objects including 2 million books in 154 million other things. >> 6:30 presidential historians discuss presidential leadership. >> it is interesting the greatest president abraham lincoln is bracketed by arguably the least successful president. >> this holiday weekend on c-span. good afternoon. welcome to the heritage foundation at the douglas and

cirrus auditorium for those joining online we welcome them as well and those joining on a future occasion on c-span book tv. for those in-house to ask if you check that mobile devices have been silenced or turned off and for those watching online we remind you you are welcome at any time to send questions or comments by e-mailing the speaker@heritage.org and of course we will opposed they program for your future reference. f leading the discussion is our senior research fellow in public policy and also the founder and editor of public discourse the online journal of the witherspoon institute of princeton new jersey and is the author of truth overruled the religious freedom and co-authored with princeton's

robert george. the book what is marriage, man and a woman a defense. he has a bachelor's degree fromr princeton university and a doctoral in the university of notre dame. thank you everyone for coming. you are in for a treat. all around us people try to deny the obvious that men and women are equal but not the same. this is a timely and important book responding to the drive to abolish male and female. but the senior fellow at the catholic association she writes and speaks about the religious freedom, catholicism. she's appeared on fox, pbs and the bbc and her writing has appeared in "the new york times," the "washington post," and usa today, the weekly standard and the huffington

post. her new book coming in her new book sex scandal she explores debates about women in the military and the workforce. she explores gender-neutral parenting and equitable homemaking. the arguments come with a warning when delivered on college campuses. we best protect the property and dignity when we stop trying to make women and men the same. she will give the taste of her arguments in the book. please help me welcome ashley mcguire to the podium. [applause] thank you for having me.

i would like to open up to a quote strange times rvs that old and young are taught and a person that dares to tell the truth is that once called a lunatic and a fool. i suspect most of you are here today because you are interested or distressed by the reality that it's become an anathema to speak the truth about sex, notx that most people think of when they hear the word, but as it demarcates male and female, the most obvious self-evident realities since time and memorial. that is a matter of national scandal that continues to play out almost daily. in just a few weeks since my book came out, countless examples have made newsmaking it clear how a skew our society has found itself in sexual reality. the book might -- the week my book was announced the boy

scouts allowed they would be going coed. to quote the ceo, we realized referring to birth certificates as a reference point is no longer suspicion. when i heard this i wondered how long until the girl scouts would be pressured to d go the same direction only to learn they had already announce announced bioll boys could participate if theybo self identified as girls. the following week the british medical association published guidelines for employers suggesting the phrase expectant mother was not inclusive enough and proposed instead pregnant people to suggest you use the phrase chest beating instead of breast-feeding in case someone was offended about women and only women can bear and birth children. this may seem laughable but it comes at the wake of introducing the phrase birthing individual

into the lexicon. when the alliance received blowback from feminist, while -e the writer describes themselves as a expecting parents implemented some have the audacity to assert only women have the ability to give birth in such capacity is women should celebrate about themselves. a few days later the iconic company familiar to every young woman in this room american girl came out with its first ever evolved as a boy or looks like a boy. one woman on the website praised the company for making great strides because goodness forbid little girls have a corner of the toy industry all tos have a themselves. finally i offer one more example making headline news, the scandal of nude photo sharing of female marines. npr reported the pentagon is

investigating the image sharingt and in the past 24 hours, cbs news and business insider reported members of the military were involved in similar activities. online bulletin boards were used to share or solicit photos and videos of women in the military. a visit to one of the sites confirmed it was still active from just a day or two ago. in these examples women in particular get the short end of the stick. underage girls are endangered by a policy that places them inneu close quarters certainly in the case of the boy scouts adult men. pregnant women are in offense for celebrating their contribution to perpetuating humanity. a company called american girln is not inclusive if it doesn't market to boys and women in the armed forces are systematically degraded and violated in the aftermath of the peoples to the

policies including opening combat roles to women and forcing the marines to make its camp correct. we have indeed become completely scandalized and in my book i argue it is women that have the most to lose in the world marching onwards towards neutrality. contrary to the popular opinion equal treatment doesn't yield equal outcomes. it almost always has the effect by holdinof holding onto the sts against which we almost always do. in the remainder of my time i would like to do four things come a step back and talk about the language of the debate and then give three of the most powerful examples of what happens in a world that denies and explain how we got to this place and a bit about why i think there is still cause for hope. as george orwell put it language can corrupt thought. one word has had a corrosive effect on the thinkingon

surrounding sex and the word is gender. i'm asked often about the difference between the meaning of sex and gender and i've boilein the boiledit down to ths something for gender means nothing. it's a uniform when you can find in any medical textbook orin resource it needs male and female is denoted by one's chromosomes and genitalia. the definition of gender is something even the movement is struggling to pin down. the example on facebook which in 2015 experiment of living awayic from the traces of male and female. they expanded to offer 70 something selections. facebook wasn't expecting to get raked over the pool for this inclusive gesture but rather than praised they include criticism for failing to include this or that and they replaced

it with a fill-in the blank which became other. one professor addressed the question of how to even put boundaries around the meaning and at th the extensive number f choices no longer relevant.e ger once we assert we recognize only two of them the question is how many would we have to recognize in order to not be oppressive, how many possible identities are there the only answer is 7 billion give or take. there is as many opinions as there are people on the planet. it can be the ceo of jupiter or darkness come it can be pizza but what becomes of women of the old and we have the same status as pizza.

i will read what happens to women in the military. then secretary of defense robere gates announced the navy would lift its ban on female sailors serving aboard the sub is. women have been permitted to serve for more than a decadead with submarines presented a b unique challenge to the ongoinge integration efforts, cramped quarters, minimal privacy and tours as long as three months at sea. they were worried walking up a group of men and women underwater for three-month light cause less than ideal things to transpire. that is what happened. the uss wyoming is one of the first to bring the women sailors on board and was one of the first to see a woman become a submarine officer. more women followed suit and they proudly announced integration was smooth sailing

in 2014 a rumor began circulating. the w word was videos were being filmed aboard the wyoming. a formal investigation confirmed the truth, male soldiers have been collaborating for more than a year to film females in thehe shower and share them. it wasn't just a one-time prank that went viral, it is a collaborativwas acollaborative t implicated dozens of men whof mn stood guard while they used banned electronic devices to film them as they understand they. a patrol reports every single woman aboard was found every single time she took a shower. it should have been a wake-up call for officials. women were systematically violated months on end becausefo of an agenda built on blindness to sexual difference toward a

long-standing barriers designed to protect women and the navy but they gave the perpetrators a slap on the wrist and the next goal integrating nuclear powers and eventually old submarines. in a stunning move then defense secretary ash carter announced the pentagon would open every combat rule to women into the processor to begin in 30 days. he reverted to gender integration as an example of t previous success in the department and failed to mention the ongoing media fallout of this shorstei shower spying. they spend tens o spent tens off taxpayer money studying what happens in combat units. the findings of the study were devastating for the proponents of the sex integration.

next gender units performed worse by significant margins. all mail was better in the area of speed which they consider one of the two most important metrics for combat readiness. all mail squadrons were faster. they were noticeably more accurate in their aim with every single weapons system. the units engaged targets more quickly and scored more hits. the study even found the infantry was n no formal trainie them to women who did receive formal training. the study went beyond measuring speed and accuracy and considered the physical impact. the findings were equally devastating. women suffered injuries at a staggering rate.

not only were they likely to develop an entry relating to the work they were also slower at getting an injured marine off the battlefield and especially concerning result. onone female marine pointed out the high stakes involved and i quote her no one questions why there are not any female athletes in the spl etc.. olympic athletes are the elite.s no one questions why women compete against women and men against men.ys there are great achievements but lives on the line. the only possible outcome is a more dead marines. women are now given an equal opportunity to fight on every front line we know they have been on equal chance of surviving without injury.

i will give an example of how it approaches women. next is the modern college campus labeled one of the most dangerous places for women in america. no one suggests it has something to do with coed housing. many nice wars, hallways, bathrooms and increasingly by rooms. schools are trending towards coed dorm rooms despiteed by th statistics by the federal government that found that in 2012014 for example, 74% of all reported rapes at college, ep 2% reported and 53% of what they termed on-campus fumblings happened in student housing. another study conducted over the course of a decade of the colleges in massachusetts found 81% of reported rapes and

assaults took place in a dorm room versus 9% in apartments in a stunningly low 4% in fraternities. and yet schools are pressing forward with even more integration often forced in the most private of species. in a book i give the example of harvard universitharvard univere aftermath of the former president larry summers daring to propose there are some aspects of male and female but are not social constructs. the school went on a gender equity campaign that sought inui part to address the campus rape issue by telling students they would be punished if they participated in the single-sex clubs. nevermind is the journal noted that the school had an equal number of such clubs for males and females. students in the clubs would beub an eligible for things like school endorsements into sports teams captain seats. the school wasn't prepared for

the response that included hundreds of female students many of them victims of sexual assault marching through campus claiming the school is taking away their safe spaces and launching a campaign such as basalt is not our fault. ththeir reaction was to issue aa public statement, which came just difficult and is met initially by opposition. that was true with fast steps to remove the barriers at harvard and yet few today would reverse those decisions. we continue to believe thatel gender discrimination has norr place on harvard's campus. in other words, women are sexist for demanding the safe spaces even when they've been assaultet on account. or as one of my favorite columnists put it, harvard told its women to go where the rapes are. the last example i will give is

girls and women in sports because it implicates title 9 under the mantra of the quality. they took federal mine and called the legislation she helped draft the most importantp step since the 19th amendment gave the right to vote. vote. title ix that prohibitse discrimination on the basis of sex, not gender but sex helps pave the way which created opportunities for millions of women and girls. the passage saw in 1079% increase in female participation in sports which didn't take away from placing names which grew by 22% in the same period. multiple generations such as myself have since grown up experience leadership skills, friendships and for some, a path to scholarships.

.. those under opportunities for women were schools had to prove they're making a good-faith effort for both girls and boys sports under the gender theory regime it is coopted to have boys play on the girls' teams also it went mostly unnoticed when one male high-school senior was at the meat in massachusetts he broke the record with the time that would not have even qualified him to compete in the boys' division the lead paragraph covering of controversy said the governing body that regulates high school athletics is taking a closer look at the controversy surrounding mixed gender swimming and will talk about boys breaking girls' swimming records they

competed on different teams and several qualified at this stage level of political officials are limited what they can do with the interscholastic athletic association because state law mandates they have support for both genders if you once to swim the he can swim with the girls. the same issue came up in pennsylvania one survey conducted found approximately 30 percent of schools that had boys and girls bernstein then this date dug-in heels with a position that gender equity means blindness to sexual differences.

pennsylvania attorney general said athletic equity is required by the equal rights amendment the era would not allow rule to stop the boys from participating or playing on the girls' sports team like they would not allow girls from playing on the boys' teams win equal treatment as unfair competition does the trump of fairness? without limitation does there remain any legitimacy to be classified by gender? if not should they be merged or considered pro ed? such an approach would likely devastate at the high-school level i have not

even gotten to the question of those males who so identify as females or the issue of the biological female who would take male hormones of mail enhancing drugs but is obvious in every single scenario so how did we get to this new area where lido's are banned for gender equity reasons were for being on inclusive and to consider making daughters register for the selective service board to bar biological mails from entering not everyone has a gender motivated hate crime

or one who sued her former boss for his authority over her to sexually assault her. this is one of the most common questions that i get. i argued this has been unfolding for decades a trace the origins of laid-back to the sexual revolution and feminists were arguing the socialize constructs the differences between the two are from social inequity. if we could eradicate than we would have social equality this davis contraception and abortion to name a few viet from the get-go that there's something inherently flawed about women in the ideal of which all things should be measured in i have argued it has the effect to empower

men that objectify women if you don't believe we offer a quotation from hugh hefner in the interview with "esquire" he said women are the major beneficiary of the sexual revolution that is where feminism should have been all along unfortunately there is that prohibitionist element it is the antidote to puritanism outlying birth control so i started the court cases to challenge that the same time i hope those lower court cases i was a feminist before there was such a thing that is part of the history berger now we live out those logical extremes that all perceptible differences between the sexes are

arbitrary and socialized we're on the final frontier or as pled in a recent article the ultimate goal is to demolish the entire heterosexual of the world this is the real struggle in my book i conclude either with society on the one hand is trying so hard to institute it is recognizing sexual differences today more than ever for. scientists and doctors and researchers are realizing only the tip of the iceberg how unimportant sex is pharmaceutical companies have learned to include men and women in the drug

trials. as they can react differently to the same drug also expecting parents to make us big deal on social media about the sex of their child the most visited parenting website experienced manager% increase on gender reveal parties and 16 month stretch the receive a larger increase of the video that was uploaded sexual education is making up comeback there were single sex public schools of america now the number has exploded the does not include private parochial schools even some toys get a gender makeover with lego seized it geared towards girls know they close the

lego gender gap. the cassell said or the deaths star for girls a step toward gender equality the set that would make a girl screaming uncontrollably on christmas morning. in many cases women are drivers for more single-sex bases and even recreational opportunities. sociologists our understanding how with the engage in the society for the good of all to attribute his decision in a piece for the new york times entitled why many women documenting got positive ways my personal favorite that they

were paid less on average but more is the first board is a girl the reality of the most complex celebrities that we equally important they complement each other any essential ways and to be present but to the contrary when so many are seeking would o levy found by recognizing and celebrating what makes us different. [applause]

>> clearly we do take it for granted there are natural differences between men and women but house adieu argue someone on the other side because it seems it is just engineered by society how do you respond? >> a lot of the research is finding the difference is not entirely socialize. with sex verses gender the word gender describes a certain aspect to be socialized so men don't wear skirts but in others they do another example that is socialized but does not get to the court to be a man or woman i give an example right before my book went to

press of a study conducted at university of this city center that found babies as young as nine months old you put the truck the boy went for the gendered foray so the scientist who had no skin in the game even said it shows very clearly there are certain aspects that sex is not socialized. i would encourage people to read the speech the got larry summers fired. he talks about the research is specially with boys and girls that yes the are certain aspects talking about women at the cool level because of those in

the differences so those that spent time with their kids so with male and female at the end of the day is obvious to those biological differences anybody in the medical field will tell you that the phrase that is coming across that they are with you from the of moment of conception to death with the hormone old reproductive reality. >> how can we protect the unique contributions of

civil society. >> the began this is where they make important contributions and others like him who are finding the effects on children but society is starting to celebrate the 80th of single mothers. id but women are doing to be providers for their families so for some it was a celebratory movement because they saw women replacing men but in reality you don't

how-to look far to see that documented research of women raising children without a father especially girls but if you start to read the news men who are raising families so to rely on the huge body of research budget to celebrate instinctual impossible the post-modern world with any number of arrangements to have a stay

at home dad or mom and to be threatened by that whiff those different scenarios at the end of the day the contribution they are making in their home. >> on a serious note, from restatements of the opposition of the constructs of gender identity would your opinion of those changed if there was more specificity? of a student has a note from

their best advisory opinions from a counselor or a doctor's note that says a recognized medical condition would that change opinion? >> probably not adult dispute of unreality of gender dysphoria i think it is a real medical condition and don't dispute that is a real thing but as somebody who's spent the better part of my adolescence wishing i was of boy because i did not identify with what i perceived of the social constructs a wanted to be in the politics club with the guys but i really glad no psychologist your psychologist pushed me in the direction i'm hearing

stories from parents that children have wound up in psychology and now psychologist are not even allowed to therapeutically treat the situation if a seven year-old says i m of boy they have to run with that so i am aware how they can get hijacked the end things that i think the medical doctor is not okay like plastic surgery on young girls who do not even have a gender dysphoria but there is a real need to be charitable in our approach of people going through that to recognize it is a very hard and difficult thing to go through especially with children i get very uncomfortable.

childhood one hallmark the child is confusion that is natural and normal we will not help them buy a encouraging that confusion especially with the stamp of the of medical community. >> since you are involved in this movement if president trump pled issued the executive order for whenever people believe i am offended that my money goes towards somebody who is confused.

if that person was to do them more power to them but the dollars should not be used for that purpose do you think donald trump could issue an executive order? >> it is conceivable there is one thing he has made clear he is trying to you eliminate wasteful spending and i see that falling into that category. >> i'm a trained special forces operator and a combat veteran as well. we have real concerns about it is open for women to attend but that problem is the backpack ways in excess of 100 pounds i weighed 190 air looking at composite of

320 pounds but the woman sitting next if you put me in the fire care then the other physical things that go with that without operational straight and the rest of the military it is extremely high stress so where is the insanity? widely have to force this down our throats how does that rate combat effectiveness? and feeding the military will stop the nonsense fairly soon? >> banks where question and for your service. did think it is plausible and your raise the issues i was sword of shocked as to

how many active members were speaking out against a was happening which i think is an uncommon for a the military which a big part is to stay in mind but it is clear there's a lot of uneasiness going non and the military is a good example many people in the military vp argument women cannot rise unless they have combat experience of this holds them back. so rather than trying to force women to do things surly there are women that are exception even the study of the marines the women that they chose horse elected with the average range of performance with

the top 1 percent even those women still they spoke out who said the study will as rigged and bill will bin said i am standout will did. everybody thought it was ripped but i was interested because i did it look just at the military but firefighters and police they have a similar issue that basically the of quality you need is physical strength with the ability to carry somebody wounded off the field or fire the weapon with extreme accuracy in by pushing with bin in to the rolls their bodies cannot

even sustain carrying around the pack but then going through the trading favor of going for disability because of a so hard on their bodies but contrast to other types of first responders such as police as an issue give the may done day are on equal footing but policing is the escalating scale where women bring something to the table and men don't belote of people say maybe the solution to police brutality is getting more women they noted is me against 250-pound man he will beat me so i have to use my wits to talk to down i think general mattis was very

outspoken but i certainly think is reservation about what was happening was shared and a photo scandal is getting the attention even the left-wing media maybe we are celebrating too fast but it is not fair to women to say you are not in equal soldier, as you can perform the most of extreme rigorous rules that even the military not all men could qualify to do for kelso we've told them to the highest standard which sets the above to fail and more likely to be injured and more likely to die lower in the military readiness. i think it is certainly plausible this administration will take a closer look at the rapid

changes that happened under the last. >> do you have a recommendation for the athletes involved of that female school wrestler the was taking drugs was given the unfired vantage to say they have to compete as a female? unravel it's getting unfair vantage with steroids what is your evaluation of that correct. >> i do think there should

be a hard and fast rule with the sexes competing with each other have a whole section in the book but even left-wing feminists agree especially those who pioneered athletics because the argument for having women's sports dissolves fast if you say it isn't about a category but to separate them in terms of teams but the case of the rustler was interesting they thought it was a biological males competing against other females but it was a biological field memo taking testosterone and these athletic institutions already have rules against performance enhancing drugs but i feel the rules are already in place and they

throw them to the when to let everybody take performance-enhancing drugs and then say we will just observe the rules letter already in place and to me that is the simple solution to that. >> is this problem specific to the united states or is it international? >> with legal as social policy i know you are seeing some issues in western countries by a ruptured is to the degree that b.c. here. so that medical association

is falling prey to some of this talking about pregnant women i don't have the best answer to your question but it is certainly permeating much of the western world. . .

these requests for social equality being undercut by the gender neutrality. i will ge give to the example of ivanka trump and the paid maternity leave plan she got raked over the coals because it actually emphasized women. in fact the play and she proposed there was nothing in there for fathers and people thought it was awful because it didn't offer equal leaves and she said look, what women go through is different than what men go through and just saying that was hugely controversial. almost all these women magazine and even npr, they went after her for that to the plane she was a little flustered like boy awhyam i even defending this reality. but what was interesting is not long before that a study came out that found in the university

setting when you offer a male professors and female professors identical paid leave it actually hurts women which makes sense because eventually, all you are doing is. so it gives men a leg up because they are giving time off but they are not breast-feeding or giving up as much as the women were struggling to walk around, things like that. i think actually a lot of these issues that are concerned fo for equality between men and women are not attainable especially the idea of not being able to sc

pregnant. if we can't even say pregnant woman how are women going to be able to make claims. this is where you are seeing them in agreement that we are all concerned about the status of women in the world. this is a crazy question that bt sort of not because the reason rape is considered such a heinous crime is because the one taking advantage of another in a way that is particularly egregious. i gave an example in the book, i'm not sure what it meant that it gets to what we are are all concerned about is obviously there's cases of sexual assault, bubut ratebut reid is a one-wayt it's in a world that we are all the same in other words.

to your point about saudi arab arabia, that is an example people get concerned about going back to the 1950s where we have these super gender roles and women are excluded in all these places. we have to understand of the things about us that are the same which is our intelligence and ability to make public a choice of to contribute to the society and participate. we may do that in different ways but at the end of the day there's a certain baseline right has to be in place an order for us to equally contribute in those ways. so that is recognizing what is the same about us which there is a category of things that are the true same about us. but i would say that there is a much broader section of qualities about us that are quite different and requires the

society to recognize that in order for men to not be able to oppress women. >> i want to make one other point about your question on socialization and gender because i do think it to talk about this ithisin the book i talk that the princess culture and how i think there's certain aspects of socialization people are uncomfortable with for good reason but when i go back and forth in my mind is consumerism and corporatism. that is not exactly what you asked, but i don't want to say that it's totally unfair to be concerned about external pressures on boys and girls to be a certain way. for example it is kind of funny that my cover is a barbie because i don't like my daughter to play with barbies and i know

they've tried to remake themselves and redo the bodies o that it's not a completely warped image. that isn't to say i would stop my daughter from playing with dolls but even the disney culture i think a lot of parents are vigilant about this and we are seeing this kind of social conservatives left wing feminism they might not like seeing the sexuality especially the way that females and disney are portrayed as damsels in distress and you see the same thing on the left. but i never let my daughter see frozen and then somehow i don't understand somehow she knows the words, has a frozen ball of frozen dress, so it is sort of an innate inclination to celebrate their individuality and that tends to manifest into the princess culture but there is aspects that the princess culture is a multibillion dollar

industry and it's hard to escape those parents. so this is just to say that raising questions about some of that doesn't mean it's should girls be allowed to dress like a princess or the other way around. that was another thought that i had. please join me in thanking ashlyn. [applause]