Senator Kirsten Gillibrand talkt her life in politics and calls for women to rise up and make a difference in the world. This is about 45 minutes. [applause] its just such a pleasure for me to introduce two extraordinary women tonight and two extraordinary voices in our nations public life. Our guest of honor is a mother of two, a wife, a lawyer, a sunday schoolteacher, community volunteer, former democratic representative from the 20th district of new york and, of course, now United States senator from new york in her second term. But thats not all. As of two days ago, senator Kirsten Gillibrand has added a new title to her resume, author. Senator gillibrands new book is called off the sidelines. Its part memoir, part call to action, part inspirational guidebook for women doing the great balancing of modern life. And, by the way, its great book for men too, just want say that. The title comes from the Online Book Group that senator gillibrand has convene inside which women across the country share ideas about how they can use their voices to affect change in their communities and beyond. Off the sidelines, the book, charts senator gillibrands own journey to her career as a lawyer, to her role as a wife and mother and, of course, she talks about a seminal moment that motivated her to launch herself into elective politics. Her energy, determination and resilience whether to bring her sons with her to the senate floor when shes voting or taking on the military brass on the issue of Sexual Assaults have made her an extremely refreshing voice on capitol hill. Your candor and your sense of possibility are so evident in your book and so welcome in this town, and i want to thank you for being such an inspiration to so many of us. Its a great, great book, and i hope you all will read it. Believe it or not, its a political book, but its actually a page turner. Its a really fun read. Joining senator gillibrand is Andrea Mitchell who is probably better known to most of america for her prizewinning reporting on nbc news. She explores the most important issues of the day from crises around the globe to cry size in our country and especially shes focused some really important attention on challenges facing women. To borrow a line and a concept from senator gillibrand and from her book which if you read it, youll see that she talks about this she urges us to stop talking about having it all and to do it all, and if anybody has done it all in journalism, it is Andrea Mitchell. So your incredible career and a great inspiration as well. Both of these women have done the ultimate, and that is the ice bucket challenge. [laughter] so please join me in welcoming Andrea Mitchell and senator Kirsten Gillibrand. [applause] thank you so much, lissa. What a thrill to be back here at sixth and i and to be with Kirsten Gillibrand because, well, the book is, its inspirational, its funny, its personal. I dont know if you saw jon stewart last night, but you can find it online, of it was great. He was, obviously, really interested in finding out, you know, what is the challenge and why are many men on the hill, frankly, and in other workplaces im sure including my own at times why are men so incredibly stupid and boorish . [laughter] i was wondering what words you were going to choose, which ones is she going to pick . Not the one bleeped out on jon stewart. And i was so fortunate to have senator gillibrand on today, and i dont think i asked many questions. Thank you all for being here. You offer empowerment and encouragement to women of all ages, and particularly i was very struck today when you talked about young, less powerful women. Youre a United States senator, so you can take some of it. I can absorb it. But for women in their first jobs, for interns, you know, how do they cope with male behavior that is patronizing at a minimum and is often offensive and all the way up to being, you know, blatantly illegal . Right. Well, the reason why i wrote these stories, i included stories from my young career days, i told stories about my mother and my grandmother, you know, women who marked their own way, they did their own things because i wanted to give the reader a chance to see themselves in each of these stories. When you talk about someone saying something inappropriate to you, it really is undermining particularly when youre young and you dont necessarily have the tools or know what to do in that circumstance. And i shared one story when i was a young lawyer. I had been working so hard on this case month after month, and were having a celebratory dinner, and the partner gets up to congratulate us. Im running this case for him. I want to thank kirsten for all her hard work, but dont you just love her haircut . She looks so good these days. Im thinking, i cant believe youre comments about my hair. I just worked my butt off for you for months and months, and youre not recognizing me for my work. So that is so undermining. It hurts, it makes you feel like you dont have value, like the work youve done has gone unnoticed. And so my advice to that young woman, myself, is you push through it, you work hard, and someday you might be that guys boss, and that is a good thing. [laughter] and when you are, you can change the climate, you can change how people treat each other and insist on something very different. You write in the book, i got called a parakeet, a cipher, a Chuck Schumer puppet whatever that is i was nicknamed tracy flick, the aggressive, comical and somewhat unhinged blond High School Student played by Reese Witherspoon in the movie election. Uh, yeah. Yeah. [laughter] well, the reason why i share these particular stories is because i wanted to illustrate the broader challenge that all women face in the workplace. And, you know, when we look around, andrea, the face of the work force has really changed. Eight out of ten families moms are working. Four out of ten families, moms are the soul or primary breadwinners. But a lot of our workplace rules are really stuck in the madmen era. And so even mad men era. Equal support leave or equal pay we dont even have in this country, and it dose to the overarching themes, do we value women . I loved geraldine ferraros quote when she was Vice President ial nominee and she said its not what america can do for women, its what women can do for america. And that really sums up what i think this books about. Its about our voices, how important they are, how our world view and Life Experiences are different, and if we share our opinions and share our views and fight for the things that we care about, outcomes will be different and better. One of the stories you share is when you were first elected and you had just had henry, there you are, a senator. Youre a junior senator, youre assigned to preside over the senate which means being out there on cspan for all the world to see, and you had to breastfeed. And there was some young male aide who said, no, nobody else can do this, and until senator udall bailed you out, you were in trouble. Its so funny. So for those of you who are too young to have chirp or who are men to have children or who are men, you wont really understand this. [laughter] but for those of you that have nursed a baby, you do kno when its the time to nurse, you need to nurse. Its something that has to happen. Its extremely uncomfortable. And i couldnt bear describing this to a 20somethingyearold aide. And i just decided im going to solve this on my own. I urged him can i have a morning time or a daytime, and he said, no. I called a bunch of senators, mark udall who i call my white knight of presiding orders, and i described too him i really need to be with the baby, could i switch with him, and, of course, he said yes. But thats a lot of our workplaces dont even realize why their policies effect women negatively. And one of the things we talk about is this having it all debate. And what i found is my life is challenging. I have real challenges, similar experiences to a lot of moms. How do you get the kids fed in the morning, make their lunches, find the soccer uniform and get out the door in time. Its very common. But my job has flexibility. But if i have a sick child, i can bring henry or theo to work. If i have to get to a parentteacher meeting, i can cancel my meetings during that 250eu8. But the woman whoo goes doing whos going to clean the synagogue, somebody working double shifts at the emergency room, they work the hours theyre told to work, and if their childs sick, if they dont have sick days, theres nothing they can do about it. They may well be fired. So those are some of the stories and challenges that we really need to talk about. Talk a bit about your transition. When you, corporate lawyer, dartmouth educated and law school, you know, typical smart, ivy league graduate, what made you decide to get into this political fray . Well, i mentioned i had some pretty cool role models, and one of them was my grandmother. She had a terrible mouth, swore all the time. She never went to college and worked her whole life. She was a sec rah tear in our secretary in our state legislature in albany. And being in the legislature in the early 1920s and 30s, obviously, women had little power. They tended to be behind the scenes. But she had this notion that her voice was important and this view that she wanted to be heard on things that they were working on. So so what she realized is that she could amplify her voice by engaging other women, and they could make a difference. They became essential to every campaign. They did all the work, all the door to door, envelope stuffing, phone banking, and over time they became powerful because you couldnt get elected in inial ban if you didnt have the help of my grandmother and her friends. So i learned at her knee how important womens voices are and 40 important grass roots activism is and what you do with your time. So i always had in the back of my mind i wanted to do something in Public Service, something in government. And as i got older, i became more fearful of that. I was almost embarrassed to admit i wanted to run for office someday. And how hard was it to make that decision . It was, it was interesting. So im a young lawyer working at a big law firm in new york city pushing paper, and i look up long enough to notice that Hillary Clintons giving this speech in china. Now, i had been an Asian Studies major at dartmouth, i had studied mandarin in beijing, so i knew how powerful it was for our first lady to give this speech about womens rights in beijing to the world. I just kicked myself because i didnt know about the conference, i wasnt invited to the conference, i wasnt participating in this national and worldwide conversation, and i thought i need to get involved in politics. So i called a friend whose mom was involved, and she said join a womens group in new york city, i joined. I went to my first meeting i had to pay a thousand dollars to join. Now, that was a lot of money, that was my represent check. But that was the only advice i was given, and so i did it. Hillarys the speaker at this dinner, and i feel like shes talking straight to me, and she says decisions are being made every day in washington, and if you are not part of those decisions and you dont like what they decide, you have no one to blame but yourself. And im standing there in the back of the room and sweating because im thinking, shes talking to me, shes talking to me [laughter] i have to do something about it. And i really felt like she had zeroed into my core, and i felt like this is my moment, i have to get involved in politics. Its so interesting that you should say that because when i read that in the book, i was there in beijing. As a reporter covering Hillary Clinton. And the pressure from the male Foreign Policy establishment, white house, state department against the first lady making news on a foreign trip in beijing no less, and there was so much hostility also against the whole delegation. Tom cain, the thengovernor, former governor of new jersey and later the 9 11 commission cochair was the only male in the delegation, and it was just, you know, a lot of women madeleine albright, obviously, with her and it was just a really tough moment for her. And she just stood up there and did it. It was transformative. And it showed so much courage and leadership. And i was just amazed. So hillarys always been, for me, a role model. Shes been someone ive looked to to see shes really making a difference, and, you know, a lot of times as young women we think i couldnt possibly do that, you know . Im not a Hillary Clinton. But we dont have to be. What we have to realize is that our voices matter no matter where we raise them. It doesnt matter if youre, you know, talking about a school board or the pta or your local community or having a Community Garden or doing a book drive for atrisk kids in your neighborhood. Your voice and life perspective is real and different and is absent in so many places. A lot of women will say, oh, im sure someones fixing that. Probably not. Probably no one is doing that or fixing that, and it might be you as the only person in the right place at the right time to make the difference. And thats really what the books about, that everyone womans voice matters, and it doesnt matter if youre on the National Stage like hillary or if you are doing notforprofit work at your church. How important are role models, powerful role models for women such as having a woman in the oval office . I think its essential. I think having a woman to to look up to so valuable. And also mentors are important. Mentoring moments pop up all the time, and they dont have to be long, you know, welldeveloped relationships. I remember i had one Woman Working for me, her name was rain henderson. And im a lawyer, so when i run my campaign, the first person i hire is a policy director. You really never hire a policy director [laughter] but i felt i needed one. So i hired rain, and she helped me figure out all my positions. Right before the end of the election, she had an offer to go work for cgi. She said my dream is to work for bill clinton. I said, okay. So she tells me about this job shes interviewing for, you know, im applying for the number two or three job, and i said whos your boss . She says they havent hired that person. And i said why arent you applying for that job . Oh, im not qualified. It was a division for childhood obesity. I said, rain, you have your degrees in health, you know everything. You have to apply for that top job. And she said, really . I said, of course. Sure enough, she applies for it, she gets it. And that was just a small men to having moment mentoring moment. I needed to give her that encouragement, but sometimes thats all it takes. I want all women to find one person, and men, to find one person to mentor. Find a young woman whos somewhere in her career, on her way that youve already achieved and give her that little bit of advice. It is worth so much. And hillary was always giving me that. I was able to call her in my First Campaign to look at a poll, to give me advice. She gives me two minutes every time i need just a little bit of assurance. When i did run he came to events she came to events, she did everything. But we should all seek out mentors and be role models for each other. Whats the distinction you make between mentoring and sponsoring . So this is sort of a Corporate America thing, but in a law firm, for example, or be youre on the ladder in a corporation you need more than mentors because a mentor just gives you good advice based on their Life Insurance something you should or shouldnt do. But a sponsor is someone who links their future to yours. Says im going to make sure you make partner, and you need to do this, that, and they really believe in you so much that if you dont succeed, they dont succeed. And, frankly, its essential in a big company or in a law firm to have that sponsor. I never had one in a law firm, and i didnt even know i needed one. But really it is necessary, and its helpful. Interestingly, no sponsors going to pick you. You really have to pick them, and you have to earn their support. A sponsors eventually going to choose to sponsor you because youve already jumped through 20 hoops, done a great job, stayed late, proved yourself. They dont just happen, you often have to earn a sponsor. What gives a male congressman or senator the entitlement to feel that they can comment on a senators appearance . And say, you know, you look porky or dont get dont lose too much weight, i like my girls chubby. My girls chubby. [laughter] or when im eight months pregnant Walking Around in the house of representatives, you know, kirsten, youre even pretty when youre fat. [laughter] you know, im a pregnant lady. Being pregnant is not a thing, and you should be nice to pregnant ladies. [laughter] for me, those comments didnt affect me because these kinds of things happen all the time. And, honestly, they happen in all industries. They happen at every stage in your career. And i use those specific examples to illustrate this broader challenge of what do women face in the workplace and why is it that theres this sticky floor . This is, you know, of course we have to break the highest glass ceiling, but there are impediments and challenges that continually bring women back down to lower wage jobs, less responsibility and less opportunity for promotion. And it happens because we have no support. So, for example, when you have a new baby, when you have a child who becomes very ill or gets hit by a car and you need to care for the child, when your mothers dying and you need to be home with her or she needs 24 7 care. For most women when that family emergency happens, they will ramp off their careers. They will either quit, reduce their hours, change industries, they will do something so they have the flexibility they need when they need it. But were the only industrialized country in the world that doesnt have paid leave. Its outrageous. So what happens is although women are earning more than half of the advanced degrees, we are not reaching our full potential in the economy or the workplace because we dont have th