Time to step up | Caroline Mutoko | TEDxLavingtonWomen

[Music] [Music] good evening I purposely said I do not want to see your faces simply because I know this faces in here are people who will be a little shocked and those would be sitting there going like this and then I'll lose track of what I'm saying I am the second-to-last speaker and you notice no clicker for me I I like to tell stories and I've got three short narratives that I hope will challenge some of the things we think we know and probably make sure that this evening stands for something I am a child of Beijing I am one of those people who can count back to why I'm standing here and rather there's a room full of people who paid $100 and most of them women to come and speak to a room and listen to a room of people like me speak in 1995 the fourth international conference the United Nations conference on women was held and when I say I'm a child of Beijing I consider myself in my generation the last born of Beijing the first bones are the women who went before us when before me and have made it possible for me to be standing here today those women include laureate Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai charity Neelu Martha kirua Sally Koss gay Zipporah catania women who in Kenya put up with quite a bit of resistance to ensure that young women like me women like yourselves and the men in this room were able to say the things we say and for me to have the career I've had but it's about time that we stopped hanging on to their tail coats and the best way I can describe that is by talking about my mother my mother's probably if you think about it it's been 21 years since Beijing she's a fourth born of Beijing and the last one and my mother is a woman who I watched go to work when I was seven eight years old I saw learn how to type and take shorthand Pittman so I'll I saw her start off her career as a secretary and then the administration manager and today my mother is a regional HR director for the organization she works for my mother didn't learn how to drive until she was about 35 36 and even when she bought her first car there's a little bit of frowning in the neighborhood among the family the in-laws today me buying a car doesn't even begin to feature on the Richter scale my mother is a woman who got permission from my father to perm her hair my mother is a child of Beijing today my mother doesn't have black hair she's got two henna red that color my mother for the longest time wore a shade of red nail polish that was what my father liked today her nails are painted a different color each and every one of them because now she does manicures with my daughter my mother went back to school at the age of 45 got a diploma a higher diploma and eventually a degree me being able to go to school go to college pursue I don't know how many other degrees was not even a thought it was a done deal and the only reason I talked about her and the women that went before us and especially as African and Kenyan women in particular is that it's about time we stop leaning in and I'm very aware of the movement that Sheryl Sandberg started but my friends we've been leaning in we're 45 degrees from the floor if we lean in any more we will be flat okay it's time to stand up it's about time we stood up stepped up to the opportunities presented to us and took them because actually the opportunities are there they've been created for us and especially for those of us in this room for the last 21 years and it's about time we woke up to that reality the reality that leaning in is not going to cut it anymore and also the reality that if we do not as jockey dong said take our place at the table I'm afraid that the opportunities would begin to shrink and also the doors will begin to close we owe it to our daughters and to our younger sisters to stop leaning in enough already Hillary Clinton leaned in for eight years of Barack Obama's presidency enough it's about time we stood up and stepped up I'm hoping I could come back to this very conversation as I wind up but I wanted to do a different story in 2011 I took a trip to Lloyd toc-toc with a team from a mereth with the steamers from Austria and there at the border of Kenya and Tanzania it's Tanzania not Tanzania border of Kenya and Tanzania facing montclair Manjaro I realized that feminists and men who are feminists actually existed allow me to explain as the Messiah meringues offered us meat served on leafs as they insisted that we start every discussion that we were there to have by praying towards the mountain and finished every discussion by praying once again towards a mountain I learned for the first time that in the Mark community that we were in a annoy talk talk that they insisted on being in the same room to understand the issues of why do you want our girls to go to school why can't we have that many children and why don't you want FGM why do you want to stop early child marriages and the conversations that have been organized by a mereth ensure the person who was having the conversation with them was a woman in this case a young lady called nice Ariane they all called her nice and for these morons who only spoke mom and it's Maher not Maasai she was their translator so everything we said in English was Swahili she told them in mom and then when they were done they told us how amazed and wonderful they were about what she told them and why they implemented it so my friends long before Ryan Gosling told us that she was a feminist long before George Clooney said he was a feminist they were here on this continent and in this country we just didn't have a name for the pakya I talked up for a moment let's go to somewhere I supported a charity called some Borah women's trust a couple of years ago that's because I caught a story on the news about fathers in particular who did one of two things the slogan was I support my daughter I support my daughter to go to school I support my daughter to actually go as far she can go but in like keep hear a different conversation was happening literally the only reason you do not value your daughter's education is because you feel and believe that if you sold her off as a bride you'd get Ketel a politician in the area actually offered the same men kettle to send their children to school especially their good daughters and I usually say what I learned from being outside Nairobi is that cultural problems need cultural solutions political problems need political solutions my talk talks Samburu and it's not just kenya the young lady from Pakistan her name is Malala when we hear her story we tend to remember the men who shot her and we forget about her father the man who ensured and told her you will go to school and who goes everywhere with her around the world her consistent guardian angel and and her biggest cheerleader but maybe locked octo doesn't bring it home about these feminists who exist and don't have fancy names and don't have big titles and don't get celebrated and maryclaire like John Legend and Barack Obama but they're there the other one is my own father you know I always tell people who know me very well they're the reason I talk more about my mom than my dad is that my dad bless him but in his world I can do no wrong so I usually tell him dad you have no use to me you never criticize anything and he's like it's okay princess what do you want to do let me explain this if Facebook came up with a button that could do one click a hundred likes another click 500 likes another click a thousand likes my dad will be the guy who clicks from there thousand likes ten times it didn't matter what I said so long before Will Smith declared he was a feminist my dad was there it's just in Kenyan encumber we don't have a word for it and then I look at my own career I'm very fortunate I serve on a couple of boards but when I think back to just the last two months every time we end a meeting it has happened twice and I don't know whether any one fellow directors are here but the gentlemen in the room tend to say the women on our board have been awesome they're not patronizing at all they're not content sending they mean it and they don't even know it and they're feminists and lastly I guess I need to talk about the people who gave me a chance when I was 26 years old to have a job the rules the airwaves my directors and my managers have probably always been my biggest cheerleaders I made them a ton of money but they've been my biggest cheerleaders and the only reason I bring these stories to you is that for me it's about time we started having the discussions we want to have as women and include the men in the room it is imperative that we bring them to the table we invite them to the room what makes me sad is in my talk talk I learned that men are important and they must be included in the conversation and especially in Africa in somewhere I learned this in my board room I learned this at home I learned this however a month ago McKinley Africa had an amazing research that they unveiled it's called women matter Africa everybody should read it but the pushback from the audience as the evening went on is where are the men the decision-makers the people who need to know that this research says that women matter of course the organizers were very very gracious and Bill Rousseau said I've heard you and the next time we do this I will invite the men but they were missing about a week later on the International Day of the girl we were yet in another forum amazing conversations around girls and keeping them in school and the Supreme Court judge who spoke before me joking don't know and our chief guest and a lot of people who spoke asked the same question we're all here talking about things that need to happen and the men are not chair not that they don't care but they were not invited my friends it's about time we invited men to the table they are willing they want to hear they want to help but they've been locked out let me go back to where I began and this is how I'll end I am the last born of Beijing 21 years as a generation and the women of my generation have come a long way we have a longer way to go but it's time to start a new chapter and that chapter for me we'll start on the 8th of November in the US for some strange reason that great nation never got the memo they didn't get the memo and Indra Gandhi was president they didn't get it when benazir bhutto was Prime Minister they didn't get it as Island and Iceland and Finland and Switzerland elected women to the top office in the land somehow they didn't get the memo they didn't get the memo when Kosovo and Serbia and Estonia elected women to the highest office when the Philippines did it when their neighbors in Brazil and Argentina had women as presidents they didn't even get the memo when Africa did it with Malawi with Liberia they didn't get the memo from the Egyptians with Cleopatra we need to send a memo to the US it's time and it's about time a woman was in the highest office in the land not because she's a woman not because she's running against somebody who's not better than her but because it's time and the reason I know the details of the countries from Estonia to Mauritius and incidentally somebody's to check what goes on in San Marino because the captain regions very many women scary literally but it's a good thing but for some strange reason we all know that the US for some reason impacts the rest of our lives but I want my daughter who's five-and-a-half going on 15 with an opinion to boots I want my goddaughter who's two years old to count her years from when Hillary became president I count everything I have when I look back because we live life forward and we connect the dots backwards from Beijing I am the last born of Beijing we are the last line my generation everybody after us must look back to a day when a woman occupied the White House so my message is very simple in case they didn't get the memo I'd like to send it out it's time for a woman to be in the White House and on the 8th of November we'll be looking for that to happen simply because the world would never be the same again the narrative we tell in the evolution of women and the conversations we have will never be the same again my daughter's life at five and a half will never be the same again so my message to Secretary Hillary Clinton is when not if when you get to the White House make it good make it right not just because you can because you can but because it's about time thank you good night

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 248,451

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Kenya, Global Issues, Activism, Africans, Men, Women, Women's Rights

Id: kRbiEhmI5XA

Length: 15min 3sec (903 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 28 2017