what a powerful title, right? each word of the title has power within its own self, and i think that you will see that illuminated today during the conversation that karen will have with barbara. i'm marjorie sims, i'm managing director at ascend at the aspen institute, and it's my pleasure to step in for my boss, anne mosley, who is the executive director of ascend and also vice president at the aspen institute. unfortunately, he had a family emergency today and if is not able to make it. but she was heavily involved in the planning, it was her honor to be able to host this book talk because she's known karen as a very close friend for many, many years. and if you know anne, you know that personal and professional relationships and commitments are really important to her. so only an emergency would have kept her from, you know, opening this up. so again, thank you for being here. and i'm not going to spend a lot of time, because -- on introductions, because you have the bios in front of you, and i think it's important to get into the conversation. but, you know, i'm honored to be able to introduce as well because i've known karen's work for a number of years, have deep respect for her and am excited to hear the conversation also. so ascend is a policy program at the aspen if institute. we work to make certain that families are able to move up the economic ladder and achieve economic mobility. our approach to doing this work is called a two generation or a whole family approach, and it very much is about making certain that the familyies, opportunities, their goals, their needs are really addressed first and foremost and lifted up both in policy and program. so ascend has been around for about ten years. we have a leadership program, and we also have a network of nonprofit organizations and associations across the country. about 380 of them that are taking a whole family approach to moving families up the economic ladder. we also make certain that we work intentionally with policy programs and policymakers at the state and federal level to make certain that structural barriers are addressed. and we also make certain that we take a racial equity and a gender lens to our work. and in driving some of the work really is a gender lens. and that, again, is a thread, you know, through ascend's work but also through the work that anne has done over her career. and so having friends like karen in the work -- and the work that she's done and the passions that karen has had really have flourished in their relationship over, you know, many years. and one of the things that anne is doing now is co-convening the aspen forum on women and girls which also is relevant to this conversation. that is a program, an initiative that anne leads with peggy clark who is the executive director as well as the vice president at the aspen institute. but she runs the program called the aspen global innovators group and another very strong policy program at the aspen institute. and so with that, i just want to introduce barbara klein who is going to be leading the conversation with karen, and there will be time for question and answer. but what we would like to do is make certain that you're fully aware that we are honored to have barbara as our conversationist for today and make certain that you know that she is a really talented -- i don't know if you have any books yourself, barbara, but she has an amazing career not only being an actor, but being a newscaster, you know, for, you know, a long time. you know, globally and here in washington d.c. so we're really honored to have you, barbara, and thank you. and then, karen, thank you for being here. i'm looking forward to the conversation, and i'll just turn it over to you, barbara. gll oh, thank you. so great to be here. it's a real honor to talk to karen about her book. and as some of you probably know, karen's background is one that has taken her all over the world to work with women in crisis really to help and work with them. from the former soviet union, afghanistan, bosnia. all very courageous, commendable and, in my view, a little crazy -- [laughter] but then we get to this book which is, i'm just going to give the broad outline and see if it's okay with you. and that is that she decides to go to rwanda for a year for work with her three sons, leave her husband in bethesda and that she decides to do this for work, also to work personally on her soul to, her psyche and to work on what she reveals in the book is trouble in her marriage. and she is brutally honest about all three of these aspects in this book. and so i guarantee when you read it, you will find there are times when you're not going to be able to breathe. when it's stories, descriptions of women that you're working with, that you've met or descriptions of your own life. so is that fair? that summary -- [inaudible] >> what the book is about. >> yes. yes, it is. well, first of all, thank you for being here and for this. and also thank you to marjorie for the warm introduction. i really appreciate it, and i'm such a huge fan of the ascend program all the wonderful work that you're doing. so kudos to you all. so, yeah. i really felt that it's a story that i have wanted to tell even before i went to rwanda with the three kids. but this idea of being a person who straddles the developed and the developing world for most of my professional career, you know, i'm in bethesda, maryland, and then i'm in afghanistan. i'm in bethesda, and i'm in south sudan. i'm in bethesda and congo. really looking at the way women live and are forced to live in a lot of these societies and contrasting that with the lives that we have here. it isn't just a privilege question, but just how women lack voice and choice in so many country contexts around the world. and, frankly, not just in the developing world, but in the develops world too. and so to be able to tell those stories alongside my own, i think it was an honor for me to be able to do that. >> okay. so why did you write it all down? what with, why did you want to share all of this in. >> right. >> publicly? >> well, i spent ten years working with a group called women for women international that works with women survivors in conflict and post conflict zones around the world with. afghanistan, south sudan, congo, nigeria, kosovo and bosnia. and it just struck me that i -- part of my job was to take down women's stories. and i have notebooks full of them, as you can imagine over ten years. and we took down these stories for purposes of, you know, writing success stories and also being able to part of your monitoring and value is how you do your work. and then, you know, these stories, you live with them. they don't go away. they stay with you. i had all of these stories, but then there was my story, a story that i hadn't told. and it really felt disingenuous to write a book about other women's stories and not be willing to put my own alongside there on that page. >> okay. so tell us a little bit, if you would, about your story, personally, that you felt you had to work through as you're working with women in crisis. >> yes. so i grew up in portland, oregon. and, you know, it was a pretty typical childhood. but my father was very abusive, and he was abusive to my mother and also to the children. and, you know, i really -- it's interesting, growing up i really actually identified with my father versus my mother. and i carried that with me for a long time. and i really couldn't understand my mother's relationship in the family, where her missing voice was, why she would stay in a marriage that was, you know, abusive. and it really wasn't til i was in rwanda over that year that i actually started to connect the dots between how i grew up and my mother and our family and how so many women around the world live including in i rwanda. and it's a story i had hammered over and over again -- had heard over and over again, but i hadn't personalized it. >> okay. so two questions here. first of all, i do want to know about how did you connect the dots, what was the connection? but also one of the things that was strike anything this book is how honest you are, you know? you say, yes, your father was abusive. well, you get into it here. he hit you. >> yes. >> yeah. so tell us how that affected you and now how you realize -- and, again, it's in the book -- but how you then get to who you became as an adult. >> right. i think, you know, we all have stories from childhood and the stories that we live with. and, you know, for me the way i dealt with this growing up was this requested of being above reproach, you know? i'm just going to be super confident, and i'm going to be this kind of superwoman. i'm going to go out this, and i'm going to, you know, get the straight a, i'm going to get the great job, i'm going to have the three kids. i'm going to do everything right. but, you know, there is no such thing as being above reproach. and i think, you knowing, i started, you know, the catalyst really and the catalyst even for my move to rwanda was that, you know, i had applied for this ceo position at women for women. i didn't want get it, and i was -- i didn't get it, and i was devastated. in some ways i was unnaturally devastated. i don't want to say it's a house of cards, but the story that i had told myself about everything and how it was working, the things that i needed to do to be this person, it started to unravel a bit. and everything i had done to kind of pop myself up with the family and the kids, you know, all of that became quite vulnerable and quite raw. and i rwanda really helped me kind of unpack a all of that. >> how? >> how? i think it was really getting a little bit more perspective, you know? it was sitting down and talking to a number of women survivors of war. again, i had taken down their stories, but it was a job. but this was about me looking at those stories in a different way. it was me really internalizing the stories. not just for work, but like woman to woman. about how these women often rebuilt their lives literally a brick at a time. and, you know, one of the things i was doing in rwanda was we were building the first of its kind women's opportunity center there. and these women, the women brick makers, had handmade each and every one of the 500,000 bricks used to construct the women's opportunity center. think of it, 500,000 bricks x. so the title is really a metaphor for how women rebuild their lives a brick at a time. and for me while i was in rwanda, i was deconstructing it. i was unbuilding it so that i could build it up again. >> so tell us the story, you have stories of women, individuals here who you met. tell -- deborah, for example. how does her story, how did you connect the dots between your life and -- >> yeah. i mean, deborah is one of the really most challenging stories in the book. deborah had lost her husband and all cig of her children in the -- all six of her children in the genocide including -- and not to be so graphic, but incluing having the baby that she was carrying on her back lifted up and had their neck cut and watched, she watched all of her children die. and her husband die in the water. and she lay floating on the water, you know, until the killing stopped, essentially. she ran around for two weeks with basically just the clothes that she had on her back, and she was in hiding with no food, no water. she went back to her family, her or neighborhood. there was nothing left. and this was, like, somebody who had truly lost everything; husband, children, livelihood, home. and we're having this conversation in her house. she's, she went through the women for women program, she actually got trained in knitting, and she got a machine, a knitting machine sent to her by a relative who was living in europe, and she started making knitted sweaters and things hike that. and then she started making some money, and she bought several more machines, and she was making a living. and then she had a retail shop, and she had, you know, making thousands of dollars. she was just talking about how she'd built her business and she got a bank loan and she had a house, and she went into pickup with some other people. -- partnership with some other part-time people x., basically, how she had rebuilt her life a brick at a time. and her case, her bricks were sweat ors. sweaters. it made me realize if she could do that, anybody, anybody could to that. if you think that you can't survive anything and yet you're still able to live and smile and dance and find a bit of joy in life, that, you know, how -- it's just a sense of the ultimate sense of perspective, is what i would say. >> so there's a huge leap there from floating in the water pretending he was dead to getting -- she was dead to getting, being trained to knit, getting sewing machines, i think, right in she wanted to live. she didn't lose faith in life. how? >> you know, i, i can't answer that. i can't tell you what it is inside of her that kept her going. but what i can say is, you know, having spent ten years working with women everywhere and not just in rwanda, but in multiple countries -- i spent 15 years working in the former soviet union -- there is something inside women, women in particular. no disrespect to the men in the room, but there's something inside women that keeps them going. and keeps them striving. and a lot of it has to do with just basic instincts for survival, but in the case of deborah and many other women, it had to do with keeping their families going, keeping something going ask if that the they felt this deep sense of responsibility to keep going for others. and i'll give you one other story and, again, not trying to be gruesome here, but just to contextualize this, there was a woman in bosnia, and she -- there's a story about her where she was living side by side with her once-friendly neighbors. and then the war happened, and her neighbors basically turned vigilante. her husband was taken away and forced into hard labor. she was taken to this empty house by her once-friendly neighbors, raped and tortured repeatedly. and the men said to her, we, you know, we should kill her. and then another one said, no, we shouldn't kill her, she'll kill herself. >> wow. >> and so, and what she said is, you know, she had a new baby boy, and she basically said i needed to live for him. >> once we think that these -- lest we think that these stories are all about crises -- >> that too. [laughter] >> well, i'm speaking -- >> oh, god. >> she's brutal. >> well, you know, sol of these women are in crises. the rue p wan da genocide, the civil war in bosnia and herzegovina and kosovo, but it's every day for many of the women whose stories you tell in this book. and i'm thinking, number one, about marriage, the fact that many are not married. and, number two, specifically the story -- but i can't remember her name -- the woman whose husband parceled out the meat. >> yeah. >> because having to do with how much value he thought he brought to the family. >> right. >> and this is an everyday story. we're not talking about a political crisis or a war. >> no. >> tell us about it. >> no, it's just this story, and it's interesting, this question of food. and it's come up a couple of times and, again, not only in rwanda, but this idea that these husbands were basically parceling out food depending on the sued worth of -- perceived worth of the women. and so she was, you know, eufhrasia said i should be fed like a bird because i'm not contributing financially. so this kohl of food come -- control of food comes up multiple times. but if you think of a place like south sudan where women really are valued beneath animals, and it isn't just about food, but men exercising all the levers of control about education, home, being able to leave the home. it's just how women are perceived in so many cultures. and, again, i don't want people to think this is just about africa or just about, you know, war-torn countries because i've seen this level of marginalization in other places too. it's just less noticeable. >> well, in your own home when you were growing up. >> that's right. but, you know, it's in my own home, but it's in a lot of people's home. i mean, how many stories are we hearing about the me too movement, the stories that women are sitting inside of, inside themselves every single day. there's a line in the book that everybody has a story. even if it's just the one we tell ourselves to get through the day. and i think that's true for a lot of people. and i think it's true for a lot of women. they're just not able to share those stories. and think about this, this statistic just kills me. 1 in 16 women in the united states experience rape as their first sexual encounter. 1 in 16 women. that's an astounding statistic. so lest we think of south sudanese women or afghan women, it's all of us. >> it also struck me when i was taking notes in the book how important rule of law is. because you would cite 1 in 16 in this country. at least we know it's wrong and we, it's in our laws. right? not that it gets played out necessarily, in fact, often it doesn't. but i'm thinking in other i cups where the culture doesn't recognize it necessarily. >> you'd be surprised how many countries are laws on the books. >> really? >> laws on the books. you'd be surprised. it's an enforcement issue, it's a reporting issue. and in many cups, and it's in this country too, women don't report -- >> right. >> women don't talk about it, women don't have a place to go. and a lot of it has to do with they don't are their own income to be able to make different choices. and so, you know, i say in the book, you know with, having to stay and choosing to stay are two entirely difference things. my mother couldn't stay. and when i was growing up, you asked how i had dealt with this, it was like, i am always going to have my own income. i never want to feel like i'm this person who has to stay. if i choose to stay, that's up to me. >> and that's manager you've taken to your work -- something you've taken to your work. >> yes. >> so tell us about the way, the conclusion that you reach, the way you sympathize all of these stories, many different parts of the world, many different cull which ares and what conclusions you came to as the two basic things. >> yeah. i mean, what i have seen in every single country context including here in the united states is the two things, again, that give women voice and choices are an education and the ability to earn an income. and, actually, education without income is insufficient to change the status quo for women and girl. and i have seen that play out everywhere. education may give you voice, but it does not give you choice. and so i think women need to have their own income to have that ability to not just leave, but to be able to make different choices. and this might be choices of how many saved and spent, choices around sending or keeping children and particularly girls in school, choices if you suffering from violence or abuse in the family. >> okay. so with your work in rwanda, congo, south sudan, nigeria, what -- how did you see it possible to start giving or helping girls and women get those two things going in their lives? >> i mean, i think it's interesting. is so at women for women it was all about, it was a year-long program based on job skills training, business skills and really looking at different market opportunities for women to be able to earn an income. >> and you're talking about selling bananas. >> it could be as simple as selling bananas, you know? it was about having a bit of income. a lot of these women would, you know, i remember when they first joined the program, they might buy a bunch of bananas and brick it home to the fam -- to bring it home to the family to show there was some value to the