Over the name. I think that brings up a good point in terms of the implicit we we all walk around as such, and there are many things that we cant help, right . We are born with and taught certain things so it takes a keen amount of awareness, and you know, dedication to getting over this kind of bias for you to be aware of the things that you do and to make them better. I say that because i think this conversation can go on and on and it is in the Little Things that were going to find the ability to the change, right . Because you can read all of these amazing, incredible articleses that it will be that one piece or that one day or that one detail that you notice that will be the change in your behavior as opposed to one full sweep that its going to cause a massive amount of change and little by little, drop by drop. In looking at this wish list, if you will. Having said a blind resume i think is an excellent idea because it is a big portion of where it all starts and weve seen many studies where they actually change the name from latino to a more mainstream name or a man or a woman and they ultimately turn out exactly how we thought they were going to turn out and i appreciate that. Does anybody else have any though thoughts thoughts as far as a work wish ill quickly chime in. Thats an excellent point, and there is blendor that allows for a blind review. It takes out names. It takes out pronouns and it takes out the identifying things that would make it difficult for people to be able to be judged figuratively, quite frankly. I would say beyond that. I think that companies have sort of gotten at least they pay the lip service around diversity. I will say that much, but they also need to focus on creating an inclusive environment. They need to understand that diversity in and of itself is not enough, and so when you do have hires and diverse hires and diverse talent, the way to be able to nurture that talent and the way to be able to develop that talent is to create an environment where they know that theyre valued and where theyre respected and where theyre heard and where they have a real chance at ascending up the ladder because they dont see those opportunities opening up in a fair way theyre going to leave and go to another company as they should, and so Companies Need to understand that diversity in and of itself is not enough, that you really need to focuses on diversity, inclusion and equity, and when i say equity im talking about having an equitable chance at getting opportunities to ascend up that ladder so that youre not, basically, creating an apartheidlike structure at work where all of your diversity in your company can be found at the lower levels, but when we talk about leadership its basically a whitesonly or a maleonly space. Absolutely. Its its a little bit like what you guys are saying and its a lot when you cant even get your foot in the door like blind resume reading is fantastic and what i noticed, at least in my industry, that people get hired because of connections and take it from me, i didnt even know what an engineer was when i was growing up. I had no idea. Id never met one, so when i was going to college and applying to schools my pool of people who can say hey, im looking for work and i need help is very, very limited so i can only send blind resumes to companies and she sounds okay, and what i found is a lot of times the way people are hired is, this is my friends son. Thats right. I was flabbergasted at how common it is. I honestly didnt even know. I knew it happened, but i didnt know how, how common it was, and i mean, to this day you would get resumes and it was, like, this is soandsos nephew and this is soandsos son. You knew that person was going to get the job out of the blue, and when it came to people theyd never heard of there was always this very critical review, and it bothered me because the things that i would pick up on resumes that i thought would make excellent i want i want to work with this person. They sound fantastic and it was always that they were more than they were activists and engineers. They were activists and curious people people and they were involveded in a lot of things and i thought that made for people that were creative and exciting, and i literally sat across people reviewing resumes oh, look, he likes golf and im, like, what . Or he plays guitar. I like guitar. And im, like, okay, guys. Or he went to soandso school, and i went there. Thats a big one. Thats my alma mater so he must be a big candidate and i was, like, thats not really how it works and i got frustrated to the point where i didnt want to give feedback anymore to new hires because i didnt think i was being listened to and its the diversity thing. You can hire a ton of people of color and a ton of women and if they dont feel valued and heard, if every time you bring them into meetings and youre not listening to them and incorporating them in decisions and if they dont have a way to succeed and get ahead or theyre going to leave and theyll just stay there and im out, ill move on and open my own business and do Something Else and then they wonder like what happened . What happened . Really, guys . The own uses nus is on them to o better. Fair enough. I was a philosophy major. I disagree things. I enjoy reading things that i hate so i can hate them publicly later, and it had a chapter on good hiring and it specifically recommended that somewhere during a lengthy interview process you find out if a person could be a good culture fit and he specifically mentioned that you should find out what kind of music they like because everyone in the office should like the same kind of you look like you might like okay. You look like you might like the Eagles Eagles or something. Really . Is this is this a thing . Thats super not okay at all. Not part of the onboarding right. Process. Right. We have to like all of the same sort of pop cultural things and so it was really just very unacceptable, and yeah, that thing with people bringing in their friends and the people they went to college with. There was an article in the Harvard Business review, they said never read the comments and i didnt think it applied to the Harvard Business review. Most white managers arent trying to be racist. They just have a lot of white friends and they like to help them. This was this was based on a it was based on studies. It was extremely yes. It was extremely well sourced and it was all facts and figured and wellsourced article and i have never seen so many angry people in the comments. And i was, like, its really well sourced. It is clearly true, and this is the Harvard Business review, so everyone calm down and accept that this is a thing. So very scary. Very real apparently, but very ladies, scary. Ladies, in a minute we are going to go ahead and open up for question, but before i do that i first wanted to thank you so much for bringing your experience, your intelligence, your passion to this panel. Obviously, were all here to learn from your personal experiences and from the things that youve been able to glean from going through all of these sometimes very awkward experiences to come to where you are today. That being said, if you could just in 30 seconds or less give me one piece of advice that you would tell your past self or your future self of what youve learned as youve gone through your professional journey. Well start with you, suzanne . My number one piece of advice is to ask for things that you dont think youll get. If you think that wouldnt work unless, then follow that thought that couldnt work unless because youre surprised by how much people are willing to give thank you. Thank you. A piece of advice i would give myself is dont try to be nice all the time. Like, i swear, i tried very hard i think to fit in. I wanted to be the liked person in the office, and i didnt want to have any problems with anybody, and it got me nowhere, and not that i was rude to anyone, but i was assertive and i kind of stated my opinions, and i didnt care to disagree with people that i felt like things got better at least for i i started feeling more like, oh, i have agency. Im not just following orders from somebody. I know what im talking about and that definitely was a huge confidence boost, and i wish id learned it a lot sooner. Thats a great one. Thank you. I would say being good at what you do isnt enough. I think that oftentimes women believe that if you just put your head down and you just do a great job that eventually the spoils will come your way. You have to understand that not only are you not only do you need to be good at what you do. You also need to become comfortable with selfpromoting yo with with letting people know that youre responsible for the outcomes of your work because if you arent comfortable with letting other people know your grit that made that happen then it becomes easier for other people to be able to take credit for what youve done. I agree. Thank you. Its okay to brag. Yeah. I think so. Jennifer . I think sometimes trying to fit in in a place where you cannot possibly fit in, like your best attempt is going to get you a sad second best because you cant fit in in that environment. Trying trying to fit into a place where you cant possibly fit in sometimes makes you look subservient and thats not what you want. Sometimes instead of a failed attempt to fit in the thing to do is to i hate to say be yourself because i dont think thats true either. Being ourselves, like, if i was going to be myself i would not ever wear a bra, and thats not, like, how what i want to say is there are places where youre never going to fit in and you can spend your whole life trying and trying and trying and not ever getting there and sometimes going in the opposite direction is having people respect you and thats counterintuitive. Ive been outspoken to the point where i had a lot of parentteacher conferences as a child and ive gone with it. I dont put myself in places where thats going to be a problem, and there are a lot of other places. I did once make cookies for an office full of people and no one ate them because apparently im not a real woman. I dont know. Everyone looked at them like they were poisoned and i felt sad and that was an attempt to fit into something that was never going to work for me and sometimes the other direction is what makes it work. Thank you all so much for sharing your insights, right . Thats what were here to learn susanna, from. Susanna, patricia, dr. Avis and well well open to up for questions, and i have one over here. Yes, maam . I am over [ inaudible ] first of all, there are two i dont know i dont know what to do. I am so curious what you think, just your personal thoughts on this google fiasco. If you dont know what im talking about, they patted themselves on the back for closing their pay gap and now theyre being sued or investigated by nobody knows what im talking about . You okay. You know what im talking about, dont you . Well, you know. Its a shame because the reality is this issue around pay equity is something that is a huge problem that we face and its pervasive. Unfortunately, unfortunately, its not just a google thing. Its an everybody thing, and the problem is that it just got this worse. This person at 1600 pennsylvania avenue just signed a piece of an executive order which actually rolled back an order that president obama had in place which required, at least, Government Contractors to report how they paid women and people of color so that and everyone, and it required transparency with regards to pay, and thats really what it will take for us to be able to attack pay equity. We need to make sure that companies can no longer hide under this veil of secrecy because as long as that is in place there will always be the means, the mode, the motivation for pay and equity. You mentioned this thing about one of the one of the areas that oftentimes we dont think about when it comes to this pay inequity its issue. Its reality as it comes to its race. Its reality as it comes to gender and its reality specifically for mothers. Those are some of the most underpaid people in the workplace, and so there are pay disparities across the board and until companies are made, legally made, required to divulge how they pay people i am afraid that we will never actually overcome that ch thank you for your question. We also do have questions coming in on social media. So well take turns, one here and one there if thats okay with you all and for the sake of the audience, if you arent seeing it. Could the panel provide their own definition of feminism . Who would like to start . Ill start, i guess. For me i get asked that question a lot. Whats feminism . Im very much a proponent of that. I i understand why some women dont want to call themselves feminists and my mother didnt understand the concept of it. Feminism is just, like, you helping yourself and your sister like, like, right there. Its want i think people see it as a you have to have this huge impact in the world and you have to be out let every day to everybody and being vocal and it is, but not everybody is able to do that. Not everybody has the stamina, the resources to be that, and if i can just take care of my, you know, neighbors baby for a few hours that is already being being a feminist, performing something for my community. So i always try to remember being very grassroots and being very local and committed to the people that i say that im supposed to help because, you know, theres this talking and statistics and theyre saying all this and then theres actually doing and believe it or not, you actually just providing some support to somebody right next to you has huge, huge impact and it makes a world of i would i would say that, be impactful and be meaningful. Thank you. Did you want to people often con fligflate feminism. If youre such a feminist then why dont you support kellyanne conway, you know . Or lots of other women thank you. We didnt we didnt turn out for sarah palin either. But why . Is that just feminists are biassed in some way against certain women. I dont think that it is. I think you need a deaf nichl is clear that feminism isnt a woman who is out for yourself and your own achievement. That is not sufficient, and so i think it is important that any definition of feminism is tearing down barriers for other women and marginalized people. Feminism is not go out and get it, girl. You are so successful, that is benefiting of feminism and not practicing feminism. That was a profound i i tend to more selfidentify as a womanist because that definition to me is more intersectional in nature, but generally speaking, i think the end result is the same in that its the idea that there is that women have autonomy over their own decisions, that they are not precluded from their ambitions from what they seek to achieve based upon discriminatory systems and society and working towards tearing down those systems where they exist. Thank you, susanna, if you wanted to add. People often say that its the belief that people are equal to men and challenging what being a woman and being a man means and understanding that gender is very fluid. There arent just women and men. Those are social constructs and all of the ways we categorize people are social constructs and ultimately living in a world where those categories dont limit anyone. Great. Thank you very much. Moving on to another question. Yes, maam . Hi. I just want to thank you all for being here today. I am i think all of us have gotten so much out of it, so thank you. The question piggybacks off of being assertive. So by you being on this panel, obviously youre using your voice and youre putting your beliefs in everything out there, but for women who arent comfortable doing that. For women who hear a microaggression and grin and bear it and what advice would you give those women in order to find their voice so that they can combat some of these instances of feminism that they may experience . I feel like im always jumping in first, so please. Think everyone has a different way of finding that voice that were talking about. For some people its writing and for some people its more comfortable and journalling and moving on to a blog if you want to really, really go out there with your opinions. For some people its music and for some people its art. Theres more than one way to be you dont you dont have to talk all of the time, and i find that to me that was the way that i kind of got, like, my bearings. When i started talking about my my my first blog post, and im not a writer, and at least i dont feel like im a writer although i write all of the time was just a diary entry almost and oh, you know, this is my experiences and my first day of work and how i felt and it was very raw. There were no editors and i wasnt trying to speak to any particular audience, and i didnt know if i had an audience, and it was more like liberating myself and stop holding that in, and then i found that a lot of people were feeling the same way and certainly people were telling me, like, oh, i read your blog posts, and i felt like now i can finally speak up about it, and i can talk more and this and that, and i can join a protest and come here, and i was, like, that happened to you . Really . That happened to you . I didnt i didnt really know that i was having an impact. I didnt know that there were people out there that felt the same way that i did for a very, very long time. So i would say just take baby steps and i dont think any of us here would say that one day we just woke up and we were ferocious feminists. Some days im still not that person, right . And i pick my battles a lot. I really, really do. When you work in maledominated fields you cannot every single day be combative, be fighting and there is a lot to fight, but you have to do a lot of selfcare and say, like, that dude is not worth it. Im not going to ignore it, its not worth my time. You have to choose that little by little, but start small and eventually, i promise you will build up on that and you find yourself one day surprising yourself with, like, who you are and what youre capable of doing. Anybody else . Yes. I am so excited by this question. I i speak up very loudly, and i sometimes get private Facebook Comments saying i wish i could have said that and okay, well, you know . But i think that in the workplace, heres the thing, networking is not just going to events and shaking hands and giving people your business if if there is some blowhard in the office and interrupting everyone and taking the credit for himself youre not the only person affected by that and when you make eye contact with other people that is steam rolled and when that dude will not shut the f up and you look at people that are being silenced and thats networking and take that to the next level and there is drinks after work where you complain about that and hopefully turn that into something constructive and even in a traditional workplace and so much of what happens is Relationship Building behind the scenes and before you take it some place and getting your stakeholders to buy into that and so and so a lot of that is really behind the scenes kind of quiet stuff, and you know, just for everybody who is taking up all of the airspace, you know, there are other smart, quiet, powerful and sometimes very resentful people who you can network with and be friends with. I love the angle. Its very motivational, i agree. We have another question coming in from allen calendar. How can male allies help stand up to sexism. You have to talk to other dudes when were not there. There you go. Shut up and listen is a good one. Practice practice what you preach. Talk to your bros. Theres a lot. Theres a lot that i think men and male allies can do that involves just other men without having to kind of steam roll us and come and joining us discussions because thats not really the space for them. Let me push back a little bit because, you know, maybe a male ally might not want to go into the locker room and talk about how they can stop steam rolling women and it might not be the topic of discussion. In hopes of them unifying their thoughts and having that collective positive, thats great, but what could be something that you could tell someone individually that they could do at this moment, for the the examples that we were talking about previously, when you see something, say something, just like with terrorism. Do it do it with sexism. Exactly. They always talk about what they can do, but theyre never in places like this or very few. Come to our panel, come to our discussions and come to our presentations, read what we write, buy our books, watch our movies and buy our products. Theres so much. Seriously, if a woman is in a meeting and youre seeing that her idea is stolen by a man then you be that person who echoes her. You be you be that person who checks when him. When people are being considered for that next promotion, you make sure that you are that person if you are in that position to be sort of that person on the inside that you present a diverse slate of there there are things you can practically do that do want maintain the status quo. You need to be there in the moment and be willing to stand up and not always say that thats the womans responsibility to take up for other women. Thats your responsibility, too. Thank you. I just wanted to add, if youre in a leadership role, mentor a woman, but in the same way that you would mentor a man. So what that means is heres my worldly wisdom, you know . Like there was a ted talk by susan columbo, i think, her name is and when she tells an anecdote about a man in leadership who was mentoring a man or woman differently, and she was mentoring a man to take charge of a business, you know . So theres a difference when you talk about mentoring and when when you mentor someone its, like, heres my wisdom. When you sponsor someone you tell them how to get promoted and you tell people how to promote them. If youre in a role to do that or do it for women at least as much as you are doing it for me fair enough. I think its an easy way that you can do right now is share things on social media, tweet our articles and retweet our tweets because without taking over the mike yourself that amplifies our voices. That was great. Thank you so much. We have one question over here. Hi. So my question is more on the online work space in the blogging world. I used to blog when i was in high school and into my first couple of years in college, and i started to face a lot of trolls out there and even trolls from people who i thought were my friends. It was hard for me to face that negative opinion and continue to blog, and i actually stopped. How do you how would you encourage someone like me or all of the other bloggers out there who are afraid of the trolls to keep going . The trolls are hard. In the beginning i remember it was painful to see those now now theyre comical to me. Im past that and now i use them in my presentations sometimes to make fun of them. So you can actually turn that around and like, you know, screen shot that and put it on twitter and facebook and let people make fun of them, for me for me its a really, really good way to release that. You did nothing to me. Im laughing at you. My friends are laughing at you and the whole internet is laughing at you, but when it gets to the point when its too much and youre not in the mood to laugh about it. I have been very upset by some things. I i shut down my comments or i have to approve comments and approve comments are my favorite things because then you can just be, like, delete, delete, anything that you dont want. Its your blog. You dont have to host any voices that you dont host in your personal space. Your blog is your home and your diary. You allow people who want to be there and if they want to participate negatively youre, like, youre out of here. Dont be a shamed and dont have to feel like you have to allow. Not disagreement. Its okay for there to be disagreement, but to negate your experience or to belittle you and insult you, and if you really do want to have more open forum and allow people to comment and maybe you dont have enough space to help me go through the comments and ive been receiving a lot of negatively lately, and i can no longer handle and keep reading the messages about nasty things about me. Can somebody else come in there and delete thing, and thats when you know that you are at a place when you can no longer take it, but dont let them stop you from speaking up because thats exactly what they want and make it more difficult for them to speak up. Anybody else . Just remember that its a very small, but vocal minority of antifeminists and mens rights activist, and it can feel like the entire internet is after you, but really, most people probably agree with you, and like you said, talking to friends, making fun of them is a great way to remind yourself of t oftentimes i find trail blazers or visionaries and people putting themselves out there will have to confront the negativity, but its better to have a conversation than no conversation, and so that is oftentimes exciting to me if i put something out there and get people pushing back because how else are you going to get to where you want to go, but to address these kinds of people and topics. Thank you guys for that. I have a question from lauren hunt on social media. Advice for addressing subtle sexism in the workplace. When do you speak up and when do you let it go . Ladies . I i think once again, we touched on this earlier particularly when you come to this issue of microaggression. Thats something that happens quite often. It really has to be a personal decision to you, is that particular instance worth your energy. However, however, if youre talking about something thats more substantive that might impact your ability to ascend up the ladder and being disrespected and undermined at work then it does deserve more direct action, and the sort of hit the button. The hit the button response is go to hr and short of that this is where you reach out to those relationships that you have and your network, and people who have been through that so that you can get guidance from them in terms of how they have handled that situation particularly if you have a Good Relationship with someone in that same culture that can give you some experience around how they were able to navigate it. Really, to me, those sorts of relationships are critical for helping you to be able to overcome challenges at work. I have advice on how to do so so heres the thing. I think when youre in an office environment, if you straightup call something racist, sexist or people get very homophobic. People get very defensive. Youve youve blown up the whole s its its a big thing now. Youre unlikely to get the result that you want and youre unable to do that for something thats admittedly micro. I find its very helpful to just dont use that language even though its completely true. If someone says something a little bit sexist, try to find another true word to describe it. It was it was unprofessional, it was mean and unfair. Those are not minimizing what the person did. Thats not writing it off or glossing over it. It was unprofessional, it was mean and unfair, and if you say those things people are more likely to apologize. If youre mean, you apologize, if someone calls you sexist you dig deeper and that language is really helpful. If you want to tap it down and are if everyone in your office is maealy mouthed, and mine is thats not best practices. Maybe in an Office Especially if i feel i dont want to escalate a situation, but i used to work at a construction site and honestly fu bob was okay a lot of times and you almost want to respond for themi n to take seriously and when i wanted to tiptoe around it they would be, like, whatever shes a weak one and i was literally, middle fingers up and fbombs here and there and they were, like, all right. And it and it was immediately, and shes not one to play with and obviously very limited spaces to use that, but if you can, please do. I i did. It it was amazing. I wish i could do it all of the time, to be honest. So i want to take the time to thank you all, really everyone watching us via live stream and on cspan, the panelists and the i think i think theres no greater victory than to have a group of colleagues sit together and realize that we are, in fact, experiencing similar things on a daily basis. This unity, find the power to move ahead. So thank you very much to each one of you and to all thank you. Thank you. [ applause ] so good afternoon, everyone. Lets give another round of applause to our fabulous panel and moderator. [ applause ] and i want to thank nyus d. C. Campus for giving us a home for important conversations such as this, and a warm thank you goes out to auw members, as well. Its your support and generosity through the years that make this type of dialogue possible. What can we do to fight everyday sexism in the workplace . First, know your rights as an secondly, secondly, we need to create workplace cultures with the zerotolerance policy toward Sexual Harassment and lastly, we all need to stand up to sexism. Call it out when you see it as our panel said. Call it out when you hear it or experience it. Aew has created a step by step discussion guide which youll find online to facilitate an indepth conversation in your community and remember, you dont have to do it alone. I invite everyone today on air and in our audience to click join on auws website and work with us. We encourage journalists to reach out and continue this conversation in a public forum and engage more people and a special invitation goes out to americas Business Community to work with us to change the climate for women in the workplace, as well. Auwhere, is a community of passionate activists. Together, our voices are amplifieded and real steps are taken towards Better Climate for women and girls. Together we will s thank you. Thank you. Fbi director james comey will headline the antidefamation leagues leadership summit in washington, well well have live coverage of his remarks remarks at 1 30 p. M. Eastern. Well take you to virginia where the Fourth Circuit court of appeals will hear an argument for the travel ban. It calls on ban from travelers from six majority countries and exempts green card holders and visa holders. Live coverage begins at 2 30 p. M. On cspan. At the same time, former Deputy Attorney general sally yates will testify on russian influence in the u. S. Election. A holdover from the obama she was she was fired by the trump admini shell shell be joined by intelligence collector james clapper. Thats live at 2 30 p. M. Eastern right here on cspan3. Tonight on the communicators, michael beckerman, president and ceo of the Internet Association made up of 40 Internet Companies including google, facebook and amazon talks about new, internet regulation proposals from the fcc and how to preserve a free and open internet. Mr. Beckerman is interviewed by politico Technology ReporterMargaret Harding mcgill. It looks like the fcc is proposing to remove the agency over internet traffic exchange. Can you explain why that might be a problem for your members . At the end of the day its about consumers. Youre looking to access the internet. You you pay your Internet Service provider via comcast or at t and whoever it is and youre paying a lot of money and you want to access the entire internet. If your experience is altereded in some way and the site is blocked or slowed down and there are some other things going on, as a consumer you dont know whats happening in the process. Its happening to the point of interconnection to you, as your internet, you dont know and so all of that should be included there to protect the consumer and their ability to access the entire internet. Watch the communicators tonight at 8 00 easter