Transcripts For CSPAN Washington This Week 20140125

Least one woman is on a company board, that company is 40 less likely to have to restate their earnings. In light of their financial collapse, i think every company should want women on their corporate boards. I think theres a recognition that women bring something unique to the workplace. We have a different, often times we have a different management style a different problem solving style, we see growth differently, and this combination of male and female voices together is what creates much better policy, both better Public Policy from a government perspective and better policy from a corporate perspective. I think that for those who would like women not to participate in the workplace or not participate in our economy, its undervaluing women and undervaluing what their contributions are and i think thats a mistake because again, why wouldnt you want all of your talent trying to move the u. S. Economy forward . Any Clear Thinking person would want that. I think we just have to keep advocating the reasons why womens voices matter so much, what we do bring to the table, why its good for our economy, why its good for our families and urge leaers to make sure we change the workplace rules to reflect who is doing the work. Women are ding the work all across america. We should be supporting them. Because still, we will take responsibility for 70 of child cair and household work in our home and so we do need that flexibility. We do need to be paid fairly. We do need to make sure that our Young Children are wellocked looked after so we can do our job and stay on track in our careers. Quick question here. Hank wallace. To encourage those voices, senator, to sound more authoritative, what can you do to encourage a new generation to say instead of ask, to avoid talk but actually to say declarative statements without a question mark at the end of at the end of the sentence . The interesting thing about women is we often are collaborative in nature. We generally prefer to be well liked. We like people around us to be happy. And so women often whats wrong with you . Its what we do. We are happy people and we like everyone to be happy around us. Its some skills we learn often as being mothers and daughters, we are the ones who feed everybody at the table, we are the ones that make sure our kids are happy and healthy. Thats the kind of work we typically do. And so theres this issue of likeability. And so for a lot of young women, they want to be well liked. And so they may often feel insecure that if theyre too aggressive, too pushy, or too declarative, they wont be well liked. I encourage the women that work for me to be aauthoritative, to state their opinions, to hold their ground and if they want to do it in a nice way, god bless them. I prefer to work in a nice way too. But they have to know that they are responsible for their job, for their opinions, for what they have to do as i try to encourage young women who work for me to add that professional veneer. Theres a certain standard of professionalism that is required for success in business in general and so to meet those standards, you do have to be blessed like a young girl and more like a young aspiring woman or professional. Just work at it. Its part of our nature and its not a bad part of our nature, its just part of our nature. Sometimes you have to learn skills to excel in whatever profession you choose so for example, if you are a young lawyer and youre going in front of a judge, theres a certain way youre going to need to dress and speak and perform to be well received and you just need to know what those parameters are so if you want to be well received you can meet those ideals. And so its a choice every young woman is going to make about how she wans to be and how she wants to be received. Whats most important is to give women the tools they need and knowledge they need about how to be successful and they can make their own decisions. And a final question to get us out the door. When you think about the issues you are talking about here, what has more influence, party or gender . When you talk about this agenda, do you feel you get more agreement from male democratic colleagues or female republican colleagues . \[laughter] the fair answer is, it depends. There are many female republican colleagues who agree completely on this agenda, i get along very well and we do consensus building and bipartisan legislation. Most of my male colleagues who are democrats fully agree with this agenda. Some may hesitate. But that means theres room for growth. So i am eager to talk to them about those issues. With that, thank you. \[applause] please welcome to the podium hi. Good afternoon. Hi maim is sara j. Aruman. My story is that my life changed dramatically on seventh, 2001. On september 11, 2001. In my case there was a restaurant at the top of World Trade Center tower one called windows on the world. On that morning, 73 workers died and 250 workers lost their jobs and about 13,000 restaurant workers lost their jobs in the months and weeks following the tragedy. I was asked to start a Relief Center for those who lost their jobs an survivors after 9 11. We called it roc, the restaurant opportunity center. Its grown into a national movement. We have 13,000 restaurant workers in 32 cities across the country, about 100 employer partners who work with us, providing livable wages and good working conditions and several thousand consumer members. And weve grown so fast thank you. Why have we grown so fast . Weve grown so fast because this industry just continues to explode. The Restaurant Industry right now is the second largest private sector employer in the united states. One in 12 americans right now works in the Restaurant Industry. Over 10 million workers and yet it happens to be the absolute lowest paying employer in the united states. Every year the department of labor reports the 10 lowest paying jobs in america and every year the seven lowest paying job, seven of the 10 and the two absolute lowest paying jobs are the people who cook and serve our food. Why . Why . How is it youve got the largest and Fastest Growing industry proliferating the lowest paying jobs . Its because of the National Restaurant association which we call the other n. R. A. Which back in 1996 under the leadership of a man named herman cain who you may remember tried to run for president. Under the leadership of herman cain they struck a deal with congress where they said we, the other n. R. A. , will not oppose an increase in the overall minimum wage as long as the minimum wage for tips workers stays frozen forever. So its been frozen at 2. 134 for the last 22 years. And who are tips workers . They are not the guy at the fancy fine dining restaurant on the corner of this building. 70 of tipped workers are women. They work at the ihop and the apple bees and the olive garden and red lobster and dennys. They suffer three times the poverty rate of the rest of the u. S. Work force and u. S. Food stamps at double the rate of the rest of the u. S. Work force. The women who put food on our table cant afford to put food on their own familys table. What else does it mean . It means when you live on a peage of 2. 13 an hour your wages are so low they go entirely to taxes and you live entirely off our tips. When you live after your tips your rent and bills go up and down do not go up and down but your income shifts from day to day, week to week, year to year, month to month, based on the pleasure of a customer and whether you let, as a woman, that customer touch you or look at you in a certain way. You are entirely reliant on the mercy of those who pay your tips who pay your wages, which by the way, is not your employer. My dream, my dream is that no woman in america should have to live off the mercy of customers. No woman should live off tips. No industry should be able to say, we are the only industry that shouldnt have to pay our own workers wages, you the customers should pay our workers wages for us. Tipped workers are 70 female means that this is the only industry that has found to engage in legal gender discrimination. Making this dream a reality means many things. It means women lifted out of poverty. Not living at the mercy of customers tips. [applause] please welcome to the stage our guests. [applause] hi everybody. We have heard from a movement leader, activists, and organizer. Before that, we heard from a senator. Those were conversations about policies. The idea is to bring it back to the ground level. Speak to some of the individual people who might be affected by some of these changes. Who can tell us our stories. And tell us what it is like to be an individual human being. A young woman living life in america today. Hopefully that will be a valuable perspective. This is a life ed session. Gracie, taz, and kelsey come from the leadership project in new york. We will hopefully have a bit of a conversation roundrobin style. We will start with the question of what challenges have you gone through . We will start with you, gracie. One of the biggest struggles i have had to overcome has been my financial situation with my mother. She is a single mother. My father left around 2006. It has been pretty rough. Poverty has always looked like 20,000 below the poverty line for a three person family. I have had to avoid the landlord at 1 00 in the morning. That is what my struggle has been. When i was younger, that was on top of health struggles. I dont want to say i am over that. Im in the process of overcoming. It is a process. Thank you. [applause] what about you . Im in the process of overcoming my struggle. I live in a singleparent household. My struggle is my dependency on my mother who has a dependency on the government. She is making enough for one person, but not for the seven people in my household. I am only 17 so i cannot overcome this myself. I am tried to go to college and get education. I have a scholarship to a college which i want to attend. But the scholarship does not cover half of the tuition. Might problem is trying to get through college. Thank you. [applause] i am kelsey. One of the challenges i have overcome was the language barrier. When i was oneyear old, occurrence at me to peru to live with my grandparents. Because of the economy, they were not stable enough to care for me and have a healthy household. They sent me to peru. When i came back when i was eight, it was hard for me trying to live without my grandparents and forming a relationship with kids that spoke a different language. I overcame trying to get along with people i really wasnt used to. [applause] thank you so much. You are so young and done so much in your lives. What would you say as you go forward . What are the challenges you are facing . One thing that has helped me has been a safe space. It is a space where people can speak and share ideas and be themselves. And inclusive space. It is a support system. I have had two in high school. I have been learning about College Since 14. I got a fulbright scholarship to university in indiana. [applause] another space it is an inclusive space where i could be vulnerable. It is hard to say, i am poor. I feel like women, daughters and moms, they need spaces where it is ok for them to speak. Especially in a society where they are told not to speak. We can share our stories and be ok with telling them and not fear being judged. That is what we need. Spaces where a woman can be vulnerable. But not make it seem like it is bad, it is strength. Is the strength. How about you . To bounce off of what she said, i find it hard to say you are poor and then find someone who cares and wants to help you. I need money. [laughter] i go to a charter school. I have been part of the kip system from fifth grade to 12th grade. I am certain they dont have enough money to get me through college and everybody else in my school. When i need is money. Thats what i need is money. I need role models. I feel like the industry i want to go into which is business does not have role models that look like me. I feel like finding people that look like me and do the things that i want to pursue is what i need. Thank you all three of you. Your voices are so powerful. Please welcome to the stage steve clemons. And more guests. Thank you. Before i get the panel going, a lot of you have jackets next to you. There are people wanting to sit. If you find a jacket that belongs to somebody else, stuff it under the chair. We are going to do fantastic sessions. This front row has been here all morning. They deserve extra credit. [applause] we will give you a gold star. I am the editor at large of the atlantic. This has been an amazing day. Here is the shriver report. As Maria Shriver said, it is inspiration for the heart and head. We have a fantastic panel of people who have been doers. A lot of people have been taking individual response ability for themselves and sharing stories about how they have navigated the most horrible of circumstances. There are others who have set the stage for a lot of what has been going on. Today we have practitioners on the policy side. The doing side. We want to start with kirsten lodal. She is the cofounder and chief executive officer. This is ann marie mosley. And this is kasim reed. Thank you very much. We do every policy area with you, it seems. This is the one that is your favorite. And this is randy. 16 years ago, we started this group. I am interested in the story and what animated you to decide that changing womens opportunities was the you wanted to go. The inspiration came out of volunteering in head start. Feeling that in addition to providing children with exceptional opportunities, we also needed to be providing support to their parents and families. Helped him find housing, excellent jobs, education for themselves and their children. In the last 15 years, we have helped over 100,000 families move away from the key lesson we have learned at lift and what our data supports is that when they put women in the drivers seat of their own journey, we will see the greatest success. When we put them in the driver seat, and map our programs according to their needs, women will be more active participants. They will become better lifelong advocates. They will rise to their aspirations. Can you give us an example of where you have seen certain patterns i think many of us know people who were impacted in dramatic ways by the financial crisis. Can you share how you have done what you have done . We pair women and families with a dedicated advocate. Who works with them to find all the necessary resources and opportunities they need to get ahead. A member right here in d. C. Is one example of how a symbol hardship can drive someone. She grew up middleclass. She had a long and extensive work history. When she came to lift, she was demoralized by a health challenge. She felt the only choice was a choice between unstable temporary shelter and homelessness. Her aspiration was to exit her situation. By working with her she actually moved to become a homeowner. She has a new lease on life. That story exemplifies the fact that people end up in or close to poverty for many reasons. That means that Everyone Needs Something Different to navigate away from the brink. The only way we can be effective is if we listen first to what people need. And then design programs and services accordingly. You deal in a similar area. Part of what you have been doing is a two generation strategy. What does that entail . Thank you very much. It is great to be here. We have been a yearlong partner with the shriver report. One thing we want to put out there sometimes we talk about the Publicprivate Partnership and forget about the people in the middle. The point you just made, ill use that as a segue. We listened to a range of mothers and also boys and girls in middle and high school about what did the world look like for them. Thinking about the needs i am reiterating the themes confidence and respect. College is almost the new high school. The importance of being money and market savvy. The importance of mentors. We talked about how stretched single moms are. Also with teachers and coaches who were playing a vital role. My daughter says, it is so simple mom. When we think about the growing huge spike of women headed families, and the challenges of that. For us it means education. How do we bring education together a post secondary education. For us at the aspen institute, lift is lifting off. We are tracking 100 models across the country. One example we were tipping our hat to maria. When we go back to the first architecture for the two generation approach, i think it started at the shriver Kitchen Table. We are working on 2. 0 here. It is important for us to be adaptive with how the world has changed. Lets take head start. There is an Amazing Program in tulsa. They said, we will give every kid everything we can. Every best practice and promising program. When the mother comes, we lose them. They created a program for the mothers and fathers. While the kids were in head start, they found a way to work with them to create a coaching circle. To get them it into tulsa tech. They found partners and employers. We want to stick with these parents because we know for some of the women on the brink, a broken car, you miss a day at work. Lets have a carpool system to take her to work and get the car fixed. Lets double down and get better permanent results. Is that program in place now . Yes. It has local and national support. It has a grant with the department of health and human services. It is best when the social contract is working. With parents are designed and involved. We have talked a lot in the past about the classic role that teachers often played in their communities. Points of light and leadership. Structure. A lot of that has been under attack and eroded. Aft has taken on the responsibility tons of households that are women, single headed households. I would love to get your take on how you see these questions from a Leadership Perspective and some of the whole family perspective. First of all, i am delighted to be on this panel. I want to tip my hat to Maria Shriver. We have been talking about women, children, and poverty. That is really cool. [applause] teachers let me just say yesterday, in west virginia, before the schools were reopened because of the chemical leak, a head start teacher who knew that her kids were not getting hot ill for the last three days organize to get 75 meals packed up. She got them to all the families in charleston, west virginia. That is the legacy of head start. It simplifies who teachers are. They are the First Responders to poverty and families that are on the brink. I sit here both as a teacher and a labor leader. We look at it in terms of these issues women have fewer benefits. All the issues surrounding kids. One can be one issue away from the brink. One healthcare crisis away from the brink. There are lots of systemic things that we need to do. Like paid sick leave. That gets to two of the three issues. If your kids are sick and your employer says you cannot take a day off, you have a problem even though you may have a federal right to take a day off. Ironically, when we had more unions, one of the things we would negotiate was paid sick leave. That is part of the benefit structure. It was organized in the way that if you were a teacher, if somebody was a substitute, the other kids do not get it. If you have to take your mom or your child to the doctor. There is an interplay here between some of the some of the things we used to have. It is interesting that the paid sick leave issue has become such a issue. In terms of direct intervention, i am very much into the lift program. Having you doing it on a sustainable scale. It is a sustaining avenue. There are three things i want to throw out. Number one, this notion around schools, wraparound services. Take what we are doing in cincinnati. A lot of the things that this mayor is trying to do in atlanta. You immediately have a two generation approach of prewrapped services around schools. There are afterschool programs that we wraparound in cincinnati. Programs for kids who have had kids. There is a beautiful, wonderful prek program. It helps parents learn parenting skills. Number two, i direct program that actually helps kids with mentoring issues and also in terms of communities. We have lost this and i would push to have it again. We had it in baltimore and new york and other places. A program of having teacher assistance in schools. They are now middleclass jobs if you do the following things. A lot of people who are assistant teachers get the bug to teach. When you have moms and grandmoms who get the bug to teach, that is amazing. We negotiated to have college paid for and have a career ladder. That path in new york city this is an Amazing Program to actually create real middle class jobs. I think there are about 50,000 people in it. The last piece i would raise is other kinds of things like the childcare workers that have come out we have been organizing them. Lets try and make sure we create real jobs so we can deal with some of the other issues including the issue of raising wages. We have three practitioners here who are trying to not away at the 42 million women at or the edge of poverty. You are a mayor so you are blamed for everything. Im so glad. Beyond the blame game, can you share with us your take on this and how you are trying to change the habits of the city and the interaction with women . I believe that the biggest thing that you and i could do is to listen to women. [laughter] im not try to have a hit line. The City Attorney is a woman. My chief of staff is a woman. I got elected with 84 . [applause] what we should be trying to do is create an ecosystem to take the problems on that Maria Shriver has raised and we have talked about. The way you take it honest to have examples that you can point you directly, we live in a world where we like concrete examples and concrete results. Atlanta has one of the longest traditions of encouraging Women Entrepreneurship in terms of who we do business with as any major city in america. We hold that up as an example. Were going to have to have more women entrepreneurs. When we talk about the start of culture, we are failing to talk about women entrepreneurs. Im going to take a successful route and extended to the womens entrepreneurs center. I was talking to women who live in atlanta. They said when they start businesses, one of the biggest impediments is office space and feeling safe in their environment. When they start up a business, she cant say, come by my business or here is my home phone. That adds a layer to the challenges facing women. I went out to raise private capital. I will have a Blue Ribbon Commission of entrepreneurs. We will select the most talented 15 women. We have office space and support. they get 18 months to chase their dream. We are going to remove the impediment. I heard it from women who had started businesses. They dont want to go out and have to sign a commercial lease. They dont want to have to operate out of their home. We can continue to give the example after example of what works. We will change our behavior internally. I am ordering another look at the citys equal pay issues. These are all things that mayors can just do. We will go through our behavior and see if we are paying equal pay. If we are not, we will change it. Finally, folks have been talking about the increase in the minimum wage. As soon as it led to got fiscally strong, i made the decision that everybody that works in the city will earn 10 or more. That includes women. I did it and made the decision. A couple of other cities . I did it in the south. If you can do it in atlanta, georgia we are time constrained. Steve ratner showed these great charts. The area with the least economic mobility is the south. Atlantic is becoming an exception. I want to thank you. We dont have a lot of time. We have two power panels backtoback. Perhaps the question to ask when everyone is coming up with such interesting methodologies, the system is stacked against many women. Stacked against many men. It is stacked against a lot of people were trying to get ahead. The system is not as flexible we could go the more Caring Society with more facts ability and it is not there with more flexibility in his is not there. I am wondering if you can do your job, can you work around the resource challenges that we have today . Two points. We have fundamentally disconnected our values and our conversation about the economy. If we get back to what is the American Dream . Go to work in by the rules, and you still cannot make it . That is nonsense. We have not had that conversation updated. This is a group of influencers. There is power to refrain that conversation. When you get to better answers, you have to connect with your values. I dont know whether this is a washington conundrum or across the country. I think there is a lot of money in the world. Is the money going to where it can be most effective, we all would like more money. But we have to be smarter about how we are currently using and tracking our money. When we think about the two generation approach you have to spend a little to get a little. You have all these programs for parents and for kids, do they talk to each other . You have to get that are about our answers, but dont shy away from the large conversation that we have let our obsession with the market run wild. Apart from the usual spending level conversations, we need to focus on the fact that we have tools that we did not have it years ago when we launched the war on poverty. We can manage our new years fitness plans with her smartphones. Why cant we redeploy that technology to help families access resources and services that they need . Companies like amazon have a good out that the biggest prediction of shareholder value is customer satisfaction. There are things that we can be doing today, even as congress has trouble making decisions. We need both. Most of us need a ladder. You dont just jump to the top rung. You have to walk up the stairs. If you think about the American Dream that way, this is the debate that happens all the time. Any time we talk about resources, there is a group that thinks we are talking about handouts. We need handups to move up the ladder of opportunity. This is very much an american value. The conversation about poverty and income equality has created the other part we have to do you all shift some of your time to cities. I know we are in washington. I would invite you to come and deal with cities. What about in atlanta . If you are coming to atlanta and trying to get a policy shift, you need eight votes on the city council. You influence a 6 million person metro area. I couldnt be in the room today without promoting. When you look at our major american cities, are mayors are willing to think about the problems in a different way and take Decisive Action faster than is being done at the federal and state levels. I see a shriver report please thank our guests. [applause] i will escort you right this way. Thank you so much. Joining steve clemons, please welcome Maria Shriver. [applause] what a day it has been. Good to see you. Annemarie slaughter is the former director of policy planning at the state department. She wrote an article that was the atlantics mostread article in our history on why women cannot still have it all. I have to give her Maria Shriver, thank you so much for anchoring this. I have the report. It is heavy but it is worth it. Filled with factoids and moments i think that are very important. Deepak, it is good to see you again. We are here to talk, and you dont need me to put much guest on the pedal, but you have had doers and people that set the stage. Stories of people that lived this life. We have had powerful women who have changed their lives. Annemarie, i read your piece about the Caring Society. This is an idea of what we can do to become more compassionate. I want to start with you to come in for a moment and share with us from your powerful piece that article encapsulated why we are here today. Was the nexus between the heart and head . Can you share with us what we need to do to step forward and do something that changes the game tomorrow . It is great to be here. It is great to see this crowd for this report. This report reflects the evolution of my own thinking since the article. I started writing the article from the point where many of us who think of ourselves as feminists have been. It has been a longtime. We have made enormous progress, the world has transformed since i was a girl. But we are stuck. We are not seeing the numbers of women in congress and as ceos. That is the perspective from which i wrote my article. Since then, i have focused more on what i see as the deeper problem. Is the problem that affects women on the brink. The way i frame it is it is fundamentally a problem not valuing care. We see that if you are a career woman and you take care of your children, your parents, your loved ones. Youll pay a price in terms of your career. As a hole in your resume. We dont respect that. At the bottom of the income ladder, it is much worse but the same problem. If you are a breadwinner and caregiver, if you have to support your children, we recognize we say, you should have a job. There is no support for the care side. Which means the people for the poorest are those were caregivers and breadwinners together. Mostly women, but also single fathers. The women who are making it, even among middle income women, they are often among the brink. We are a society that values competition. But there are also what we call the habits of the heart. Is not just about individual striving. Is about our relationship with each other as individuals and the community. Unless we value that, we will not write the balance as a society. In thinking about that, i talked about your commitment to women. How as a society did we get there . Deepak, how have we got here . We have been around here for 5000 years building a maledominated society. I want you to be the conceptualist about the social picture we have and how we got here. We have to take a broad view of how human beings have evolved over 5000 years. We started as hunter gatherers before the dawn of civilization. The predominant activity was to kill and conquer. The tribal chief went and killed for food. That became a dominant activity for our brain, literally. As we moved through the stages, bear in mind that the previous stage does not go away. We moved to agriculture and then the age of industrial agriculture. This is a maledominated activity. Then it moved from the age of industry to the age of information. It was spearheaded by a male leftbrained biology. Now we are beyond this age and a knowledgebased society. I hope this will be a wisdombased society. A great mentor of mine said, survival of the fittest is gone. We are a permanently victorious species already. We have destroyed the ecosystem and killed all the other species. We have created weapons of mechanized death, even though we have tribal tendencies. We have destroyed the environment. 50 of the world lives on less than two dollars a day. Women and children are abused all over the world. It is time to see it is not working. If you dont have a new solution, we are done. We might as well go out and have a drink and call it quits. What we said was the next page of solution is survival of the wisest. That should become the criterion for survival and evolution. I do think it is time to unfold what very great spiritual traditions all over the world, not just in india or china or ancient egypt or greece said, which is there is the divine feminine. It is embodied in certain motifs and themes. The goddess of power as exemplified in Margaret Thatcher we decided Hillary Clinton. The mother energy. Nurturing and intuition. Athena, wisdom and culture and arts. Persephone, the healer. You look at these, of course we associate them with the feminine. They have not been cultivated because of the dominant way civilization has progressed up to this point. I think we need to unfold the potential of Women Leaders. If we heard the disparity between Women Leaders and then leaders, if women are 50 of the population, why are they not today percent of the leaders . Why arent 50 of women ceos . I was talking the fact that we are having this conversation, that means we have reached the stage of evolution where we have to stop the reactive kind of thinking on the part of women and create a society where women lead. And then, we can relegate them to technology. [laughter] guys would get the tech jobs. Not to be flip, i think what you have said is powerful. These archetypes have coexisted with the hunter gatherer. They are there. One of the things that is our job is to look at how can we convert some of our priorities and raise compassion and empower people . Maria, this is your report and moment. You have critters of that will have echo effects for generations. Compassion in washington . I really do believe we can create a conscious, carrying, compassionate community. It begins with every person in the room. This is a spiritual challenge as much as it is a political challenge. We wouldnt want to imagine if Hillary Clinton was around president , we wouldnt want everyone to be women around her desk. We want to find a way to bring men into this discussion. We have to find a way to be compassionate with ourselves and in our homes. How we speak with ourselves. How we raise our children and parents. How we treat the people who take care of our parents. The cultures we create, going out of our homes into the schools. Into the larger businesses. Into the larger businesses. Its easy to blame washington. We have more power individually then is on this hill. I believe that however goes the nation culturally, so goes politics. I wrote about my mother who had achieved so much, and i asked if she felt successful. She said, no. I was like, how is that possible . She was raised in a male oriented family. The focus was on the men. She said, i never ran for office so i never had real power. That taught me a lot. I believe the powers is with every Single Person sitting in this room. It is not at power summits, it is on main street. If each person viewed themselves as a person with power within, who was capable of changing their own life and the culture they create, the hill would be forced to enact many of the things were talking about today. These are humanistic things, not partisan. We all try to make fun of the other side. One thing i learned by being a democratic first lady in a republican in administration, which is complicated, is a learning experience. So many people look at the other side as, one side has heart, one side is for business. Its not true. There are good people on both sides of the aisle. It is about finding what we have in have in common. Trying to say, how do we start from a place of, how do we get there . If we individually the summit asked a question to nancy pelosi. How many letters would it take to move the hill . She said, thousands. But every person in this room has a village of hundreds if not thousands of people. If we believe sick pay is important we can start in our own home. There are 10 things in this report that each of us can do. Mentoring another person, stressing education, talking about education before childbirth. Tipping room attendants when we travel. Pay people that care for our kids more than we pay a trainer. This discrepancy in how we live our lives. This is a moment for all of us, not for me or the shriver report. We learned through all the programs we did on nbc is people are responding. They are saying, this is my story and i want to see more of it. I am always being told to crack the foundation. Lean in. Theres nothing for me to stand on. I want somebody to lean on and talk to. We have all felt invisible in our lives. Heres what we can all do. We can start by being seeing people in our lives. That goes for women. This is the open that you wrote. She says, i have never lived on the brink or been in foreclosure. Never had to choose between feeding my children and paying the rent. Im not thrown into crisis mode if i have to pay a parking ticket or if the rent goes up. If my car breaks down, my life does not descend into chaos. You said it beautifully. You are not trying to address these issues. You are often dealing with self realization. I saw on the stage these women telling their stories, they were like Deepak Chopra clients. They are much more in touch with themselves than i am. Im glad you mentioned story. We heard stories. We know what the story is right now. Racism, ethnocentrism, i could go on and on. We need a new story. That is the big challenge now. What is the story . That story cannot come only from issues. It can come if we only unfold the potential that is inherent in every human being. The word education comes from two roots. What is already at the core of our being. A good story has to unfold what is your passion . What gives you meaning and purpose in your life . What are your unique skills . Is society helping you unfold those skills . What do relationships mean to you . Who are your mentors . What gives you joy . Is it time to heal ourselves . Unless we can participate in this storywriting, we will only be talking about fragmented issues. 50 of society is women. We have not heard their stories fully. And what stories they want to write for the future. There are two ways to do this. One is to hear other peoples stories. One of the most fundamental things we do is to recognize each other. We have research on babies. If you do not recognize them or acknowledge them, it throws them into trauma. When you dont give something to the homeless person, you acknowledge they are there. You say, its cold, or i see you. That is a fundamental way of validating each other. Its equally important to challenge the received narratives. I have been thinking a lot about care and compassion. The emotional side. Firstyear law school it was all about having that read out of me. It was learning to shut off human feeling. When we read about the people being burned up, it was learning how to talk about a case in terms of rights and responsibilities and costs and benefits. Shutting off your human reaction. It doesnt mean your emotions always drive the decision. We need to challenge that. In law, medicine, politics. Bob gates writing condolence letters to fallen soldiers. He tells the story that he was in tears every night. I can tell you the number of cant tell you the number of times we have set in policy discussions with no element of humanity. We can all play a role in the kind of society we want to create. This report is saying about one in three women live on the economic brink. That is the headline. It is saying if we do not invest in women we will not have a full economy. It begins with each and every one of us. Ann marie talks about care giving and bread winning and we are caught in those multiple roles. I think there is so much power in each person in this room. You have so many fascinating i did that on purpose and we did that on purpose because thats how you break through in a conversation. For lebron james to talk about what it means to have a single mother and the love he got from her. What it means for beyonce to talk about equality. I understand the way the media works and beyonce is going to get you to read, great. I think that comes back to i think what kind of society do we want to be, what kind of community do we want to create, what is the idea of america in 2014. Are we ok with 42 million women living on the brink and the 28 million children being brought up in that kind of stress . Is that something were comfortable with . There is so much going on on the local level and so many states and mayors doing innovative inspiring things. You come here, i live in california but everybody is kind of cynical like nothing is going to get done out there. What is going to happen, whats going to happen is if we do something, something is going to happen. Weve seen incredible examples of it. Everybody said nothing would change in the military and would you women come forward and tell their stories and they put a human face on the issue and there is change. The young girls that came up today and talked about what its like to be poor, talked about their shame, what it is like not to have food. Thats going on in this country every single day. Every single day. And they are putting a face to this issue. And its going to move if we dont go back and close off our minds and just think it was a one day thing. You wrote a book called soul of leadership. What lessons from the soul of leadership would you share here . Part of the book was drawn from gallop so we look at what people want from their leaders. And what they want is in the four most important things they want are hope, trust, stability and compassion. And if a leader cannot give that, then that leader is not going to be an effective leader for change and transformation. Also right now the teams that are running in the ecosystem of leadership, not perhaps Political Leadership but definitely among the younger people are love, kindness, joy, empathy and compassion. So whatever story were going to write, if it doesnt have those themes, then we are going to be ineffective with all the policies. It has to embody those things and the leader has to be expressions of those things. Its timely you are talking about look at this room. How many men do you see. Congress, lookt at congress, the quality of the debate and the filibusters and i dont even understand the temples. Its emotionally retarded conversation. My brother is going to get after you. The Special Olympics has a big movement to end the r word. Ok, sorry. People use these words compassion and valuing care giving. What is the definition of that . How do we know we value care giving . By paying care givers more . Economically but with the currency of prestige. Amanda just wrote a book the smartest kids of the world. She looks at why is it that finland does so much better than we do in terms of education and its because the smartest kids that come out of college are teachers. We value the caring professions. We do value medicine but we dont value or much less teaching as we value professors. But as we go down as you think of the caring professions as teaching, coaching, therapy, ministry of all different kind, the nurture and care of other people is something we rank way below in money but also in prestige in terms of are you doing something other people value. You start by talking about it and saying when somebody says to you im a teacher, im a therapist, im a minister, you start to say why is it we Value Investment banking so much more than the care of others, why exactly is it . I meet women every day who come up to me and say im just a mother. Im just an assistant, im just a receptionist. I say why do you say just. Ive never met a man who says im just. I think thats about if we could lose the just and honor, i think thats up to each and every one of us. Ahave friends who go to Cocktail Party and say im a mother and everybody turns the other way. Speaking of things every one of us can do, when you meet a couple and if he happens to be the bread winner and shes not, you do not look over her shoulder or talk only to him. You talk to her and ask her what shes read recently. There are countless ways you can change your own behavior to say im buying into this. I reject it. The work my mother did raising us was every bit as important as the work my father did providing an income for us and also raising us. She wasnt better than him, but shes the equal. And we have to be able to actually claim that. And as we do, we claim it for men as well as women so a man who chooses to be home raising his children and his wife is the bread winner, hes equally valued too. You dont just value it for women, you value it for men and then you get a different opening. We also have the issue of many more households are single women households or single male households with children. I have a brother who was beaten up and laid off in the hightech industry and went into elder care because there was going to be a job that was going to have less layoffs. And the people he takes care of adore him. Never want him to move or go which im trying to get him to move right now and im the most hated person around there. They love him. That being said, when you get into that profession, it has regrettably none of the things you call for. It doesnt have flexibility. It treats nurses that work all night or have issues in their life. While they are there and loved by the people they care for, they are dealing in highly ruthless corporate circumstances frequently giving care to the people we should be giving care to. You said how do we do that . You are doing that right now by having this conversation. But that conversation has to extend and be persistent in media, in education institutions, in news networks, in leadership circles, in congress. The more that conversation gets activated, the more likely it is that the story will change. You have to keep the conversation going because what we see out there is an expression of the conversation we are having. Just to help close this up before we have this phenomenal performance close the day, can you share what your aspirations are for what is next, what the people in the room, the guidance youve given to people in the report, what do you hope to do . This has been a huge deal today and im sure you have a track that you might share with us about how you are going to keep the pressure on the system. The mission of the report is the same as the mission of pretty much everybody who wrote in the report which was to ignite a conversation, raise awareness and for each person to really go out and create impact. This at its fundamental nature is a work of journalism and its storytelling and putting a face to these issues. And our hope was to do that. So there are political leaders who can take it over the line on capitol hill. There are think tanks, there are nonprofit leaders. We spent time trying to work on the language so it would break through and brought up ten things each person can do be you a government leader, a spiritual leader, a mother, a father, an individual. We hoped that everybody would read the report, discuss it at their Kitchen Table, have these conversations in their homes. Cite the report. We are asking law makers to implement it. We are asking people who have businesses to look at it and see how they by creating a culture that is compassionate and caring can implement some of the recommendations. Were asking people to be 21st century employers in their own home, to pay a living wage to people there is a whole subset of people that have been created by women going out into the workplace. For women to look in the mirror and say am i paying that woman who cares for my children the same kind of living wage that im getting . Am i giving her or him sick days . Am i paying that person who cares for my parents a living wage, not because its the moral thing to do but its the right thing to do and it makes good economic sense because that person has a family too. I think it begins to honor what were talking about, the care giving economy which is very often womens work. I think its there is ten things there that i think each of us can do. But we can begin with changing the conversation at our own Kitchen Table and to go out as a i often quote a poet who has a great line that says out beyond right doing and wrongdoing and i add out beyond fear and judgment and expectation there is an open field and ill meet you there. I hope each person will go out beyond fear, judgment, expectation, old visions of Political Partners and know there is an open field and that each of us have a role of creating that in our own lives and that i really do believe i grew up in a time when politics was a noble profession and both parties got along. I remember saying why do i see those people on tv yelling at you daddy and they are here for dinner. [laughter] i always found it rather odd. And my father and mother both reached out to people. My father always reached out to people who were republicans, to people of different faiths, of different colors and our house was a melting pot. We had journalists and faith leaders and economic people and priests and nuns and people with mental disabilities and convicts and they were all in there. It was wild. But out of it came great creativity, great understanding. And my parents in their home built the kind of culture that im talking about. And they walked their walk. And they raised kids who were like forced to go into it but still stay even though our parents are gone. The power of motherhood and fatherhood is huge and it starts in our home. It starts in us, the open field in our home and goes out. I really do believe that we can create a different culture that goes to this place that we call washington. I think all three of you walk your walk. And its been fascinating. Thank you so much for the shriver report. Can i ask the people who worked on the shriver report for two years to stand, who wrote and were regular voices just to stand because these people worked. [applause] they worked really hard. They came from all different walks of life, all different beliefs and all had the same mission. And they really worked hard. Its been a powerful day. I can say how pleased we were to partner with you. Thank you so much. Thank you. I want to thank you for the women conferences to put out this concept of a Compassionate Society and talk always at the womens conference about the power of the feminine. My mother gets the credit. Where would you put ann marie slaughter . What do you mean where would i put her . Minerva, a roman goddess akin to athena. I did a lot of work. I think every woman is that. We are grading everybody. So male and so uncompassionate. Minerva, she is a warrior and a peacemaker and she knows when to put the helmet on and when to take it off and when to go to the bar and when to call it a day. [laughter] [applause] dont go to the bar yet. Download the shriver report for free. Shriverreport. Org. For a special treat, a performance by garrison star. Her music is the one under