This month is also the 15th anniversary of you in Security Council resolution 1325. Which obligated nations, and not just ask pretty please, but obligated nations to include women in all peace negotiations and postconflict reconstruction. So the last decade and a half or so has been a time of great change. Are these anniversaries related . I think they are. I dont think it was a coincidence that young men from nations where women do not enjoy the full spectrum of rights as embodied in the convention on all forms of discrimination against women, with that is an issue. I dont think that is a coincidence at all. As Donald Steinberg has said, it has become my favorite quote of the last year, and you can see that we invited him. Because he wanted to hear we wanted to hear directly from him, not just his quote. Take a look at that quote there. Compare those societies that respect women, and those which dont. Who is trafficking in weapons and drugs . Who is harboring terrorists and starting pandemics . Whose problems acquire u. S. Troops on the ground . There is a one to one correspondence, do not only tell me there is no relationship between National Security and the empowerment of women. And he is right. And what i would like to do now in setting the stage is to explore that proposition in greater detail with you. And sort of open and set the in a sense, the dialogue for the conference. That the security and status of women impacts the security and stability other nations is not some brandnew proposition. For example, way back in 2006, we had kofi annan the then United Nations secretarygeneral say that the world is starting to grasp that there is no policy more effective in promoting development, health, and education, and the empowerment of women and girls. And i would venture that no policy is more important in preventing conflict or achieving reconciliation after a conflict has ended. Perhaps what was lacking in the tiarywas strong evidence yea basis for these assertions. That time is over. What i hope to present in the first few opening minutes of this important conference is a broad survey of such findings. Which i believe demonstrate across a wide variety of dimensions that what is happening with women strongly affects the trajectory of the nationstate and even the international system. So let us take a tour of these dimensions, if you will. Are you interested in future security . If you are, then you should be interested in women. Interested in Food Security . If you are, then you should be interested in women. Women produce most of the worlds food. For example, in subsaharan africa, women perform 80 of agricultural labor. And over 50 of such labor worldwide. But it is also true that women land, even though study after study has shown that childrens caloric intake is highly coordinated with women property rights. The food and Agricultural Organization calculates that if Women Farmers were given the same assistance as men in terms of land Extension Agents and training, malnutrition would drop 70 globally. Remuneration capital on crops is only given to those who own the land. The men. This is despite the fact that study after study has shown that over 90 of a womans earnings go to her family. The only 40 to 60 of a mans earnings go to his family. We know that women are expected to process food, find fuel, find potable water, on top of their other responsibilities with children and agricultural work. They have a triple commitment of time throughout the day. Women are often, however, expected to eat last. Or to eat food of poor quality. This is shown in the fact that two thirds of malnourished children in the world are female children. In many agricultural societies, it is actually women who are responsible for seeing that women and children do not start. Starve. And men in these cultures may find it equally shameful to help their wives, and so they do not assist them, even though studies have shown that men who do assist their wives in these kinds of labors have significantly larger harvests and those that do not. Than those that dont. The question to ask is, might and equitable treatment of women make famine and malnutrition more likely for a nationstate . The answer is wellestablished, it is yes. We can also establish economic prosperity. We can also look at studies on economic prosperity. The world bank did a series of very significant studies several years ago in which they took a variable they call the gender gap. The larger it was, the greater the disparity between the lives of men and women. The smaller the gender gap, the more equitable. What they found is that the larger the gender gap in the society, the lower the gdp per capita of the nation. This was highly significant. The larger the gap, the lower the rate of National Economic growth. When you do not harness the talents and the energy of one half of your population, you are simply not going to grow as fast as other nations. They also found that lower investment in female education linked to strongly Lower National income. And last, other organizations have found that over and over, those developed projects with a gender component are far more successful than those without. So again, we raise the question might inequitable treatment of women make poverty more likely . Again, we could argue yes. Health and women is a topic i think we know quite a bit about now. And the status of women is strongly linked to National Health outcomes. The smaller the gender cap, the lower the infant and Child Mortality rates, and the level of child malnutrition. The smaller the gender gap, the lower the share of household tax on cigarettes and alcohol because women have more of a say in how the income is spent in the household. The larger the gender gap, the higher the aids rate and the overall burden of Infectious Diseases within the population. And lastly, the larger the gender gap, the lower the Life Expectancy not just for women, but for men as well. And so, might and equitable treatment of women make disease more likely in society . I think that is so. Lets go to my stomping ground. I am a specialist in security companies. What we see is very interesting findings, some of which is from my own research. And our own studies, we found a higher level of violence against women, the more likely a nationstate is to be noncompliant with International Norms and its own treaty obligations. The higher the level of violence against women, the worst the nationstates relations with its neighbors. Theger the gender gap more likely a nationstate is to be involved in internation and internation conflict. And the more likely it is to use violence first in a conflict. The higher the level of violence against women, the less peacefully the nationstate will behave in an overall sense in the international system. And some of my earlier work on abnormal sex ratios and security there, we show that in case studies of indian china, that the birth or from post may delete from female infanticide creates a young adult female population that is 15 larger than the female population, fueling what we found is violent crime, general instability, and the potential for regional conflict. So a good question for us to pose is whether inequitable treatment of women makes conflict more likely . We can also look at the dimension of governance, here i am relying on wonderful studies that have come out of the European Union and the interparliamentarian union and so forth. The larger the gender gap in the country, the higher the levels of perceived national corruption. The smaller it is on the other hand, the greater the level of trust in government and the greater the transparency in government. And what researchers have found when they go down into the micro level and they look at what women are doing when they are in the legislature, they have discovered that the representation of women in decisionmaking is higher, more lawmaking revolves around issues of social welfare, fighting corruption, and approving Legal Protection for citizens. And what we have also found, and these are some brandnew studies that are hot off the press, when women are represented in peace negotiations after a conflict, participants are likely to be far more satisfied with the outcome and what we have also found is that the agreement is significantly more durable. It will actually last longer if there is representation of women. So, we might ask ourselves, might and equitable treatment of women make poor government more likely . And of course, we cannot overlook demographics. You really cannot talk about demographics unless you are willing to talk about men and women. And yet sometimes we do talk about demographics as am agency as if womens agency were not part of it. Over and over again we have found that went marriage is an institution that is conceived of as being hierarchical, where marriage is highly in equitable between men and women, unsustainably high levels of population growth often result because a woman is not in control of her body in such marriages. On the other hand, when Society Makes it economically irrational for women to have children by punishing mothers in the workplace, as we see in nations such as japan, subreplacement birth rates often result. Women are not stupid. If you are going to punish them for having children, theyre not going to have children. And lastly, a word has to be said about the overall global sex ratio. The overall global sex ratio should be about 98 men to 100 women, because women tend to out live men. Have a longer Life Expectancy. What we find now in the 21st century is that that global overall sex ratio is now 101. 4 men per 100 women. This is a stunning factoid. What were talking about here is literally tens of millions of missing women, some demographers estimate almost 200 million missing women from the world. My colleague from the university of canterbury and i have been a done a recent survey of childhood sex ratios around the globe. Back in 1995 when we were first conducting the research, there were only five nations that had abnormal childhood sex ratios. When we redid our study this year in 2015, 20 years later, a total of nations is now 19. There are now 19 nations in which childhood sex ratios are significantly abnormal. Indicating that sexelective abortion is taking place. This alteration from 98 to 100, up to 101. 4, that is not the result of any sort of natural plague or disaster. This is a completely manmade alteration of the population of the entire world. And it is worth thinking about. And of course, is such an with such an imbalance, localized and extremely high sex ratios in certain areas of the world for example, we found ratios were there actually 2 1. Two men for every women in specific locales in india and other countries, marriage market obstructions take place. Where men are not able to find marriage partners or form household. And this leads to a deep sense of grievance and instability as well. So we might ask ourselves, might inequitable treatment of women make demographic problems more likely . I think we can say, absolutely. So what we have come to know is that women are not the canary in the coal mine. Oftentimes, this metaphor is used to suggest that where women are hurting, that is a sign that something dysfunctional has happened in society. Yes, that is true. But i would like to suggest that malefemale relations with in the society are the coal mine. And the canaries that are thinking are poverty, and malnutrition, and ill health, and violence and a poor governance, all of these issues at the nationstate level. This is that conceptual brought by women, or as secretary of state Hillary Clinton so dramatically put it in 2012, the subjugation of women is a threat to the Common Security of our world and to the National Security of our country. Which has come to be known as the hillary doctrine. Now in my field of study, security studies, we often talk about this german term called real politik. Otherwise known as realism in american jargon. The ideas that the National Security of the country is best secured by taking an unvarnished look at the realities of the situation and dealing with them forthrightly. Well, if that is the case then, tiary base evidence her we have that means that seeing , women is in fact a pillar of cleareyed realpolitik. Whether we are examining the National Interest in terms of durability of peace accords, Food Security, security demographics National Health, wealth, quality of governance, interstate relations, or any other aspect of National Security, Women Empowerment helps intangible ways. In tangible ways. And i think the rest of the speakers in this conference will be testifying to that fact over and over what they have seen on the ground and what they have seen through their own lived experience. However, that is women in Foreign Policy 101. I would like to suggest that it is not that simple. As patricia and i claim in our new book, the hillary doctrine, and my publisher would like you to know there is a book signing at 5 00. [laughter] it is not simply that we can sprinkle in women, stir it up, and it will get better overnight. That is not the reality. There are some real moral quandaries. And we talk at length in the book about these moral quandaries. In many cases, the United States and other nationstates are forced to stay silent as women are oppressed under certain legal codes. And this is not because we do not care about these women. The archetypal example here would be saudi arabia. While she was secretary of state, despite the fact that Hillary Clinton asserted that the subjugation of women was a direct threat to the security of our national system, Hillary Clinton remained conspicuously silent about the treatment of saudi women. Not because she does not care about those issues. There is no way that one could accuse Hillary Clinton of not sincerely caring about womens issues. But it is because, i think, a very cleareyed view of the alternative. Compared to the alternative sources of power in saudi society, the current saudi government looks really pretty good. So what kinds of silences and we have to maintain in the context where we see no better alternative for women on the horizon . And i am certainly convinced that what we called the arab spring was actually a winter for women in that area. Where rights were summarily and immediately stripped from women as the regime changed to a freer system. Whether you talk to egyptian women, libyan women, even if you talk to tunisian women and others in the region, they can tell you case after case they woke up the next morning and all of a sudden, the right for which they have fought for decades, it was erased with the stroke of a pen. How could that be . Second, it is also very true that we need to be pragmatic. And that sometimes open support for women activists and other societies leaves vulnerable to accusations of intrigue and treason. Are we putting them at risk if we openly support them . That is another big moral quandary. And then there is the issue of youth, or that principle of leaving a conflict zone. And what our obligations are to the women we leave behind. I believe our second panel on the situation of women in afghanistan will be tackling this question. When i visited the United Nations two years ago and had a big lunch with United Nations women, i was told that americans have blood on their hands with respect to places like iraq and afghanistan. That we encourage these women to stand up. And now we have left them defend for themselves. And their fate is our responsibility. If they are murdered, that is blood on our hands. That is another moral quandary. Another one is what i sardonically call the feminists hawks versus pontius pilate. The United States is such a great power, surely we can use that on the half of women worldwide. Using things like military interests to help women may be misguided. Are the women of iraq safer now because the American Military invaded the country . No. Absolutely not. And yet on the other hand, as we look at the case of the women who have been kidnapped and turned into sex slaves, surely the feeling also arises in our breath that cant we americans do something about these women . I think these are two poles, we have to do something. We cannot do something. Because it will make it even worse. That is another moral quandary. And i think as was alluded to, what about our own health . Our own house . Should we clean our own house first . The u. S. Has not and probably will not ever ratified paid maternity leave. I believe there are only three nations in the world that can make that claim. And as Steve Crawford pointed out, slightly less than 20 of our legislature is female. And we have significant levels of violence against women in our society. So what about our own domestic front . Another set of issues that we go over in our book, and i think many panelists talk about, is slow death by bureaucracy. That is a good idea. Such as the hillary doctrine. Wonderful things have taken place, we now have a National Action plan for womens peace and security to be formulated in 2011. The United Nations has not been sitting on their hands, we have a dozen Security Council resolutions demanding and obligating the nations Pay Attention to what is happening to women. For those of you who are policy wonks, you will know the import of this. By golly, we actually have nine gender indicators in the list by which all of our programs are benchmarked. There is now mandatory gender training, so if you want to join the state department, you will be taking courses in gender analysis. The quadrennial diplomacy and Development Review that looks at the activities of the state department and the usaid, the qddr report has numerous mentions of women and their importance to the area of development and diplomacy. In fact, a gender analysis is mandated in all usaid requests for proposal. Again, that is a little wonkish. But it really represents some progress here. And lastly, the department itself has been active in this area. And it has several efforts on securityeace and that we will be talking about in a moment with michele flournoy. But there are problems still. Even under secretary of state Hillary Clinton, the four years she served in that position, some within the administration actually characterize attention to gender as a pet rock that was weighing down our rucksack and so it had to be left by the wayside. There were more important things to do. So people genuflect to the idea that women were important. I can only imagine that secretary of state Henry Clinton was a forceful personality and making sure the people agreed him at least on the surface, the gender was important. But many of them may not have taken it as seriously as she did. And dropped it as soon as the going got tough. In our book, and we even have wonderful comments our own dean, there was a lack of will at the top. These issues were too easily put aside when the going got tough. The second thing that i believe has undermined the notion that women matter in Foreign Policy is the fact that we have no hard targets yet for a lot of these issues related to women. So for example, i think i told you that United NationSecurity Council resolution 1325 mandates the presence of women at peace negotiations. But there is no one enforcing that. Even the u. S. State department has a pretty spotty track record of including women in peace negotiations. So for example when secretary of state john kerry was assembling negotiations over the syrian situation, outside activists actually had to ask, where are the women . We are obligated under 1325 to make sure they are at the table. The types of implementers we have who are running brothels who cannot work with women in their own office who underlined the gender programming at every turn. These are chronic issues we face. Which brings us to this conference. Tot is one of the reason hold an intensive, highlevel conversation about these issues. Questions be asking like what does a state policy that takes women seriously look like. Foreignthis the sweden minister has announced sweden will have a policy that at the same time we know she was willing to back down on criticism of saudi arabia. So how does this happen . What does this look like . What is the United States responsibility towards the women of saudi arabia. A doctrine suggests what . What is right behavior in leaving a conflict zone. What is a doctrine that takes women seriously look like . I dont think we know that either. What representations would we give to the next u. S. President. What would be on there to do list. Our third panel will address that very question. Addressing concrete recommendations and challenges at this timely season of campaign and debate. To do list be on the of american president s. I think the theme of this conference is, how do we do this . Because i am not sure it that we know. Weve had enough experience that we should be able to do and after action report. How do we avoid the same mistakes the next time. I have just a couple of concluding thoughts. I have studied the these issues for many years and i have compiled probably the largest on women where we have information on over 300 sd 176ables for 100 countries. I have been in a position to track changes. Progress and regress for women over the last 20 years at a very detailed level and i have come to a couple conclusions. The first one is, i do not believe there can be peace within nations or between nations until there is peace between men and women. The two halves of humankind globally and within every society. The two groups through whom the future of these nations come. The children of these nations. Deepe also come to the conclusion that the roots of many things that we value, such as democracy and human rights are to be found in the character of societal relations between men and women. How can you have democracy at haveational level if you no true decisionmaking power in the household . How would anyone in that society understand democracy if what they see as hypocrisy within each household. It will not happen. These are things that are off in not spoken of by the that are critical to speak of at this time. And so, without further a do, that is one of the most important discussions we can have is the discussion that we are going to have today. So i am thrilled to be a part of it. Lets begin. Thank you very much. [applause] i would like to invite shell to come up to the stage. While she does, we will have a conversation with michele flournoy. Michele flournoy is a cofounder and chief executive officer of the center for a new American Security. Familiar with that organization, it is one of the brightest most innovative organizations around. She served as a director for Foreign Policy from 20092012. She was principal advisor of the secretary of defense in the policies,n of defense oversight of plans and operations. She led the development of the 2012 strategic guide for the department of defense. She is definitely someone we want to hear from. More, iou like to read would refer you to the bios at the end of the program which are much longer than can recite during the conference today. Michelle, thank you so much for being here. I am grateful to you for coming. I just read in your biography, you have been in politics at a high level in the depart in of defense. The center for American Security is in the business of providing recommendation for the establishment. We the view, what should place that issues of womens empowerment for security planning . Michelle first of all, thank you for inviting me to join you today. I cannot give a more important and timely topic to wrestle with. I think your presentation was very important. From a goalt is not point. I think the malefemale outcomes that the affect interNational Security, our security, that is to be brought much more to the forefront. I think a lot of what you talked about, whether it was about security, poverty, propensity for violence and cant ask, we talk a good game about primary objectives being deterring and preventing conflict rather than having to respond to crises and fight wars and so forth for top but we do not do a good job of actually implementing our policy in a way that is really focused on prevention. A lot of what i saw on your presentation is things we could actually be tracking as to inform our policy on where do we need to be making what kind of invest using all of the tools to shape some of these situations and prevent conflict or crises. And it is much more costly in terms of one and treasurer to deal with. That is great. Plan,the National Action from your perch in the department of defense, how was that . I know the pentagon is a huge place. But was the womens peace and security agenda recognized as the important . Or did it have to be developed over time . Responsibility do they have two women in their campaigns in afghanistan and iraq . Michelle i think at first, the reactions ranged from stupid vacation, like, what is this and what does it have to do with me and what are you asking me to to kind of an eyerole of some critically politically correct thing. The interesting thing that i found it is if you take that highlevel of everything from bafflement to then when you started you go down to people on the ground and you talk to the marines who first worked for female , the first time they started to be able to access the female population in afghanistan through the marines, and a lot of information and started having a much better picture of what was really going on in their area of responsibility, starting with being able to engage those women bring them into the discussion of what needed to be done having a better sense of how their investment can have a greater impact. Totallyt to get a different appreciation. Most of the p all i had the privilege of working with, they were all thinking, what were, what you are hearing from people on the ground, engaging women, and actually works. And so as that started filtering moree started getting a engaged engine interest at the policy level. This did not trickle down, it had to trickle up. Michele it was being driven at the policy level. But it was sort of a reluctant compliance as opposed to embracing it. Once you saw that, i think you got a different level of reaction. , there is so much turnover in the military that one learning curve, you can get to the point where you can start over with the next unit that comes in and has to relearn and if that transference of knowledge is happening, it has to happen in training. It needs to be a part of how new unit is our trained because otherwise it is like you roll the ball up the hill and the next deployment, it rolls over you and you are down at the bottom having to go up hill again. That is something a future of secretary of defense might be interested in. It is actually kind of mainstream with some of this training so you do not lose the memory of what people gain. I have been through this with other issues before. Back in the 90s, coming out of somalia, coming out of the experience, there was a time when most military training stop at fighting. You plan, you deploy, you take down the regime or exercise. I was like, wait a minute. Then what . Where is the reconstruction . The truth was, it was not in the lanning or the exercise. People look to you like, it is not really me. You have got to get it and headed. In the doctrinal training and exercises to really have it become real and sustained the ent integrated into the understanding of how we are affected in the military. I have heard you talk about how commanders are some kind of Early Warning indicator of what is going on in a community will stop can you talk about this idea of that commander has the idea of what goes on with the women. Think, certainly areas where the oppression of , im thinkingter of a place like afghanistan that tended to be the most difficult environment to create security. I also think women were an intelligence,t of whether it was helping to figure out to figure out who the bad guys really were or where the ied fields were or who was corrupt. Who was trustworthy and legitimate as a lawyer versus doing other things. You got a totally different, more nuanced picture of the society you were walking into and i think those commanders that figured out how to leverage that did a lot better. I would like to pick up on your idea of sustainability for aboutte stop you spoke how crucial they were in a instances. To avoid this tragedy. One of the things that women know is where their children should not play. Because they will be blown up by an ied or something. I could not help but notice the notle engagement teams have gone away. There was no constant to civilization constitutionalism nation. , thatmed like a runoff all of that experience scattered , is this Something Department of defense should be concerned about . You definitely have to be concerned about what we learned over the course of long operations. Bestvelop a lot of practices but they are not necessarily institutionalized or cap turn. There is always the risk the next time you forget what you learned. If this would work as a career path per se. But it is relevant to the discussion we are having now about what military up ration specialty should be open to women. Panetta,ow, secretary when secretary of defense, he said these services have until january 2016 to comply with a policy that opens all military specialties two women or ask for a waiver. There was a story in the wall street journal this morning about the marines, having done various research and saying, signaling they may ask for a number of waivers. Integrateda fully ground force you would not necessarily need to ground teams. The women are there, they are art of the unit. Not a separate entity. So i think some of whether we need to in still to civilize engagement teams depends on whether they need to have this operations forces. I think it is fascinating while we just had a different attitudes that are prevailing there is a general component. Fewer issues of people who are younger and on the field and in the ground in my appear experience. We have had a few women who have actually made it through ranger school. Was not sure if they would be able to be in any combat area. Meanwhile, one of the most elite and difficult and challenging, point blank said, if women can screening and training course, we would welcome women. Anybody who can get that course through that course, male and email, are welcome. So it is interesting to see how it is playing out. I think it will affect not only the issue within the u. S. Military, but also how we perform where we are interacting women ares. Already integrated into the team. I wonder how this differential will play out. At some time, we will probably michele thestop marines will look a little bit silly for wavering. New york timesou version of that article and their tactic was that it was some sort of operational criteria. About the mixture of men and women. People have tohe be able to perform the tasks. Different types of units have different tasks. I dont think it necessarily correlates to the actual performance of tasks and units. Assume you could get the standards right, that is great. But the whole unit cohesion issue is overblown. Challenging,ost the teams that face the greatest challenge it are called special operation eight teams. These are those who go where no one else goes. The most isolated, the most hostile. Operating on their own in teams of 1215. Many of them have women , forrated as logisticians the purpose of in gauging the population female population. To a team, every single team i talked to and interviewed felt the women are medically improved Mission Performance and there were was no problem living in these conditions with women. It was a nonissue. Policyeeling was this debate was completely divorced from their experience. Now, maybe you can in some cases where there have been issues. But i think it is a question of leadership, climate, culture, and accountability and i think it is something that if women can meet the standards, the door can make open and we the question of cohesion a nonissue in my view. It may dissolve to climate and culture. Michele they are making an argument. We have to look very carefully at the details of the standards and the test that have been performed and so forth. Example, the fire department, when women were encouraged to join, that artificially stringent physical requirement. You were right. A successfulually court challenge. The thing that is not typically adequately weighed is trying to understand best practices on management and leadership. All of the business literature is clear on the issue that if you have a more diverse team, the performance of the company is better and the leadership makes better decisions. The diversity of the team is one attempts to increase performance and quality of leadership. That has to be weighed. That is a key part of the equation. We would be remiss if we did not talk about the issue of Sexual Assault. That we haveime our first two female rangers graduating we also have stunning figures on Sexual Assault in the military. Who can be to that . Michele it is a her redness and unacceptable problem and i think that we have to have a zero tolerance policy. The big debate is whether to try and handle this through the chain of command but supplement that with advocates for the victims. Better accountability. Or, take this out of the chain of command and create a separate system of justice to try to get at this. When i was first wrestling with this issue i did not know where i stood on that debate. I asked to have dinner with senior lawyers in the military and the first female military judges to get there perspectives. They were from different generations and services. That theyeresting in were unanimous in their view. Objectid, if the overall of is the full, equal integration of women in the United States military, taking this out of the normal system goal. Ly sets back that because now, women are special cases. I roll. Eyeroll. The tools are there to make this work. Need to augmented with better representation and to advocates and a range of other things. Be what we need to do is prosecuting people seriously. Dishonorably discharging the offenders, making examples of them. Making examples of the commanders who look the other you look theg, other way and your career is over. That will end career, not advance your career. They said the system can work with the right leadership, right accountability, and right implementation. I think that what is being tried right now, i dont think enough is being done but i think that that is probably the path we need to try first. Is it important to understand the statistics are such that michele there are more men sexually assaulted than women in the army every year. Men and is an issue for women in the force. Aren, i think the services approaching it somewhat differently and some cases the zero tolerance policy is being made will and in others, there is more work to be done. About the you see role of women in this . We talked about women needing to be at the table. But they also need to be at the would you assess what we are doing there . Michele i think we have made progress but we have a long wait to go. Being better teams when they are more diverse, i think that is true with holocene making and National Security as well. My first tour of the pentagon in the 90s, it was a lonely thing leader at that time. I said, lets have a lunch for all of the senior Women Leaders. We sat at one table, there was either one or 10. That there wasrs a conspiracy, the women getting together. What was going on . Now, when i was in the pentagon in 2012, if you invited all the Women Leaders in the junta gone, you would overflow the tiny room. I said, that is good. But, at the very highest level it is still often, the only women in the room for many meetings. It is improving, but still, women are definitely the minority. Since the 1990s, better now. Would you entertain a few questions . We have two microphones here, one in each aisle. If you would please come down and state your name and where you are from and to you are affiliated with. Takeve about 15 minutes to your questions. Please dont be shy. Twos two women standing there work for me. [laughter] my name is jane. I am with texas state womens university. Could you elaborate about the luncheon you had . The system of insider versus go out side . Judges viewpoint was the system can take care of this, but it is not a properly used. Their first point was this was about leadership and command. Understand their future in the service depends upon how they handle these issues on their watch. Saying, they did a good job in afghanistan so i will look the other way. That is not ok. Part of their future and performance is how they handle these things that happened in their unit. Moving them to the side, pretending theyre not happening, that is a careerending proposition for them. Making me thing is Justice System work and Holding People accountable. Stop view is, we should pleabargaining. Charges. Stop lowering andhe evidence is clear there is a conviction, we should be drumming these offenders out of the service with dishonorable discharges as publicly as we can. We should make examples of them. One of the things that appears to be true although the data is iffy, as back in the time of a rock, when we had the surge, and the army had to add global force very quickly and they were keeping people in place, not service,hem leaves the extending tours for 1216 months, part of what happened during that time is the army and granted an impressive number of waivers for people who had criminal convictions. Domestic violence convictions. Some of the real offenders that have been found in the sexual whoult domain are people have those. They need to be found and driven out of the force. Thank you. Morning. My name is julie thompson. I am a graduate student of International Affairs at the bush school. I am glad you talked about how the number of the women in the pentagon has grown since the 1990s. I just wanted to ask you about how that is continuing to grow and i feel that as somebody who wants to be in National Security, we still feel we are minorities in our classes, in our internships there is still not enough of us. Wanted to ask, what advice you have for women who are starting out their career in security at who want to be in your position, what advice you have for us . Dont shy away from these security issues. It gets better with every at illustration. We are seeing women coming out of securityrelated graduate programs. The pipeline is there. The jobs are opening up more and more at the top. There, the you get opportunities will be there. Is,second thing i would say actual harassment, when you encounter bias, one of my first meetings at the pentagon back in the 1990s, i was 29yearsold, a civilian female, democratic onestar, and a general said, what is a nice girl like you doing here . Said, well, what is a nice girl like you doing in a place like this . Let it be the other persons problem. What passed it and say, in a week you will have no question about why am here because i will not your socks off with how i am working. So, as the provost said, i am an incredible woman. Incredible because she managed to put a sentence together. Wow. To let it be the other persons problem. Mentors thating can see you for white you are and who will appreciate the work you do and promote you. Hi, i am a professor of Political Science at a a dam. A professor of Political Science at a m. You just mentioned in your ice at junior college, dont shy away from the hard issues. Make sense. I am curious about the question of should that the eight career path . Let me ask the question of oath of you. Find women in the legislature in other countries and oftentimes, if we pursue a poor a position, it is not good for the career. , do you think this might be a dangerous career path for a woman taking a career in the military . Thinking is, at this i am, it becomes as if, the mail infantry officer, i dont have to worry about this. I am the senior general, i do not have to worry or think about this for the so i worry about it being used as a way of, we have these special women who deal with the special issues as opposed to really mainlining and mainstreaming and integrating this into how we think about approaching these operations w rit large. I think this will depend on how broader integration is. In my perfect world, you have women in the broad range of ground units who essentially can that astrained to have part of their traditional duties but it would be integrated and you would not have to recreated where othersthing could marginalize the issue. Good morning. I am a first year student. Is, what about race . What conversations are happening about intersection of race and gender . There are very few people of color here, very few people of color in the military. What conversations are happening about race in the military, defense, and is very and security . At the when you look large, theit military has integrated much better than the rest. Program,at the phd that pipeline is not there. As a demonstration projects, were partnering with Thurgood Marshalls college fund. To create a type line of interns a pipeline of interns to be trained and launch into the federal government. We are a tiny little ink tank but we are going to prove the concept this works. You can train them, you can make them successful. Then we are going to go to every other think tank in washington to create more of a pipeline. When i was under and trying to hire, the type line was appalling. That is great. They queue. We have time for one more question. High. I am a retiree at the department of Political Science here at texas a m. I read about the two women in the special torsos in the army and it was breath taking what they accomplished and went through. For men and for women. I could not help but think in reading about this, is this really necessary . You mentioned a little bit about maybe some analysis was being done on exactly what is necessary to do these jobs. In policene it departments, fire departments, and we found that there was a lot of stuff that was not necessary. Is there any work done, is there an analysis being done . That work willk of a largethe extent number of waivers are ultimate lee requested. That will derive a much more rigorous approach. Fortruth is, the standards marine corps platoon are not going to be different from a ranger battalion. Rangers are in elite. Rangern wash out of training. Most men wash out of navy seal training. There are being asked to do more things than most people in the military do. You have to go specialty by specialty and really define what are the standards to do the job well and that will take some time. Willcope of the effort depend upon how many waivers are requested. But i am confident that kind of work will be demanded. It has been being done in a haphazard way. Much of it in internal he. I dont think that will be accepted. I think there will be a much of waypartial and object to look at this issue if the waivers are pursued on a larger scale. Were about to take a 10minute rate. Before we do, join me in thanking michele flournoy. More now from texas a ms bush school of government texas and them university. This panel is one hour and 10 minutes. Thank you everyone. I am so honored to be here. With new generations coming behind us. That,irst one to say although all of us here are so disappointed that Gloria Steinem could not join us in person, we are thrilled to learn she is with us now, not just in spirit, but watching all proceedings via lifestream. So, howdy gloria [applause] like valerie, i think we really want to dive into the discussion of the biographies of these amazing experts, the vests, change leaders here today. If i were to list their accomplishments it would take the whole time for our panel. So i will just mention reflate. I encourage you to look up their bios, their amazing accomplishments. First we have with us today robin morgan. Robin is an awardwinning novelist, poet, activist, journalist, editor. She is the author of 22 books. For me, the thing that really grabbed me looking at the body of for work worthy titles of her classic anthologies. Owerfulm is , andhood is globalm sisterhood is forever. Thenext speaker, i love range of topics she has covered in her teaching and her experience and act 70s. Few,ntion a democratization, politics of recovery. Womens participation in public decisionmaking. Public accountability systems. In terms of policymaking, preventing Sexual Violence in conflict. Affective peacebuilding. Some of the names, a conviction must be moreople effectively engaged in the struggle for gender inequality. Another theme, the value of Norm Development and addressing the and in this agenda. The capacity of technology to enable a deepening of the womens rights process. I picked a phrase out of one of her writings that i think is fabulous. Womens human rights have no country will stop we are especially pleased to have with us on this panel patricia. For one is standing in of our colleagues, lauren wolf, who was hit with strep throat. I understand lauren is also with us via the live stream. So, howdy lauren