>> weekends on c-span2 are an intellectual feast. every saturday american history tv documents america's store and on sunday booktv brings the latest in nonfiction books and authors. funding for c-span2 comes from these television companies and more including charter communications. >> broadband is a force for empowerment, that is why charter has invented billions building infrastructure, upgrading technology, empowering opportunity in communities big and small, charter is connecting us. >> charter communications along with these television companies supports dirksen senate office building -- c-span2 as a public service. >> emily ratajkowski is debuting a collection of essays examine her multifaceted identity. a world silent -- world-famous

model, she's a household name for her looks and prolific image but refuses to let having a body people want to sell force her into 2 dimensionality. "my body" tackles fame, love, friendship and the intricate web of sexuality and power. feeling small one second, powerful them next. both in and out. investing in the level of success that has brought her book pain and pleasure emily investigates her own evolving beliefs, the perverse dynamics of a culture that commoditized the female body and the commodity between who she is and how she is received. emily ratajkowski is in conversation with hanna rosin, editorial director at new york magazine, her first essay was buying herself back up the most red piece of the year. previously hanna rosin was cohost of invisibleia, she wrote the end of men and has

written pretty atlanta, washington post, and the new yorker. we would love to hear your questions and you will line up at the microphone in either i'll. following the events, signed books will be for sale in the main lobby. thank you at here and at home for being with us tonight and please join me in giving a warm welcome to emily ratajkowski and hanna rosin. [applause] >> hi, everyone. thank you so much for being here. >> i would like to bask in the weirdness of this moment of being alive and having people

live, hi, everyone, people are here, how exciting! thank you for coming to washington. >> guest: thank you for having me, thank you for being here. >> host: this book is so personal i was thinking if i just start writing it would be two therapy sessions so the construct i came up with is i am oprah and you are a dell. can we do that? >> guest: i feel behind but i'm a quick learner. >> host: we will do our best. you call the book "my body" which i feel embodies the thing about the book. in my head the title is like look at my body, stop looking at my body, you are almost asking people to come into the conversation right away.

is that your intention? you could've called it emily's life or something. >> guest: yes, i definitely think there was a part of me that liked playing with the idea of people thinking, rolling their eyes and being like emily ratajkowski wrote a book called "my body" and using that preconception to maybe make them to buy the book or even the ideas in the book to be more impactful so i knew what i was doing, embracing something that was going to potentially annoy people. >> host: i am all for that. there's a whole section of the book that i think of as the miseducation of emily or the signals basically you received and i want to talk about that. even in your teenage life. the interesting thing about that part of the book to be

normally when people go through puberty or preteens it is like the signals that come from inside that are confusing to you but in your case even before you were conscious of it, all the stuff, the cues that came from outside to you. can you talk about that little bit, the first time you realized, not necessarily the first time your body was a thing, people started to send that signal to you from outside. >> i think i developed a really young and had a woman's body before i even understood or knew what sex was so it put me in a really strange position, one of the first essays i published was called baby woman because i was truly a baby but i was perceived, people thought i was an adult, i looked like a child but i did look older and

certainly have this -- feeling self-aware in a positive and negative way, in middle school feeling the attention i got from boys which meant the popular girls wanted to be friends with me thinking that is a good thing but also feeling like i had a vice principal snapped my bra strap. >> host: that image sticks in my head. >> she was a woman. i didn't specify that in the book. >> host: what's the point? >> guest: i'm interested in exploring the ways women try to protect other women by teaching them the hard way or teaching them about the world, the way

their beauty and sexuality and bodies are going to be consumed and i think for example, that vice principal thought she was saying to me you should watch out, be aware of this and if i don't snap your bra strap somebody else will kind of thing, i don't think she was doing it in a malicious way, i don't know but in general, that was the purpose behind that essay. i had an ex-boyfriend whose mom was like a very cool lady but only had a son and at some point, she had a daughter and i would have made sure she stayed thin and i almost spit up because what? you are a smart lady with politics and you are talking about how you would make sure your daughter stays thin, you must know that's a recipe for an eating disorder and in her mind it was her thinking that

would be protecting her daughter and ensuring her good future and love because thin women are loved more. >> host: there's mixed messages, your dad said to your mom when people complimented her on her beauty? so it was her father, you will say what he would say? >> my grandfather would say to my mother you shouldn't say thank you when someone complements you on the way you look because you've done nothing to deserve it and he was really serious person and i think he made her feel ashamed for the way she looked at her body particularly and it was a source of shame for her and her family which is why she took the other route of celebrate your beauty, boys looking at

you, whatever and saying this should be a source of pride but in a lot of ways but it made me aware of the way i was perceived and i write about this in that essay, praying for beauty when i was very young, like 6. >> was it a source of power? >> definitely a source of power, wasn't just in my family. it was also i grew up in the early age of the most powerful women to me were britney spears and pop stars and beautiful women. not just my generation, my parents loved older movies, we watched marilyn monroe and some like it hot and it was like there's men who can be powerful because they are presidents or comedians or rock stars but to me it seemed the most powerful women were always the ones who were most desired by men so i think as a very young person

instead of praying for money or intelligence or safety, it said so much to me when i looked back on that and how did i learned that should be the thing that i prayed for and wanted? >> host: i kind of want to talk about the blurred lines portion of the book. have you read watched that video? do you never watch it? >> guest: i watched it when i was writing the essay. >> host: what was your second the re-watching? it is weird to think about that. that propels me to say such an odd moment, specific artifact of the culture. >> guest: what i wanted to convey when i wrote the essay, i don't feel that connected to it. it was a job i showed up to 4 a day.

choosing to write about it was strange to me because the rest of the book is so personal and this was a moment of using what that video and what i represented in the zeitgeist to give an inside look of my experience and my approach to modeling, power dynamics that were at play on that set about watching it again was like it is -- i don't feel that much because i think about a day of work. who i was dating, i remember that time in my life but i haven't watched it that many times. i don't live in the video. >> emily remembers the treatment notes from that video. they are very embarrassing. what where they?

they were like -- it was really -- >> guest: it was an interesting time, people were already feminists like beyoncé hadn't coined her own term feminist yet but there was this feminist blogofsphere, people talking about maybe things in the past haven't totally been great for women but how can we still be hot? essentially. >> host: the interesting part i did not know about the video is the set up, the person setting up the video was trying to create kind of a good vibe for you guys. this weird sisterhood vibe in the room in the making of it. >> guest: another reason i wanted to write about that experience is there are multiple sides to the experience.

it was a female director, female vp, there were tons of young women on props, makeup, set design, whatever and for me at the time, i was 20, 21 and i had just been working as a model which i described in the book, i had this hardheaded this is my industry, i am working, i am a mannequin. it's not fun, it's not glamorous, i'm not going to be a supermodel, i'm saving my money because ice what happened in 2,008, i graduated in 2009, i don't want to move back into my parents house and take a service industry job. i was really scared so modeling felt like a cheat sheet essentially. i grew up with my mom as a writer, my dad was a painter, i understood you have to have your day job. i was like okay, this will be my day job and then i will figure out what i really want

to do. so yeah. all of that was true. when the video was criticized and people came to me and sort of -- i think there was a certain amount of pointing fingers, how dare you be a part of this misogynistic thing. i felt protective of the women i liked so much on set and how much fun i had had onset compared to front side go back of shirt, shredding with a creepy group of guys. i made friends and that video. they asked me how i felt. that is why i danced the way i did. i was having fun. >> guest: did you feel tricked or sincere? >> guest: i felt sincere. i felt defiant which is sort of why i wasn't saying also the guys were kind of ass holes because i felt protective of

the experience i had with that director and those other women and protective of -- i wanted my politics to align with how i wanted to see myself and feel. i wanted to feel powerful. i didn't want to feel small. i didn't want to feel like a mannequin. i wanted to say i worked this system, i have this commodifyable acid, my body, i had a great time onset and maybe that was power. i think that that is true, not to go on a separate tangent but a lot of ways our beliefs are often about our identity and what we want, how we want to see and feel about ourselves which is why it was important for me to also write a full experience about what it really was like and also why i was defiant and why it felt

important for me to feel powerful as the naked girl in a music video. >> host: that's the trick of the book. something you see generally on the surface, just seeing your instagram or just seeing you in the video. we like the pleasure of the book is that you get the internal thoughts of that, what that experience is like and that is interesting about it but it is like a hard line to walk because it is not you commodifying your own body yet, you're just getting paid to show up for a few hours and other people are telling you you are being objectified but you are feeling powerful. >> guest: my relationship with instagram felt the same way. it was similar to the way i felt about that video

environment that was on tap which was that i was in control in some ways. models in the 90s didn't have a way of dictating what images they were putting out. it was left to the magazines and whatever editor and i was like i can curate my identity online myself. i can control that and that felt really good. it felt like control. >> host: on the other side of the scale you are realizing this is my path to power, money, control i am dependent on men, the men who want this, it is their desire i am playing to so what is that realization like? how does that turn? >> guest: that's the thesis of the borderline essay, realizing as a young girl in my 20s which obviously my experience as a

model is specific, i have friends who look back. taylor swift, we should talk about how she feels looking get back, my tick-tock is all taylor swift. >> host: let's talk about it for 10 minutes. >> guest: i would love to. i think a lot of the experience i had as a young person, but also with interactions in my personal life, because i am young and desirable i'm the one who has power and even men felt that way. some of the instances i write about in the book almost felt like they were reclaiming their power by doing disrespectful things because it felt like this beautiful girl, she is emasculating me in some way because she has the power

because she's desired even though now i look back and i was so young, i was a kid and you were an adult and the situation, the power dynamic was different than i thought so that is part of the revelation of blurred lines and charting my relationship in that video, my memory of that video and how it is also representative of the abolition of my politics. >> host: that was a hard end to that sentence. there is a super creepy incident in the book. another thing the book does is take you into world's most of us don't have access to and it is like after blurred lines and a lot of success you end up in weird vip situations. this is a less well-known story but the $25,000 to show up at

our sports game, such a weird story. what is that world and how do different women behave in that world? >> guest: that essay is called transaction and it ran in the guardian. i'm interested in investigating my own judgment of how women navigate systems of power in regards to men, specifically i could write a book about that. the victoria's secret girl, great character, a real-life person but i was interested, i think people do that in their marriage sometimes, they have friends who marry somebody and all kinds of negotiations but in the industry it is very specific because as an unknown model there are women who are

sent out to casting to recruit other young models to go out with rich men and stand with them at a table, they are hoping to have sex with you but they just want you to stand next to them and make them look cool. it is funny but it is pretty dark, and it is a step away from the jeffrey epstein kind of world to be totally honest and i was living in new york city, i don't really go to might nightclubs but there have been a few moments i have watched these groups of very underage, clearly young women, one guy who is the party promoter and the wealthy guys join and it is related also, celebrity men, this whole market around this and as an unknown model you don't get paid but they essentially host a dinner so if you are a

working model in la not making much money, you're hungry straight up and you go to these things and they know what they are doing, the whole vibe is eat what you want, drink what you want so a lot of models go because they just want a free meal and they get a little drunk and are invited to the club and that is when these wealthy men come in to play so i had experiences like that why felt extremely uncomfortable as somebody who had not -- was always very, like clear transactions and those were not very clear and the other part of that essay is an experience i had with joe lowe, malaysian fugitive who produced and financed the wolf of wall street and he was essentially stealing money from the malaysian people, pretty horrible story, the malaysian

government, the president was working with him to help that happen. if you haven't read it, there's a book called billion-dollar whale or something. it's really crazy but my manager -- i had just moved into an apartment in new york that had bedbugs. i was living in the east village and it was -- i was new to the world. >> $25,000 is a lot of money in there like he just wants you to come to the super bowl. what do you mean go to the super bowl? my manager at the time, jamie foxx will be there, leonardo dicaprio. i would love to know. i do know in public record that there were things seized from these actors homes that were guests.

just to show up at the super bowl. >> i didn't care about football. >> did you cheer at the wrong moment? >> i had no idea what was going on. i wasn't even pretending and that was the other bizarre thing about this interaction, you don't actually have to do that. i wasn't being told to cheer or anything. what was interesting in both of these experiences was watching how other women saw opportunities and capitalized on them, this guy obviously wants to have beautiful women around, how can i parlay this into something larger and i think at a certain time in my life, i was like i would never do that and meanwhile i'm doing posts for toothpastes owned by the same men, the transaction is a little more clear another

instance of judging my own internalized misogyny and realizing how we are on the spectrum of compromise. >> guest: when you say the transaction is not clear it helps me understand what is going on in your head, it is not quite violence but it doesn't feel safe, you don't know what is going to happen, what is expected of you. it is a weird situation to fall into and the other thing is you can't necessarily -- you can tell me if this is true, can't necessarily rely on the other women. it is hard to tell and a lot of the interactions that happen when you fall into these situations, what's the relationship between the women. are they friends? are they competitors? how are they playing off each other in these situations? >> guest: i wanted to write

about my interactions with the other women but they were limited, focused on the experiences, being at this club or whatever or also through the little bit of the thing of whose side are you on, and yeah, i think that is something. honestly to me the book is more about relationships with other women than it is men. s1 point i wanted to name every essay after -- i basically talk about my mom, a friend in high school, famous women who had an impact on me. i do think that that could have been the alternate title for the book. >> host: you stop too abruptly for me to keep up with you. >> guest: don't even know i'm doing it. >> host: a risky thing to do in

the book, the thing you wrote about your trip or start to commodify yourself and ask -- it is hard to be so rich and successful and ask people to inhabit your mind, did you think about that and how people, they feel sorry for me because i am rich. >> guest: i didn't write the essays looking for sympathy. i wrote them because i had questions about my own existence and my own contradictions and my own life that i wanted to explore and maybe try to come up with some answers but also just an investigation and a record of that investigation in an essay that then people could tell me what they think about these things, what are their thoughts, their politics, what did they make of these

experiences and what does it say about the world we live in that you can be paid to go on a vacation, the ways i am trying to take back control. when you say commodifying yourself, i hear you but at the same time my experience from blurred lines to doing that feels very, feels like the same thing like taking a check. >> what do you mean? there is a moment when it feels there's a moment when you make the decision, why would i -- why what i -- why what i wear a bikini for myself, might as will do it for myself, posted on my own instagram and that feels powerful but that's not the end? >> it is about having more control as a model and as a commodity and using my body in that way but i don't know if it really is power. one of the questions of the book is what is empowerment? is it financial success?

is it a feeling? is it fulfillment? is it fame? is it feeling wanted? is it in not feeling wanted? what is does empowerment mean? it is a word i hear so much when it comes to women especially in pop culture and in my own experience, can we just go back and define that? so that is one of the larger questions in the book? >> the most powerful essay in the book that everyone talks about, the assault that happened to you when you were younger, should we tell this story, i never know how much people know. you tell it in very brief but what is interesting to me about that story is it is the most clear. a lot of other -- you tell a summary of it. it is weird for me to do it, it is the most, to me that is a thing that happened that is so bad it would lead you to take control of your own body,

commodity, destiny, whatever like it is so wrong. >> at the time -- >> host: let's tell a story so we are not speaking -- >> there was a photographer who shot me when i was 19, was kind of a pretty uncomfortable situation, he went on to publish multiple books using the images. >> years later they just show up and he is such an ass hole and then start, it is truly -- >> it is funny you say it is so clearly wrong because at the time, first of all, i turned to the legal system and tried to say what is my legal protection here and there was no way anyone could say this was wrong and there was no justice there and i turned to the internet and tweeted about my experience and how i didn't want to the images to be out there, and no one felt that it was wrong. >> that's a good point, you

sign this release -- >> i didn't sign the release, i didn't sign the release, potentially an agent may be sold or it was forged, i will probably never know but nobody felt like that was very clear cut when it was happening. even when i turned to my followers, don't buy this book or whatever, everyone was like, no, so i didn't feel like it was clear, like it was clear. it was received as such when it went up, when it was printed in new york magazine -- >> it was received as wrong. >> people felt very, this guy is in ass hole. >> it feels morally outrageous sum and could essentially trick a young person in this completely weird set up into taking these pictures, be totally dismissive of the man years later when they are worth something come back and publish pictures of you and make a ton

of money off of it. it is an outrageous, in your soul it feels so outrageous that could happen. >> guest: that was an experience i had a ton of shame around. i didn't protect myself. i wanted to impress him. as he dismissed me i try even harder to impress him. i did take those pictures so for me -- it still doesn't feel totally clear cut. i felt complicit in the situation and had a lot of shame around it and then paparazzi, the least relatable thing when i published the essay, i don't think anyone will like this which i was sure that it was that is my experience to that point, people had not been sympathetic to those things even though they had been in public which was another -- it was very

encouraging, i had written 50,000 words, but dove in and started to edit but it was encouraging to have that piece go out into the world, to see that writing could be a medium where at least people could think about the questions i was posing and the way that i was communicating something in a way that gave me control. writing the book is an act of control to take back my narrative. >> host: interesting to say you are not looking for sympathy. the reason the essay resonated was it feels real, like you are not, you put it out there in all the circle of internal thoughts including feeling complicit so your experience is extremely particular, not than a million people had that experience, it is still relatable. everyone has been in a situation where they feel complicit or don't know if it is their fault or not so maybe

that is why it was received so well. >> guest: i wrote the essay to lay everything out and look at myself and also to have other people to examine. i even say in the book i will proclaim my contradictions because it is a tendency i have of overexposure which for better or worse let me to have the life that i had but i'm very interested in being very honest rather than trying to make people feel a certain way because i am not sure how i feel about these things. >> host: there's a romantic moment when you talk about meeting your husband. don't know if i read this correctly but it is a moment -- may be it is not -- i don't know.

when he comes in and essentially just puts himself between you and people who feel they have a right to you. talk about that moment? it is a very interesting moment in the context of the book. >> before we were dating he was at a party that i was -- we were both there and somebody asked for a picture and put their hand like this little finger on this side. i was literally drunk and was like whatever and i heard him say no touching and the guy immediately dropped his hand, like i am so sorry, which i never would have done myself. that's probably not a good thing. i do think as a public persona, as a woman, i feel like i am public property, i have a complicated feeling around it.

and in the past i had dated men who were very like she's got this, she doesn't need any interjection and i thought that was very respectful so if you had asked me before he had done that, i don't like it when men feel like -- i can handle the situation on my own but all of a sudden, he's interested in protecting me and using get his relationship in the world, who he is as a white male big guy to protect me and for a lack for lack of a better term, was hot. my girlfriend read it and that was hot, thanks, it was. so yeah. >> i was looking at your instagram before this event and thinking almost as an addendum to "my body," the kinds of pictures you posted lately, the

pregnancy series, the pregnancy breast-feeding series. i was wondering about the relationship, whether those were freeing, there is a beautiful picture of you naked and pregnant, how does that moment of your life relate to everything you are writing, your body being used, there are a few breast-feeding pictures. what was that about for you? >> it was a trip because i was finishing the book as well. i was writing about my body and there is a moment where i was like i can't publish this book because now i have to write about pregnancy and birth, that is everything but i think that will just have to be another book. i do write about the birth of my son in the last essay. i was curious about how pregnancy was going to affect me, talk about lack of control, you wake up every day and your body is doing something completely different and no way

to ensure -- you don't know what is going on, like you really don't, you're growing and everything is changing but i found it actually i really enjoyed it. it actually helped me appreciate my body, trust it kind of like let go of control and say this thing, this vessel knows better than me and i have 2 sort of take the passenger seat and let that happen. so much of my life is related to my body as a tool and a tool to guarantee love ability, a tool to guarantee financial success and i think that it didn't feel like a tool particularly in birth and pregnancy because it required me to let go of managing that tool.

it was just doing something on its own and even more so in that last essay, the biggest moment for me was the bike ride that i take with my husband and my friend and being able to appreciate my body as a thing that takes me through life which is what a body is. >> host: the breast-feeding pictures i was thinking about, your body is a tool that many mothers have experienced but in a totally different way, no one is buying it or at least paying for it, but it has to do work. >> guest: it is sustaining life. breast-feeding was a chunk that was in the last essay, funny about your saying that and i took it out because it didn't work but there was a crazy thing, i don't know how many people had children or had this experience but your breasts

wake you up to feed your child. they ache and they hurt and i find myself walking like a zombie to feed my child and it was this bizarre experience of i am not in control here. there are things at work that kept human beings on the planet and that ancient machinery was within me and i have to just release control and see what happens and trust my body and the process. >> host: we were going to open for questions in a few minutes. i don't know how to ask this question. as i got to the end of the book you talk about playing the game, capitalism, playing the game, are you winning or losing? do you feel like you are

winning or losing? >> guest: i don't know. i feel like what i do have clarity on is winning outside the game by doing something as fulfilling as writing a book. i don't know if that -- that is a moment -- >> host: the actual writing of it. because most of the time you are used to -- it is a surface thing. must be such a 180 ° turn, nobody is looking at me, this is my internal -- >> guest: i love writing for that reason. >> host: no one loves writing. >> guest: it is miserable but -- i love the principal.

i think that focus and exercise or experience of that is just -- i don't feel this way about physical exercise but when people talk about running, i hate it but feel so satisfying i am addicted, i understand that in relationship to my experience with writing. >> host: i don't think it would be fair, writing is so easy for me and totally great, you don't want to be that. >> guest: writing is so hard. >> host: congratulations, it is beautifully written. everybody should read it. so many of the essays are so moving and open, so many windows into so many worlds that are completely exotic and totally familiar at the same time. so we are going to open up for questions. if anybody wants to ask questions please come to the microphone.

as people are lining up, i am going to ask questions from the virtual audience, don't know where the camera is but hello, virtual audience. my mom is in the virtual audience and my nieces. so from katie in chicago. have you heard of or talked to other models buying back their photos and what are their motivations in doing so? >> guest: i am in a very particular position, most working models don't have the ability to do that or have access to it. i think there's more conversation around copyright and in the age of the internet in general, i would say with revenge porn and everyone putting their images out there, there's a lot of conversations that are interesting but specifically in the modeling industry, i don't think there has been a lot of that.

>> host: they can't afford it. this one question is really great. i want to ask about public perception, how do you think people reacted to blurred lines, how to sexuality interact with whiteness and ethnic ambiguity but it is interesting to think from blurred lines -- >> guest: this conversation about sexuality and empowerment in a music video reminds me of this but i will say those women as black women had so much worse without a doubt the racial stereotypes that come into play, it is insane and even though it was their music video and they were in control they have to battle a whole other set of issues that are crazy. >> host: it is a similar thing

going on in that video that goes on in this book, am i in control? leaning into it and maybe that's a form of empowerment but i think she does know. >> you had really left -- leftist feminists and right-wing people both saying this video is trash. when does that happen in this country? >> they come together. go ahead. >> as a young woman navigating her career, your independence and femininity and not to mention dating my question is how did you deal with the heartache and failures from an industry that is so quick to reject women?

>> host: >> guest: this is something you might hear me say again because it was one of the take aways in the book, i wrote it to investigate experiences, looking back at the book, that is the moment when i should have done anything different or why compromise yourself in this way? why did you agree to do this? what i realized, that is a -- not a healthy exercise and i think young women need to learn to give themselves a break and understand the larger things that are out side their personal choices that lead to those heartaches and brutal realities which is partly why i wrote the book. i don't think my life has been a product of my choices but also the culture in the world we live in and it is important for young women in particular

not to be so hard on themselves. >> i was wondering, people in general, your followers, their opinions on you, if they are thinking more seriously, changed after you started your business? >> guest: no. >> they started taking you more seriously, what they are talking about? >> guest: i think in the world of skims -- when people see women taking control of their image and using what has been used by other people, people are like maybe she is business savvy. in some ways, that has been

part of it but the book became our week ago, i am hoping it is more that way. i shouldn't worry about it so much. that's the thing. >> host: you have a true hero friend who helps you build your business, your actual true friend in life does show up, that's a good counterbalance to all this girl on girl. >> guest: female friendships are hugely important. >> thank you for coming. i am a college student. you operate between so many industries, modeling to entrepreneurship and now literature. i wonder what advice he would give young women in their 20s on owning their sexuality and entering these professionals and overlapping between them.

>> guest: i think one thing i have learned, the kind of thing i got advice around pregnancy and motherhood, and you come back to and that was good advice. i do think that trusting your gut and following your instinct, there's a culture of find a mentor. people will guide you. that's true but in particular with young women there's a lot of mentors will be quick to say you should do it this way, don't listen to yourself and whatever and can be dismissive. i have found taking bad advice from people is not helpful, doing what i want to do, nobody would have said to write a book of essays about sexuality, that

is the ticket but something i felt passionate about and whether or not successful i can go to bed knowing what i cared about. trusting your gut. >> thank you so much for sharing your essays, the greatest human race in 2020. my question, you mention, being considered public property, trading on instagram and the accessibility you have with people, how do you navigate that now? through going through this process how do you control that? how much people see you everywhere? >> guest: really question, i'm figuring it out every day for example with my son.

he was getting paparazzi, that's an example of me wanting control. if there's going to be images of my son i want to choose which ones will be out in the world. it is not the ideal but my way of taking control. also it started to feel like more of a headache to protect his image from being out there than to relax and be like it is okay, he can be out in the world, that feels better to me. it is just a day today gut check, what feels comfortable. when i was writing this book, deciding what i wanted to share and why, that was what felt right and checking in with myself in a way that i definitely used to feel like i

would never even if somebody touched me, i would never have thought because i knew they would think she is rude, now i am more interested in taking care of myself than worrying about the way i am perceived. >> host: that is a response to paris social relationships, these are my thoughts, that is what i think of these situations, these are my comp located feelings, a great way of addressing the things people are projecting on you. you don't have to project. >> i'm curious, now that you are a mom, business owner, we've seen in the new yorker, the fall -- came out of crime culture, women have to work 14 hours and care to their maternal instincts.

what do you think of the phenomenon where you see yourself in all that? >> guest: my girl boss essay was the when you talked about, going to this vacation and thinking might as well be the one to selva bathing suits rather than this guy. capitalism is rough on every one and i think that women have this feeling, related to the conversation i'm interested in having. i have to become the man, i have to become the boss to be viewed as successful. if that means being an ass hole who doesn't pay fair wage that is the game i have to play especially as a woman i have to go doubly hard to be taken seriously. that was unfortunate.

and likely to see some women and businesses, where we don't normally see women and the back lash, so many women were held accountable in a way i don't think there were as many men being held accountable, was also related to sexism so -- >> more questions. >> my name is romeo, what will men learn from reading this book? >> guest: thanks for coming. i think that i wrote this book with men in mind in some ways because there are men i was close to who i felt didn't

understand why i get so emotional or upset about any number of situations. it is hard, right? i felt like so frustrated that i wasn't doing a good job explaining what it is like to be a woman in this world. when i wrote the book, i was thinking about women a lot but i wanted it to be accessible to men so they could feel compassionate and empathetic with what it is like to be a woman. >> my name is drew. i see a lot of young people in here. i was wondering you talk a lot

about control, being out of control and sometimes how hard it is to navigate. for someone at our age, a lot of the experiences you talk about, what is the best advice you have navigating that? >> guest: it is hard when you're 23. what do you know? even if you are inserting your agency there's a certain amount of dismissal and distrust. i think being aware -- i don't want to say the same thing -- protecting yourself but not letting things land personally can be helpful and as you try to find control because you

will get pushback, it is really tough. i wish there was a guidebook to this. knowing your self and trusting your instinct and reminding yourself the reactions you are getting, because of who you are, the world and the culture we exist in. >> host: last question. >> thank you for coming. my name is lydia. i finished the book a few days ago. i loved it. i especially love the chapter called the review. it makes me a little emotional. i love how you talk about the relationship with your mom. relationship is an important aspect of life. so my question was before writing the book before it was published did you ever sit down with your mom and have these conversations where you talk about in the book? i meant to ask that question. i'm like well what your dad thought of the book? um, you know, i i shared

everything with my mom and it's an ongoing conversation like all intimate close relationships. i mean, i think that you know, what i tried >> i i mean, i think that, you know, what i tried to do was really give her, you know, to be as a pathetic. like know that everything in the book she did out of love and out of a desire to be close, out of a desire to protect me. and as a parent myself i like have to accept that i'm going to be in perfect as the parent and even the most well-intentioned person, there's going to be things that, messages that just don't land the way that you intend them to. but yeah, it's an ongoing conversation. >> that is a lot of peace and wisdom around a mother

relationship. thank you, emily, so much. thank you all for coming. >> thank you so much. [applause] >> american history tv saturdays on c-span2 exploring the people and events that tell the american story. 12:30 p.m. eastern on the presidency house speaker nancy pelosi along with the missouri congressional delegation unveil a bronze statue of harry truman to the u.s. capitol rotunda. at 1:30 p.m. eastern to mark the 50th anniversary of the return of american pows in vietnam in 1973, their harrowing experience and the work of the national league of pow/mia families to bring them home. exploring the american story. watch american history tv saturdays on c-span2 and find a full schedule on your program guide our watch online anytime at c-span.org/history.

>> there are a lot of places to get political information, but only at c-span2 you get it straight from the source. no matter where you are from or where you stand on the issues, c-span is america's network. unfiltered, unbiased, word for word. if it happens here or here or here, or anywhere that matters, america is watching on c-span. powered by cable. >> c-span that is a free mobile app featuring your unfiltered view of what's happening in washington live and on-demand or keep up with today's biggest events with live streams of floor proceedings and hearings from the u.s. congress, white house events, the courts, campaigns and more from the world of politics all at your fingertips. you could also stay current with the latest episodes of "washington journal" and find scheduling information for c-span's tv networks and c-span

ra