[cheering] its great to be back here. I want to thank president leblanc for welcoming all of us. Our family loves coming here. We were speaking and chelsea was dancing. Not nearly the range we could stay for the weekend to talk about all of them. Its an amazing book and so important to have stories of so many women in one place and people talk about that in a second. So we should get going because we dont have time. The process of the joined by line writing a book or anything else with someone is incredibly rich because of the different experiences and points of view that the coauthor brings to the project and virtual c. And d. If was especially exciting because it comes out of a conversation weve had since she was a little girl talking about people especially women who inspired us. Thats what is so great about iit is the stories are deeply personal. To most of you in some cases across the cultures and generations into geographies and backgrounds its an extraordinary range that youve put together. Now this is one of the kind of superficial questions. You mentioned with a huge amount of affection and exasperation what has it been like to coauthor a book with someone who writes on legal pads, i want to know were there any other challenges working with your archaic mother [laughter] that you would share. There is many students here if you want to share with us. Thankfully her penmanship is legible. I knew my mother wrote in longhand because i had seen her writing process for what happened most recently in her previous books. I had to understand what that would be like for our working dynamic but she edited pen on paper also. I thought she would have at least come to understand why track changes our good friend. She hadnt an had bent and despy efforts to persuade her that this would help us Work Together and we could see the different thought processes i knew there was no way. She knows how to use the computer but no it just wasnt comfortable for her. [laughter] in my defense you know who else writes longhand for his books, barack obama. [applause] im going to turn this a little bit and you will get your chance. Im sure there are many like me and you have daughter that havee love deeply and transcendently but trying to write a book together conjures up images of screeching doors and door slamming. Host we started by making lists and they were in the hundreds. Athletes we admired, entertainers, business leaders, academics, public servants. We had hundreds of names and began to narrow it down and the only back and forth we had in the beginning as i would advocate for the people i wanted to remain on the list. We ended up writing more than 200 essays and our publisher rightly said people have to carry the book around on a scooter or something. [laughter] we cut it back dramatically and that was hard. We have a lot of challenging conversations about who was going to be cut sometimes the editor which makes gestures were chelsea or i would and we would say i dont want her cut. So that was the real problem we had, and we ended up with a Representative Group of figures on the fictional figures, contemporary figures that really did capture what we were trying to convey because at the end of the day we are so grateful to these women and their lives and we wanted them to be seen as whole people. They are not perfect up on a mountain somewhere. They worked hard and overcame obstacles. They are gutsy because they made it clear they were following their dream and had a mission in their lives and that wasnt so we think those stories are good for us to share because we find them so inspirational. One of the things that is interesting is the sort of spam that you cover and you talk about growing up. You had your mom, your sixthgrade teacher, you had i wonder if any women influenced these selections. Guest i dont think i quite understood the juxtaposition of my mom growing up and my mom just reflected how and that was so different then mine growing up so the majority worked outside the homes, some were lawyers, some were nurses, doctors, entrepreneurs. When i was in first grade, our mayor, betty was my incredible pediatrician who took care of me and went on to lead the Childrens Hospital so i had all of these Inspiring Women in my life and also had teachers all throughout the school who were determined not only in history that social studies and science and math are not seen as the province of old, straight white men so im thankful to my teachers that introduced me to. These kind of amazing women that i then write about in gutsy women and may never have known about them but for my teacher so i had such an experience. Guest you were not aware of until this process of that. Does that surprise you . When i began talking about if need be and to realize what a gap there was. In my case, there were women i read about in books or the pages of life magazine. I included several of them because as a child, life magazine was one of the doorways to the world so thats where i read about Amelia Erhardt or the amazing senator who took on joe mccarthy. Wouldnt we like to see that again . [applause] in my element tree and Junior High School years may be studying egypt, part of it was coming to grips with how hungry i was and how encouraging my mother was for me to pursue them and learn more about them that it wasnt my schooling at this point. There is a funny story in the book because i came across helen keller because of a television dramatization of her life into this amazing woman who was taught by dan sullivan to communicate. Fast forward the texas state board of education decided to nominate helen keller and eight from the curriculum i was really upset about telling keller. Thankfully cooler heads prevailed though i hope she has more problems than not because she deserved it. Every week with my mom or when i got old enough and rode my bike. I didnt know anything about the holocaust or what happened. I was probably tenyearsold so thats how i discovered these women and was a different experience between the two of us. Host let lets talk about te definition of snowden. They divide educational pioneers and activists, elected leaders, explorers, inventors and that isnt all of the categories. Within each of the categories are women who work inside the system, outside the system, women who were loud and are not allowed, women who were part of change i mentioned some of the women in the book is they are failures. Mathematicians, astronomers. Problem solvers, you make it may not recognize who fought to clean up the water in michigan. They helped devoted therapies and then her sisters and resistors to project, king you may remember in saudi arabia they fight for a womans right to drive. One of my favorites in the buck has risked life arm and lynn for tens of thousands of displaced people in somalia and the list goes on. What is the common denominator of a gutsiness . It also had to be a visible reaction when we thought about not including you. It is so evident in all of these womens lives because they were not only sort of driven to their own purpose and sometimes it was defined as their families and other school were sometimes a Global Community and so all of the characteristics you mentioned particularly persistence which i feel is one of the Core Competencies for any life well lived are just kind of embedded and embedded in the gut these women demonstrated and continue to demonstrate because changing the status quo wasnt just for themselves. It was for everyone. That is the key factor because there are so many women that we admire but as we were narrowing the list down, we were looking for what it was about that womans life, her work, her advocacy, her mission that affected others and it became once we started talking about it a key ingredient in by someone that has been privileged to meet some of the women assess chelsea. When you meet someone like this very modest looking woman who stood up against the Islamic Terrorist Group in somalia when she opened up her form, predominantly women and children but sought refuge demanded she turned over to them and she stood her ground and refused and basically compounded then by shaming them why are you even here. Shes the most unimposing person but the story of her continuing support now supported by two of her daughters were also physicians, that stuck with me and i have so many stories about a Great Organization that highlights women like her around the world. I wanted to introduce the readers to more of these women because everybody get discouraged about the Larger Society and those that were willing to take the risk and women today who said something is wrong with these children. I am a pediatrician, but she wouldnt stop talking abou about even the people tried to dismiss her so that is the characteristic of just determination, persistence on behalf of others not just themselves. Youve just mentioned her system and this is part of a required ingredient is optimism that even in the face of incredible challenges many of these women have faced a. If they didnt believe that their kind of energies couldnt make a difference they wouldnt have persisted and that is a powerful example that needs to be optimistic in the world. Listening to my mom i was thinking about the Largest Group that we write about, the vaccinators. The workforce and millions of women who kind of everyday work to inoculate children against everything from weasels to pouliot to the courageous frontline workers and those that try to vaccinate everyone and hundreds of lives have been lost in the last six years and more and more people continue to rise up but they know how important it is to child health and equal shot at life and we know in our own country that isnt always the case. I im going to periodically china and with a question. This is directed towards you. When you are not feeling your most confident or bold, what do you do to feel gutsiness and this is from alex this has also parenthetically ps i love you. [laughter] i think about you, alex, wherever you are. I want to be serious about this because part of the impetus for the buck is going chelsea was bitinwriting her wonderful chils book she persisted and would need so many kids that would go to their parents but when i was doing my book signing before the campaign and afterwards with my book what happened, some of the young kids would say who are your heroes, who do you look up to and i found that such a poignant question because its easy to be torn down in todays world. We all have our faults. Who can you look up to and be inspired by . When im a little down or discouraged about the state of the world, i spend time thinking about some of the people both women and men who inspired the. We have two groups of women in this book have taken on the scourge of gun violence. We are so moved by sarah bradys husband was shot and wising sarah never expect it to be an advocate against all of the gun violence that we see or whose son was murdered and now is in congress and our dear friend Gabby Giffords who survived an assassination attempt and kept going. Anna green was murdered at sandy hook. When i think about the people that face those kind of unspeakable, unimaginable tragedies it gets me going. You might want to talk about some of the young women thats with me. You can get he give her a roundf applause. [applause] we write about the these incredible young women who are standing against the nra and awareness of death by suicide with a gun frequently and so just to echo my mom, how can we not do everything we could do a. Oif the congresswoman can get up every day and work to ensure that no parent has to endure what she does, how can we not honor the, or Sabrina Fulton whose running them if you want to contribute this will be the only superpower typical thing i say, may be. [laughter] please consider contributing to the campaign of Sabrina Fulton running as the miamidade commissioner. [applause] what right do we have to pity or feel like we are not doing everything we possibly are if these extraordinary courageous, her like one in can find it in themselves to fight for a different future that was brought from their children. Sabrina wrote a fabulous book a few years ago with his father that is so worth reading, it is excellent. Good for her which brings me to another audience question, chelsea, im going to bring it to you. Youve watched your mother entered the world of politics and all that has come with a. Of the questioa. The question is what would you recommend to a young girl wanting to be in office. You mentioned a member that catapulted into office because of personal tragedies or events that were not being addressed by the bodies of congress and other local governments. What would you tell a younger girl and you also encourage kids to get involved, becoming engaged, learning how to advocate. Thank you for this moment in time. I know that theres this kind of belief that young people and not so young people look at whats happening in the world at large and become kind of overwhelmed by it or look at what anyone of steps into the arena has to end or online at offline and kind of this belief that maybe people will stop running for office when weve had unprecedented numbers not only running for congress but also running for county commissioner or state legislature so i would hope if this is something you feel called to do, think about what you want to change because if you are interested in criminal justice reform, run for state legislature. The vast majority are sitting in state prisons were local jails or unaccountable sheriff jails. Think about thank you for the people that responded to that. Think about what you want to change in ho and how best to eqp yourself to become competent and qualified to make the change and then run for office. A lot of groups help. I have an Organization Called onward together and we support groups of Young Political activists recruiting thousands to run through all kinds of office or emerge america that focuses its energy on women running for office or color of change with the collective pack. When you make that decision you need to learn what that means and how best to go about it. You can give support to people who want to be part of the campaign. I have a question about what they teach us that you also see a book cover here and the photograph is fascinating. Because they often go unnamed, unrecognized and i think that this photo explains why and im wondering if you can tell us a little bit. Which by the way, it has been reprinted all over the place and is well known to people this was thought to have been a snapshot after the attack on pearl harbor yet thanks to a library in is still interactive. She wanted to know more about this iconic photograph. She realized it actually is from 1941, its a Training Exercise of the women at pearl harbor who comprised and she was forced to identify. We know their names kathryn,. She not only correct that the history of the photographs but also was able to give a name to these women who were practicing and later we know were called to help after the attack. Its an interesting story that this photograph represents because when i was growing up, basically i was taught there were no women firefighters. I never saw any yet this was 1941 and they are in a Training Exercise because they are firefighters. I dont want to become a want people to understand we go in cycles, millions during world war ii in the workforce. They were in factories, and offices. Thats something that affected the lives of more than half of the American Families in the country. After the war it was thought okay we need to get back to way thatheway that it was before, ge these jobs and women need to go back home and the family. These kind of cycles was the passage of title ix, the legislation that made it possible not just an academic Spot Athletics for women to have the same rights to study and pursue sports. Think about this. Before title ix and the women who are the godfathers of it, edith green and an academic, so before title ix there were several good women in the United States in school who played soccer. Now there are nearly 400,000. When we were writing this we were really motivated because of the World Cup Team because they all benefited from title ix and not only di did they put stars n other nations teams had come to the United States to play intercollegiate soccer at our universities and if they were to benefiting so there i am to all of this is part of it is to make sure we dont go backwards, that we dont have rights ripped away from women and girls standing in the way of young women succeeding. I did book signing in union square and we had to cut off a thousand people were telling us their stories. I had two different women who said im in finance in the city and its so rough. Its so hard and seems to be even harder now. Part of this is to book everybody up and say we are not going to give up or allow the handmaids tale. [applause] i also think that those of us who were not alive when title ix was passed and i dont generally think of it i as affecting spors it is to understand the broad affect it had on academics and research and one of the women we write about is there a ruben concerned as it is one of the inexplicable misses because she helped solidify the proof of without dark matter which is the majority of our universe into thats about all i understand about dark matter. [laughter] when she graduated from college, she really wanted to go to the program at princeton and they said they didnt accept women. It wouldnt change for decades. Sometimes we become we have come so much further than we have and weve made more progress over the time horizon and it is reflected in the record yet of course if you look at the statistics we have made so much progress is just important that we not such a big mistake progress for success. One more thing about title ix because i benefited in a way that you didnt. Its not that big of an age difference. I just want to remind all of you a big just pass and everything was running a. Had to be enforced on so many campuses for decades afterwards. There was a big argument that means the guys cant play football or wrestling or whatever and it was just an assumption and we shouldnt forget that because it really was hard. You mentioned most of them, and frank, the number of spoken truth to power and shes going to integrate her school at 6yearsold and one was shot going to school. And they launched an entire environmental movement. [applause] i think shes a huge part of our story and it doesnt sufficiently wellknown. She stayed seated nine months before rosa parks and i write about this in the book as one of the plaintiffs appalled by the Supreme Court that the segregation was illegal in montgomery and alabama and she was 15yearsold and said she felt like she had. And on one shoulder. [applause] we have to remember her because she deserves to be remembered. I want to say a few words about. She was the only person that showed up for weeks been slowly other people would join and it became a global Mass Movement as we have seen over the past few weeks. In addition to her being a determined, passionate advocate she also has autism and has persevered with her strong faith one person can make a difference in one can spark others to join. She has as it often happens when you stick your head out especially if you were a young person, she has engendered while the support and millions of young people wanting to be part of her campaign but shes also ashe is alsoengendered an enormf blowback and has been criticized and marginalized about how she speaks and presents herself a come everything about her is being undermined by her critics who recognized the power of her example and spark that she has with with young girls across the world and that is another part of the book that bears underscoring often times when you take a stand and in this case she went to jail, she got arrested in a very difficult position legally. Everybody from donald trump to Vladimir Putin has criticized her which shows she is really on the right track. [applause] [cheering] these young people what they are teaching us is you have to have a willingness to be defined. It can take different forms. You talk about this none over the place in the 17th century and you mentioned Margaret Chase smith. He wondered what would happen if she were in the senate today. Today is the oneyear anniversary of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. There were hearings in which Christine Ford who no one had heard of before shes like a Research Scientist came forward and then we know that a certain other later republican woman senator from maine basically determined in part the outcome of the whole debate in the process and the world divided into two camps, those who believed her and those who didnt. Im reading this because i think it reminds us of this other reality which is what your book is about, and its not just the challenges women face with Sexual Assault and abuse of those are part of it, but just the narrative of their experiences and their life that are just so, they dont have validity historically so you have somebody in the 17th century challenging that and taking huge chances rocking the boat to do it. Its because history is written by men an man and about men andl we create a foundational history that really truly includes and values stories of women, the story is incomplete which is one of the reasons you are writing this book. I was taken by one of your examples which is a [inaudible] wrote a memoir about being an activist and guatemala. You said its the first few ever read. She won the Nobel Peace Prize for fighting genocide against him are generous people in her country during the civil war but questions were raised about the authenticity of her story. She was subjected in no something about this to the hospital counter narrative she authentically was and yet here she is in your book and im so interested in you including her. As i said earlier i am grateful for the extraordinary teachers i was lucky enough to have. I had mrs. Linhart in fifth grade in little rock, arkansas who believed that it was important that we understood whats happening around the world and also with the role was in that. I read this when i was ten or 11 and i just was so struck in a way i could talk about it in ways i hadnt even understood. Then when she won the Nobel Peace Prize and the controversy that ensued when she was just attacked for kind of making personal things that clearly were personal to her even if she hadnt witnessed them herself and understanding of the kind tradition of testimonial and authenticity of her narrative even if it wasnt up to whatever standard and the kind of grace and wit and consistent articulation of the truth she was fighting for. They tried to hold accountable the provocateurs and executioners of the genocide. The fact that she withstood and refused to be bound by it, ran for Office Multiple times, supported other indigenous candidates and is now fighting for justice i find incredibly inspiring and more than when i read her book 25 is a go because of all that she has endured and continues so heroically. She couldnt imagine doing anything else. You are right that stories need to be told and a lot of times they are not just about an individual but a larger social reality. I think that is an important point chelsea wanted to make but its also true for a lot of the women in this book and you mentioned Margaret Smith if you go back and read her statement there is a story that we put into the book. Shes in the senate and the tactics Joseph Mccarthy is ruining lives and nobody is saying anything and he is getting away with it largely and she just has had enough and cannot tolerate it anymore. She is a person of conscience and so she writes about how shes on the subway that i know very well if the software you take from the Office Building to the floor of the senate to the capital. Mccarthy is on the subway and he says you seem so serious. Are you going to go make a speech and she said yes and you are not going to like it. She calls out the Republican Party for failing to rein him in to prevent this behavior and there are issues today. [applause] it was a lonely position for several years because he wasnt held to account until president eisenhower and others made it clear that they had gone too far. A lot of the people that we profile in the book have moments like that and part of the reason we choose the ones we do is because they were up to that moment so Billie Jean King interviewed us at the first that event in brooklyn a few nights ago and i played tennis when i was a kid and she compromised a lot of her own success she has no regrets because she has a great picture of her meeting venus and Serena Williams who are a no in the book when they were little girls so she was somebody that had this incredible talent married to a fierce competitive spirit that she used on behalf of others and read statements. Those are the people we need to hear more from and be honoring and supporting. But history will look kindly on people willing to be out there on behalf of others. I want to give you one more audience question. There is kintheres kind of an d gorilla we havent touched on yet. Thank you for coming to gw. We know President Trump has recently welcomed some of the most authoritarian regimes like china to investigate political opponents and what message do you want to send to the American People to restore americas democratic leadership for round the globe. [applause] ive been encouraged at least to the polling and Public Opinion the call to the ukrainian president has broken through in a way that many of the other actions have not. I was on the staff that investigated Richard Nixon in 1974 and it was incredibly solemn and serious as it must be because basically the founder decided that elections hav had e held in the people had to be judged at the ballot box but there could be officeholders in between but were engaged in such behavior that was damaging to the system of government and abuse of power that impeachment was this rare but necessary remedy. The. They called for assistance in the political campaigns which he did in 2016 and which he is doing again that goes right to the heart of the sovereignty as the nation and to the National Security in a way that is almost unimaginable. I could not imagine any other president even think in about this. So here we are and it only becomes more compelling about what he and his Close Associates including the state for up to. Into doing his political work and then of course yesterday he said he wished china would also investigate the bidens. Russia divvied coat obama said russia if you are listening and will be rewarded if you can find Hillary Clintons emails. And it was all out in the open and of course we know. So its also in the open. We would like to protect against russian aggressiveness that first we have a favor to ask of you is first. He knows hes an illegitimate president dot. Clearly people in the room listening to the end of the conversation or maybe listening to the conversation which happens in the white house because you want to have a good record and find out what the president said and what the other leaders said. People were saying were so alarmed that they immediately head as they were working on behalf of ukraine in the defense and state department or any of our intel agencies and they put it, they tried to hide it in a server that is supposed to hold only the most highly classified secrets of the country. So we know that the ukraine investigation is proceeding and the very first witness provided a lot of evidence, but at the moment, if. There is another demand into this that is potentially going to be uncovered. So, then he asks china. They are highly adept at warfare, china if they were so inclined, north korea and iran. Microsoft reports that iran is attacking at least. Was a double bert up to the bird effort played out against Russian Military actors, and their allies. We are not going to stand up against it. Whos to say next week they will be on the blue team. Its crazy, my friend. An impeachment is the appropriate remedy, and it is such a serious assault on our democracy that it is apparently asked for, aided and abetted by not only the president , but his allies who seem to either not care or understand how deeply dangerous this is [applause] [cheering] im just going to ask you one question about this, and you know, i just want to make one more point. If you did not know a Barbara Jordan or maybe hadnt heard of her recently you can read what we write about her in the book