patrick took a big hit in 2010 he had a three could make the 2012 race a choice, not just between him and mitt romney but a choice between different ideology, different approaches to government, between different sets of visions and values. everything he did that timeframe can he kept trying to gather to this big idea he had about a choice. when i wrote the book of course we didn't know how things would end up on november 6, 2012, but i look at how he developed his governing strategy and his electoral strategy, and it really culminated in november. so this is the back story to what happened in this presidential campaign. >> we are here at the national press club. >> from the fourth annual boston book festival a panel entitled "what's next for women?" featuring anita hill, hanna rosin and madeleine kunin. this is about an hour.

>> good morning, everyone. such a pleasure to see you all here at what is absolutely one of my favorite events in the city every year, the boston book festival. my name is meghna chakrabarti. i cohost radio boston on wbur. [applause] >> thank you very much. first and foremost if you don't listen to the show i will give a famous pluck him 3 p.m. monday through friday. wbur is very proud to be a presenting partner for boston the festival because the spirit that brings literally tens of thousands of us together on a day like this inquiry, investigation, exploration, love of learning and literature. it's a natural combination for

the city of boston. so i'm very, very honored and proud to be here today, especially for this panel. and before i introduce the three amazing women who are sitting to my right, a couple quick reminders to one is that cell phones, if you've been given that reminder, please turn them off, or at the very, very least, silence. and since we are in the smartphone generation i also ask you, i urge you to resist the urge to tweet or facebook or look stuff up during this panel. let's try and create a sacred space where great conversation is actually the focus. [applause] >> the other thing is this is being recorded for broadcast on c-span, just so that everybody knows. and reckless after the panel today at 12:15 there will be a

book signing were all three of these women will be available behind the lecture hall here to sign copies of their books. so just remind on all those fronts. without further ado, please let me introduce to you free and credible women. first, governor and ambassador madeleine kunin from 1985. [applause] from 1985-90 day when she was of course governor of vermont and later united states ambassador both of switzerland and liechtenstein and she is author of this book, "the new feminist agenda." then professor anita hill. she's professor of social policy of law and women's studies at brandeis university and author of this new book, "reimaging equality: stories of gender, race, and finding home." welcome to you as well of [inaudible] >> and then hannah rosen, senior

editor at the atlantic and found of double x and slate women's section, slate.com. she's also the author of "the end of men and the rise of women," hannah rosen, welcome. [applause] >> so will first start off with a couple minutes from each of you on either a brief summary or maybe a story from your book that you think best encapsulates the ideas that you are presented in these great works. governor kunin, we'll start with you please. >> thank you very much. it's great to see you all out there, and to be here with my sister authors. what's next for women, my career, my political life really started with the women's movement in the '70s, and we had great expectations, some of which have been met. the very fact that women today

represents 60% of undergraduates that you see your friends, your daughters from her granddaughters becoming doctors, lawyers, things might generation couldn't do. and women are in the workforce like never before. and the traditional family of dad goes off to work, mom stands in the doorway wearing a pin to four, if anybody remembers a pinafore. [laughter] and waves goodbye as these two perfect children stand by her side. usually avoid is a little taller than the girl, and -- [laughter] that family portrait has been replaced. it applies now to 21st -- 21% of the population but a lot has been achieved. but i what i expect has not been achieved is wrote the wave would be the law of the land -- rule

v. wade would be the law of the land. misogyny, rape would be under control. that women would make at least 30% of the congress, now 17%. a lot of statistics, but i think the biggest challenge women face today is how to really take advantage of all these new opportunities and be able to to work while providing for their families, whether its children, the elderly or the disabled. and that's what i think is the next revolution we have to create to have policies, that the rest of the world already have and the american women does not have. whether it's paid maternity, family, whether it's access to affordable, quality childcare, whether it's workplace flexibility.

until we figure out this conundrum about how to confine -- combine family and work, how women can make a significant contribution to society while still loving and caring for their children, that is what we have to do. it can't be women alone. it has to be men. it has to be labor. it has to be the elderly. we have to form a new coalition to take this next giant step to make it possible for women to do what they really are meant to do, to be contributors to society but to also provide loving and safe care to their families. >> thank you. [applause] >> well, when i first started writing, it was precipitate in part by the housing market collapse.

and a few years, a couple years before i would wrote the piece in "the boston globe" about women and subprime lending. that banks were engaging in, and initiate in loans, subprime loans. in fact, many people qualify for conventional loans. so as i was thinking about the panel today, "what's next for women?," i have to say in the last real conservation -- conversation about what is next women, women and sort of the public conversation came a few weeks ago, when governor romney and it's a candidate mentioned the binders of women -- [laughter] that he received on his desk to help them populate his cabinet. and i start thinking about what that binders of women

symbolized. it was -- governor romney had to go out on the hunt to find women who would these creatures, hiding out in places where they were not really obvious. and in some ways i felt his pain in some ways. [laughter] because when i started writing about the housing market, i found that there was very little conversation about the impact that this is having on women. and it was as though women were invisible in this conversation. we have talked about it in terms of neighborhoods. we talked about in terms of people of color, but we hadn't really started talking about it in terms of women. and the a lot of numbers that supported a conversation that was specifically about how

subprime lending and the housing market in particular was relevant to women's experiences. and i can give you some of those numbers, but what i found was that when i started actually doing the research was bad when we were, what was most important was not simply the numbers of how women have been targeted for subprime loans when they qualified for conventional loans, about how women were more likely because of owning subprime loans more likely to end up in foreclosure, how women were, in fact, more likely to be at risk of housing insecurity because women, especially single women and heads of household work more likely to spend more than 50% of their income just to keep a roof over their families head. all of those numbers were compelling, but what i also

found very compelling about the stories as i did my research was that really women when they're going out into the market, they were simply looking for housing. they were looking for a home. and that the public discourse about the housing, it's about the housing market, and that that really messed what really was at stake here for so many people. that instead of looking for, the housing market as though we're sort of capturing part of the market, when we think about equality, what women were looking for was a place for growth. they were looking for a place for personal security. they were looking for a place that allows them to be empowered to build their dream, and to build on their own dreams or the dreams of their family.

and that was as though they were just looking for peace of economic market or even a piece of the housing market. and i found that to be true, not only for women but some men as well, but i think the women's stories that i found really tell it in a compelling way. and i tell the story about my great grandmother who moved from, well actually, was a slave, and eventually moved from her slave cabin even ashes emancipated she was living in a slave cabin, to move to her own home. and what that symbolized to her, the freedom of ownership, but not just an economic sense, but the self-sufficiency and the opportunity to become part of a community that it symbolized. now, where does that leave yesterday? what i think it does in terms of

women in the binders as well as all policymakers need to understand is that, you know, the women are not, should not be looked at to populate any kind, whether it's homes or the workplace or government positions. simply so they can go in and replicate the same story that get told about the space comes so that we can continue to think of politics the same way, such as we have women's bodies in those positions. that, in fact, what i'm trying to encourage in this book is a different conversation, it's a different conversation about what it means to be in a space. how we think about a space, how we think about a neighborhood, how we think about a community, how we think about the home,

that it's more than just an economic unit. in terms of policy, if we continue, for example, to think of the housing market as simply a measure of our economic growth, we're going to miss the real meaning of those very few notes, the home for people. we can't simply think about it in terms of economic growth because what that does is encourage us to make homes more and more and more expensive. because it's good for the economy. without thinking about what it does for those of us who are looking to find a home in america. [applause] >> since these guys did such a great shuffling of issues i think i'm going to tell a story. but before did i just want to say that because i'm from washington and because it's

halloween and because i have three children, all from love to trick or treat, i will report here that the most popular cautioned that has come up lately is binders full of women. [laughter] spent what does this hollow and caution look like? you put your arms in the binder, and it's like sort of nodded jack-in-the-box. it's like a jack lalanne in the box. who said we're dolan washington? i'm going to tell a story that inspired me to write my book. this began in 2000. the book is based on a story came out in 2010, and basically i had been vacationing and have a longtime which is a pretty process working class down come and one year i went there and it seemed like they were not that many minaret piercing like i was in a church, the fairgrounds, and driving down the street. this was at the height of the

housing collapse that a needed talked about, and so many having a hard time. this was when we talk about the man session and he session. i really became curious about this. i read a novel, sort of half sci-fi, half depressing novel that same time in which the men had literally disappeared from the town. it was a novel about manliness and masculinity by half and my mind when as is down. so became very curious and i ran into this woman in the supermarket i tell the story in the introduction, her name is bethany, and it was just her lucky day that she ran into me who is the extremely nosy reporter whose head was full of questions about something. as i got to asking her in my usually, a lot of nosy questions like so, that's your kid, like he was that bad, you know?

why would you ask a stranger in a supermarket that question? [laughter] she was very chatty and we got to talking. both she and her daughter told me yes, there was a bad. his name is calvin. he did live with them. why don't you live with them? then she said the thing which i had some at times during the reporting which was rather insulting but i'll say it anyway, it was some version of we don't live within because he would be just another mouth to be. she said in a giveaway but she talked about him like another child she would have to support. so i didn't give this up but as for his phone number. [laughter] not, you know, i married an everything but i just wanted to know more about calvin. so i called up calvin, and over time i became kind of invested in their story. and assure many of you are familiar with can a marriage be saved calling from the old column which is been repurposed as a video series lately, to great effect. i think it's a wonderful column.

and so i became, i got into the can the marriage be saved mode with two of them were i was always tried to help him get a job or get back together with her. i became kind of over invest in what reporters do sometimes. it was somewhat dysfunctional, like he would call me up from a 7-11 because he did not work the microwave. [laughter] you know. so why am i telling this story? because i realized, with a lightbulb went off for me which began by reporting was in realizing that i was going down the wrong path. my idea that calvin and bethany and is perfect them was going to come back together in one day, he's going to take his place at the table am so going to be the way it was that that was not going to happen. and why was that not going to happen? because something profound had shifted in the way that bethany thought a personal. she was in college at the time for them to be a nurse.

she was working there should taking care of her kid. she was struggling in the way that you guys have described. on the other hand, there was some measure of independence and ownership she had overheard space. that was a top nfl to me very, very different. so there is no way he was just going to sort of walk in and take the provider, breadwinner role the way had before. that is the kind of human spark that led me down this research. it was 2000 as i said, so many things are happening with women. that was the year they became the majority of the workforce, quite unprecedented. there was a big study that came out about breadwinner wives or women who are leading their families. and so i start to think about in economic terms, and then in the two years in several the i started thinking very emotional terms, what happened to american marriages, what was happening to young women in college. and that's what this book to out. i think we'll talk about this more but i just want to say what the end of men is not, it's not a manifesto.

i think the way i see is there's two different stories going on with women simultaneously in what is the story of sort of the struggle installing and the other is the story of an unprecedented switching gender roles. it's also not delusional. i live in washington sites are know what's going on with women in power. if the conversation i have often and hope that we'll have more of the and i want to end by saying what hope to come out of "the end of men" is not like we should all the men to the moon and never shall we see them again, because i really like my husband and make two sons and my father and my brother et cetera, et cetera. but it's now, i imagine we'll have similar views about this. kind of expanding of our imagination about gender roles and what men can do what women can do. if my son who thinks that the title of my book is like the neatest thing he's ever heard and said that to me all the time, if he grows up in a world in which he can work four days a

week or he can take care of his kids or has lots of options with anybody passing on the playground on tuesday at 3:00 thinking what's wrong with that guy, is that guy unemployed, is a something wrong with them? then that would be a better world for him. [applause] >> so obviously much more to talk about then we can cram into half an hour but i do also undermine everyone that can last 15 or 20 minutes or so it will be against q&a as well. people will have microphones, right, to take questions from folks in the eyes. if you wait into my 20s to you because of a c-span recording that would be great so we can capture your voice asking the question. and also please, as i've ever this review with questions, feel free to talk with each other as well and forgive me in advance if i present some non-feminine characteristics by cutting off a lot and trying to move things along.

is really your three books present this entire universe of issues for women in the 21st century, which deserves a very robust treatment i think. so let's start off with something that in a way all three of you touched upon, if not directly. and that is the incredible contrast between the visibility of women in 2012. we're hearing about more than 50% of the workforce in some areas is 60% of college graduates. many households with women are the primary breadwinner's, et cetera, et cetera. the numbers are pretty impressive, so there's incredible visibility in the workplace, at home and in society. and at the same time, and i believe professor hill, you use this term, one of you use this term, about the relative invisibility of women as well. which i think a lot of people, a lot of women, they feel that contradiction on a day-to-day basis but i will fill the open to anyone who wants to start.

how is it that with women still maintain an overall invisibili invisibility? >> well, we are most invisible at the tables where decisions are made about our lives. and i think that's the area where we really have work to do. there's a new world economic forum report that came out the other day that worldwide women have 20% of the political power. so if we are concerned about access to contraception. people are concerned about equal pay for equal work, we have to be at those tables. juno, you watch the news any night or open a newspaper, the huddles, the leaders are still largely male. you walk into a public building, whether it's the state house up the street here or the portraits

on the walls are male. so women still do not see themselves reflected in the halls of power. now, you know, you mentioned maybe we shouldn't do it the exact way, for the short-term, you have to do two things. you have to reinvent how power is exercised, and what power looks like, but at the same time you have to get there which means you have to play by the existing rules. i'd like to quote a phrase, you know, if you're not at the table, you're on the menu. [laughter] [applause] >> you know, we actually saw that happening in the discussion about access to affordable contraception in the health care bill within sandra fluke, the washington, george washington university law school student

couldn't testify before a panel of men, and she finally found a democratic committee to testify why access to contraception is important. and then rush limbaugh gave her the claim to fame when he called her a slut. somebody sent me -- a slut the button but i thought i wouldn't wear. [laughter] >> can i comment on that? having been called a slut -- [laughter] [applause] him. [cheers and applause] >> let me just say that part of the problem is that even with sandra fluke was allowed to testify, it may be, it made many happy and proud she was allowed to testify. what she is still going against

is the dominant theme or story that is out there prevailing that these groups of people are not or may not be listening to have the authority to decide what happens to us. they define what the parameters are. they define what the meaning of contraception is. and that's what rush limbaugh was injecting in this conversation. we define women's sexuality. we define what to contraception means. and i'm going to define as being a slut. and so our stories, even when we are sitting at the table are always perceived as the story of outsiders. so as outsiders for minority, or minimalize, stories that are of minimal significance, we are always trying to change the whole narrative to even say we

belong at the table. began to change it to say really, we are the ones who should be defining what contraception means, what it means to have control over our bodies. what it means to us in terms of our future and what it means to the entire and nation. that's really part of the problem that we're not just coming against being in the conversation but we are coming up against all of the structures that have been set up when we were not in the conversation. >> if you don't mind, and again i'm sorry for interrupting. i hear what you're saying but on the other hand, women are not a monolith's. >> that's why there needs to be more than one. >> as long as it's the right one.

[laughter] >> that's exactly my question. because women, for example, the state of massachusetts or 51% of the electorate. so that is the opportunity through this simple civic duty of voting. it depends on who you vote for, to put more women at the table of the power elite, for example. and yet because of the positing of women not being a monolith, perhaps the change isn't happening in the direction you would seek a to happen as fast as it could be. >> i think what's going on with the republican party and this issue is so interesting right now because it's not the same as it ever was. what seems to be different, i love your framing that you have to actually be at the table. the big difference to is that it was rush limbaugh and the rest of the party saying no, no, no. she's not a slut. even though they didn't let her speaker but they have at least been to the point where the republican party knows they have to do some of those people immediately and make them appear friends even though they keep

popping up from one in indiana, one here. [laughter] they have to keep smacking them down. it's kind of a hard task. but what's so interesting to me because a lot of single motherhood a lot, one of things i write about, now it's more like 50%. most of the growth in single motherhood is in red states. that's what everything the republican party has this carries position right now where their female is electorate, that it's possibly some connection between the kind of apropos like position they've taken all these years and the incredible rise of single motherhood. they won't even, and romney would even say the word single mother on stage. in factual say like women, she will circle around it like women struggle and then she was a and a single father. and unlike what? a single father? there's like 25 single fathers and like 1 million single mothers. so it's like i kind of watch him

struggle around this issue, like what are we going, how are we going to make sense of this world that we have created basically. >> it does show the power of women that they both desperately getting women's votes, and, obviously, republicans shifting their positions in order to do so. but women, that's where women do have power in this country, and that's not to be forgotten. hopefully they won't just try to win us over every four years. >> if i may do, to a certain degree is relatively easy because of the issue the republican party keeps coming up against regarding women to offer criticism of the. i'm an equal opportunity critic so let me just say that in the second presidential debate, a town hall style one, i thought that president barack obama's weakest moment was when the young woman stood up and asked him about equal pay for women. he rightfully talked about

passing the lilly ledbetter fair pay act. then he abandoned that line of thinking and went off to talk about the economy. that was the moment thereafter where mitt romney and the binders of women came up. what got me about that moment, for example, was that while the democrats and the president could point to this one act, this one piece of legislation, into the didn't talk about more than a because there isn't that much more. so let me start with you, governor kunin. i can come it's easy to say republicans, women may not be such an easy stew, but overall it's something as plain and simple and measurable as pay, no and the political spectrum across the board has done much to, well, beside you, but, you know, to do much practical about that. >> let me just say there is pending legislation which the republicans have blocked in the house, and that's the fair

paycheck at. he could have brought that up because you need that second hand to make it easier, a more practical to really demand fair pay in the course. but i would just say going back to the binders, which is a favorite topic i guess, when i was governor, unicom i got a lot of women applicants for jobs because it was the first time most people's acquaintance that there was a woman governor, so romney have to go outside of his network to find some women. and so for that much i gave him credit, even though he was given that binder by a group of female advocates ahead of the election. by the other thing we've got to look at is women's resumes. if we're really going to of women in administered position and private sector, the public sector, we have to recognize

that they are different, at least from my generation. there may be blind spots when you were raising her children, that's a very precious time. you know what's going on in your community. you volunteered. so a man looking at a resume will favor a resume that looks pretty much like his. as a woman, when i interviewed a woman who went to law school after she raised her kids, i immediately understood what that resume meant, even though she undersold herself in the interview. you can imagine she got the job. so if we're going to have women in places, we can't have authority, we can't always expect them to be just like men, even in their life story. and the question of qualify, they may be more qualified by having a slightly different resume that really has enriched their experience and let them do a better job.

>> i heard a story, resource on tommy a woman who works for three days a week, and having high people myself i understand this logic, the woman never asked for a race to mostly because she feels just grateful that some of us are works three days a week or inches like i will set them aside for her every year, but i will give to someone else if she's not going to ask for it. but i guess women are in any position of because each of them, even if they're pissed off because i feel like our biggest problem, and maybe this is a deeper part of what we're talking about, can't be solved by legislation. front of the scandinavian countries only deepens the money gap by passing such extensive maternity leave in some ways because what the women there complain about is now okay, like you'd lose a year. are basically because of social pressure whether you want it or not. when it is not the point where we can have this conversation because what are we, it's us,

botswana and one of the country that doesn't have paid maternity leave. so we are a bit behind. like the culture problems at once i feel like this is why we sort of like women, it hasn't been that long with it unbelievable strides, but now like we're at the very difficult point. >> and i agree with part of which were saying. it seems to me though that there's a couple of different problems, one is, such as a summary has a resume, an and a sense that whatever differences is always seen as a minus instead of a plus. and that's really a cultural problem that we need to try to get over how is it that what ever we see as the difference in women, whether it's women, people of color, it's always viewed as a minus. i cannot even believe that mitt romney can even when he was in

his workplace that he had not, women in business that might have been able to take position. >> he had women in the private equity world. >> one or two events. >> especially at that time. >> by the automatic presumption that what those differences are should be looked at as a minus instead of adding value to the other thing that we have to recognize is that even at resumes are the same, that there is a tendency to look at women as less. we have just seen that in a study done about scientists at yale where they had a scientist reviewing the documentation, the cds, of younger scientists.

and regardless, they have people with the same qualifications on paper being evaluated. by both men and women. and both group, the men and women evaluated the exact same cvs with a woman's name attached to it. it got a lower evaluation. they were less likely to be chosen to be the menses of the scientists -- mentees. they were less likely to be chosen to give come in terms of their pay. if you are signing a page each, women were chosen to get lesser pay it so there's some real cultural issues that are going on in terms of bias against women, whether it's women who look different or women whose cvs look the same. and we need to confront the.

we need to understand that your and see really where that is coming from and unpack that in ways. of images go to the policy issues, because when mitt romney did tell his story, he told about a lot, the story about how he treated women in the workplace and what happened. he raised a story about childcare when he told the story about his employee who said i had go home to feed my children. he told a story about flexible work schedules. whether or not you should have that flexible work schedule for someone, a family woman, or a man, who needs to go pick up their children at school or fixed dinner for the school. p. actually, when he talked about the binders, he talked whether he should have a affirmative-action so that we can go out and find these women.

he talked about equal pay, or did he? he said i brought these women in, but did he say whether or not he pay them the same as he paid the men? and if he did in he believes in equal pay. but it's more than just well, i personally believe in equal pay, and you, that will get us all to equality. the question is whether not that should be a national policy. >> governor kunin? >> i just want to, thank you, i just want to go back to hanna's point about sweden. if i, you know, were 25 and about to have a baby i would much rather live in sweden. you can have child care. you can have paid family leave for a year, and the only disadvantage about these policies is that sometimes the paid family leave will discriminate against women. but in the nordic countries and

other countries they are providing paternity care, which is the answer. either use it or lose it. so increasingly dads are taking advantage of this. and as i was a question in public policy, do you change the culture first or do you change the law? and we really have to do both. because even new jersey and california have paid maternity leave. the only states that do so. but a lot of people don't take advantage because they are afraid. they are afraid they won't be considered good workers. so we have to get to a place in this country where we value the child, where we value the mother. one consequence of our present lack of these policies is we have in the united states of america the highest child poverty rate in developed countries, at 22%. what's that got to do with family work policies? the best answer is still a

paycheck. it's very hard for women to work without a network of support on issues like a good affordable childcare, workplace flexibility, and paid family and medical leave. so we have to put policies in place at the same time as we change the culture. >> i'm trying to decide how to deep into standard want to go. i would rather, i would prefer sweden to know what. how about that? i'm totally serious. sweden has done something that no other country has done. they have forced paternity leave as was maternity leave. if i had it my way we would skip over the phase one and go straight to the things that are sort of gender universal. namely, if met a maternity leave would also have the paternity leave and we talked about childcare. so we tried to do this in as neutral a way as possible. because the truth is everybody, the problem with the american workplace is the penalty that

women pay more often than men because women still have the lion's share of the childcare. but the american workforce, you know, punishes you severely for doing things for your family. except not in every sector but many sectors do that. if you're a been punishing worse. trying to be an american who asked for paternity leave, you are almost worse off than american women spend on that point, i've read, please correct me if i'm wrong, but in some countries that do offer by 30 leave, men just don't take it spent sweden a century is very difficult not to. they are doing this weird experiment in sweden and it's like worked wonderfully. >> in the interest of moving along and leaving time for questions, i did want to share to break things. you were trying about women not asking for raises. i'm doing a part-time mba in my negotiations class but most likely paper is the one to go so deep into this exact issue and

it's titled women never ask [talking over each other] >> they don't ask for promotions, et cetera but it is all matter of some position as one. they found to be the most transformative paper. and also in terms of, i recently read a georgetown study that showed one measure that in terms of lifetime earnings on average, and again on average means using a very broad brush, but in terms of lifetime earning a woman has to have a ph.d to web equal the lifetime learning other than does a bachelors or masters degree. and this seems to matter in the world if with more than 50% of women as the workforce spend i didn't know professors make more money than everybody else? [laughter] >> lifetime earning. >> again, it is interesting that the paper that you talk about is

important answer stands at the people as compelling. but i wonder if you'd asked the question a different way. if you have a man and woman and a workplace, and the woman is not asking for a raise, and the man is not asking for a raise, would the employer automatically give the rays to the man because after all, he deserves it. i think there are different ways that we need to think about this, what happens differentially commend and women, women did even though they don't ask for it, and women who don't ask for it have said well, you are the problem, you're the reason that you were not getting the raise. and i think it's a little bit of data going on. see, we told you it's not because we're discriminate against women that they're not getting raises. it's because they just don't ask for it. and if they ask for it, we give it to them. and i'm not sure that i buy that. >> let me just apply that to politics. one of the reasons we have such

a dismal record of women in politics compared to the rest of the world, we ranked 90th out of 168 countries and the percentage of women. women also don't announce themselves to run for office. study after study has shown women have to be asked to run. .. >> are very specific about what they think they need, and what we have to learn is that we can transfer knowledge from one area

to another and that we can learn on the job, and we can, you know, live on the edge of what you know. that's certainly what i did when i became governor. i said, how am i going to do this? and here i was teetering. but you learn. and you have, you have to trust your own potential, plus having a lot of people around you who think you're great. [laughter] >> i just want to tell my favorite story about this which is that i was interviewing people at google, and they were trying to recruit more female executives and computer programmers, and they did the survey of their applicants, and they came up with this amazing strategy. if you advertised a job and you listed specifically what one needed for that job, so you needed eight things that you needed to know for that job, they got far fewer women applying. now, what's the connection between the eight things and the women applying? women look at the list, and they're like, oh, well, i can't do three, five or eight, so

forget it, i'm not qualified. whereas men look at it, i can do four, i'm on it, you know? [laughter] so that's, you know, the credentialing thing. >> we are fast running down on time, but i'm desperate to ask all of you one last question, and i will, and i hope we can get some brief answers so we can turn to audience questions, but if people start raising their hands so that the microphones can gravitate toward you now, that would be great. i'm opening a can of worms with my last question, and i apologize. but one thing that i noticed in, you know, really there's been a flood of books recently about this issue of what's next for women. and by virtue of, you know, the necessity of having to have a thesis when you write a book, etc., i wonder how much are we doing a disservice to the true complexity and diversity of what womanhood is in the united states now? because, you know, a lot of the

books deal with issues which, quite frankly, to my opinion matter only to those women who may be upper middle class, upper class, college-educated, affluent women. other books deal with -- you get what i'm saying, that there's a diversity within what it means to be a modern day, american woman that often times gets lost in the discussion when we just talk about women. and how much does that matter? because class and race are still endlessly important issues in the united states that may further or more powerfully define a woman and her opportunities than the fact of being a woman. >> well, you know, my generation of the women's movement was accused by the next generation of not being sensitive enough, that it was a upper middle class movement, not being sensitive enough to gay and lesbian, to poor women, to women of color. but, and all those things do, do play a role. and i think, you know, the press

loves to divide us like the mommy wars, you know? working women versus stay-at-home moms. the truth is, most women will go through different stages of life. they may be home. i was home with my four children for ten years. unfortunately, i -- they have very little memory of the brownies that i baked and the pickles that i pickled. [laughter] but, you know, i took that time out, and then i stepped back in. so, yes, every time you generalize about women, you leave somebody out. we can't have the conversation unless we do. but i think we have to be sensitive to it. and, you know, just one example. a woman in upper management, she can negotiate paid maternity leave most of the time. she can, when she's sick, she can call in the sick. when a lower income woman wants

leave or has a sick day, she can be fired on the spot. because she has absolutely no power to negotiate anything. so that's why we do need laws like paid sick days, better known as earned sick days, because we have to not rely on just who your boss is, how well you can negotiate time off. this should be a basic, fundamental right. now, some businesses do it on their own, but those who get left out are usually the most vulnerable. and they're the ones that need the greatest opportunity. so it becomes a way of life that we respect families, that we grab back the phrase family values which shouldn't be about gun control, which shouldn't be about same-sex marriage, but really have values that value

families. [applause] >> i'm being told that we have ten minutes total left, but i would like to hear briefly from both of you. >> well, let me just say this. in this very room a number of years ago, i think it was 1998, i was introduced by an individual who some of you in the community might know, judge higgenbot tom. he was a mentor of mine, he was known primarily, i guess, after he stepped down after his judgeship as a race man. but one thing he told me was i can never talk about race without talking about gender anymore. i have made that commitment. i, so when i hear things like we should have gender-neutral policies, it reminds me of how well race neutrality has and has not worked. i think we really need to be informed by all of these ways that we are seen as different.

we need to take into account as much of it -- people say, well, can you talk about gender without talking about race? i can't. because live both of them. of i live both of those experiences. for me when i'm talking about one and the way i experience it, i'm really talking about both. and so i think it is difficult to have the conversation. what we really, though, to me have to avoid is assuming that we can't address the way we look at differences all at once. that race has to trump gender or that gender, all of us being women together has to trump a conversation about what it means to be a lesbian woman or that talking about women altogether has to trump talking about our differences as we age through

life and the issues that we confront throughout our lifetimes. so that, i think, is where -- what i find really problematic, and i don't think we've done a good job of it. i think you're absolutely right. and the only thing that i would say is that, you know, people say, well, we have to really talk about women altogether. i think that if we're going to talk about women altogether, then we better make sure that a whole variety of us is represented in that conversation. >> i'm going to be really fast here. i mean, i agree with you. i specifically divided the book into different classes because it occurred to me at some point that the way this phenomenon was unfolding was affecting women and especially american marriages of two classes, not just differently, but in completely opposite ways. so, you know, there's a sort of complete decline in marriage among the noncollege educated and something very different happening with women there, and

there's new forms of marriage and strengthening of marriage among the college-educated and yet this was another way in which there was a growing class divide in america. on the other hand, i do think there are ways in this which being a woman is being a woman, and that experience is very similar, and especially being a woman in the workplace, i think a lot of those issues are pretty common -- >> and when i read your book and i hear your story, i see an african-american story. >> uh-huh. >> that it's like, oh, we're discovering that now there are men who aren't able to find jobs and able to support their families? this is a story we've been living. >> well, i purpose -- so that's why i say, you know, but i think that we all sort of have to be represented, and we have to recognize that these are not unique stories to one group. >> do we have time for one question? [laughter] apologies to everybody in the audience. who's got the microphone? >> i do.

i'll stand up, you can see me better. um, i'm just wondering if perhaps part of the problem with women getting equal pay or women moving ahead is that so few women take on what they call the s.t.e.m. classes, the science, technology, education, math. i went to school as an engineer back in the '80s, i was the only woman in many my program. now it's these many years later, and i still don't find any women who have become safety engineers the way i did. so is there a way we can sort of push the younger generation to take harder courses and to break more of those barriers? >> there is some work to do that, and the educational system is stepping up to do that, but you do come up against the situation that they discovered at yale, that women, even though they have the same qualifications, are not treated equally. >> i think we also have to encourage women. i mean, that's one area, in

technology and science, where women have not made as significant a leap as they have in law and medicine. and it starts early. i think it starts in kindergarten where you have to encourage that. and, you know, i saw that same study, but be that as it may, women are making a lot more money in those fields than they do -- >> in humanities. >> -- unfortunately in the liberal arts. >> is there something you want to say? because we have time for one more question. >> no, go ahead. let other people talk. >> yeah, sandra fluke, she's the one who wants her orr gaz ms subsidized by taxpayer dollars. maybe if limbaugh had used the c-word to describe her as bill maher did of sarah palin, that would be okay -- >> sir, if you have a question -- >> the desirable countries

chosen by you folks, that's very white of you. so my question is, so my question is, would you like to put into play, are we going to have some point in this which hillary clinton's advice is put into play, namely stop whining? >> everybody, everybody, please, please. if there's -- >> i have a really good question, i promise. >> sir, i'm sorry, we didn't hear a question here, so if there's someone who has a question, please. >> yes, i have a question. there's actually a way in which this conversation today very much mirrors a conversation that men have about these issues or about the issues that face our country that constantly make me feel as if i'm left out of this because i'm single. and all of this conversation is directed towards families and family values, and yet i believe the majority of women in the country today are actually

single. many of them may be younger, so maybe you assume taye going to as -- assume they're going to aspire after those kinds of lives, but i don't see you very much talking about single women. and this is, i actually do believe we shouldn't divide up into different pieces, but i don't often hear myself and other women like me reflected in these conversations. >> well, that's a good point, but let me just add -- [applause] that as the single woman you may have an aging grandmother, you may have a very close friend, you may have a ped call emergency -- medical emergency, so a policy like paid maternity and family leave would be of great help to you. and you are at one stage of life, you know? eventually, you get older, and things may change for you. but we should be sensitive the to what you're saying, but it really affects everybody. this is not just for married

women, this is not just for mothers, not just for fathers, this is to make us a fair and equal society where we don't have to trade off taking care of the ones we love or getting a paycheck. >> and as a single woman with no children, i still need -- find the need to find a home. that place where i can be secure, personally secure and can begin to actually feel like i belong to a community. so i agree with you that often the conversation is about people with children, but my definition of what will get us closer to equality does not presume that we will all have children. >> my first chapter's about single women before they get -- i actually think the world has changed drastically for women before they get married, because it's before you run into the realities that, you know, we were talking about, the sort of workplace, even the wage gap realities.