to the suffering slave and to the deluded master who to my country and to the world to do all i can to overturn the system of complicated crimes, build on the broken hearts and prostrate oddities of my countrymen in bodies of my countrymen in chains and cemented by the blood and sweat and tears of my sisters in bond. Thank you. [applause] anne gottlieb. As Angelina Grimke, fabulous. Angelina grimkes actions of the foundation for women who became political after her. Lets hear from three of those women, each of whom has her own story to tell about her past to political action. Gloria steinem is a writer, lecturer, and feminist activist and i would say, so much more. [applause] [cheers and applause] i never imagined i would be following Angelina Grimke. [laughter] but in another way, i have always been following Angelina Grimke and Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass and Shirley Chisholm and all the leaders that understood the twin caste systems of sex and race are intertwined and can only be uprooted together. I have been asked by lucy knight, from whose forehead came, that this conference has sprung to speak personally about how i became political. I am hyperaware i had an advantage that angelina did not have, which is a mother who, if you said the world roosevelt to her, tears came to her eyes because she was so convinced that eleanor and franklin had understood us despite being born class levels above us had cared about us during the great depression, and had rescued us from her days of making soup out of potato peelings and my sisters coat out of a blanket. All of my childhood years, i heard a story of life that included politics. It was just something you did every day. It was not a career. Necessarily. It was not something removed, certainly. It was an organic part of our lives, something we needed to live. Then after college, i went to india where i lived for two years. There i saw people lined up for days to vote, almost like florida. Independence had taught them important that power was. The only place on earth where the most powerful equalled the most powerful is the voting booth, and it is still true to this day that the young and the poor in india vote more than the older and the welltodo. The very opposite of the voting patterns we see here ourselves. When i first tried to work in a campaign, however, on a mimeograph machine, how many people here remember the word mimeograph . I was told with some other young women to hide in a room upstairs because they were afraid we would otherwise be seen as having an affair with the candidate. This sort of sums up the role of women inside the campaigns at that point. Nonetheless, i could see that campaigns were incredibly exciting, there were open, people could come in off the street and help, they were diverse. I became immediately hooked on the whole process of campaigning. I stayed hooked as a volunteer for a very long time. Through kennedy, i think i was sent out to get pizza all the time in the kennedy campaign. Through lbj, we ran a discotheque for lbj. [laughter] it became clear to me and to so many of us that we would not be able to be active politically unless we had a force outside either party by ourselves on our own bringing out the issues. I would like to say on this subject of parties, that the Republican Party was historically better about womens equality than the Democratic Party and supported the equal rights amendment first. It is the Republican Party that has deserted women, not that women have deserted the Republican Party. We worked to get our issues into the mcgovern campaign. The only time i ever ran for office myself was as a delegate for Shirley Chisholm. Clearly going to lose, all of us on her slate, but determined nevertheless. I testified for the equal rights amendment mainly because someone told me i should. It did not occur to me that anyone other than a Constitutional Authority would be testifying there. I worked on my testimony for weeks. It made no difference whatsoever. I began to think more about organizing outside the campaigns and the political structure. So i think that has been my path ever since. With the National Womens political caucus, with voters for choice, it is possible for us to both educate on issues, educate the candidates and the people in the party on the issues and gather the constituency around those issues so we have the power to see that they will succeed. It is a path i recommend to you. I guess i am a classic activist volunteer. I have never had a paid position. I have written speeches, work in campaigns, but never actually been paid. Because i think i thought if i were an employee i would not be able to press, to say, this is what is necessary to get this kind of support. But i always remembered my mother, who used to say democracy is something you do every day. Democracy is like brushing your teeth. It has to be something we do every day. Otherwise, the power will be taken away from us. I thought of this especially after the 2000 election when i happened to be speaking at Palm Beach County Community College the morning after the election, just quite by accident. And there were about 700 people in that auditorium, and over the next few hours, we had no idea of the outcome, whether it would be bush or gore. We did not know. But people began to stand up and say how their vote had been taken away from them. That they were kept from their voting place by police cars, or that their buses had come from a senior home and taken them to the wrong place. Or that they only realized afterwards that the nature of the ballot had caused them to vote for candidate they did not know they were voting for. And slowly, slowly, slowly, at about the 720 people in that auditorium, more than 100 had been not able to vote and i took their names and addresses and i gave them to lawyers, and one man stood up and said he was a veteran, in the name of his little daughter, would i stay and help them march against this illegal election . Now, i say that because there was it made me remember, and all the subsequent events which everyone here will remember, the ruling of the supreme court, that clinched it. I remembered that in missouri, three decades before, more or less, i had campaigned for harriet woods for the senate of the United States, and she had been within one percentage point, but she ran out of money, the Television Ads were very negative, and she lost by a very heartbreaking margin in beating John Danforth who became the senator from missouri. All right. That was a long time before, right, but let me just say it was less than 2000 votes that made the difference. For instance, it was so clearly about money and about last minute money that her race was the inspiration for starting emilys list, which means early money is like yeast. It was clear that she could and should have won. Because she lost, because not enough people in missouri and not enough women voted, danforth had once hired a young man named Clarence Thomas who had left his studies as a Catholic Priest to go to law school, sharing danforths idea of nation of church and state. Elevated to the u. S. Senate, danforth sought out this rare black conservative, took him out of his job as a corporate lawyer for monsanto, made him a legislative ad, and championed him every step of the way. He became chairman of the equal opportunity commission. He made everyone watch the fountainhead because he was a devotee of ayn rand. You cant make this stuff up. [laughter] he served in the d. C. Court of appeals and so on. We all know what happened. So, i just want to say to you that when we think about our individual votes and our activism, we need to remember the parable about for want of a nail, the horseshoe was lost and for want of a horse, the battle was lost. Because of Clarence Thomas vote if danforth had not been a senator, he would not have taken Clarence Thomas. If he had not had those credentials he would not have been nominated by the same president bush. He would not have been the one vote margin that halted the Florida Court ordered recount and put the second president bush in the white house, even though independent counts later showed that indeed gore had won the state of florida. Then bush ii, all this is for then bush ii, all this is for want of a nail, right bush ii could not have not caused another optional war in iraq, the biggest transfer of wealth to private hands in the history of the nation, another optional war in iraq, highlevel disbelief in global warming, Public Schools with abstinence only education enforced by federal funding that helped to create the highest unwanted pregnancy rate in the entire developed world, or an executive order giving billions in tax dollars to faithbased centers of right wing political power. Or the global gag rule that deprived poor countries of u. S. Foreign aid if they offered any information about abortion, even with their own funds. Or even with corporate profiteering and privatized wars abroad as well as privatized prison at home. Prisons we do not need but state legislatures vote and they are run by corporations, or a higher percentage of the u. S. Population in prison as a result than in any other country in the world. Ceos whose salary rose from 30 times that of the average worker before the rightwing backlash took over washington to an average of 8000 times, or an unregulated financial industry that led to worldwide economic meltdown or an even greater polarization of people and nations into rich and poor, or the turning of terrorism from a cause for global unity into a cause for deeper global division. And so, so much more. So each of us is the nail, and each of us can win the battle. Thank you. [applause] thank you. [cheers] our next speaker has been the top of the ticket the first go round and the top of the ticket in the preliminary elections for boston. [cheers and applause] good evening. Today, we commemorate the historic and audacious demonstration of our fellow sister Angelina Grimke. Who went boldly before the General Court to say i stand before you as a citizen. We pay tribute to her and the knowledge this moment that i, for one, are so very grateful we are. As a black woman i know i am certainly, we all are beneficiaries of her bold action. But what i also know as that moment, the one we honor here today was a very long time in the making. Both in the personal evolution of grimke, for the abolitionists and Womens Movement and for our country. You see, before angelina was a woman, she was a girl. So for me, the conversation must begin there. Before we can even begin to consider how women become political, lets first address the girl on the journey to womanhood. The girls i spend time with every day, the girl that exists inside all of us, the girl who is stunted and heard the government and empowerment because she lived in a world that all too often refuses to see her, to listen to her, the 18yearold College Freshman who wants to run for Student Government president , but instead settles for secretary, the 17yearold girl who does not raise her hand in class, the openly gay 15yearold girl who feels unsafe in her community and at school, the 16yearold girl who feels degraded when men holler at her when she is walking down the street, the 14yearold girl in an unhealthy relationship with her first love, and the 12yearold girl who does not believe she can excel at math or science. Broken girls grew up to be broken women. And as a society, we quite simply cannot afford that. I strive daily to chip away at systemic lies and social determinants like poverty and violence that contribute to the brokenness of so many of our girls. The chief issue that is so much harder to get at, something i cannot legislate, is the insidious and permeating impact of girls who do not know their worth, who do not know their power. I know something about that. For many years and for many reasons, i struggled to stand fully in my power. I allowed others to determine when and where i would enter. I did not feel good enough, smart enough, ready. Those nagging feelings, that mental tape of unworthiness i played in my head was an albatross, an impediment, a shackle i did not even know i was wearing. As young girl when i met with this life epiphany, when i realized that although my troubled past informed my present, i did not have to be hostage to that past. I was finally able to stand fully in my own power. And in that moment, liberate myself. And ultimately, set on a pathway to a position where i liberate legions of girls and women daily. Who similarly struggled. As i consider my journey to becoming political, i suppose i could tell you it was in church. Where i first learned to stand before an audience and project my voice and command the attention of a room. I suppose i could tell you about my mother, my hero, her inspiring example as an organizer and activist for the urban league, how she sacrificed her very life to ensure that i would never be denied or deprived an opportunity in life, that she taught me the very best thing about politics and that is the strength and the power of advocacy. And she demonstrated that by her example in that she was a fierce advocate for me. I suppose i could tell you how running and being elected to numerous high school and College Leadership positions provided a great political training ground. I guess i could then tell you about the rarefied attention i received. I could remind you i had made history twice because the people of this great city interested me with the awesome responsibility and honor of representing you. I could tell you all these things, or i could just tell you the truth. It almost did not happen. The great Shirley Chisholm, a shero of mine, said she did not want to be remembered as the first black woman elected to congress nor as the first black woman to pursue the presidency. Instead, she simply wanted to be remembered as a black woman who dared to be herself. So, sisters, this is our challenge and our charge, to ensure that every girl feels empowered to dare to be themselves, because then will they ever truly dare to be political. Thank you. [applause] all right. [applause] Elizabeth Warren is the u. S. Senator from massachusetts. While she greatly regrets she cannot be with us tonight, she sent us a video instead. Please note that this video was taped before the events of the government shutdown. Good evening, and thank you to the courtesy of the Planning Committee for inviting me to join you tonight. I wish i could be with you in person but we are going to have to settle for this video. I am glad to be here to mark the 175th anniversary of Angelina Grimkes historic speech to the massachusetts general assembly. It is an incredible time to celebrate the legacy of courageous women in the abolitionist movement. Their efforts grew into five for suffrage and equal rights. This anniversary is also a reminder of the powerful impact we can have when we make our voices heard and we stand up for what we believe in. I never planned to get into politics. I spent pretty much my whole career as a teacher, and as a law professor, i taught bankruptcy and did research on the economic squeeze on middle class families. And then i got a call from a congressman who asked me to help advise a federal commission that was being set up. At first i told him no. I do not like politics and i did not want to get involved. But he had a hook. He persuaded me that i would have a chance to fight for working families. So i made my first trip to washington. For me, this first effort to try to help shape the laws that affect the lives of so many people ended up being about deep faith, faith that if we work hard and Work Together, we can make a difference that really matters. One bite led to another. Bringing some account ability to the bank bailouts, adding a Consumer Agency passed into law and then setting up that agency. When i first proposed to protect people from the tricks and traps of big banks and credit card companies, people said it will never happen because washington lobbyists would make a First Priority to stop us. And they fought us every inch of the way. But we organized and we brought together a Broad Coalition, and we won. And now the Consumer Agency is making a difference, holding big banks accountable, and it is already returned more than 800 million to people who were cheated on their credit cards and other financial products. It is pretty amazing. I am grateful to everyone who urged me to go ahead and jump in, to do oversight and set up an agency and run for the United States senate. I am grateful because i have had great opportunities to make a real difference for working families. I am proud to be serving today as the first woman elected to the senate from massachusetts and i am proud to fight for a level Playing Field for people all across the commonwealth. So i want to say thank you for inviting me to be part of this event. We need more women to get involved in politics. To run for office, to make their voices heard, to fight for what they believe in, just like Angelina Grimke did 175 years ago, right here in massachusetts. Thanks for your work. Keep up the fight. [applause] now that our speakers have set the table for our panel discussion, i am pleased to invite both ambassador hunt and carrie healy, a former Lieutenant Governor of massachusetts and cochair of political parity. [applause] you two lead political parity. It is a Nonpartisan Organization dedicated to increasing the number of women serving in the highest levels of government. You have released a report taking a forensic look at states have elected women to the highest offices and states that have not. Your report zeroed in on certain political and geographic characteristics in that report and the differences in that state. Give a brief summary before we open up the discussion. What we found is that when women describe why they do it or do not run, it is quite different in terms of the level of office. So when youre talking about, for example, women running for congress or the governors seat which is what carrie and i are focusing on, by the time to get to that level, they are talking about, i want to go in and i want to change the structure. When they are thinking about running at lower levels, it is about causes. Really, it is about reform when you get to the top. It is a different kind of encouragement and training they need at that point. We also found a real corroboration, that women, they need to be asked over and over and over. That is one of the things that is striking to me in terms of the people who are watching this panel here. I just think about the fact that gloria, you ask them to run and i am asking you to run. That means that you all have to ask each other four times. Each person here in this audience or watching this some other way has two do four asks of your friends and then we are there. [laughter] do you want to add to that . Your brainstorm, the brilliant idea and the research on that. It is so cool. We have done four or five pieces of research. You can go to the website and look it up under political parity. My favorite one is when you look at the map of the United States, and you note how many women senators are actually in pairs from california or washington or whatever, and then, if you start noting how many have like one senator, one woman senator and one woman governor, it becomes clearly that it is not random. I remember in my earliertime thinking, well, if you have one woman already in one of those top three positions, then no one is going to want to elect a second one because they will think theyre overdoing it, you know . It turns out that the second woman has a boost. We do not know exactly why. It could be because of the obvious. People in the state have gotten used to electing a woman. It could be that there is a role modeling that is going on and more women are really thinking about becoming political, the women themselves, and some of the women in those positions have said, no, actually, i showed the next woman where the pockets of energy or the pockets of money were. It is like bringing the next one along. It is so exciting, because we have to find ways to really expand these numbers. We cannot just keep moving along. It takes 200 years at the rate we are going. I am not kidding. Literally. You have to find ways to say, we already have one woman in this state come hell or high water. We are going to run a woman for governor and a woman for senator in that very state. And by the way, once you get two, it is more likely you will have a third, like in new hampshire. This is good news for our female gubernatorial candidates. The political parity project is a little bit unusual. If you are from here, our votes cancel out each others every electoral cycle. And she raised money on several occasions for my opponent when i ran for governor. It is not immediately apparent why we would come together and Work Together to get more women into politics. We both felt that all of the wonderful efforts that everyone had been working on for so many years, and you actually were one of my first inspirations to get involved with politics, so if you want to know how women become political, sometimes it is looking at wonderful mentors like you. We knew that whatever was happening on a partisan basis was not working. Republicans had been trying and democrats had been trying to advance womens careers, and it simply had not worked. And so, we needed to recognize that, admit it, and see if there were underlying causes that actually impacted everyone that we could agree on we needed to address. And so we brought together and swannee brought together women from the democratic side. I gathered together some politically active women from the republican side, and we started looking at the underlying causes and trying to investigate them. And doing it nationally. The first thing we looked at was the impact of sexual discrimination, Sexual Harassment of women candidates, and how that impacted them. As a former woman candidate, i can tell you, most consultants would have have told me and may have told you as well that if someone said something negative about you and you believe it may be genderbased, you do not mention it. Do not say anything about it. You just take it and go. Did you receive that advice . And that is good, because all that advice was wrong. So what we found was in fact, if you push back and recognize sexism when it is coming at you, it not only restores that womans place in the polls, the numerical hit associated with sexism is very strong, almost nine points in some cases. If you push back, you not only make that space back up, but also some people who even just hear about it think better of you. So it is an advantage for a woman to stand up for herself to push back and push back against sexist characterizations. You say in your next speech after something really negative, you will not believe what so andso said. And you repeat it. That was one of the first surprising things that we found. And then beyond that, we have done research that shows things that are pretty much validating things that we already know. Like women get into politics because they care about something. They want to do something. They want to change something. Whereas often men seem to get into politics for reasons that are more personal. Or unknown. [laughter] women generally know the answer to the question about why are you in politics, that never stops them. They know why they are there. We know the importance of mentors. Mentors are very important to women and we need mentors who are a little bit ahead. The mentoring cannot be seeing someone. It needs to be very handson, very involved with that persons life. We are going to encourage everyone to please think about who you can mentor. You not only have to ask people to run but you have to help them to run. And to model those behaviors. And then finally, part of our next research is going to be looking at why the Republican Party is lagging so seriously around the ability to elect women. And right now, the Democratic Party elects twice as many women as do the republicans. It is getting worse. We are getting better. [laughter] we will find out why that is happening and put an and to them. People think i thought, not people, i thought fewer republican women were running compared to Democratic Women. Turns out that republican women try to run or they do run at the same rate as Democratic Women, and they cannot get out of their primary. That is very different from the democratic experience. The reason we had to figure this out is because, i have worked in 60 countries and i have looked at parliament all over the world. If you get enough women, lets say 20 to 40 women in this party and in that party, they create a womens bloc. That is our hope for breaking gridlock. I feel so strongly about that. [applause] all right. That is a good start for our conversation. I will go back and go forward, if i may. Mulala, the 16yearold who was shot in the head and survived. She said i want to be a teacher because one book, one pen, and one teacher can change the world. She said i changed my mind. Teachers are very, very important, but i want to be a politician because i can change the community. So to you ladies on the stage who have become political, let me borrow from oprah, what do you know for sure about the difference that women make in politics . We have done research all over the world, as i said. What we have found, with thousands of interviews as well as looking at quantitative data, is that women tend to be much more collaborative. And they are more practical. A woman in liberia says to me, we have these rice wars, i knew the price of a bag of rice. None of the men did. A woman in darfur gets into the peace talks. Theyre stymied, and she comes in at the seventh round, they are arguing about where the river should be. Who gets the river, the different warring factions, and she listens and finally she says, that river dried up years ago. [laughter] i will never forget i will never forget when Blanche Lincoln from arkansas said, when congress reconvened after the summer, they were talking about minimum wage and she said, i went to target and i bought shoes for my twins to go back to school. I bought the notebooks and i bought the pens. You could not have bought those on minimum wage. I know the price. That to me is critical. So, practicality. Women are introducing more laws and work hard to get them passed. They care deeply about content. It springs from that reason why they got into the government in the first place. They are committed to projects and have a passion for policy work. That is something that women bring to government. Bring to government. I think about, you know, it is not that women are better than men. None of us think that. We do not have our masculinity to prove and this is a huge advantage. [laughter] [applause] so, more and more men, i hope, will be free from the prison of masculinity and we can all be human beings together. Until that time [applause] on the average, we are all talking about averages and we are not talking about absolutely everything you human being. This is not about biology. This is about consciousness, but the consciousness comes from experience. On the average, we are much more likely to vote for health education, welfare, anything against violence. Theres is a gender gap on all kinds of issues, and that is superimportant that we bring that into the mainstream. I so want you to take over the Republican Party. I cannot begin to tell you. [applause] [laughter] [applause] thank you. I promised my college that i would stay out of politics for six years. I am not going back into politics for six years. I just want to say, in the spirit of truth, it was mostly old and terrible rightwing democrats that took over the Republican Party. It started with jesse helms. I rest my case. And strom thurmond. Because after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, they were very irate that the Democratic Party was becoming inclusive in all kinds of ways, especially racial. They started to 8000 fundamentalist Baptist Churches took over the Republican Party levers of power gradually, so now you cannot get through the primaries to get into the general election as a smart, centrist conservative whatever, a perfectly sensible person. It is so dangerous to have one of our two parties controlled by extremists. Of course, we get mad at the democrats. I am mad at the democrats every minute. You find yourself voting for this other party. Heres my plan. My plan is that we do what the rightwing democrats did and we go to the local caucuses and so on. Even i am willing to look republican. I will take off his belt. [laughter] [applause] do you like my jacket . Yes. We will infiltrate the caucuses. That is what they did. We will take them over. In four years, you will have a chaotic and terrible republican convention. And in eight years, you will have a good one. All because of women. Let me say that i appreciate the framework for this conversation, in that it is how do women become political and not just run for elected office. It is important to point that out. I know that women bring a different take a perspective that strengthens every solution and every policy we develop. Otherwise, it is being developed through a prism that is monolithic and homogenized. We can all benefit from the different optics and that perspective. We talk about the Old Boys Network. They have made progress in building the girls network. Will we elect more women . Women are more likely to elect more women. It is not just who is in the elected position. It is too as the chief of staff and who is the policy director, who is the Campaign Manager and the press secretary . Surrounding you with people who have an awareness of the biased optic in media and some of the challenges. You have to have people who have the sensitivity and awareness of those things. It is not just to plant a seed to encourage more women to run for office. It is saying that we need your perspective at every part of this process. For many firsttime candidates, the operatives and the pundits and analysts, they will be quick to say that a woman is not viable. Who better to entrust with your vision and help you actualize this endeavor than other women . We need to the old a bench that bench thatilding a is not about winning office. We need to build a bench of operatives who know how to run campaigns and right sound strategy. That is what we need to do. What you have articulated articulated and has shown up in your report is that the coming political in the stream and pipeline and going on to elected office. Im thinking about barbara lee who is trying to vote the government to be open. She had not voted when she met Shirley Chisholm. She ran up to Shirley Chisholm and said, wow, im impressed with you, and i want to work on your campaign. She said, youre going to have to vote first, and lets get signed up. That modeling is very important. Carrie lee, i wonder if you could speak to what makes sense. It is not out here, it is up here where women feel more in line. I think that our generation of leaders and the generation right below us, we have to be aware of the fact that we can change all of this and this is really our responsibility. We have a lot of young people out there in the audience and i urge you to reach out and create those relationships with women who are one or two steps beyond. We need to be really conscious about how we mentor people and the kind of encouragement that we give. So many of the studies around women are concerns about the coming political and they focus on the fundamental sense that they are not qualified and they do not know enough yet, they need to be more well qualified than the male candidate would require from himself. People like us and others in the audience, our support would allow them to feel more confident. We would be put into contact with that network and could raise that money. How do you do it . I was blessed to have wonderful mentors and everyone here knows that the most important mentor was mitt romney, who supported my career and gave me a lot of responsibilities as Lieutenant Governor. I used to attend the Governors Council once a week. That was my responsibility. I had a governor who gave me as much responsibility as i could possibly have and some i did not even want, and i learned to love them. That is how you grow. When the opportunity to put my hat in the ring as ambassador came along, that was because of pat schroeder, who was the congresswoman in denver. She said, im going to washington and i am going to work on welfare reform. She said, stay out of washington. They are going to be awash with democrats who want it is going to be filled with democrats who want to work on welfare reform. I gave a bank you know about pat schroeder, i was the wealthiest person in her district and she never asked for a contribution. I said, i am so rich and people will think that if i have an ambassadorship and had given ambassadorship and had given an obscene amount of money to the clinton campaign, they will think that i bought my way in and it is because of my money. Pat looked at me and said, they already think that about Everything Else you do. Get over it. Just get over it. This is something that you should do. Wow, boy, does that stay with you. That is part of the change. Pat schroeder had many campaigns and had to run against the Democrat Party because she was not the person that the party thought would win. She won reelection by creating her own force and going door to door. Even after she was elected in her first term, the party still put somebody up against her as an incumbent. So, you know, we need, in many cases, to do it through Neighborhood Movement groups and not necessarily the party. This is always a sensitive topic when you talk to women in business or in highpower positions. I was moderating a panel with the former governor of texas ann richards. [applause] we talked about women in politics, and she said that what stops women is the inability to embrace both their personal and political power. Im interested. She said, there is this i dont want to seem ambitious thing. There is a bit of a dance there. As i said earlier, is a struggle for women to stand in their own power. I think entitlement has a negative connotation, but the goal is for girls and women to operate with a better sense of entitlement, to say that they are deserving and the opportunity, that they are qualified. There are all these other nagging insecurities and doubts. The data says it takes seven people to convince a woman to run for office. How many does it take for a man . Himself. It is not a joke. [laughter] so everyone can say that i was recruited to run for office and that was the case for most women. I was not calculating my political ascension. I had been an aide to senator john kerry for 11 years and then was enjoying being the person behind the person. Prior to my being recruited to run, there had never been a person of color on the council. How many people did it take to convince you . More than seven. More than seven. It seemed herculean. Boston is a parochial town. I had attended Boston University and worked for kennedy and kerry. I was seen as an outsider, and it is a difficult tribe to break into. If i can be frank, the reason it took that long for a woman to get elected despite the great progress was that there was a question on whether or not a black woman could represent the entire city of boston. [applause] anybody else want to speak to that . I do not think we should blame ourselves so much we have to get out of it and support ourselves out of it. That is what psychologists call internalized depression. Half of the human race would not have been in the situation that it is now if we did not come to believe and the same thing happens with race, class, sexuality it is internalizing a less than view of ourselves. That is why we need each other and need to support each other out of that. It is not just that women lack confidence. There has been a lot of effort in making us lack confidence. [applause] i looked at 13 countries and i did all of these interviews in these 13 countries. And number one, when i would say, why are the numbers so low in your parliament . Number one was always, well, and our culture in our culture. You look deeper and see all sorts of impediments. Women go into civil society, the nonprofit world, and huge numbers, 80 , 85 , 90 . The women felt that the political was a mans space and rightly so. There were so many barriers. In most countries, you vote for the party. I remember one woman in bosnia who said, when i left my home, i was number seven on the list. When i got to the capital, i was number 17. Only 15 won the seats. Also, we have to challenge those terms because in a real way, what happens to me is politics what happens to men is politics and what happens to women is culture. That is another way to keep us from changing. Exactly. One thing that comes up for women who are elected is the gender attacks that happen that are vicious and are ongoing. I can name the attacks directed at the women on the stage. Heres a quote from nancy pelosi. I am probably the most reviled woman in america. They leave the people who are not effective alone. If women can come forward, we need them to do that. She goes on to say that one of the big blockages are, in her opinion, is that they are stopping women from proceeding on and engaging in politics is a lack of civility. What you say to a woman who is on the outside and saying, you know, i can do Something Else with my time and have other people throwing eggs at me. This is an issue that we come together on. As long as republican women tolerate any kind of attack on Democratic Women or Democratic Women tolerate attack on republican women and, you know, think about what lightning rods sarah palin and Hillary Clinton have been. Think about if we tolerate any of those attacks, we will never get past this. We cannot get past this. [applause] and that is why i am here today. I want to model that behavior for people and say, we need to reach out across the aisle on these issues. Whether it is criticisms based on gender or these impediments that we all share as women getting into the process. In particular, those kinds of attacks, we need, as women, to say that that is unacceptable and is always unacceptable. If we do that and stand together, it will go away and it will become not politically correct. As long as we still laugh at one or the other, we are lost. We are all lost and we are hurting ourselves we do that. If people can take away one message from me today, that would be my message. You can never attack another woman who is in politics. Button about Hillary Clinton found last weekend. This is what we are talking about, people. When i say gender attacks, i mean attacks. What do you say . I just want to say that there are a lot of organizations i guess they are womens organizations devoted to doing what you say, and one of them is the womens media center. That started with jane fonda. It started with jane fonda. I think that we have places to turn where we underline each others research. Your research, which is so important, turns out to be parallel to the research about bullying and it is the same principle, how important it is that bystanders object and that the person, themselves, stands up for themselves. The standards are really different. Marlo thomas says for a man to be called ruthless, he has to take over another country or a job. For a woman to be called ruthless, she has only to put you on hold. Right. I would just say that that is the challenge. The genderbased attacks are very real and demonstrative. It is these moments that you are referencing that people are not as privy to. I work in a space that deals with complicated social ills. The thing that people always say is, i just want you to smile more. It seems to me that that is one of those examples. It is not my job to be a cheerleader. We cant be sally sunshine all the time. There are cultural biases and an expectation when tackling complicated issues. We will not smile all the time. We have so much more work to do when it comes to parity in government, that i think every woman is breaking new ground or breaking a ceiling. There is a tendency to treat that woman as an anomaly feminist victory and as an outlier. Not that this has everything to do with people wanting somebody who has a powerful message and who ran good campaign. People are quick to marginalize the success and exoticize it. How you deal with the questions . A great quote from Blanche Lincoln who said, i can talk about whatever issue i want to talk about, but if i run in my pantyhose, nobody hears what i am saying. This is one of the challenges. I find it interesting when men comment on my appearance, i comment on theirs. Its not like we are bad things about each other. They are startled that i would define how he physically looks. When they call you ruthless, say thank you. [applause] the conversation has to be about who is in the pipeline. How do you keep people in the pipeline . Has anyone ever heard of men trying to fill a pipeline . This whole it is not that i do not believe it, that there pipeline, but again, i would question this notion, just like culture. Culture is how we behave and everything changes constantly. The pipeline business. Are we overdoing it . Would you say the Old Boys Network is the pipeline . Steve jobs was not in the pipeline. He started his thing with his friend in the garage. You know i dont think that there are endless and i think that we do need them endless Training Programs to get that pipeline. Will they run for school board and will they run for city council . We have all these tiered by the time that they get to the senate, they have been through so many layers and they are much older than the men. They have fewer terms and they will have less seniority. In a sense, that is a real hold back. And we have to get women to think beyond and you hear them say all the time, i do not really know what i need to know about running for congress and i want to get some experience to work my way up. You have done the reporting. The other part for young woman as their making decisions is, i want a family and i want to do Something Else first. Then, i will come to this. Andyep. [laughter] that is why we need men in the pipeline to be parents. [applause] i would say that that is fine and women to do a whole lot of Different Things during the course of their life. You dont have to be political when you are very young. The first thing i did was join now in 1973 and my parents were not so pleased. I took a big hiatus from local you collectivity political activity between 20 and 38. I was not politically involved. I voted. I was not an activist. I finished my education and i worked in a nonprofit. I did all kinds of things. I was not politically active. It was not until i was 38 that i felt like my children were old enough and i was ready. I was passionate about talking about criminal justice issues that i felt i was not being effective in changing my current position. I was a consultant for the department of justice and writing reports and articles about Domestic Violence child , abuse, drugs, and gangs. I was not getting anywhere and nobody was listening. It was frustrating. I was old enough and my kids were old enough. I know enough to really make a difference. Im going to get in now. I do not know that you really have to i do not think you have to start on day one and keep going. You have different phases in your life. We ought to be able to do exactly what you did or what schroeder did when she came on the floor of congress. She said i have a womb and a brain and im going to use both. Thank you very much. [laughter] we should be able to do it anyway we want to. It would be much easier, you know, not just easier, that is too small a word kids need to see nurturing and loving fathers to know that that is possible. Needless to say, if you are not the only advanced democracy with no advanced system of child care that affects everybody i think we try to solve this problem in a vacuum. How can women solve this problem . I would add that we are speaking in broad terms and very often, men are seen as running on a resume and women are seen as running on emission. A mission. If they are, as am i, single and unmarried, theres a tabulation about the narrative that they need to develop in order to engage and earn the support of the electorate. I want to challenge us to be receptive to diversity in the family model and life experience, as well. [applause] this is, you know, you are no less of a mother if you are a stepmother and you are no less of a woman if you are not a mother. I cannot tell you how many times, when i was running the first time, people questioned what my commitment to children in the Public School system would be the guys i did not have any children in the Public School system. I do not feel less of a responsibility to those children because i did not biologically bear them. [applause] i can assure you that i was the only woman in the 15 candidates who was asked repeatedly if i was married. Finally, i came up with the answer of, i am married to my job and you can be my baby. I hope that legitimizes me as a woman. Voters are intolerant of a diversity narrative when it comes to female candidates. We have to challenge ourselves to do better. When sarahhen palin was first announced and came out, when the first questions asked of her was, who is going to take care of your children . These are national correspondents. Gloria said something at lunch about someone in the movement. Down in alabama or something. Would you mind repeating it . She was asked if she was a lesbian. I was talking about my speaking partner. Flo kennedy. We were lecturing at a time when a white woman and a black woman together was viewed as so bizarre that people would ask if we were lesbians. Flo would say, are you the alternative . [laughter] that is fantastic. This is about women becoming political. Each of you have told your stories about how you became interested. I wonder if you could share the moment, if there was a single moment, when you had accomplished something in your political career and you felt it. Like, wow, if it were not for me, x would not be happening right now. Or i feel very good about this moment. We talked about the negativity, but i want to talk about the positive. Yeah. It is hard, you worked, and worked, and worked. There are a few wins that you know you have made a difference. The undersecretary of state for Global Affairs sent out a cable, that means a telegram, that said, should we include the report on the status of women in the human rights report that congress requires the state department and each country. I looked at the responses to him. It was things like, from different ambassadors our embassy is so stretched and we do not have the people power. Another said, women can walk around at midnight and it is not an issue. The one that sent me over the edge, the ambassador who wrote and said to include the status of women would be to trivialize the human rights reports. And then i got mad. And then i got mad. I said to cancel the next three meetings and i sat there and typed. Beijing had just happened. The u. N. Conference on women. I did this cable from hell. Tim told me that everybody went from his office to a retreat. He was alone. My cable came in. He read it. He took it to the retreat. They had decided not to include women in the human rights report. He read it out loud. Since that year and for ever, the status of human rights for women is included in that report. [applause] what a moment it would have to be the passage of melanies law. How many of you know what the law is . Is the change in the drunk driving laws that we accomplished in 2005. For many years, every year, the mothers against drunk driving gave massachusetts a f on our laws. The reason was simple, we have 30 personal Injury Lawyers in our legislature and they refuse to have any changes that would cut off the cash cow of all these people who drink, drive, get arrested, and get off. There were numerous people who had been arrested for drunk driving 10, 12 times in a row. They are time bombs waiting to go off and we have 200 people a year getting killed by drunk drivers. Think about that. Over 200 people a year. Many more are being injured by drunk drivers. If you think about the misery caused by that problem and it touches thousands and thousands across the commonwealth each year. We have never change the laws to make them stricter. I finally met an amazing family. Their daughter, melody, was a 13yearold girl who got run over by a drunk driver in. Daylight when she was coming back from a Birthday Party as a cheerleader. She was a lovely and sweet young girl. She was their only child. A woman had too many drinks at lunch and was a repeat drunk driver. She ran her over and killed her. The family, instead of pulling into themselves and becoming overwrought by it, they wanted to change the law. They were willing to do anything. I took that energy and my office and the people around me decided to go and visit every single legislator that would see us to get the law out there. We pounded and pounded and pounded. There was opposition from the legislature and it got stopped in committee and watereddown. They would send us a version that was named the same and did not change anything. We had to go back and eventually, we created enough of a public platform around it that various newspapers started getting interested. They started following the legislators started highlighting the fact that beautiful young people were being killed on the roads. After a bloody flight in the legislature, we got this passed and it was a wonderful feeling. [applause] it is hard to pick. I am the volunteer person and not the person out there. It is when i see i remember seeing Anne Richards and the Governors Office and seeing her sitting behind that desk after all the work. I was just i was so i could not believe it. Walking through the streets with bella, people were hanging out of trucks and saying, give them hell, bella. Because i am one behind, i think the most rewarding thing i can think of is when Shirley Chisholm was running for president. She was voted out of the primary debates and was not allowed in the primary debates. She brought a legal action for equal time. She won it. There was only one day to put her positions and her words into a speech that was her one National Speech on television. I did that. Oh really . I did that. I sat there in my living room watching her on television. [applause] wow. That is great. That is great. Before you speak, let me tell people who are lining up at the microphone to ask questions. This is the most rewarding thing i could ever do in my life. I think one of the most gratifying moments is was after a threeyear sojourn and a Broad Coalition of advocates at the municipal level that finally, a comprehensive Sex Education curriculum will be part of the wellness policy for boston Public Schools. [applause] i am especially proud of that because these are the issues that people considered to be third rail. When you talk about a curriculum that goes beyond abstinence and increases access to condoms, no one is asking you to go there. I am humbled to be elected official. Beyond electoral victories, what i want is to play part in a moral victory. Access to this information inside our schools was ad hoc. Now, will close the disparity gap and set our people on a pathway to make informed and healthy choices. I am proud of that. [applause] there are two microphones in the aisles. Ask your question. We do not want your comment. We want your question. I have a question from twitter. You might see me a couple of times. The first question she has a twoparter. Can you please run for president . [applause] and, the second part, had we engage those who do not see politics as affecting them . Good question. We have to trace each issue, you know i mean, how many kids are there who are graduating in debt . The main reason they are graduating in debt is because state legislatures have defunded universities and build prisons instead. This is affecting everybody. We have to take the issues issues are a bad word the hopes, the dreams, the daily concerns, the problems. We have to trace them to their source. I agree with that. It is critical we have civics education. [applause] i think we need to perpetuate that relationship. Be schools should not just about preparing people to be college ready. Does anybody care about creating good citizens . Do you plant that seed of what citizenry looks like . You cannot wait until they are 18 and think that they will spontaneously combust and care about government. We need to build that relationship earlier. [applause] i had a question. I am from texas. I was wondering if you could speak, gloria, to the fact that texas was the first date to towas the first datstate adopt the equal rights amendment and you had a coalition of women who attacked women. That is why it did not succeed. Ann richard was elected in 1990 and wendy davis does not have a chance. Can you talk about how sometimes you have success in a state like texas and it takes another 20 years to get one on the ballot. It is not a Straight Line of progress. It is a surge forward and a backlash, that is clearly what is happening now. We just have to remember if we did not have a frontlash, we would not have a backlash. What you say about equal rights amendment, it was not women that defeated it. It was the insurance industry. They did not want to equalize their actuarial tables. They had women out here campaigning. It was actually a financial interest, as you described with your legislature in the case of that law, the most common occupation of a legislate for is insurance. It is the last industry that is regulated statebystate instead of federally. Remember our twin states idea. We had ann richards. I can talk like this if we have to. We had richards and hutchison. Dont forget that there was a toplevel person as a woman. Now, i think if you look at the research that we have done, is interesting to see if you ask people if it is important to them to have a woman, the percentage of hispanics and blacks is much higher, men and women, in those minority communities say that it is important. Wendy davis will be determined by the turnout in those communities. Not because, necessarily, they are democratic. But, because those two, African American and hispanics, and much higher percentages, say it is better to have a woman in office. I think that outsiders tend to support outsiders in a way. , over here. Senator warrens mentor any in the senate is bob corker from tennessee. What would you say is the role that men play in how women become political . That was the point that i was making and i did not close that comment properly. It is important that men mentor women, as well. They have a critically Important Role to play because women do not have role models in the positions that they need to travel. If you need to go in a place where no woman has gone before, you need male mentors to get there. We need to talk about the importance of mentoring women. Hello. It is truly inspirational to be in front of you today. Im the Student Government president for college. [applause] i wondered that if you are in college today, im sure that was not long ago, what would you be doing to have more equal pay for women . What can we today as College Students . Asking for it. I mean, it is true that sometimes we are so grateful to get a job, a summer job, a part time job, it is asking for it and then the most megaform is to point out how important it is. If women were paid equally to the men, therell be 200 billion more in economy every year and that would be a great economic stimulus to the country. Much better than giving it to the banks. We will not put it in a swiss bank account. We will spend it and create jobs. To do the micro and the macro at the same time. I should add that Edward Murphy was in this audience. Wrote a book about equal pay for women. What are the key points is that women do not negotiate and they just accept whatever is offered to them. That certainly has to change. Simmons is one of the top negotiators for women. Negotiating courses for women. Negotiators for women. This is for all of you. What advice would you give to young girls to help them repair prepare to contribute to the world . I have something. The head of girl scouts is here and i learned that in eastern massachusetts, there are 48,000 girl scouts and there are 12,000 people working with them. 10,000 volunteers and scout leaders. That is almost 60,000 people strong. What a force i would say to every girl, join that force. The girl scouts. I was a girl scout. I was a girl scout. Were you a girl scout . I dont want to brag, but i sold more cookies. [laughter] a few things involving women are practical, productive, and indecisive. Something i have done in my young adult life, as trying to be more political, i have tried to be more decisive and stand firm for what i believe in. I learned about a topic in college, the gray area between right and wrong, left and right. Coming upon that realization, i realized that i, myself, am a bisexual woman. [applause] i have looked ahead to become more political. The pushback that i get is that, you do not understand your place, left or right, right or wrong, men or women. How do we, as women, were thoughtful, try to take in as many opinions as possible, try to survey the land, how do we stand firm in these decisions that we make we are often pushed to choose a side . I am also registered as an independent. As you can see, i struggle with how i can make a stand in the world and feel it there is no place. We spoke about the liabilities in being a woman. The point that you are raising is not a liability. It is one of the innate and intrinsic assets of being a woman. We are deliberate, thoughtful, we consider the cumulative sort of all of our experiences and apply that to the situation. In terms of what is right and wrong, what is right is your personal truth. If you say that you care more about electoral victories than a moral victory, the fact that i fought for increased access to condoms, for many people that is not moral. I have to stand in my truth and him that. And trust to there are many others that share that truth and they will coalesce around you. I challenge you to recognize that is a maledominated culture and we should not feel pressured to contribute in the same way that men do. We should not try to assimilate how they lead. That is what is different about us. If you look at our political discourse, there is so much polarization. People are sure that they are right on both sides and our political discourse would be balanced by people like you, who see truth in both sides and people like you can build the bridges that we need. And maybe you might be able to build the bridges we need. Thank you. That was the right answer. [applause] we are coming to the end. You have one of the last. All right. The question i have for you is, was talking about operating at a macro and micro level at the same time. My personal level, something that i find difficult, what about what i want to see in the world and how to find my place, i trace the micro to the macro and it gets overwhelming to talk toggle between them and see where my place is where i can add leverage to operate at the micro level. I wonder if any of you have thoughts on that . The little picture is the building block. Many philosophers have failed because they thought the end justifies the means. In fact, the means are the ends. I find it helpful to think about that. To live in the present and say, lets behave as if everything we do matters and lets instill our values and everything we do. And that is the way we will debt to the macro. O the macro. I wish we would require that anyone in a policymaking position would have to have had grassroots experiences. We have no right to be making policies for people we have not worked with and lived with. [applause] let me apologize. You are the last question from the audience. Thank you. This is for you, councilwoman. I can attest to being told to smile more and im an outsider to the boston political world. I do have a question. How do you think we can change the Political Landscape in boston to increase political power to other minority groups . I think it is a problem. It needs to be addressed. That is a big, big question. It is a big question. The simple answer is demonstrated in your proud example right here. You are standing up and getting involved. And inspiring others to do the same. Think youi cannot change laws until you change peoples minds. The benefit of the power and diversity is to shift and elevate the discourse and the dialogue. Everyone benefits from that. What is getting in the way sometimes we get in our own way, let me just say that is the stereotype of candidates, neighborhoods, and voters. We have to stop that. When i ran the first time, again, people kept recycling my political resume and who i work for. They didnt want me to tell the story of being raised by a single parent. They did not want me to talk about being a survivor of Sexual Violence and abuse. They felt that to the electorate, i would stereotype and pigeonhole myself. My story is a normal life story for many people. Pundits made an assumption of who that story will resonate with. You can change minds when you have a diversity of perspective and we challenge all of ourselves collectively to not stereotype. Thank you. [applause] i would ask you to thank our panel and we have one more thing. We are going to thank them now. [applause] thank you. Thank you, panel. Stand up. Wow Goodness Gracious [applause] pretty amazing. It has been a rich and textured dialogue. We will bring it to a close with a woman who is become become who has become political. The president of the massachusetts senate, the first woman ever to hold that position. Wow, what an honor to be here this evening. It was awesome. All of you. Gloria, i have followed you my entire career. Tonight has been so incredible. We have had some important discussions from inspirational leaders. It was talked about politics , affects everything. Everything. That is why i am honored to be here to address you tonight. Is so on the table important because in my career, and many of the people here, i have frequently been the only woman. Now i am at the head of the table. [applause] of i brought an awful lot other women to that table. When i first decided to enter politics, it was one of the hardest choices i ever made, i was a recently divorced mother of a 16yearold. I have been asked to run for office and said i could not afford it. I could not afford the pay or the time away from my daughter. As you here tonight, women still face these challenges. There considered to be too emotional and not good candidates for public office. I do not have a problem having a tear in my eye when something affects me. Women are too weak. They will not make the tough decisions. Take a look at some of the decisions i have made. In a nutshell, women are held to a difference can did, even in 2013. This is not ok. Beenis what i have fighting against my career. I know what it is like to be the only woman at the table. It is very difficult. I will admit i would say hesitant to run for office until i decided it was time for a change. When i first was sworn into the 1993, i was only the 16th woman ever elected to the massachusetts