Women Strong: Gloria Steinem at Convocation Hall

[Applause] good evening everyone and welcome to women's strong Gloria Steinem presented by Branksome hall with signature sponsorship from Cadillac Fairview and lead support from Sun Life Financial my name is Astrid Lange and I will be your emcee for the evening I'm a grade 12 student at Branksome Hall where I'm also honored to serve as this year's head prefect [Applause] before we continue I'd like to ask you all to join me for a moment and acknowledging the land in which we are gathering tonight for thousands of years it's been the traditional land of the charan when dot the Seneca and most recently the Mississauga's of the Credit River today this meeting place is still the home to many indigenous peoples from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to live and work on this land [Applause] I'd now like to invite Braxton halls principal miss Karen der to the stage to say a few words about this event [Applause] well thank you Astrid and indeed it is my pleasure so delighted to welcome everyone to this public conversation with legendary feminist writer lecturer and political organizer Gloria Steinem [Applause] in the weeks leading up to tonight's event the same two questions have been asked of me at least a hundred times question number one that question has been why why is Frank Sam Hall choosing this moment to bring Gloria Steinem to Toronto not only to speak to our students as she did earlier today to great acclaim but also to the wider public and then there's the second most asked question can you help me get a ticket the ticket questions have been easy enough to answer I don't need to tell you how fortunate we all are to be in this room this evening demand for tickets has been incredible with Bloch selling out in a matter of hours if not minutes I was joking earlier to some friends that I half expected to find tickets to tonight's event on StubHub well my answer to the first question the why question is a bit more complex we live in an age when perhaps more so now than ever in our history we can no longer ignore the volume of calls for greater gender equity inclusion and diversity in fact the news of the past few weeks has only solidified our need for change [Applause] as an all-girls international baccalaureate school franksen has a unique perspective on gender issues we believe we can add value to the public conversation that's already swirling on three very important these very important issues and topics our mission as a school is to nurture young women with the skills and drive to shape a better world the sad truth is however because of gender our students still find the playing fields they enter as graduates are tilted against them the obstacles are even steeper of course for young women and men of color of indigenous descent those who are lesbian gay bisexual or transgender who live with physical or other disabilities or who are economically disadvantaged it is our responsibility to do all that we can to help change this reality faced by so many here in Toronto in Canada and around the world every year bring some welcomes renowned female educators and leaders such as Arianna Huffington June Callwood Carol Dweck Irene Rosenfeld and Naomi wolf to our campus to speak directly to our girls as part of our endowed Rachael Phillips Palash speaker series the series is named in honor of our former Branksome principal Rachel Phillips Palash who herself is an inspiring thinker I'm delighted to announce she traveled from New Mexico to be here with us today Rachel can you please stand and be acknowledged [Applause] I would also like to take this opportunity to welcome Kristyn wong-tam city councillor for Toronto Centre Rosedale please stand Kristyn [Applause] when the idea of inviting Gloria Steinem to be our 2017 Rachel Philips Palash speaker was first suggested I remember thinking how perfect followed by but surely she will never accept well much to our delight Gloria did accept we quickly came to realize that we owed it to others to share this unique opportunity with the wider world but to keep the experience to the brainstem community alone would be unfair and not in keeping with all Gloria has espoused over her near five decade career in the spotlight this is our chance to share a legend with Toronto and to free livestream this broadcast to the wider world joining Branksome and making this evening possible our two sponsors who I would like to acknowledge first is our lead sponsor Sun Life Financial I asked Rick Hedrick president of Sun Life Global Investments Canada to please stand and wave to the audience [Applause] you also know of our signature sponsor Cadillac Fairview I'm delighted Cadillac Fairview's executive vice president of development Wayne Barr wise is here with us tonight to say a few words it is now my pleasure to turn the podium over to Wayne Barr wise thank you all very much [Applause] well I'd like to begin by congratulating our principal Karen Djurovic and our deputy principal Carrie Weinstock for making tonight happen you always aim high and you always succeed in bringing inspirational women leaders to the school and that is so important so thank you Karen and Carrie it's an honor to be part of the introduction for Gloria Steinem this evening and to welcome you all to this very important and relevant discussion women strong and I say this from three perspectives as chair of the Branksome Hall Board of Governors an institution that strives to educate and inspire remarkable young women as a father of two daughters who attended Branksome both of whom are now in university and as a father who hopes like many of you that our daughters will have the confidence and the opportunity within society to pursue whatever they choose in life without regard to gender and as an executive of Cadillac Fairview I signature sponsor I'm proud that we can support this dialogue on issues affecting women and that we can through our business activities and our community efforts support inclusion and equality Gloria Steinem is an inspirational woman who has for decades shaped important discussions around gender equality diversity and inclusion these are significant issues that we all need to talk about that we need to own and most importantly to act on to bring about real change miss Steinem once said if we each have a torch there's a lot more light well hopefully tonight's discussion will light a few more torches thank you and welcome the big moment has finally arrived please turn your attention to the screen behind me for a short video to be followed by an introduction from our moderator for this evening journalist and author Amanda Lang this is no simple reform it really is a revolution my childhood taught me to live with uncertainty because my father's philosophy was if you don't know what will happen tomorrow it could be wonderful I don't want to make young women feel their no obstacle since a lie there are obstacles it's not so good when we say to kids you can be anything you want because it's not true much better to say you should be able to become anything you want and overcoming these obstacles is trying to be so satisfying and it's so much fun and you're gonna have so much company people keep asking but who I'm gonna give my torch to right and I always say to them I am NOT giving up my torch thank you very much I'm keeping my rhetoric and I'm using it to light other people's torches remember the Constitution does not begin with I the president it begins with we the people we are here and around the world for a deep democracy that says we will not be quiet we will not be controlled we will work for a world in which all countries are connected [Music] you're dealing ladies and gentlemen I'm Amanda Lange and I could not be more honored to be here this evening before we bring out our guest speaker I do want to remind you that we're welcoming your questions tonight and we're doing that both in the room there are microphones in the room I can't see them but I'm sure I will at some point but also through our live streaming and in the room you can ask through slide Oh which is wwws lig do ask a young person if that's complicated and the hashtag for that is ask Gloria and please send your questions they're already coming in and we will include you as often and as much as we can because I know this is the kind of person that we all want to have a conversation with so with that please join me in welcoming with great respect and honor miss Gloria Steinem [Applause] well I want to start with something you said earlier today that I thought was quite profound and that speaks to I think a bit your philosophy which is you were marking on how we acknowledge the territory of First Nations indigenous people and noting that there were cultures that came before ours for whom gender was less complicated in fact there was no divisions just for this audience expound a little bit just to remind us what you're talking about when you say think of history when we're talking about gender it was very valuable to me that the meeting started out like that and it happens also in Australia and New Zealand and I was just saying to my friends that we should record the way you do it and record the way they do it in Australia New Zealand and consult with all the groups in Indian country and make sure we the spreads to the rest of the continent you know it's really very important that we acknowledge that we've been studying history when Europeans showed up beginning when Europeans showed up not when people you know you could start when people started what a concept and I I hope we do that because it speaking personally it's been very helpful to me to understand that the kind of hierarchical structure we have with gender and race and class and of course caste in India and you know sort of born into hierarchical spots is relatively new in human history I think it's only five thousand years old or so any place which is what not even percent and it's only maybe six hundred years old for us so I I find it I mean literally I go out and Central in New York and I put my hands on the big outcroppings of rock and I think okay someone else touched this rock who understood that we are linked we are not ranked that we can have a paradigm of society that's the circle not a not a pyramid we do different things we have different skills each person is unique but we can do it in a more balanced way I don't know if it does it help you it helps me enormous ly I'm so grateful to the women of Indian country in the women's movement who who told me this I mean I had I had no idea you know they of course and they have a great sense of humor about it - you know what did Columbus call primitive equal women one of the things that really resonates is this concept that we've constructed these realities that they don't exist in nature that we've made them and we normalize them we come to accept them as the way things should be and the phrase you your you use that I love is we need to unlearn and that unlearning is hard how are we doing at unlearning the sort of hierarchies we've constructed for ourselves well every time we see somebody who is not behaving in the old hierarchical way we know that's possible I could do that and I you know I think there's something in us there's a unique spirit in each of us that wants to be whole and that wants to make connections it helps enormously to be together as we are physically no matter how great computers are we don't manufacture the famous oxytocin you know that tended to be friend hormone if if we are with things only if we are with people so we can understand in addition to just learning you can understand and empathize so you know I think as they say you know you have to see it to be it and you know the more we encourage each other and present it's just the littlest things for instance people you know we talk about body image and you know we don't we understand all the problems that we all have that women have more than men and I and I say to myself okay if I pass a mirror and I criticize my body a girl was watching and that's true for all of us if we stop doing it and celebrate all of our the way we look we'll help other women and girls it's easy to feel as though things are as bad as they've ever been we tend to catastrophize what we did we definitely have the worst president we've ever had he won't say president because he lost by 10 million votes so the problem is our system as you all know the electoral college which we have to get rid of that the context you bring to the this story of inclusion and diversity which is not just about men and women of course it's about so much more not just race now it's it's many many other groups that we're now including you bring great context decades of it is it have we made progress comment on the progress that you see as we stand here today yes as I as I was saying you know one of the good things about being old is you remember when I was worse okay so my college Smith College which is a wonderful College in my class there was absolutely not one african-american or as we would have said that Negro girl in my whole class and I realized that didn't make sense because I had applied from Washington DC which is you know very much partly a black community and so when I went to the tea you know how they give tea for his he's for future students and so there were there were a lot of young african-american woman women or again in the language of the era girls at the tea so I asked Dean of Admissions a guy and he said well we have to be very careful about admitting Negro girls because they're not enough educated Negro man to go around it's like a wonderful racist sexist combination right so I'm just saying that because just show where where we were when I was in college so you know I do see progress but I do not think speaking for the United States that we have done a good job of talking about I mean yes slavery was abolished but the racism that justified slavery is still with us and we have not done what seems to have been done in Germany which is that every classroom including very young kids learn about the Holocaust and what that meant and they learn about the past we don't not really when we read the headlines these days it's easy to think that women haven't come very far at all which at least we're talking about it now I mean before it was just you know this now we have this phrase sexual harassment that also didn't exist until I was about 14 was just called life there was no friends so we have made progress yes we have made progress but I mean consciousness comes first right and you realize that it could be different and there could be you know much more justice and equality and but it takes a long time and we are still with sexual harassment I think in both of our countries actually and sexual assault it still usually requires more than one crime you know if you steal a lot of money you get arrested everybody knows stealing is wrong if you sexually harass or assault or you do in my country the cops do something racist it takes more than one incident to mount up to get prosecuted one of the you know you talk about the president what I won't name tonight either one of the things that sort of characterized that election and your country now and parts of the Western world but really your country which is a dominant force in the world is a kind of a sense of disillusionment and lack of inclusion by groups that formerly would have been the patriarchal leaders white men elected the president what's happening to when we talk about inclusion we don't just mean women and minorities we mean everybody by definition yeah I mean we we have to talk to each other and figure out whether the sense of exclusion is coming from privilege so they think they're born to have some position as you know as we were saying to each other I mean men white men do say to me I mean some white men say to me a black woman took my job and I always say who said it was your job you know that's privilege however it's also true that people are really suffering from the uprooting of many basic industries and also from being isolated no there's a huge difference in the added political attitudes and in who voted for Trump and who didn't according to who lives in cities where in cities we get to know each other in our diversity as certainly you do here in Toronto and we do in New York and more isolated or rural or a small town areas where the other is still and unknown and the New York Times had a whole analysis of the vote by urban versus rural and small town and also by education one of the questions from the audience is can you define or characterize the difference between feminism today versus feminism in the 1970s no hello I mean we may be doing different things but this is a radical idea that women are people so it was always challenging the roles and the hierarchy and all of that it just it just takes different forms you know as well I don't have to go through the whole history here and you all know the history but but the the fundamental idea of challenging hierarchy and challenging roles bequeathed at Birth and looking at us as unique individuals all of us who can organize in in circles rather than this way you know it's still the same idea feminism as a political movement became well it became about leaders it became about individuals as movements to you're you seem to have separated yourself from all of that in the sense that you were always about people the quality of whenever you talked about equality of women you also mentioned men which which did set you apart from some of your peers did some didn't mostly we sort of killed ourselves being inclusive it's like like you born a hostess oh I mean sometimes I felt you know that you know we've been picking up their underwear and cooking their soup and now we're trying to make that revolution for them but explaining why feminism is good for men too somebody asked you earlier today and somebody that's in here too so bears repeating how do you raise a boy who can understand these concepts and you gave what I think is kind of a beautiful answer can you repeat it well you know I think you're raising an individual human being and this is a person and this is a person who has things you know he loves to do when interests and so on and the important thing with all kids I think is to listen because then you know they have they're worth listening to and to love them and then they know they're lovable and to help them pursue their interests and just try never to say you know boys don't cry or you know all the the general judgments and it's not easy because it starts so young all those experiments that show that even babies in pink and blue blankets the the baby and the pink blanket will be picked up and cuddled when that baby cries and not in the blue blanket because you're trying to toughen up for a sensory you know it's it's just trying to treat people as a unique individual and also to keep a standard of fairness which I have to say I really think kids have almost born into them it's what I think of as it's not fair you are not the boss of me syndrome which is the foundation as you said earlier for every revolution yeah absolutely I mean if that's the whole ballgame right there right I'm not suggesting that it's easy because the rolls are so you know they saturate so many things but you know I think the common sense of it and also saying to two boys would suppose the same person you are but if you were born a girl what would you what would your life be like and it's interesting that even when they're very young they're depressed by the idea and generally speaking when you say it to a little girl you know well suppose you were exactly the same person and you were born a boy but what would you do and then they say oh then I could be you know an astronaut's alright so you can see how how early the rules come and how much we need to support the uniqueness of each child one of my favorite quotes of yours of all time is the truth will set you free but first it will piss you off don't you find that's true I guess I want to know what pisses you off these days oh we have all the time you have well there are all kinds of things I mean even people who understand that Trump is has serious narcissistic personality disorder you know which all of our psychiatric it is told everybody that he follows any praise and reacts violently or you know vociferously to the smallest criticism so he actually doesn't know fact from fiction and even people who know that will tell me he's a successful businessman you know the fact is that somebody the Wall Street Journal or somebody figured out that if he had just invested the money he inherited he would be Richard but I you know that's important because when people were asked why they voted for him the third of the country that not the majority but the third of the country they said you know he's a successful businessman and so he will be able to lead the country so you know it's I there's so many things don't you find this that's just are going against reality and you're left in front of the television set or the computers saying but you know right well to that point somebody wants to know why what you think about the fact that 53% of women voted for trauma 51 percent of married women white married women okay 95 percent [Applause] and we can't ignore the fact that 51% of white married women voted for Trump but I think we it helped us understand why right because and I'm not saying it's simple because there's religion and there's other you know mix of things but they're more likely to be dependent on a male income and on a male identity so you know to vote for his interest and also maybe to not have hope you know to just think well this is this boys will be boys the fact that he said all these horrific things about women and sexually harassed women is it's just the way it is so you know I think we can see you know that the here's you know you know Harriet Tubman is you know the great woman who led people out of herself out of the south and slavery and then went back and led thousands of people when when people said how great that was she always said well I could have led thousands more out if only they knew they were slaves I think that says which leads us to a question here and something we did talk about earlier which is this notion that women can have it all the kind of women that graduate from schools like Branksome Hall are trained to believe they can go conquer the world and be a mom what what what is the reality for women you can't have it all if you have to do it so [Applause] the response of a reluctant Society is to say well okay you can be a lawyer or a machinist or whatever it is you want to be as long as you also cook three meals and Heather you know you can't and also it's it's not good for children I mean it's way better for children to grow up knowing that men can be as loving and nurturing as women can it's a libel on men to say that that's whether you're a single mom or whatever it is it's just good for kids to see you know loving and nurturing men and people with all different descriptions and so they understand that our work pattern is still I mean yours is better than ours but it's still for the the sole wage-earning male really with the idea that there's a full-time person at home cooking and some so you know we we have a long way to go and you know obviously the Scandinavian countries are ahead of us in this your candidates ahead of the US but you know we're trying to make clear that the unpaid productive work in the home has an economic value as part of the gen P is where you know should be counted should be rewarded it should be supported so that we I mean I I'm not sure about your figures but in in our in the u.s. a third of the productive work in the country has is completely invisible economically because it is productive work in the home we could fix that it's not rocket science by attributing an economic value to the work done in the home whether it is done by women or men and raising whatever it is taking care of influence whatever it is an economic value at replacement level how much would it cost to replace that work and making that tax deductible if we pay taxes and tax refund of all you have you're no stranger to politics political activism getting close to power in order to advance views have you wielded that in exactly the way you wanted to in the course of your life or have different moments when you we're all trying we all just do the best we can every day so maybe not as much as you do well in some ways that my job is to make the all the good people who are in political life who are in elected office look reasonable to be a little out in front because the art of governance is the art of process and compromise and that's democracy that's as it should be so there are at the role of a movement is to say to two people you you don't have to always hold your finger to the wind and actually really good political leaders like shirley Chisholm and Bela Abzug and people who came out of movements don't actually hold their finger to the wind because they know they can become the wind that they can influence the wind and that is what movements are for often these days it with the best intention when people are focused and I say this in a business context but I suspect it happens everywhere politically and socially when people are looking to be inclusive and diverse they make the mistake of turning to a representative of that group as though that person can speak for the group so I hear friends of mine in corporate settings will say you know they turn to me and say well what are the black people think of this which is well then you have to say that and one of the white people think I mean it's just I mean if you said that what would happen what are the white people think wouldn't they fall off their chairs but when when does real inclusiveness become colorblind gender-blind when does it become about people and not labels I don't think I mean I understand what you mean but I think if to be literal I don't think we want to be colorblind or gender blind we want to elevate you know we want to celebrate that people come in different colors like flowers and we're each different and unique and that gender it's true we made it up but it's still with us in a very deep way and so it's more about understanding that all human qualities are like a circle and like a third of them are feminine and two-thirds are masculine the masculine prison is bigger and has room to move around and people to serve you coffee but you're still missing the third of the human qualities that are called feminine but I it's not about being blind I think it's about celebrating difference what would you've seen a great movement a great arc in the evolution of this story since you became one of the people who started to move the dial what would you like to see it arrived at where do you want it to keep moving to but I just know that we follow when we feel free when we get to do what we love so much we forget what time it is when we laugh I'll tell you one of the great proofs that we are on the right track that I've only figured out few years is laughter because it turns out that laughter is the only free emotion you can compel fear obviously you can also make people feel they're in love if they are dependent for long enough because you in mesh in order to survive right but laughter is that when two things come together and suddenly make a third you laugh when you learn something you laugh don't go anyplace you can't laugh including Church in my experience people are quite free to laugh in spiritual ceremonies now is that not true so you know I I think the it isn't that the end justifies the means it is that the means become the ends so we just have to reflect what we want as much as we can every day so tell the truth as much as we can you know call out injustice as much as we can laugh as much as we can does that make sense to you I mean it's a your goodness we you know you know we lived I mean in the moment is when we can be alive we are not fully alive in the future of the past I can't see the microphones but I'm gonna assume that there's somebody standing at one of them and they're ready to ask a question can we come out to a microphone and if not then I'm gonna keep asking questions no okay oh hello hello my name is Angela and the very first thing I would like to ask is can we have missed items volume turned up [Applause] you know we heard about two-thirds and it was all really good the answer to that is yes thank you so the actual seize control of Technology I actually tweeted a request to bring some hall in hopes that it would happen but here I am it do you have a non-technical question yeah I do have a non-technical question the question has been asked in the media of late with the whole me to campaign and that is what next I can't imagine there's any woman who has not experienced some kind of harassment let alone assault and it's apparently shocking to the men in our lives that this is the case but really what next do you have any advice for continuing the conversation in a way that we can act on interrupt the status quo have it be something that can be listened to I think truth-telling of me to the consciousness-raising the understanding of the prevalence and what it means is great right I mean we are at a learning moment I think we're beginning to understand that it is really about power not sex you know Harvey Weinstein made good movies with powerful women but he also exploited and assaulted less I'm not powerful women so if it is about power and there are all kinds of proofs of that for instance in prison men who are not gay and not homosexual but who are addicted to the masks you and dominance sexually assault younger weaker men in prison and some of the men who understand what women go through the best didn't have been men who came up to me after a lecture who had been incarcerated and who said had been in the absence of women used as women and who said okay now I understand I understand so I think you know we're understanding the prevalence I think we're beginning to understand that it is about power not sex it is about the roles about the masculine idea that you have to be dominate in in order and that sexualizes powerlessness and and we're trying to counteract it in all kinds of ways and they're women wearing t-shirt sorata size equality kind of great know and that trying to point out that erotica eros love free choice mutual pleasure is different from pornography porn a means female slaves and the the slaves of pimps I mean the very lowest of the that's in Greek that's what it means you know we're beginning to understand it what we also need are ways to come forward together and there is in California on some campuses a system called Callisto you can look at me you can find on the web see a lis sto invented by a couple of women which means that if you are male or female whoever you are if you experience a sexual assault or sexual harassment you can record the details of the assault or the harassment online in a secure time Tideway and if the same name or circumstances turn up the computer will tell you and then you can choose to come forward together no I think that's in advance because we are still in a circumstance where there's enough sexism and racism in the culture at large so it's not like you know if you if you steal money you'll get arrested but if you sexually arrest somebody or rape somebody you may not because the culture is still too much in there so it still often takes more than one person so this is this reporting system is there anything suppressing to you about the fact I mean this most recent example is high profile and it's egregious in many different ways but it's not isolated but is there anything depressing about the fact that it went on for so long and so many people knew given everything that you and other women like you taught us and told us have we not internalize these message what what role are women playing that we're still remaining silent yeah well it is I mean - we are still as women trained to be passive and to blame ourselves and so on and so when it happens we too often say what did I do wrong I must have invited it was my fault if I object it'll help I'll get branded as the complainer right I mean we know all this if if racism and sexism were not deep in us all it wouldn't work I mean we we are brought up with it and we are rooting it out twice talking to each other sharing stories discovering it didn't happen only to us if that happened to unique people that must same thing must be political you know this is a process and I hope and I hope and believe that people have groups like this this is a big talking circle here but we can do this in I mean this we advanced you said something earlier to me we were talking about female sexuality and beauty which is something that many women embrace and it's part definitely part of our culture and socialization and you said when a man says you look beautiful or you know partly it is the power to define and you can tell this by tiny things you know if if somebody's a man compliments you says how great you look if you compliment him back on he look at how he looks because it's not hostile but you have taken the power to define so it's just you know however it is that we enjoyed the round of applause right there but okay I'm not Gloria the other right hi Gloria can you see me I'm waving at you thank you okay so my question and oh hi my name is Christina by the way my question is if the men in the room don't have the benefit of having been in prison not that that's a benefit but the insight of understanding our perspective I guess what I'm trying to say is I've been trying to have this conversation with men in my life personally professionally trying to get them to care about the issue on a molecular level on an emotional level I feel that I get recognition back on the facts from an intellectual space but not on an emotional space where it drives them to action and so my question to you is how have the men in your world that have stepped up to the plate what's the light bulb moment that they have had is it individual or was it something specific you said or was it the aggregate of something or someone personal in their life that was affected you know I hear people coming to it in a different in different ways sometimes it's a man who has a daughter and especially I find if they don't have sons because then their whole ego gets invested in the Charter that's my daughter you can't do that but and you know that's helpful sometimes it's thinking about bodily invasion does that make sense you know because I think the line of defense all of us is that belongs to us is our skin the power of the government power of it should stop at our skins and men who even nevermind if they're in prison but think about having their bodies invaded in the way that women do can understand that that's even more traumatic than getting beaten up because you know that's the line of where we are internal to us sometimes it's sometimes it's more abstract I mean some some men especially on campus I find really can stop especially young men can think about okay what would my life be as I was saying if I was exactly the same person with the same smarts and ambition and everything and I had been born female that you know I was saying it about children but also it's possible when we're grownups to stop and think about that it's also possible with different racial groups or class groups just to think if you'd been the same person than born in a different group it just as is a path to to empathy thank you so much of what we're talking about is in the realm of the individual and the personal but these are issues we deal with in terms of policy and politics and laws and regulations can we regulate our way to this can we a move obviously made great strides and moving the bar but what's the regulation that's all so we didn't have to phrase sexual harassment you know when I was growing up as I was saying it was just called life right so to to describe what's wrong to arrive at some of sensible legal remedies for instance I mean this is not a great example but it's an important example rape law was all required required a penis and emission you know I mean the the description of rape was was that and in fact a lot of rapes take place with objects you know with broom handles and coke bottles and so on because it is about power and humiliation it's so we had to change the law so you know the its it's trying to make the remedy fit the reality and advancing that and it's it's not easy but it's not but it's quite possible it's just looking at the real situation and understanding now we in in the states have a problem with unprocessed rape kits do you have that here hopefully not but people there are many states in which there are a lot of unprocessed rape kits and we're trying to solve that because in New York State at least the average rapist the last time I looked at the statistics has raped 14 times before stopping are being caught so it's just it's just looking at what's actually happening and trying to find a solution hi over here hi Gloria my name is sulla I was raised by a single mom and I need to say from both of us thank you so much for your leadership in your book you have so many moments that I've interpreted as like spiritual moments from the way you describe your relationship with your father to your friendship with Wilma yeah my spiritual practice has been so influential in the way that I've been able to process being a woman in the world and my politics and I'm wondering if you have a spiritual practice if you have a daily practice that keeps you I don't have a daily practice I've gone to several about two meditation courses I still remember my mantra I'm still not meditating [Laughter] that's okay I find and I'm just you know this is we all are wherever we are I find it very helpful to think about spirituality not religion because to me religion is political and spirituality is universal so you know if God is a guy guys are God you know and how come Jesus is blonde in the band blue-eyed in the middle of the Middle East I always worried about it as a child so I find inspiration and comfort in the older in the original spiritualities which are universal there is God in all living things and are circular and are you know don't divide us up in that way and I I have to say I think it has a great appeal because for instance once a couple of years ago I had to go have an exam in a hospital just a minor thing but still they make you sign a whole fill out a form and the including religion in case you drop dead so they know who to call and at first I was going to put nun and then I thought well that's a little negative so [Laughter] so I put pagan which which just means nature you know it's it's very maligned but that's because just and the nurse said to me what does that mean I said it just means you think there's a godliness in all living things I converted her on the spot [Laughter] but I do think that one of the great absences in my country is that we don't talk about the politics of religion and [Music] you know once I've made the trip down or up the Nile you know from the oldest parts of the Nile to Cairo and there you can see as you were in this houseboat and you get off and you see different ruins of temples and so on you can see that in the oldest nubian more closest to Africa parts of the Nile the sculpture is the remains are everything you know of flowers and birds and men and women and you know all kinds of play everything and then it's a thousand years later and there's not so much nature and the goddess has a son no daughter then its thousand years later the son is grown up to be a consort later still the goddess is a throne on which the Pharaoh sits I mean you know okay so and I was reading an Egyptologist at the time named Henry breasted VRE aste and he says calmly as if everybody knows it that monotheism is but imperialism and religion that withdrawing God from women in nature is a way of making it okay to conquer women in nature to have dominion over nature so I do think we need to talk about and think about the politics of religion you got to pick your battles you got to pick your battles great segue you know what I'm gonna ask I move ah so I see battles on a daily basis I'm over here Gloria on the left really short so I hope you can see me I also own an education company and I believe law and education are two areas important to combatting sexism and racism now over 25 years of being in law the biggest thing I've learned and I'd love to hear your comment on this and the hardest thing alert if anyone's in law is to shut up and listen and when you meet a racist or a sexist I've learned sometimes it sounds abhorrent sit down and listen to them first try to understand where they're coming from and maybe that way if you just bark at them they'll get their back up and feel more convinced about their stance but maybe if you listen to them hear them and maybe share and how it helped educate them my mind has changed I didn't even know what gay was and had a gay roommate in 1989 when I went to university and I didn't know what the word meant so I have learnt a lot over the years and I think it's through education what is your advice as to someone I feel and thank you for mining me of our importance of change in the world passing the torch lighting other torts what would you to say to me when I'm speaking or when I'm at court dealing with an individual who's a racist or sexist no I obviously you know I don't learn while I'm talking yes I learn while I'm listening so it is it is very helpful to try to balance those two things and if you come into a group and you have more power than they do try to remember to listen as much as you talk and if you have less power try to talk as much as you listen which can be very difficult because you've been used to hiding and nodding your head and you know so I totally agree with you and I think there are all kinds of ways that we learn mostly from personal experience I mean I think a lot of racists just don't know people who are different from them and great writers okay bell hooks always says if you buy shoes together you can do politics together you know can we introduce people who share interests who are diverse can we make a difference in that way can we extend their knowledge or sometimes if a person has been discriminated against for one reason we can attach it to that well you know what's it's like to be discriminated against because you're Jewish or because you're Muslim so consider the same thing because of race or because of something else it's just ways of extending our knowledge and our empathy thank you and it's we all have done this right and and and it's accepting that you we are often wrong you know that we don't get it either so sometimes it helps when you're having a discussion to ask the person to repeat what you said what did you hear me say sometimes it's different than what you said and vice versa that's you know a very common technique right but it's helpful thank you you are at this moment in your life and in history somebody who is listened to and yet you're somebody who listens it's striking actually about you you have a kind of a humility in that you want to learn humble to want to learn it's exciting to learn did you go did you travel though from being someone who had to speak more than she listened to become somebody who could listen more than she spoke with was there a moment when you gather way around because I became a journalist because I wanted to watch and not talk you know I wanted to express myself in a way that and I didn't have to speak and actually I had been two things a dancer which you know and for a while I wanted to dance my way out of Toledo into the hearts of him which not overwhelmingly practical but anyway I've been a dancer and a journalist a freelance writer in both cases because I didn't want to talk so the hard thing for me was realizing I had to talk that the only way that I could advance what I was discovering and what I was caring about so much was to because I couldn't get published what I wanted to say anyway was to go out and talk so just feel the fear and do it anyway as they say follow the fear and do what you have to do to make it okay in my case I couldn't do it by myself so I asked a friend to do with me because and I thought okay I need somebody I don't I'm not married I don't have children I need somebody who knows about joy so this is Dorothy Pittman Hughes who ran a childcare center also she was she's black I'm white I thought okay but and it worked right you know because we helped each other she was fearless totally fearless Flo Kennedy do you know she's definitely fearless Margaret Sloan maneuvers audiences then each of us would have had their own question at the microphone my name is Brooke and I've actually become more and more politically active as I've become a more mature adult but I've found as I've made this transition it doesn't feel like people are moving that direction with me and I found that a lot of people have this idea that political activism is something that these wacky radicals do and they don't they're very enthusiastic to come to Cox and I would love to see all of you at the next protest and it's a lot cheaper to go tell us what it is there's there's a lot take your pick get on Facebook they're all on there how how do you find you can energize people who might find activism scary or foreign or something that those crazy radical hippies do and not what I my comfortable person with a desk job does how do you how do you get them to make that move into being more vocal about things they already believe I think we take one step at a time like babies you know so we have to see that it's possible to make change so maybe there's something that's not proper in your workplace and it's annoying you but you can't do anything about it by yourself but if you got together with three or four other people you could make a change I don't know you know it's it's it's it's hard to describe without a specific situation but usually there is some way of moving forward and usually we discover it from talking to each other so I think the first step is to bring is not to lecture somebody but to bring together a small group and say what worries you what seems unjust what's wrong in your neighborhood what's I don't know and and how can we help each other to do something about it or the person who's representing you politically doesn't you know isn't right so let's go talk to them let's let's tell them you know what we think is wrong does that you know wait a minute I'm wearing a button here maybe we could say do you want to say what this button is somebody gave me this button thing all of us yeah so this is a little change we could make because right now it's Suns right just Suns do you want to explain is this the national anthem yeah the national anthem says Suns in all thy sons command yeah all those sons command I could say all of us it's not rocket science [Laughter] we can first of all just sing it no matter what they say we can say what we want to sing [Applause] what is the state of activism in in your country is it alive and well are people more passive are they no I mean the the convenience of having somebody in the White House house who's wrong about everything I mean I'm not saying it's not immensely dangerous and I'm not saying I know what's going to happen but it is activating I have never seen such a level of activism in my life ever ever and we are woke what should come out of that what do you hope for for I mean for you we even just focus on your country but really for for all of us what do you hope that we're a walk to well you know obviously we need to use whatever actions we have and infuse them with the values we want so how we spend our dollars and how we vote and how we behave in our place of work or education or in our family it can be as simple as saying pick it up yourself [Applause] if you eat you can also cook or or learning to ask for what we need I think lots of women especially have a hard time doing that we think we're supposed to do it all ourselves you know just what what presents itself daily I find it's really helpful if we stop looking up all the time and look at each other and I say that to people you know don't look at Trump look at each other and then we we can find all kind of kinds of shared action hi there and my name is blaze and I just wanted to first thank you for coming to speak with us today but also just thank you for everything that you've done for the feminist movement and for women you're one of my heroes and I'm so nervous right now which is crazy [Applause] because anyone in this room who knows me knows I love attention so for me to be nervous is nice but I'm really excited right now and my question has to do with the idea of choice feminism so I'm really passionate and interested in advocacy in feminism and I've read a lot of books about different feminist theories and such but one thing that I just feel perpetually ignorant and unappreciated about which again is crazy because I have an opinion on everything so it's this idea of choice feminism some people are some feminists argue that you know women should be able to do whatever they want and kind of wear whatever they want say whatever they want use the word as an empowering term that sort of thing whereas other feminists and disagree with that and say well you have to think about it in the context of the situation can you really reclaim the word if it's still used in a derogatory manner so I just wanted to know your thoughts on that and because I really don't know what to think about that trust your instinct you know there's a long tradition of taking bad words and making them good words and so there's a great publication called you know and and I do find it took me a long time to realize that if somebody called me a and I said thank you [Laughter] they sort of didn't know what to do with themselves you know but mostly don't don't I think you have a case of the shoulds maybe you know that there's there's a kind of feminism you should have and I I just would encourage you to trust the way you feel about something and behave in an authentic way and listen and as much as you talk and talk as much as you know all of those things and here's the best instinct example I have ever heard if it walks like a duck and talk and looks like a duck and quacks like a duck and you think it's a pig it's a pig [Laughter] thank you thank you blaze I hope you come out of your shell I think we're almost a time but I see a prank simple blazer at the microphone and I can't say no to that so out here thank you hi miss Tina my name is Jessica and I have a quick question along the lines of advocacy and activism so I wanted to ask you about the evolution of activism we've heard a lot or we heard you talk about it a little bit so I know that in kind of the 1950s 1960s there was a lot of active protest so like boycotts and marches I was wondering what was your thought about commercialized activism which we have today so things like t-shirts and buttons so I was wondering if you think does that make activism more accessible for those who want something that's easier and could do at their jobs or does it dilute the message because it is commercialized its I'm all for t-shirts and buttons but I don't want them made in sweatshops you know so it's just kind of common sense you know you have to try to be consistent about the values that you want you have to enact them and it's it's fun you know to try to figure out how to do that it's creative to figure that out and you know you can you know find groups of women who can make something in prison in fact that gives you a bridge past prison walls that changes your life and there's and it's you know it's if you gave me a particular example we could have an organizing meeting you know my idea of heaven is a North but I think that fun and the challenge and the invention and the creativity comes from trying to reflect in everything we do the values we want and that's important because what we want in the future won't happen unless it happens along the way so if we want fairness and humor and music and sex and poetry we have to have fairness in humor and music and sex and poetry along the way and it's it's infinitely interesting no to to try to make that happen I mean here's a simple example a lot of groups started with one religion or race or class or something like that and then are perpetually saying how can we bring in this other group actually it makes a lot more sense to wait until you can start together because the group you start with will always be more in possession of the group then the newer folks so it just speaks to the importance of trying nothing's perfect but trying to be as organically close to what you want in the steps you take which is quite like one of my other favorite quotes of yours of all time which is that hope is a form of planning if something wasn't already real within you you couldn't hope it so that is a first step it's not blind you know we're not blindly optimistic we need to be skeptical in order to use our time and talents and whatever in our lives well but if hope wasn't in there it wasn't real within us we couldn't even hope it well then let me ask you what you hope for I hope that we think about what was once on this land the cultures that were once here and that you honor not as much as we should and we don't know as much as we should and and we need to listen to the people who know a lot more but that we allow that to set our imagination free it's it's hard to find things that do that you know because we're so in a certain kind of hierarchy and sets of labels and it this may not be right for you I mean it may just be me who I don't know it's up to you the looking at say the quay and the Sun in Africa who are the cultures and we all where we all came from or still matrilineal cultures to some extent in southern India or you know wherever it is we find it I just think it's helpful to know that we can hope for those kinds of values it's not human nature to live in in the hierarchical way we do and then try to figure out creatively with each other how we move toward that you know I that's a kind of elaborate hope right but nonetheless it's where I find hope I said this earlier it is said that you shouldn't meet your heroes because you're sure to be disappointed as with so many other things in this world you break that rule thank you [Applause] I would now ask Sophia Williams Morgan Hedrick and Charlie Lafayette to come forward to thank miss Amanda Lange and miss Gloria Steinem on behalf of us all Sophia is the editor of the Branksome hall yearbook the slogan and co-head of the attribute club morgan is the school's club's prefect and co-head of the business club and charlie is the co head of the gender studies club miss lang thank you so much for moderating this incredibly eye-opening an important discussion we've had here at Gloria today as well as representing those joining us via livestream and asking these incredibly thought-provoking questions as a token of our appreciation Morgan has a gift for you [Applause] gloria thank you the words you have to share with us today are an incredibly inspirational call-to-action your wit your humility and your commitment to not only intersectionality but the idea that feminism means equality have resonated with us all here today as we mentioned earlier today in our Student Assembly we have made a donation to the native women's resource that of Toronto who are joining us here today on your behalf Charlie also has another small gift for you as a token of our true appreciation on behalf of Branksome hall thank you for coming out tonight two women strong Gloria Steinem have a lovely evening [Applause]

Channel: Branksome Hall

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Id: k4QRqtQTYiQ

Length: 88min 3sec (5283 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 23 2017