so we're seven months away from 9/11. context is very important here. in may 2001, the same journalist anthony davis and i managed to get through taliban lines to visit in the northeast part of the country. he had remaining 10% of the country under his control. 90% of the country was controlled by al qaeda and taliban. the arab fighters mixed in with

the taliban were about 40 miles away in a very precarious geographic area they were barely able to hold them back in. this area of the province it is south of tajikistan. south of the river and geography is very important. the story is how he and his ragtag force was able to maintain any kind of defense. so it turns out he has the only operating mine in the world. goes back 1000 years. he has two emerald mines. of course he allowed his men to grow opium because that was the only way they could get cash. that was smuggled across to pakistan but he also knew in may, this is four months away from 9/11 that something was going on in kandahar with bin laden. something he heard was up through his contacts. now he is tajik. so he has a very difficult time

infiltrating a pashtun mafia for lack of a better word and particularly for the arabs who would be very suspicious of somebody with a different dialect even if they spoke pashtun. so at this point gary sawyer from the cia who had been station chief in pakistan started to make contact with him. the cia rarely gave any money to the the valley fighters. the tajiks were not favored by the pakistanis or cia. we get into the more interesting foreign policy side of this. who was giving him money and supplies? russia iran, a shia country offering money to a sunni. and india pakistan's biggest rival. so we have a three dimensional game going on for control of just the last 10% of the country. in this building on september 9th he agreed to

be interviewed by two arabs who came into his region as journalists, carrying moroccan and belgium passports. one of the two cameras set up to interview him just as he was miced up, one was packed full of c-4 explosives and killed him. so september 9th. so, 100% control of that afghanistan goes to al qaeda and the taliban. everything folded in the last 10%. he was a very charismatic leader. spoke fluent french. was educated in the french lesay in downtown kabul and son of a military officer. very interesting fellow. great chess player. could quote persian poetry all night long and he had a lot of respect in this area. but he was not favored by the united states, and particularly nor the saudis.

for two days they had 100% control of pan began. -- afghanistan. if the world trade center, and this is a theory enjoy speaking about, if the world trade center and pentagon attacks been foiled which i think they could have been, this is not behind height now. what would the americans have done about afghanistan? think about it. we move ahead to the end of november of 2001. and i was lucky enough to get a visa by the taliban who had withdrawn from kabul to their home base in kandahar. you can see the look of amazement of the kandaharry population who had been bombed for the last two weeks by american and french jets. seeing 10 foreigners and 10 pakistani journalists. we had our own security. we got out of there pretty quickly. they were not a happy bunch. you can see the interesting

turbans here. taliban. what the taliban really wanted to show us was that the village about 17, 20 miles outside of kandahar had been bombed by either americans and french and killing civilians. the americans claim they saw lights at night in this area where there was no lech -- electricity in rural part of kandahar where people would take refuge from the bombings. they must be al qaeda. who else would have vehicles and a generator? so they bombed the city, or the small town. this is the rubble from the explosions and the bombing. this is the shepard calling in his children who are out in the field to bring in the goats and sheep. gives you an idea of the terrain. not very forgiving, not very fertile but also gives you the idea life goes on no matter what. so we did see 17 graves. we have no idea who was in

there. it was interesting to have the taliban show us a violation of human rights. four pakistanis captured in december of 2001, and if you live in the region long enough you immediately know they are pakistani and that they are punjabs. in there punjab, there is very strong interesting, madrassa religious school there. these are the fellows that came out of that, isi training. sent across to fight. captured and will probably be traded back to pakistan for some afghans that might be in jail there. or interrogated by the americans in december you may remember tora bora. middle this is december 17th. bin laden had successfully escaped over 10,000 foot pass and behind in his retreat he was covered by 12 to 15 arabs left

behind to cover his retreat and withdrawal. this is also the time that tommy franks denied the marines access. we had battalion and 1/2 waiting off, i believe in the indian ocean, waiting to parachute in to chase bin laden but tommy franks, got bless him said no, we'll let locals handle it. if i start to sound a little cynical, it is because i am, this is during ramadan. do you think the locals who fast all day long, when it is 32 degrees and they don't eat all day long, are going to go chase a fellow up a mountain, to 12,000 feet? it was impossible. so they eventually put about 150 to 200 special forces in there. there is no way you can climatize quickly enough to chase somebody up a mountain and

catch somebody who already disappeared to the other side. here the face here, told me is probably yemeni or saudi. and probably one of the first visitors to guantanamo. these are two afghan push tunes. push tunes. pashtuns. violate the geneva convention to show prisoners of war but tell that to the afghan. so he was probably sold to the americans. in march of 2002. this represents the american commitment this is a soldier from the 10th mountain division at 5500 feet with a dead taliban. one interesting thing, if you look closely this is something you learn as photo journalist, to try to include as much detail into a picture as possible. i went down on one knee because his head started to decompose. no way to include that in the picture but i noticed two sets of rubber gloves.

what was that doing there? and his fingertips had been blued with ink. he had been fingerprinted and forensic team had come through and gone. so the whole database now is beginning on tracking who these people might be. interesting. another aspect and theme that tried to include in he had iting the book was the influence of pakistan and surrounding countries. difficult task to do that physically. not very good security in border areas but here it is in ba luge. >> stan. in the western scrap stall of pakistan pakistanis denied they were giving refuge to any taliban. but here they are. you can see it. you know the faces. at least i do. they're in pashtunabab. a known neighborhood where they

had sanctuary. their turbans and notice their dress, very short salafi wahhabi look. they had just come out after mosque. i was dressed in -- but i couldn't disguise the fact i was american. they knew who i was. you can tell on their face. they didn't want have anything to do with me. that night the interpreter that i had hired got a knock on the door from the intelligence agency, asking him imploring him to please stop bringing foreigners to pashtunabab. so we had been followed. 2008, in a very remote province of nuristan, one of the probably most sparsely populated provinces and most difficult of terrain. these are wounded 10th mountain division soldiers being flown out because they had been ambushed resupplying a base at the top of this mountain. a four-hour walk i made the day before. i didn't have my legs the

following day. i missed an ambush, yes but i don't think i could have made the trip actually, but why on earth you would put a base at the bottom of a canyon, when you can be picked off like the british encountered in the 19th century. this is a major river. the americans were eventually overrun in this base and the base was given over to the taliban. they escaped two years later. these men were not seriously injured. some of the personalities in afghanistan. some of you may know who this is he was an afghan-american who left his country when he was 15. came to the u.s. married an american. went to georgetown. became part of the neoconservatives. again here we have some history. 1952, the americans paid for and built the kandahar airport as part of an aid project.

wouldn't you know it but he is back with his escorts to have a ribbon-cutting opening of a road project that the americans had supported outside of kandahar. he went on to become ambassador to iraq as well. interesting person. the terrain again very important in this story in this book, in this conquest, this invasion in the whole battlefield. look at the terrain and how insurmountable it really is. this is a u.s. marine coming up to a command outpost in the kunar, province of kunar. this is the kunar river. it's still in occupied by a few americans. but a lot of the bases and i will show you a better picture of this later. this is the hindu kush. very similar to the rockies. not very forgiving terrain.

president hamid karzai in 2001 at a press conference in the palace -- 2009. in 2009 i went out with "the new york times" to a central afghan provincial capital to see what was going on in part of the province that is 80% controlled by the taliban. in the picture it is not very clear here but over in the left you have a brand new ford pickup truck that the united states had given them. these are british-designed invented barriers which are collapsable burlap or mesh-like eight with wire. open them up. fill them up with dirt and very much pretty instant barricades. the afghan flag. the chinese russian rooftop to a pickup truck. a broken chair. a traffic cone tipped over. dirty socks. interesting gutter here and two very innocent but scared out of their mind afghan national

policemen inviting me in for breakfast. the takeaway from this, this is a brand new ford pickup truck. has no gasoline. the gasoline that leaves kabul in 18 wheel truck would be diverted, the gasoline would be unloaded and sold on the black market. so they had no gasoline for their brand new pickup trucks. this is the legacy of what we're going to leave the afghans and it is a infrastructure that is very new to them, to be able to take care of themselves. again the encounters between, this is a 10th mountain soldier two hours outside of kabul. greeting a teenager in wardak province and an old trench from the my jawed dean days of the '80s. the americans of course established a base in a very strategic point there. down to zero sea level.

this is over 5,000 feet. we go down to zero in helmond province. a group of marines having an after-action report where they eat after a four-hour patrol. it is 125 degrees. you're dehydrated. really just wiped out. this is about 5:00 in the afternoon. this picture ran in the "new york times" and i think it is a good indication on the disconnect between the pentagon and members in the field. they were oprah mannedded by a regimental sergeant major for being out of uniform even though he never mentioned congratulations, our men are on the front page of "the new york times." he wanted these men punished. because they're wearing do-rags. it is the only way to keep sweat from pouring out of your head. if it is 25 degrees, the metal plate on the front panned back of you is also 125 degrees.

you're basically wearing a waffle iron. it is difficult terrain at zero sea level. this is a 16th century fort. , in one of the southern most outposts of the u.s. army and marines. back to seven to 10,000 feet in kandahar. this is really the challenge of any occupying army, including alexander the great who went through this region. one road into this. can you imagine being in a humvee going up this? ambush alley. but smartly, general petraeus and general mackris tall decided to give up all of these small outposts that ringed here. and a very interesting documentary made by sebastian younger, was filmed up here. this is the watpor valley. back to zero. this is 16th century mud

fort. prime opium territory. an ied disposal team looking for fertilizer diesel and ball bearings. they didn't find it. marines. 2013, i returned to cover basically the withdrawal of the u.s. military and nato. this is, i was very surprised to get permission to photograph a drone being launched. it is not an armed drone but a reconnaissance one. it reaches 80 miles per hour off of this ramp. very interesting to watch this. and to see the pictures and the clarity, the optics are just amazing from these. this is a observation drone. 14-foot wingspan. the technology is quite old. they didn't have any problem with a camera on it. bagram airbase. these are where the vehicles were collected. these are mrap 15-ton vehicles. mine rye assistant ambush protected and well air-conditioned armored vehicles.

$750,000 apiece. being collected and cleaned. this army soldier looking for stray bullets which may have fallen into crevasses before they're transported either to the middle east europe or back to the united states. made by oshkosh. downtown kabul again daily live is something as photo journalists we need to cover. with security since 2001 when the city was gained its freedom so to speak the afghans then tried to emulate architecture in dubai. this is a wedding hall which can hold about 2000 people. there are four wedding halls very interesting to see kabul at night now. western kabul gives you idea of density, this as urban area and farmland will eventually disappear as real estate increases in value. this is the kabul river that

runs through. this used to be the front line. this main road this was the russian embassy cultural center which became a destination for a lot of journalists to see what was left of the former soviet occupation. and that is kabul university here this nice green square in western kabul. on my last day in kabul two suburban suvs carrying six military trainers were ambushed by a vehicle-borne explosive device. a suicide bomber waited for them along the route. obviously they had made this route before on their way to an afghan base where they were going to train afghan army soldiers. six americans were killed, and 10 afghans. this is the best example that i could, whatever i had at my disposal to indicate the american withdrawal.

now, to show a withdrawal is similar to showing a retreat and the army did not want to see that kind of spin given to journalists, nor did they want to project they were actually going to withdraw. physically they could talk about but they were rather reluctant to show it but here you have men, army, leaving at bagram airbase. gives you an idea of the whole wide it is about twice the size of o'hare or jfk. it is enormous. it is one of the bases that will not be given up, up at least in my opinion. these are troops coming in to finish their deployment, carrying rifles, helmets. no helmets no rifles, interesting gesture given to me which i saw later on, not through the viewfinder. that wasn't hello. [laughter]. so there have been a lot of improvements. i mean the in the urban environment you have access to

clinics, schools and access to what you think are government institutions which may function for you. but girls schools have been reconstructed, or established and in most of kabul. literacy is up. girlses are going to school but it's limited in the urban areas. particularly in the remote areas where security is tenuous at best, very rare would you find a teacher willing to teach young mensch less young women. and not see the threat of a night letter coming and tacked on their door from the taliban. so the traditions are very serious and very much ingrained. and it's a very difficult argument on why women are not educated when you have traditional marriages arranged marriages, still very much the norm and status quo for afghan society. this is the last slide.

and this is really how i want to end my 25 years of images. but this is really what afghans want in life. is a free, open market, chaos, but the ability to go and shop on their own free of any kind of conflict. you notice here that the main police traffic, traffic police outpost totally useless. but there is dust noise chaos. gridlock. but this is really a great view of again began and really -- afghanistan and what they aspire to. remember, most of the city was rubble in the mid '90s. they will come back if there is security. but, on that i'd like to turn it over to you crystal if we want to have some microphones to take some questions. [applause]

it went a little bit long but i think it is important to have as many images so it is not just a blurb because it is a complicated country to try to figure out. >> could you discuss your equipment, your photographic equipment at that time and what you prefer now, please? >> things have changed drastically since carrying around battery-operated nikons or cannons. to the digital era which really took over after 9/11. prior to that, i shot film, put it into small caption packets and with a wing and a prayer and crossed fingers got them to new york where they were processed. that took 24 hours.

somehow, most every packet got there. but this was a time when we could shoot kodachrome which took roughly another day to get processed but the luxury of that finished after 2001, when satellite communications kind of took over our lives. we had to spend hours with our own computer, transmitter, or scanner, if you wanted to get negative film processed. and eventually became all digital. and you had to have that capacity for any kind of assignment was to be able to hook up either through a sat phone, a simple device, an interesting early stage satellite phone or a big winged instrument which they still have today but it is essentially the size of a laptop computer, called a bgan. if you string up three bgmans you can send video. it is very slow. you need a broadband or a lot of

width, bandwidth to transmit video but now it is down to a laptop, a bgan and that's about it. and a computer chip. so i used filmcam as. i still carry filmcam as into the situation but they tend to get beaten up. yes, ma'am yes sir, sorry? >> now that the americans have largely withdrawn from afghanistan, what's your view as to the future there? >> i am an informed observer. i'm not a political strategist but, americans haven't withdrawn and i don't think they will. they were waiting for hamid karzai to leave so this bsa agreement, the security arrangement, could be negotiated. and it's my personal opinion we

should not withdraw. that we need to stay. this is a crucial area of the world. many may say what's the point? but if we're not there and we were not there from 1989 to 2001 there was no u.s. embassy from january 20th, 1989 to december 17th, 2001. please, somebody here, explain that to me. what happened in that period of time? gestation of al qaeda. we had nobody on the ground, for intelligence humanitarian issues visas nothing. i'm still perplexed by that. this happened january 20th, is the day of inauguration. so that decision was made in the late 1988, but once the russians withdraw why should we withdraw? i couldn't understand it. but i was there when they

lowered the flag at u.s. embassy in kabul. that is one of the reasons i'm still engaged in this topic. what happened? we're storytellers. so there is a story behind that look what happened. we have to remain engaged. we need diplomats who are familiar with the territory. we need farsi speakers. we need erred due speakers. we need hinder did i speakers. -- hundred did i speakers. -- hind. we have u.s. embassy with over 700 people and zero in afghanistan? it didn't make any sense to me. remember i didn't fly in and out of the region. i lived in india and i breathed and drank the water not the kool-aid. what is going on here? it rarely made domestic press coverage but we, time had a an asian edition in hong kong which

took most of these stories. when you get a string of these stories together it almost reads like a good thriller. and it is. it is very interesting but we need competent knowledgeable people experts not people with phds who never leave foggy bottom. it is imperative that we remained with this place. watch what happens when we're not there. we have no embassy in iran right now. so, this discussion can go on but we have other questions. yes, sir? >> hi. i want to thank you for coming and just ask if you can take us through what it was like covering afghanistan as an american during so many pivotal times? >> prior to 9/11, as long as you

didn't run into farly arabs who really didn't want their picture taken much less see you in their vision, it was okay. we did have to comply with taliban rules after 1996. they didn't believe in photography and tried to prohibit it. that made it much more difficult for me but not much more difficult for the writers because they could continue to talk and question. that was allowed. even record with a microphone. but as long as you had good people around you a good driver, somebody you could trust who knew the neighborhoods yes it was potentially very violent in some these places if you made the wrong turn, but with enough local knowledge streetwise, and situational awareness you could maybe take a taliban out to lunch who didn't want you to let you take pictures and fill him full of food and maybe fall

asleep by 2:00 in the afternoon. it was a tactic. but this is what you had to try. i had to come away with pictures. the writer always came up with a story but i had to be commensurate with my film supply. so it was a challenge and but it is also a challenge to work in pakistan and in india. these countries are all connected. you won't be able to figure out afghanistan unless you know pakistan. you must understand india to know about pakistan. it just, they're all connected. it is part of the old british empire. and that is the way they think. they don't think in individual countries. afghanistan is land-locked. they get everything in through karachi in southern pakistan. they're dependent on the pakistanis, for instance. all of this, if you could keep your mouth shut, try to blend in be the fly on the wall that's ideal but that's not possible all the time. so yes, we were challenged a lot but if you had a driver,

that could tell a good tale about who we really were, he would say, well, this person here, you must let him through. he is a relative of john major he represents the queen of england, you must let him pass. that worked. ask john burns from the "new york times." that is of the drivers he had. those people are fully employed all the time. [laughing] so there are challenges every day, similar to that. but, going back to 1990 when i met kani, he didn't care about american or not. today that is an issue. we are a target. and how do you deal with that? what magazine, publication is willing to send you out on that him right now? who is willing to go? >> thank you for your incredible photographs but, one question.

as we read recently, the taliban is making, major advances against the afghan army, well-trained, well-equipped, supposedly by the american forces but they're struggling. what is your take on, can the afghans really defend themselves or are they going to be like the iraqis, fold their tent and run? >> it is an important question but, i will remind you how the taliban took control of afghanistan. they cut it without firing many bullets. they cut deals. people folded. they remained in power but the taliban were rulers. they became the governors. that's what is going on right now. the taliban have broken up, little bit from the elder generation to the younger generation who were much more prone for violence. afghans are fed up with war. if you talk to the 18 to 25-year-old university student they don't want to pick up the gun. they also don't like the taliban

but the afghans want security and if the taliban will come into a rural area, not the urban areas, they will be willing to accept them. and so will the police. and so will the army, who have family in that location. so, it is more of a matter of compromise. how are specific provinces particularly ones contiguous to pakistan going to remain neutral or pro-government when the taliban are breathing down their neck? they control the farms they control the opium they control the roadways. they consider this as survival. they don't like the taliban. they barely get 10% of the vote. when you hear this report that specific areas of afghanistan are folding keep in mind that a lot of journalists can't go to these areas and it is over the phone chatter and anybody who represents journalism, if he

comes out with two specific information, they will target that person's family. they find out who gave that report. there is a lost suspicion and suspense in getting that report out. but that is the way i expect certain provinces to collapse. but what does that mean? short-term, long term, i really don't know. nobody has the crystal ball for this place. we have time for one question. >> bob you asked to speculate as to had 9/11 been foiled, what would have happened to afghanistan. you have had a lot more time to think about that question. what do you think would have happened? >> it is already, it was already underway in 2001, in 19 see when did i go to tajikistan. 1993, with the breakup of

central asian republics. i went to tajikistan to dujon bay to find one of the dissenting voice in u.s. embassy in islamabad, ed mcwilliams. he had been sent over, special envoy from the white house, to find out what was going on and to send back some recommendations. 19892, 1993. he came back with, analysis saying we should stop supporting and letting the arabs into this country and we should stop supporting militant groups such as hekmtar who are 100% anti-american. within a matter of days the ambassador, robert oakley, around the station chief dewey clerige, from cia many of you may know the name started calling him a alcoholic a drug

addict, a homosexual. and they exiled him to dujon bay. i tracked him down with another reporter and outside, he said look what is going on outside. the saudis are here distributing korans and the iranians are here distributing their korans. in tajikistan they speak farsi. they're sunni but the shias from iran are there. so it became a race, inside of central asia, on how to take over after the mujahideen had taken power in kabul in 1992. so ed mcwilliams, one of the few dissenters. he wasn't a whistle-blower but they basically liabled him and --ly belled him and kicked him out. he was cia operative in vietnam. he kind of knew the terrain. a interesting fellow. i don't know really what can happen in afghanistan unless all of what you ask of the countries

around that country are also questioned. what do they intend to do? i'm not sure what would have happened with bush, rumsfeld and cheney in power, how they would have looked at this but judging from our failure to come up with crucial critical analysis until an emergency happens i don't know how proactive or creative we're going to be. but it depends how astute and how much responsibility diplomats have and for the last decade 1/2 or 20 years the pentagon has been taking power away from the state department. that is a problem when you're a diplomat. so it is difficult to say what would have happened. that is context what is very gone -- going on in central asia. that was very real. i saw the big vehicles outside.

who knows what would have happened. this is how west point, air force academy annapolis, what you discuss in the navy war college in carlisle, pennsylvania. these are legitimate questions. not what we should have been done or what would we have done? or both. i threw a lot of information at you tonight. at least they were pictures, not totally words. but i must remind you that it is very complicated. i spent a long time trying to figure it out. it is a big puzzle but a very interesting one. and there are several books there are several blog sites. and now we have the template from afghanistan being reproduced in iraq and syria. this is what usama bin laden wanted to do, take over afghanistan. i don't think he ever realized or believed that this could

happen but now we have a caliphate declared in iraq and syria. and it comes directly out of the model from afghanistan. so, when we took our eye off the ball in 2003, on march 19th, went into iraq, that sent another signal to the world that we weren't serious about afghanistan. and if you talk to a lot of many of you must have military friends or friends that are still serving or ex-military now that they're not wearing the uniform, they might tell you how they really feel. and it would be, it is an having conversation. yes, they were following orders but, now that they have the freedom to discuss it, what do they think? it is interesting to go to west point, or to annapolis or to the navy war college or to the navy postgraduate college which

i did in monterey, california and talk to them. they're not happy. but they're also tired. so, with this challenge in iraq and syria right now it is really exponentially more critical. but that 2001 question i, but thank you for having me. [applause] i would be happy to talk later outside or, whenever, wherever possible. thank you, crystal. [inaudible conversations] >> the front page of "the boston globe" along with many other news sources reporting that dzhokhar tsarnaev, one of the boston

marathon bombers has been found guilty by a federal jury on all 30 charges. that jury now tasked with deciding whether the 21-year-old former college student should be executed. tsarnaev kept his hands folded in front of him and looked down at the defense table as they reached verdict after day 1/2 of deliberations. charges include conspiracy and use of a weapon of mass destruction, offenses punishable by death. in the next phase of the trial the jury will hear evidence whether tsarnaev should get the death penalty or spends the rest of his life in prison from the associated press. after briefing from reporters which should begin shortly c-span will open the phone lines to get your reaction to the verdict and how dzhokhar tsarnaev should be sentenced. also offer your thoughts on facebook and twitter. while congress continues on their two-week spring break each evening at 7:00 eastern we're showing you some of our q&a interviews. today andrew keane talks about his book, the internet is not the answer, but his objections to overuse of technology.

he says social networking creates false communities. you see his comments again at 7:00 eastern. at 8:00 eastern booktv in prime time. with authors of books on national security. sean mcfate starts with the book modern mercenary private armies what they mean for world order. author scott taylor talks about trust betrayed. barack obama hillary clinton and the selling out of america's national security. coming up at 10:00:05 eastern bartholomew sparrow on strategist brent scowcroft and call for national security. all this getting underway at 8:00 eastern. >> and as result i try to stay disciplined in my message. in the football sense i stay disciplined within the hash marks. i understand i represent everyone in montana not just as one congressman.

i represent not only republican side, the democrat side, the independent side, the tea party side, the union side. i represent everyone in montana. i think if we take that value set forward congress represents america. true to articulate the values and needs and desires of your district. but the purpose is to make america better. >> five newest members of congress talk about their careers and personal lives. and share insight about how things work on capitol hill. join us for all of their conversations, each night at 9:00 eastern on c-span. texas state senator wendy davis spoke more than 10 hours during a filibuster in 2013 opposing a texas law on abortion clinics. last fall she was the democratic nominee for texas governor. she lost to republican candidate craig abbott. at this event at uc berkeley

miss davis talks about difficulties faced by her and other women running for political office and the state of gender equity issues. this is about an hour. [applause] >> thank you all. thank you to ethan and kmele for putting this together today and all the work particularly the work kmele under took and we were able to do this. giving me opportunity to speak with you. i've been looking forward to this afternoon. i was delighted to land in sunny california after being in a really cold winter in texas. i'm here today to address gender, specifically why gender equality is losing ground and how we can work to reverse that. i'm going to ask you to challenge conventional thinking and and how we define and talk about gender equality and i hopefully will help you understand the lens i view these

issues a bit better. more and more i'm coming to understand and appreciate how much each of our individual filters forms through our life experiences matter in the way that we approach conversations in the political framework. and i would like to invite us to consider each other's personal perspectives, each other's lenses, as we strive to move women's equality forward. but first let's take a moment to acknowledge some past victories in the woman's movement. it can be easy today particularly with an onslaught of anti-reproductive rights legislation affecting some of the most personal of a woman's decision-making, to forget that on the long road to gender equality women have fought for and gained some significant ground. it was less than 100 years ago when women earned right to vote. 51 years go when president kennedy signed the equal pay

act. only 50 years ago, when birth control became legalized. only 42 years ago, when abortion was legalized. less than 35 years ago, when president reagan appointed the first female, sandra day o'connor, to the supreme court. and only about six years ago when president obama signed the lilly ledbetter fair pay act into law. these are all cause for celebration. but when we look around we see there is so much work to be done. as we watch and we celebrate lgbt advances with more and more states moving to marriage equality, and as we witness divisive discriminatory policies like, "don't ask, don't tell" being repealed, each after years of hard work and effort that is to be celebrated. gender politics, seems to be taking a step backwards. women are facing an onslaught of legislation that threatens their reproductive freedoms, and

access to abortion. we occupy 56% of minimum wage jobs, even though we make up only about 49% of the workforce. and governors and states like mine, are vetoing fair pay laws if they ever make it to the governor's desk at all. all of this is happening without significant voter backlash, that says we disagree with the direction things are heading. we have to ask ourselves why? i think that the answer to that is largely connected to, and dictated by our own personal experiences. and the lens through which we as voters, view these issues. my lens was formed. my views were shaped, very early in my life experiences. an in my memoir, forgetting to be afraid, i sought to explain the experiences that shaped me, not just those that gave me the strength to be a fighter, but to illustrate why it is that

certain issues hit me deep in the gut and compel me to respond in a particular way. i am a living, breathing example of the promise that can be created through gender equalized opportunities. informal as they were they existed at a time when i needed them. i was 11 when my parents divorced. my ninth grade educated mother, who had never been in the workforce before, was left to support four children on her own while my father pursued his dream of starting a non-profit theater. we went from a blue-collar lifestyle into poverty literally almost overnight. watching my mother struggle to put food on the table, working in a low-wage, fast-food restaurant job, made me want to be assured i would never be left without an education and a means to support myself. and yet i too fell in the well of poverty and despair for a

time. pregnant at 18. married for a very brief time, i was left to support myself and my daughter amber when i was only 19. with only one messer of college under my belt, i could see a bend in what looked like a long bleak, road ahead. my greatest fear literally, was coming true. i was going to live the very same struggles that i had watched my mother live. and fear, fortunately can be a powerful motivator. my fears were reinforced some nights i come home to find that my electricity had been turned off because i couldn't pay the bill. or embarassment i suffered when i had to put grocery items back in the line because i didn't have enough for that week's food. but i'm here today, because policies that support a women's ability to move from poverty to stability actually do work. and these policies, some formal, some less formal created ladders that helped me to move

from where i was. one of those was access to affordable community college education, with grants and low-cost tuition that made it possible, even for me, to afford. that ultimately became my gateway, to graduating from harvard law school. and without my community college, there is simply no way i would be standing here talking before you today. another ladder came in the form of access to reproductive and well women health care that i received at a planned parenthood clinic close to my home. for several years as an uninsured woman, that clinic was my only source of care. it was a place where i received cancer screenings, diabetes screenings, my annual well woman exams and most importantly, it was a place that provided me with the ability to control my reproductive destiny, so that once i placed my foot on the path to higher education, i was able to keep it there. another ladder for me came in

the form of affordable, quality child care, that a dear friend of mine provided. and we see and certainly we have heard many in congress and the president talking about child care as an important issue. for many women, the inability to afford and find quality child care is keeping them sufficiently, as a roadblock to where they are. finally, i was fortunate to work in an office where my employers supported a work schedule that allowed me to go to school in the mornings, and to leave sometimes earlier in the evenings. flexibility, these work place policies are so important in making possibilities available for women to improve their lives. those years were a tremendous struggle. and they were filled with fear. but i am grateful for the motivation that fear provided. and so very grateful, for the lens that struggle provided me and through which i now view the

world. there are some women today who can not tell the story that i have the blessed ability to stand before you and tell because those ladders, those policies, simply are not there for them. affordable college tuition, reproductive health care, affordable, quality child care, flexible work hours. these things are not there as they once were for me. policies to support these ladders, though there is a great deal of talk about them and effort in moving them forward are still unfortunately virtually nonexistent. instead we find ourselves fighting old fights and in many instances, losing ground. why is this happening? quite simply because support for an agenda that includes these policies, hasser rode. -- has eroded. a negative association is fostered between the idea of women's advancement, and the

threat that movement poses to traditional patriarchal notions of a woman's place. playing upon these negative association, women's reproductive rights and other issues important to women's equality have been hijacked by politicians using those issues as a wedge whistling to those who will respond favorably to the perceived threats that they hope to engender. for these politicians positioning against advancement of gender equality serves as a means to an end. that end being their desire to hold on to, and further their political positions status and power. provoking favorable voting responses by using women's equality as their foil is much more important to them than any fallout that they leave behind. to explain my point i will ask you to consider an argument made by berkeley law professorian

lopez, in his book, dog whistle politics. he will give a lecture on that at the law school tomorrow. i would invite you to please attend because his work is very, very important. professor lopez in his book invites us to consider how coded racial appeals have played a role in politics. often resulting in middle class voting against its own economic interests in favor of reacting to perceived social threats which are far greater motivators. these reactions professor lopez asserts, are strategically invited, by politicians who employ techniques that play upon racial bias, and animus in order to get voters to react in a way that is favorable to their desire to obtain or maintain political power. to demonstrate his point, professor lopez traces accounts of presidential candidates, using racial dog whistling to elicit voter support. candidates like george wallace,

who was ridiculed as an unrepentant redneck when he was outspoken in verbalizing support for policies defending segregation and extolling the proud anglo-saxon southland. voters didn't respond well to his defacto racism. to vote for a candidate with such blatant racial appeal would have been to admit their own racial biases and fears. but wallace learned that if he were more subtle with his message, he would mobilize race-based voting without ever mentioning race at all. he stopped talking about objections to desegregation. instead talked about states rights to turn away arrogant, federal authority. does that sound familiar? when we think about the conversation about the affordable care act and about immigration. today we hear those same

whistles. wallace's softened language gave permission to those who opposed racial integration, the ability to exercise racially-motivated electoral responses without having to admit to others or even to themselves their racial biases or fears. goldwater too talked of his support for states rights and freedom of association. nixon employing the politically-infamous southern strategy to motivate votes in the south dog whistled by talking about forced busing. reagan describing the young buck in the grocery store line, buying sirloin steak with his food stamps while you were buying hamburger meat with your hard-earned paycheck or his talk of welfare queens. professor lopez cautions progressives not to get too smug about the right's use of this technique. pointing out president carter used arguments about forced

integration and of course, president clinton with his welfare reform agenda when he sought re-election. each of these strategic use of dog whistles and appeal to white voters whose racial biases, conscious or unconscious, are being played. importantly professor lopez points out this strategic use of race stands apart from other forms of racism because the driving force behind strategic racism is not racial animus for its own sake but rather and perhaps more pernicious, the strategic use of race in order to successfully pursue, power money or status. i saw this in my own gubernatorial race last year. when my opponent played upon fears regarding invasion of illegal immigrants into texas. openly calling for militarization of texas border communities through support of a

national guard presence there in spite of the fact that these communities are notably safe, with el paso having been named for the fourth year in a row the safest large city in the country. married to a latina, greg abbott would hardly fit the typical definition of someone with racial animus toward latinos yet he understood how to dog whistle in a way that would appeal to voters perceived threats of a latino invasion in order to get their votes. this use of dog whistling is not limited to provoking or playing upon perceived threats based on race. this technique is also successfully employed to provoke votes based on gender biases and fears. so let's discuss the use of gender in that regard. perhaps given the sexualized nature which women's candidates and women's issues are framed,

wolf whistling rather than dog whistling might be apartment way to describe the tactic. some of the wolf whistling occurs in blatant ways. for example in my race my opponents supporters derided me using photoshopped sexual images with my face or head on them in order to invite response from potential voters to view me as highly sexualized rather than intelligent and competent as potential state leader. there were questions raised about my bonefides as a mother, with suggestions that i abandoned my children when i went to law school. in so doing attention was diverted from my achievements. i was no longer to be applauded for graduating law school with honors while also juggling the responsiblities of caring for my young family. i was to be reviled for self-improvement at the expense of giving my full time to child

rearing. there were abortion barbash by posting from the media. in l.a. when i host ad fund-raiser, my head on top of a barbie doll and plastic uterus and a pair of scissors beside me. these are images meant to invite voters to believe i should not be viewed as potential state leader but as highly sexualized woman and one as a traitor to traditional rolls roles of women as that. this was strategic and it was flagrant. i'm not the first female candidate to experience this and i certainly will not be the last. the ploy works. so why stop? but these flagrant messages are supported by more subtle ones to support animus. consider number of politicians that use abortion as political

bogey man. certainly some of this is meant to elist eight response from voters motivated by religious or moral ideals about the sanctity of life and their objection to pro-choice candidates on those terms. but there is something much less obvious though no less powerful at play as well. making abortion a central issue in the political arena also plays upon traditional patriarchal notions of a woman's role in society it invites voters to view abortion as a issue that threatens that role. it is arguably understandable seeing playing on patriarchal sympathies would promote favorable voting responses from some men. abortion and other reproductive rights provide women with the autonomy to remain in and rise in the work place. creating competition for them threating their views what they believe is appropriate for

female-male roles. this is deeply rooted whether consciously or subconsciously whether women serve in traditional roles. whites stay at home mothers supporting their hunter gathering man. these are not limited to those experienced by some men. women respond to whistling that invites them to feel threatened as well. women who fear, whether conscious fear or unconsciously their chosen roles as stay at home wives and mothers will be devalued vis-a-vis sexually autonomous women who can exercise the choice to stall or abandon reproductive roles in order to rise in the work place this message is to invite people

to think about what happen in women's roles in they utilize reproductive autonomy. no accident the condom ad was created to invite illicit response. using images such as these the conservative movement invites that very response. invoking images of strong families and appropriate gender relations. serving as the backdrop to the game are motions of punishment as well. women who have sex and become impregnated should bear the brunt of their sexuality. bear the consequences. politicians regarding appropriate and noble role of women as homemakers and caretakers by inviting a negative response to gender coded which is whistles. they play upon the motion, sex for women is about to be for procreation, about motherhood, a narrative that says otherwise that argues in favor of access to contraception and other

reproductive cares such as abortion allows women to enjoy sex merely for the sake of sexual pleasure and threatens concepts of traditional family values. in this context conversations about contraception and abortion become strategic means to an end. provoking threat-based responses in voters who resent this attempted disruption to their perceived world order and the place that they hold in it. consider rush limbaugh's portrayal of sandra fluke as a slut when she advocated for mandatory inclusion of contraception care in health care plans. this whistling evoked responses from whistlers, who perceived miss fluke's position would threat entheir patriarchal idea of women's role. guided by framework limbaugh and others seek to elicit

articulating positions such as this wolf whistling invites listeners and voters to react in a way that tells them their implicit fears are at play and are much more important than their other ideas. dr. christian luker songsologist and professor here at uc berkeley has written extensively on this topic and abortion politics in particular. she argues that the right to life movement represents an attempt not just to protect the fetus, but to insure that family as a higher priority than career among women and that women choose to stay home who choose to stay home are not relegated to a place of lower prestige, relative to women who work outside of the home. taking her argument one step further, i believe it is the case that some politician use the right to life movement implicit mersaging of family versus career specifically to provoke voters who wish to guard against that perceived threat.

keep in mind that, whistlers don't necessarily even have to believe their own message. many of them likely do not. but just as race-based dog whistling is nothing more than a strategic means to an end, so too is the case with gender-based whistling. tragically though, women's access to reproductive health care gets caught in the crossfire. and indeed, women's health and their very lives become collateral damage to political scheme. so how do we respond? if my story is any kind of an example, we would make the argument that is often heard. supporting women to economic autonomy, is good for the economy. assuring that women have access to education health care, quality child care, family leave, all of these create an opportunity for women to be more successful, have increased buying power in the economy and that is good for the economic

well being of all. this is the when we all do bert, we all do better argument. it was the story that i told you at the beginning of my remarks. but that message isn't working to motivate gender biased voters. why? because it is missing the point. it isn't speaking to the motives behind these particular voting choices it is a response that hasn't stopped first to look through the lens from which these voters are making their decisions. just think about the state of affairs that exist due to the 2014 congressional elections. we now have a house and senate comprised of a majority of members who proudly articulate their desire to deregulate big business, to return to a laissez-faire approach that allows major polluters and multibillion-dollar corporations free rein and even greater opportunity to grow their wealth

disproportional to those of most of the country's population, leaving the middle class to shoulder more and more of the tax burden. there was a time postdepression, when it would have been thought impossible that americans would vote to slash taxes for the rich, give corporations regulatory control over industry and the financial markets and to aggressively curtail social services. but american voters are voting for candidates who pledge openly and proudly to do all of these things. and the answer as to why lies sadly in the fact that an appeal has been made to something deeper inside of them. they have allowed fears of societal threats to become their primary motivator at the ballot box. we see this with race. look no further than the current conversation around immigration. we see this with gender. with legislation either passing or percolating in almost every state in this country and in

congress to roll back women's reproductive rights, and that employs the use of abortion politics as a messaging mean to an end. legitimate arguments about the fact that paths to citizenship for undocument workers would be good for the economy or empowering women with reproductive economy is likewise good for the economy are not getting us very far as experience has shown us. instead, we have to find a way diffuse the perceived fears being manipulated. in the gender arena we might start by asking ourselves why young women are eshooing the term feminism today buying into the right-wing message that tells them that standing for the feminist agenda, equal pay, and reproductive rights, will require them to check their femininity at the door. consider the kefuffle that occurred a couple of months ago

when in an interview with "redbook" magazine. 29-year-old kaley cuoco, female lead in the popular show, "the big bang theory," declined to answer in the affirmative to answer if she is feminist. is it bad if i say no, she asked? she enjoyed took r cooking for her husband which makes her feel like a housewife which she loved. it might sound old-fashioned but i like the idea of women taking care of their men. sadly, messaging from the far right has convinced her and some other young women that feminism is about losing their femininity. what we have to help her and so many other women understand, is that fighting for women's equality isn't about telling women how they have to live, or that they can't enjoy doing things that are considered traditionally female. it is about having freedom to

choose freely what we want our roles to be. it is about being respected regardless of what those choices look like. it is about the working woman celebrating and respecting her sister, who made a choice to stay home and care for her children. it is about stay-at-home mom cheering on women who are putting those cracks in the glass ceiling. it is about each of us as women and men who love us, caring enough about each other to silence the noise that attempts to keep us at odds. the relishes in the fact that we feel we have to be at odds with each other in order to feel less threatened in the choice that we have traditionally and individually made. we have to create an inclusive and shared community, that sends a message that we are all in this together. we have to work to minimize or do away with perceived threats that flow from the idea of embracing gender equality.

we have to fight for an america where all choices made by women are respected and valued. a "new york times" magazine article about me during my gubernatorial race ran under the cover line, can wendy davis have it all? would we ever see this question asked with regard to a male candidate? the better question, is asked by ann marie slaughter, professor emeritus of politics and international affairs at princeton. in her column, she asks can we all have it all? presenting idea only when men too can freely make choices about their role as breadwinner or stay at home husbands and fathers will we achieve true gender equality. and she invites us to consider the importance of creating a world in which we equally celebrate either choice that men and women make. true gender equality, will come when we take care, not to view each other's choices through a

pejorative lens. we've got to trade eyeglasses and look through each other's spectacles. working our way to a place free from hostility and fear because we see that we can not be our bestselves without each other's support. we have to humanize experience in a way that makes them translatable, and relatable. i firmly believe that no one, whether they have an r or a d next to their name, wants to see the harmful secondary impacts that have flowed from the war against planned parenthood, and the closure of women's clinics that it has occasioned. in texas alone an estimated 180,000 women lost their access to contraceptive care, not abortion care. and they lost their access to cancer screenings and diabetes screenings and for most of these women, the only health care that they had ever known.

and this happened through a strategic defunding that was aimed at bludgeoning planned parenthood. the far right has done the political calculus. they know that making planned parenthood bottominggy man gets them votes -- bogey man. the fights about the women who will quite literally lose their lives because of maneuverings that placed politics above people. and we can not refute dog whistles by refusing to identify them for what they are. we have to call them out and challenge them. otherwise, we leave gender insinuations unchallenged and left to operate in the background to provoke fear-based reactions in voters who respond to those messages. on the very tip top of the texas capital now stands a statue. . .

she stands for freedom, wisdom and justice. she's a symbol of everything i was fighting for in that day of june 2013. freedom and justice for women

and the wisdom of lawmakers to stop making women's bodies a pawn in their political game that appropriately and beautifully it wasn't me that carried the filibuster over the midnight deadline. it was women and men who wear their. i read of the heart-wrenching stories of so many families on the senate floor that day. there they were and they were demanding to be heard. and when their voices were artificially silenced for the political maneuvering that occurred that day, they rose up against it like the goddess of liberty was a star above her head, for themselves and for each other and for women that they've never met nor will they ever know and for at least a moment to be understood and they

owned that power. that power is in each of us the power to stand and unite with each other towards the common cause of seeing and understanding each other down by our experiences of julie and triumph, failure and sorrow. i hope that we will use that power to collectively say we stand for the woman's right to choose the path that she will travel and we will fight for the tools that provide her the choice. when she does whether that is making a decision about her own body or whether she will pursue a career at home or in the workplace, we will stand with her in the sending her choice. i hope we will use our power to stand with our sisters regardless of who they are or the choices they make because we

stand for women's equal that he and when we do a unite and stand together for that cause we truly will have the power to make it happen. thank you all so very much. [applause] thank you for that inspiring speech and it is so grateful to have you here. i had the pleasure of immersing myself into the memoir of this past week or two and one thing that struck me is to see senator davis today and how the employers feel confident.

the advice of how the women are struggling to find their voice to do so. i found mine as i said in my remarks through my own personal experiences. everything that i thought for in the senate was based on i was a champion for public education. i had a much lesser-known filibuster with cuts to the schools. i fought against payday lending because i understand how people can get caught in a loan that can financially ruin them and for women's reproductive autonomy in my own experiences and benefits i received from that kind of care. and how we will use women's

voices to speak we will find our way and we do find our way to doing that based on the things that we have experienced in our own lives and that have motivated us to stand up and speak out on them. what i hope that women more and more will do is push against our natural tendency to be shy and soft-spoken and use very important voices that we have to gender a quality forward. the passion rises and from there you speak. it's been said about that law that a law is like sausages and it's better not to see them made in your memoir illustrates some of the dog eat dog nature of

politics. i want to ask you if you think this might be a gender view of power i'm not sure if you're familiar in the buck came out in 2012 and this is a book that reports on a survey that was done for 64,000 people across the globe and they found that the world would be a better place if men fought more like women so i wanted to get your view on this and how that plays out in politics. >> we utilized our skills to use our power in the way that we naturally are comfortable with. it's stereotypical to say that women can have a style that makes their ability to use their

power unique but we bring the perspective of what it is like and when we believe in ourselves enough to bring those issues forward and to make sure that they are heard in the conversation, it is to to care that we important. we do need to be a government whether it is at the local cost date or federal level it is reflective of the population and unless and until we can eat like more women into the roles we are not going to be. i found i had to be particularly scrappy in the texas senate to give my voice heard and i couldn't rely on just having the soft negotiating style. you have to learn to embrace the

masculine and feminine aspects of power as it currently exists and to remain true to the values as a whole because of the fact of being a woman. so let me see here. you've been on a wild political ride, and it's quite a sight to observe. it's seemingly equal measures of victory and defeat and i wonder if you can reflect on what might have been and what lessons you might have learned or in general what you've learned that will enable you to go forward and an act of the vision for a better future. >> i don't regret running for governor this past year. it was end only a personal experience for me but i felt like it gave me an opportunity to move the conversation and

make sure that at the very least and then the governor's mansion in particular and i know i spoke to a lot of people that felt like their voices haven't been representing in the halls of the capitol. when i ran for office for the first time in city council in fort worth i lost. it's to look back and ask yourselves what could i -- i have done differently enter should i have done differently and i've certainly done a fair measure of that looking back at my gubernatorial race. as i mentioned in the remarks i would call out some of the gender politics at play in a

much more vocal way. in fact when i was asked by reporters on some of these things i tried to downplay the fact that i was being treated differently than a male candidate was. but i think when we do that we give permission for that to be the way that we are treated in the political arena and adjust as the professor talks about in the fact that when blatant appeals are used they stand up against those and when in when they see that that is what is at play, they react in a very unfavorable way to them. i think helping the voters see that they are being invited to view women in a way that isn't reflective of who they are and their potential state and local and national readers if we make the point now and bring people present and aware to the messaging that they are receiving that they may be

unconsciously reacting to, i think we can help to push back against a and i've learned that it is important. it couldn't be sustained. at the most basic point referring to your husband the relationship had begun and built upon the power differential and you are struggling with the need to forge your own way for a while. what needs to change in the home >> if i could answer the

question and to solve this issue i would be doing a great deal of good. you have two professors on their faculty. the governor and her husband dan confronted this issue and they've been open talking about it not only to deal with the way that they view the outside world and people they may be working with but even in their own homes where spouses may feel threatened by that and i know it certainly took its toll on my marriage into the center and richards even though she and her husband have had very respectfully and vibrant partnership in the political

arena as i did with my husband and i wish it were not the case. it tends to be the case that when they are running and hold office there is a much more comfortable role that they have with their spouses then sometimes exists for the women pursuing the same passions. >> thank you for being a trailblazer despite the personal so you described in the book and we know that you've worn a football helmet literally to get faced into the opposition during your filibuster and you outfitted your self back that increased your endurance and stamina. can you comment more generally about how you take care of yourself psychologically?

arianna huffington talks about the success that has more to do with well-being than power and serial sort out your foster this aspect of yourself? >> it can be hard when our schedules demand that we focus our attention on everything else. and everything else suffers if we don't give that third metric it's due attention and care. for me it comes in the form of running and other exercise that i do. trying to eat well. asleep is a challenge, but i try. i try. and i think that is going to matter what we are doing in our lives if we can create that kind of a balance and we have the outlets that exercise provides taking care of ourselves and provide the ability to keep our engines going so we can pursue the things we care about. >> do you put it into the

schedule for this is the hour that i'm working out today and it's not negotiable? >> i have to do that on my campaign because it could literally eat up every moment of your day if you allow it to. i had to get really forceful. >> i want to ask some questions that have been submitted and we will go until 5:15 just so that everybody knows. so, first question, what do you recommend recommend that students do to address issues pertaining to women such as changing the culture and making the community a place where women can safely succeed along with their male counterparts? >> i want to applaud what is happening on the college campuses around the country where women and men are trying to move forward with sexual assault and putting a light on what's going on and shining that

light and making sure that we are confronting the reality that is so very important. so if that is something that any of you are involved in doing, my congratulations and appreciation to you for that work. when we shed light on issues and as i said in my remarks, when we humanize them for each other it really helps to change the conversations. and i found in my political life when we meet our opponents in an honest way and to talk about things and human terms and try to relate to each other as one human to another, we can appeal to people in a way they might initially have their defenses up and this issue is no different than that making sure that that

women's experiences are being looked at as very real human experiences shedding some understanding by the virtue of telling our personal stories this is why i felt it was important even in the context of my campaign with a lot of people saying they didn't understand why i did it. this is why emi that i told my story about my experience with abortion. we have to de- stigmatize these things, and we have to be able to talk about them so that we can all relate better to what those human experiences are and why it is that good reproductive policies are imported just as sexual assault protections are important. >> and allow the issue to see the light of day. >> what are some of the obstacles that women running for office space today and how big of a role does sexism still play

in the hybrid cluster how do you combat sexism and it comes to your family if it does? >> interesting so literally just the tip of the iceberg. i know that all women are treated in ways that we might look at as women not necessarily as the leaders that we are and have the potential to be. it was particularly flay. i think when we see hillary clinton talk as a candidate and we saw her experience in the presidential race, she has a particular target on her that's a lot of men come after. it can be really difficult but i feel a responsibility to all of the other women considering running for office to show we can rise above that as women

candidates. as i said earlier, i do think that we need to call about despair and bring attention to it and change those that are doing it. but at the same time, we have to show that we can rise above it and move through it and continue to fight for the things that matter to us otherwise the are sending those messages when. >> absolutely. >> so, do you think that mandatory paid leave will be a reality in our lifetime? >> i certainly hope so given that we are the only investor in the country that doesn't currently have that. and i tend to be very optimistic about things and believe that if we continue to fight hard enough we are going to make it a reality. at the very least it is i'm really looking forward in the conversation in a way that is getting a lot more attention than a has-been in the past and it's important not just in the maternal side but the paternal side to make sure that we are

leading people in a gender equal wave the ability to have a family and to have a career and not compromise either of those by virtue of wanting to have both. >> you describe several instances swimming against the tiny band of being outspoken. in the academic world we call this backlash and women more often than not are subjected. the willingness to play the political game despite these hardships illustrates the concept of winning in which women are being encouraged to do today. as important as this is does it put too much on the women to advance their individual agency and what can we do to foster a greater sense of collective agency? >> obviously it is important and i think that we can all feel and relate to the experience of having done that at some point in our lives.

but it's also important that we don't put that responsibility solely on the women to achieve for themselves because that forgives the environment which is forcing them to live in the unequal lives world. we also have to confront workplace policies and legislative policies that either don't exist or do exist in ways that are harmful to women. we have to work to make sure that governmental policies, workplace policies are creating the kind of environment is truly is gender equal. this is to them. we create the sense that women may be doing something wrong when there really is a much broader issue at play and i want us all to be working on those

things so we reformed into reform things at the policy level in order to create the true equalized opportunities. >> did you see patricia arquette and her outspoken is about equal pay? >> you know, i was very pleased. i said in my remarks that president obama passed the lowly ledbetter act. a lot of people thought that that was the job done this sort of like they felt back when president kennedy passed the equal pay act way back when that was the job done. but the fact of the matter is, state-by-state they have to be created as well. in my own state i work very hard to get an equal pay bill through it's a republican majority in the texas senate and in the texas house but we did get it through and we were so excited.

governor perry received pressure from the companies like kroger and macy's who wanted him to reach out of the belly and he vetoed that bill in favor of the pressure that he received. this is happening in texas and elsewhere. we've got to make our elected leaders feel that they the same response ability to us that they feel the own to they own the people that are potentially mega- donors to the campaign or future campaign. this is why the voter apathy is so upsetting to me because when we don't, we do show people like governor perry that acting in ways like that will go unaccounted.

and i think that we all ought to have the responsibility to make sure that we are using our voices to show that we are as powerful as some of these folks that can write big checks. ultimately politics is powerful but we also need to change culture and see these issues from the moral lens not just social justice. so how do you determine your political platform agenda to educate on the issues? >> it really comes from in here as an elected official, i try very hard to keep an open door for people to come in and talk about things that matter to them. my work on passing the backlog in texas came from someone bringing the issue to me and helping to educate me on a person.

never underestimate the power that we had whether we decide to run for office and do these things pushed these policies forward ourselves or whether we are hoping to try to move them. we can't know or have been in the shoes of everyone we will respond in a way that gives a voice to that. >> who are your role models and heroes and heroines and metrics? >> certainly the last of the credit governor in texas. her daughter was the head of planned parenthood and was very much a role bottle of mind.

from the texas freedom association network. that legacy continues after she left, so she certainly made her mark on the world, and it certainly showed that she is unstoppable in the face of criticism and unstoppable in the face of an attempt to undo all of the work that fine organization is doing and for me she is a great role model of how we conduct ourselves even in the face of what can be a little bit of a backslider from time to time. >> it's nice to have people we can see that anybody strength and thick-skinned and you wrote in your book how far you have come in this regard in not letting the turkeys get you down. so your personal case makes the

policy. how do we get women to be allies in the fight to further these policies when they don't experience them these things personally how do we make men care about some of these? >> we share our stories. again, not to be a broken record, but humanizing these issues just as we might not understand. when people are coming and humanizing. we won't achieve the true gender equality without it. it invites us to consider and

the choices they have in front of them they are free to choose as we currently are. they want to be happy and successful for making sure that we are sharing the stories about each others' experiences with our male counterparts at work or in the political arena or families are very important. >> that's what i'm hearing is that it's about empathy. and the vulnerability.

i'm working on the organization for women under a passionate about this issue off being in a political office doesn't mean that you have to go radio silent on things you care about. not just being a candidate right now has been really free i can say whatever i want to say. the things that matter deeply to me and my efforts fighting and that's what i'm going to do and if that takes me back into the political candidates or officeholders arena, great. if it doesn't i will still be

fighting any way that i hope will be active and will make an impact. >> i look forward to seeing your impact grow. thank you for being here. >> news that dzhokhar was found guilty and whether he should be executed. the jury took a day and a half to reach the verdict that was a foregone conclusion given the lawyers opening statements that he carried out the attack with his now dead older brother.

good morning. i will be hosting this event. we are very fortunate today [inaudible] in 2007 a couple of us thought maybe we should do a report on cybersecurity. talking to the people that said there's somewhere on the hill you need to talk to. he's been concerned with this and an expert on the field. this is the sixth term i don't know how he does it. running for election every two years, great. he was a former prosecutor in counterterrorism.

he is one of the true experts in the field. the format will make some remarks and we have questions and answers which hopefully everyone in the room will be organized. thank you. [applause] remember the next president of the united states i'm not talking about the president's proposal and what is happening in the congress in response to that as long as he is providing leadership. you said an old friend. i know my hair is a little bit lighter. i remember that in the department of justice working

the corners of the attorney general i had the idea that in 2001 during a conference on terrorism in cybersecurity and dick clarke was going to be my keynote speaker and the date of the event was september 12 2001. and by way of background a very good friend of mine over time and we have come a long way. i formed the cybersecurity caucus to educate them on their issue i want to thank jim and denise for your latest report on

cyber threats information sharing that you released. good job well-done as always. i don't normally do text but in this case it's been recommended that i do that and then i will move to the q-and-a dialogue. we are finally beginning to grasp the magnitude of the challenges that we face as they start to hit home for millions of americans. just last month the largest insurance provider and some announced that it was the victim of unprecedented cyber intrusion. they gained access to the database holding the sensitive records of 80 million individuals including the names birth dates and social security numbers. in total, the personal

information of one in four americans have been compromised by the cyber attack. it is a wake-up call to cyber adversaries have the upper hand and the consequences will get worse if we fail to reverse the tide. and today i want to discuss three issues with you including the scope of the cyber threat the nation faces the cyber defense will particularly in the department of homeland security and how we have been enhancing it. and finally some of my legislative goals this year to defend the american cyberspace against the district of attacks and costly intrusions. the cyber war has been waged against us and we are losing ground in the adversaries. they shifted quickly at the dawn of the digital age the nation saw endless opportunities to

generate prosperity by expanding the networks and connecting it to the world. but today american prosperity depends on those networks as it does on expanding them. we cannot tolerate the cyber theft and warfare and we will put the nation's critical infrastructure *. when we compromise american innovation yet our cyber defenses have proven we in the face of enemies. as i speak the proprietary data is being stolen from american companies and the computers into the computers of private citizens are being compromised. and most of it is being done with impunity. the nationstates managed to exploit the networks. in the meantime the defenses have lagged behind.

these intruders change the tactics by masking their identities and usually they are operating beyond the reach of the u.s. authorities area to china, north korea iran russia are one of the most advanced of the cyber adversaries with groups to acquire the cyber attack capabilities. the threats are escalating in the sophistication and destructive potential. we are confronting almost dalia with frightening presidents including the nationstates launching cyber attacks on our own soil. this happened at least twice in the past year. the director of the national intelligence recently revealed that iran was behind a devastating 2014 cyber attack on las vegas the world largest gambling country. north korea were famously used

the digital bond to destroy computer systems like sony pictures, the attack that was not only destructive but was a cowardly attempt to intimidate americans and to stifle freedom and speech. the cyber intrusions are felt across america from the kitchen tables to the corporate. the recent breach of the streets how easy it is for ordinary americans to become a tactic comes this targets neiman marcus home depot and j.p. morgan all of which were designed to steal the personal information of private citizens. and the adversaries are not seeking to steal american identities. they want our security secrets and innovative ideas. we are reminded of this over the weekend when the state department was forced to shut down large portions of the

computer systems to expel packers that invaded our diplomatic networks. the digital espionage expends to the business world and we know that they continue to breach corporate networks to give their own companies the advantage in the global economy. in states like iran is targeted u.s. banks to shut down websites and the ability to access her bank account. make no mistake the general keith alexander director of the national security in the intellectual property as the greatest transfer of wealth in human history. but the threat extends beyond the industry that supports our

way of life. we are hard at work in the cyber capabilities that can shut down the critical infrastructure and they want to use the tools to threaten the leaders and intimidate people with signs of peace and times of conflict. the gas pipelines and power grid for instance can cripple our economy and weaken our ability to defend the united states. these scenarios sound alarmist but we must take them seriously because we grow more realistic. we saw a preview of this in 2012 when the packers hit saudi arabia's national oil company destroying 40,000 hard drives and simultaneously in our financial sector in the same year. in fact they are penetrating

feet infiltration of the financial sector everyday. to combat these threats that live up to the obligations, to provide a common defense, the government must take the leading role in securing cyberspace. we cannot leave the american people and our companies to fend for themselves. the digital frontier is still very much like the west. at this moment there are far more cyber outlaws and convicted cyber criminals commit a, the sign that we have a lot of catching up to do. we are in uncharted stories at the dawn of the nuclear era have we witnessed such technology without a strategy of managing it. to establish order and defend americans interest in the digital domain, we must map out the rules of the road and clarify the responsibility inside and outside of the government. we are not there yet. in fact i would argue that we

are in a pre- 9/11 moment when it comes to cyber security. in the same way the legal barriers and turf war connect the dots. the lack of the cyber threat information sharing is leaving us vulnerable to our enemies. for the cyber threats they stop the attacks that we are not sharing that information. critical information is not disclosed efficiently enough to stop cyber intrusions before they start or to shut them down once they have and the danger of the information sharing isn't a hypothetical. it's real. this month, the head of the u.s. cyber command mike rogers warned congress that our adversaries may be weeping or maybe leaving cyber fingerprints on the critical infrastructure to

signal their ability to attack our homeland. they are likely to see a distractive cyber attack against the critical infrastructure. if we are not swapping information about these threats come at the the impact is guaranteed to be more widespread and more severe but the reality is that 85% of the critical infrastructure in the threat information, 85% of the threat information is in the hands of the private sector. because of this cooperation between the government and the industry is vital to homeland security, he had it right when he said the cyber security is the ultimate team sport. no single entity and the in the government or the private sector can tackle these independently. each stakeholder must have skin in the game to prevail against attackers. this is where the unique mission

of the department of homeland security comes into play. ..