Watch cspans Live Campaign 2024 super tuesday coverage. As people cast their votes for their nominee for president. We will take your calls and get your social media reactions as speeches. N thank you all for being with us today. It is really hard to believe we launched just six months ago. In that have done more than some institutes do in years. Although of course that is not surprising given who our leader as secretary clinton herself likes to say, if you want something done, ask a woman to do it and i have. From our very first conversations about■o we were aligned on a plan. We wanted to launch the institute and then turn to one of the most important and most the full and equal participation of women. We determined to approach this not as an afterthought but rather as a core focus of ig p. When i became dean, we identified five pricing challenges. Each of these challenges is a womens issue. When women are included in the peace process, agreements are more likely to be reached and to last. From the talibans efforts to end education in afghanistan and abortion bans and states across the u. S. , a tax on womens rights are often early indicators of democratic backsliding. Democratic resilience is a womens issue. Women and girls are more likely to depend on Natural Resources and less likely to survive when Natural Disaster strikes. At the efforts to take action. Climate is a womens issue. Experts estimate if we close the Global Gender Gap in workforce participation, we could grow gdp by 28 billion. It is a womens issue. 85 girls around the world have experienced Online Harassment and abuse. Technologyevery global challenga womens issue and addressing these challenges through that lens is an urgent imperative. We are launching igps Womens Initiative to do just that. The Womens Initiative will produce policy proposals womens economics opportunities, womens health, womens safety and security and democracy and human rights. All in the service of advancing womens full and equal because these issues affect not just women but all of humanity, it is not enough towe need to le local to global approach we bring to all of our work here at igp. Challenges, we are leveraging the power that we have here today great minds to solve problems and share ideas. And because it is not enough to produceips that get talked about, we need to ensure data and evidence are translated as you can imagine, launching an effort this ambitiousi want to. First, for believing and supporting what igp could become from the very beginning. And for appointing many women to positionsty, including myself. And it is special to launch this initiative at this moment at columbia now that the university is led by its first female friend to igp. Thank you to the trustees of columbia university. Some of you are here today. Whose guidance and support have been so valuable and meaningful to me and to us. D members who are here today, yr leadership and partnership is so critical to our success. You to who has been at the forefront in thd womens issues at columbia for the better part of two decades. We are so proud to ve her as uns initiative. Thank you, and i know you are watching. That means a lot. Announce something very cool. We have a new partnership. The Womens Initiative is joining forces to fuel innovative research, education and outreach programs aimed at advancing women worldwide and across different sectors. So stay tuned for more information later in the program. But let me just thank them for being such a fierce believer in the power of women. It is a great partnership. Lastly, when you look at the room and incredible lineup we have, you know that some people have beenorking aroundtheclock to make this happen. Our incredible team. Christina, lauren, katie, alex, rachel, susan, marie anna, caroline, eduardo and many others who have contributed to today. Thank you. You really deserve a big round of applause. [applause] now, if there is one person who embodies what it means to advocate f full and equal participation, it is Hillary Rodham clinton. In beijing in 1995, she turned the worlds attention to the status of women and girls and sent a powerfued across the dec. Womens rights are human rights. , on behalf of all of the women who are here today, and countless more who are not, thank you this not even begin to cover it. It is an honor of a lifetime to do this work alongside with fri, coteacher, a partner and a part of our family. Please join me inton. [applause] ms. Clinton thank you very much, keren, and thank you to all of you for being here for this launce. It is launch. It is a veryxc columbia. We really believe we are starting something that can have a Lasting Impact fard the university. Let me start by saying very cl that simply embracing the concept of womens rights, let alone enshrining those rights and laws and constituon same as achieving full equality. Rights are important but they. Re nothing again and again, especially in recent times, we have seen anger, hostility, sexism and misogyny directed at women who have the audacity to seek power. Deepseated biases are even harder to change the discriminatory laws. It is no coup incidents that while we have made it is no coincidence that we have made progress in areas associated with women, including health care and education, we have struggled to mesh that progress in the economy, politics and national security. I admit i find this frustrating because when i was in beijing, as keren has referenced, and declared that womens rights are human rights, my daughter was 15 years old. I very much wanted to raise her in a world where women were free and equal. Now, she is grown up with a daughter and sons of her own. Work to fight for justice and equality, and i still find myself reminding people that womens righ are■nh. Id hoped that that would be old news by now. I still see women and girls bearing a disproportionate burden in almost every global crisis. And when the internet and social connect, they also gave rise to new ways to harass and threaten women. But when i find myself in moments of frustration or weariness, i like to look to women like the ones you will hear from today. And to be reminded of what we are fighting for, and the power we have to make chge. Women are not just victims of violence and inequality. We are ants of peace and progress and the women we would hear from today are just a few of the remarkable women working onacross this university, this country and across the world to liberate themselves, lift up their communities and find new ways to build momentum toward equality. As we can see at this institute, there was never a question that we would not integrate womens perspectives and everything we were doing. There was to be no siloing of womens issues. Womens issues, as keren just reminded us, are worldwhy do wet on womens equality . Keren gave you some insight into what we believe will make igp;s initiative different. The worldclass scholarship that will produce impactful policy recommendations, the competing of smart women to move us forward, training of the next generation of Women Leaders and, yes, men who believe in equality, too. But the real answer is we need this igp Womens Initiative because women are not free or equal yet. So, we welcome you i am particularly pleased the princess is here. She has been a globally in womens inclusive economic prosperity. We want this to be an from anywy across the world. So, to get us startedpl welcome stacey abrams, the chair for racd black politics at howard university. The former georgia candidate for governor and igp carnegie distinguished fellow. Secretary gina raimondo, the 40th secretary of the Commerce Department and a staunch advocate on behalf of women and economic prosperity. And ouroderator, a professor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg professor of law, Columbia Law School and igp these are just three of the Extraordinary People we will hear from this afternoon. Please welcome them. [applause] thank you. Body. This panel is entitled women empowering women through the onomwe have already queued up issues. Economic gaps and the role women in various powerful positions. Shaping Public Policy in a way that addresses those gaps. I am a lawyer. What i think of the most is courts and legislation. You will see a theme running through this panel about another part of law and■p policy, thinkg about the ways in which you can have federal policy, state and local policy be shaped in a way that actually advances equality. I will say very little. Turn it over to the panelists to talk about some of the promising initiatives. You will see this theme. We will start with what happens at the federal level and then moved to the state and local level. We can take some of these initiatives and supplement them and think about them in new ways. I will start with the secretary. Since the beginning of the administration, there has been a lot of new federal programs and new money being p■ ms. Raimondo thank you. Everyone. It is fantastic to be here. As we were waiting i could feel the energy in the room. Thiswy is er is if you put women charge, everything will be better. I am excited to be here with my stacey. Let me say this president bidens leadership is nothing short of extraordinary. Because of that we have about 1 trillion we are in the process of investing in america in the economy and communities which will create hundreds of thousands, if not one millionplus good paying jobs. I am investing money to stimulate Semi Conductor manufacturing facilities in the United States. The infrastructure act. U see it everywhere you go. New roads, bridges, broadband, etc. It will level the playingprovidl americans. It only works if we make sure i will give you one example. In the process of putting money out the door for the chips facilities, i have said, if you are going to get taxpayer money, xyz big company, tell me what your childcare plan is. I want to know. Right . If you are going to get 1 billion of taxpayer money, i want to make sure women have an opportunity to get a job that will not happen if you do not have a childcare plan. When i did that, a lot of rebl said, secretary, you are introducing social politics in security program. I said i do not agree with that. This is hardnosed economics. There is a labor shortage. These Companies Need to be competitive. That means women. You will not get them if you do not think about childcare. You talked about the buildings. Right percent of women in the Building Trades is the same as it was 50 years ago. Trade, it is somewhere between 2 and 7 . Why does that matter . Er that we do not have enough women who are farmers, etc. . . Because th pay 60, 70, 80 an hour with benefits. I launched that there are one millionhguntry. I said lets double it. Very scientific. [laughter] lets double it. Ce again, we are working with labor unions, we have apprenticeship initiatives for wome working with these companies, attracting and recruiting women. If you go to a job site right now as a welder and i needed a harness, chances are there are only five extralarge or large harnesseon the job. That is dangerous. There is not a womens bathroom, there is one porta john. This is straight out of the 1950s. I will stop there but you could tell i have passion on the topic. That is why it matters who is i have all this money to invest and i will be dammed if half the jobs dont go to women. [applause] i think it is think about this as if the money is going out the door, it should be justified. If you do not do that through affirmative policy, it does not get done. I want to follow up on what somethingction. I want to ask about the childcare piece. The last thing you left with was the Building Trades, it has been a longstanding problem trying to diversify the construction trade. On the gender front and eonsomen rates. Even for the workers who are slightly over represented,■2■ e of the most unsafe, non unionized jobs. This is on women and the economy. What are your thoughts in terms of the construction trades and how do we actually make progress on that given the recent report that shows what the big gap is . Ms. Abrams i will link it to something you said at the getting of the question. An affirmative action, perhaps. What we are talking about is how we have the lived experience of diversity, equity and inclusion. It has become a bit of a pejorative. I want to point to the secretary who just said this is an economic issue. Since the inception of this country, we have had a series of movements designed to guarantee that we diversify who gets access to the American Dream and that they can included in participation. When we think about construction, civil rights movement, womens suffrage, the womens rights movement, disability movement, name a movement in the United States and it has been about, how do you get access to the American Dream . Getting that access, how do we make certain we diversify participation . I want us to reclaim the right like the secretary said we have the right to half the economy. We have the right to participation fully in this economy and that includes the Building Trades. When i was in the state legislature, a lot of my work with a run defending access to thoseg created. One of the many jobs it is like a terrible joke lots of different job■l■win lots of different spaces but one is with an Organization Called rewiring america. We have 858 billion moving through the economy to electrify residential spaces. Basically that means stoves, pump hvacs. Someone has to install them. 121 million households that will need this equipment. Right now w4 Million People in the workforce to install this equipment. ■f700,000 should be women. We live in those houses. We turn on the thermostat. We are the ones using the equipment. Why should be be the ones installing it . How do we ensure not onl househd but the people installing the equipment look like the people in the households . They are women, people of color. Access to training. Access to how the dollars actually move. One of the things we know is strong independent women and people of color entering different parts of the economy, they do not know where the door is. Theyhey will do the work, they just do not know the secret knock, if they can find the door, if they know where the building is. Opportunity is having a secretary saying i will hold the person of the pursestrings accountable for welcomyou in but we also have the responsibility when hiring someone to come in and install are duly asked do they have women working with you . Part of our opportunity is to ask the question of who is providing a service. Most of the time we get so wrapped up in trying to get it done fast that we forget we are also the purveyors of this opportuniti think about it alwas way where is the money coming from . Who is it going to . And who does it touch along the way . As we think about the Building Trades, everyone of those buildings will likely house a family or business. Which businesses are going in . Who is doing construction . Who is doing the Financial Services . Managing the loans . At each of the structures, we need to look at who gets to touch the dollar. If we do that, that ide in practice. We are not saying you cannot touch it, we are saying lets make sure the different hands engaged look like the people who live in this country. [applause] ■ saying, it seems like part of this is about attaching requirements to funding. Of it might be gathering data. It sounds like you were also maybe alluding to the partnership,unding partnership to help with things like training. Before asking a different question of the secretary, i wanted to ask more about the childcare piece, given there are programs like chips that are now requiring that. Is there that . What does it look like to you . It is a hazard of my job. [laughter] ms. Raimondo requirements are a part of every dollar the come from the public space. There is not a single dollar without a requirement. As the secretary point not ms. Abrams we only have a question about the dollar when it affects someone other than who wexpect. When she said she was looking at childcare as a social program we put requirements on public dollars every single day. The question is, why do we value less the requirements that do the most . When it comes to childcare at the state level, that is absolutely an issue. ■;that is where people are makig the toughest decisions. I live in a state where the official minimum wage is still 5. 15 an hour. Before people said the federal wage covers it, it does not d cover a ceairker. I live in a state with a lot of Agricultural Workers and a lot of healthcare workers. A lot of people not entitled to the federal mineral wage. It matters that companies have policies that require the childcare be provided. Those chili want to talk about. We know that at the state level, especially for women of color d f poor women, access to childcare is the difference between making a living and making a l you are independent. If you cannot take care of your child, especially in a state where you are no longer allowed to make the decision of whether or not you have a child or not lets tie all the pieces together. When you lose reproductive freedom and you are not entitled to access to childcare, one of the consequences . Those policies matter. It matters to childcare. It matters that you have good paying jobs. It matters that those jobs are being funded by public dollars when you should have a better opportunity to participate in the economy. s we have to think about these things holistically the silos wo consider them in. It is how we strengthen and grow our economy. We have a cover secretary that says the way we become a stronger economy we have a president saying this is how we become a stronger nationparticis progress but in its support and success. You said we have the right to have these resources. That is true. But have a better, stronger, more innovative economy if women are fully empowered. Right . If you show me an organization or a company or Government Office or whatever of all white men, you are showing me an organization that is not as innovative and effective as it you know it yourself. In. Whatever you guys do if all you do is surround yourself with people who think the same way, you will not get the best answer. You will not get the best result. If all you have is people in the Building Trades or engineers or pick your profession, all the same, you will not have the best people, by definition. If we lead the world we were just talking about leading the world by the way, we are here because you led the way if america is going to lead the world, diversity is truly our strength but only if we enable everyone to actually have a chance. Childcare is necessary. Why do the Building Trades matter . Half of the reason women are poorer than men, is because women cluster in lowwage industries. If you are a woman without■k a chances are you are a domestic worker, homecare worker, home house aid, waitress, etc. , and you are making maybe not 5 an hour but maybe an hour. If you are a man without a college degree, you micro into manufacturing or the Building Trades. Like i said before, average firstyear plumber apprentice, depending on where he lives in the country, 40 per hour plus health care. Aside from the fact that better homes will be built if you have the best women on the job, you will lift so many women out of poverty. Childcare is an enabler. Covid crushed the childcare industry. All the Childcare Centers went out of business and we funded them with federal dollars. That has now dried up. You see them going out of business. 1pthese are Real Investments and it is a shame it gets wrapped up in what is called a social program. The truth of it is, it is baloney. If you are setting up a company, industry or institution, you would never say, i want to exclude half of the labor pool. You would say how do i figure out how to enable all of them . I love how you are viewing it as inclusive industrial policy. Interrupt but that is my approach. I do not know if it is going to work. It is my story and i am sticking to it for now. But when i was negotiating the chips act, i negotiated broadband prior to infrastructure bill, at the same time, we were working shoulder to shoulder to try to get the president s care economy investments in there, which i thought was necessary. I was on the phone with a lot of senators, including democrats and males who would say, hey, secretary, i can get with you on infrastructure, i can get with you on chips but i am not getting with you on that social program. I said what did you mean . All the investments in childcare, health care. I said they are often, some of l remain nameless, democrats, men, would say those are womens issues . I can get with you on Semi Conductors, i can get with you on infrastructe but not the womens issue. For me, i have concluded, right or wrong, as long as these investments are viewed as wo issues, we will not get them done. That is why i think they■ ■ are plain old Economic Issues and everyone should care the same. When you say mainstream, that little lightbulb went off for me. Are womens issues, they will hit the cutting room floor. You mentioned broadband and i went to ask you both. I think we still use the term Digital Divide but it sounds so oldfashioned to me. Broadband is importa, infrastructure for connection that is important as brickandmortar, transit, infrastructure. There are wide regional disparities in terms of who has access to highquality broadband. It has effects on peoples ability to participate in the economy. Covid really illustrated the effects it has for all sorts of social services. Ion, etc. Through broadbent. There are racial disparities. I wanted to ask you both about broadband and the Digital Divide. I will start with you, leader abrams, well find out what is happening on the federal level. Ms. Abrams they are linked together. I live in georgia. Across the south, and in a lot of parts of the country, we still have digital inequity. ■right now, there has been a ded valuation away from call centers. If you need help, you are if you dont have that, youre on your own. We try to Sell Health Care issues in communities that refuse totelehealth. We have theseardens social issues of access that are exasperated by lack of access to the internet so broadband, we have been talking about this for 20 years. The■v challenges depends on whether or not the state wants to solve the they choose to solve it. There is an equity and investment in theo we have to be incredibly intentional about following public dollars all the way down. We give such credit to the Biden Administration and trying to do the best it can. The challenge is, we have 50 different states and believes about who should have access. Property doesnt care. Being isolated doesnt care. For me, the question of Digital Equity is aright now, if you are right part of the country you can go to a center to learn but a lot of training is online. If you dont have access, youre disconnected from the economy and it becomes a horrific cycle where digital inequity no longer paralyzes you, it forces you backwards so becomes more imperative that we do this work so we acknowledge that it is dangerous for the country. Thank you. Fi students wondering if it matters, do you make a diffethe answer is, abso. This is real for me. In the infrastructure bill, we see just about 50 billion to make sure every american has highspeed affordable internet. ■boowe are having a big debate o decide what is affordable. Lots of people you talk to say they have the internet now, they have satellitet 150 a month. I dt think s affordable. At the verywe are thinking through how we define affordable that is truly affordable. Anyone who is■ interested to wok with me, it matters to have people who care. We are trying to do this statebystate. I set it up so every state and governor has to show us a plan for their state. In rhode island, eckley evyone s the access to the internet or maybe you live in a highrise. Thats very different so we have decided require the plan to not give anyone money. As soon as they satisfy us that internet. The truth of it is, the Digital Divide in the era of artificial intelligence, it puts the Digital Divide ons arroyos. Kid who is trying to learn and does not have the internet is so behind. Now his fo learn about ai and get further behind. I was in south carolina. I talked to a man in his 80s started because he told me his wife died, the closest spital was an hour away. The doctor offered telehealth. And i was at a broadband event and said please let everyone know about this. It is so than that. Think about your daily lives. So americans can be the smartest , hardest working student you dont stand a chance unless you have the basic and for■ structe including affordable internet. By the way, americans dont want handouts, th jthese issues of dy we have to end. Helped set up what we are going to be talking about for the rest of the day. I eally. I want to make sure there is not one last thoughts but i want everyone to know i heard there were some conversations about algorithms. It matters. As the secretary pointed out, ai is not going away and becoming an increasingly part of our existence. If there are ai hallucinations that areit is complicated. For women in particular and women of color, we have to also think about how we are connecting conversations. We should not be afraid of narrative ai or artificial intelligence. Aware and wary and when you are wary, you start to think about what could work or might work. We need to make sure people who share our values those decisions. Right now, we dont know who is building this, but i am willing to bet money ionat it is not women. We have to think about how we are growing our capacity. We cannot pretend that these are human rights issues, world issues. They Touch Everything we can presume there is any facet o wet the table and making the choice to do better does not change everything for us. I would say looking around the world today, for me its hard to escape the conclusion that the world would be a better lace of more women were in charge. Leading countries, leading companies, leading ai, leading at the highest level of every profession. It is not going well in many ways and i think if women were running more things that it would be better. As frustrating as this work can be, we have to stay in it. Not because Women Deserve do, be the world would be a much better lace, more innovative, fair and mane if we are there and that is why as long as we have been doing itcommitted because we owo one another