positions went to women. so it's about forcing people into an uncomfortable place. so that instead of looking for the person who looks like them, they actually go looking and say this is going to be really embarrassing if my end-of-year plan shows what my numbers look like. and all of a sudden they can find people with skill sets. amazing. >> that's amazing. >> well, i'm going to beg to differ with diane just a little bit. i see that perceptions are at the heart of the exclusion of women and minorities in business boards and such. i've been on a lot of boards, and i haven't really met a truly twisted, non-god fearing man who

is somehow conspiring to hold women down. i think it's actually a lot more simpler. i think that sometimes men are thoughtless and prefer it that way because it gives them a chance to hold on to power, perceptions. so i offer the possibility that treating each one differently, encounters that don't necessarily start off as force, could produce bigger results. it all depends on the guy you're talking to. the force thing i think just kind of puts you back in this exclusionary cycle. >> we haven't forced it them yet. we're just -- >> she just said force.

>> i said i'm supportive of that if they don't mandate change. what i said is the difference of that is if we don't see a change, but what we've mandated is that they must report on it. until that time, 67% of board positions were handed out to friends of the guys on the board. answer somehow you have to get change and that will be uncomfortable. >> i think that's the question. somehow you have to get change. when i hear force, i hear a kind of control that i wouldn't want. no matter who i was. white guy, black guy, white female. so there's other ways to produce the result. and the inquiry should be to finding what those ways are. pressure, different than force, and certainly interacting with men in a way where you're their equal is a preferable spot, i think, for the rationale. >> jo, how long do you think we've been doing that?

we've been doing that. >> it's multi-generational. it's not over. it's just happening. >> but you said about the civil rights movement? >> whatever the civil rights movement is, it certainly isn't an example of the success of force. it's a success of legislation. >> well, we would love legislation and protest around these boards, believe me. i would sponsor legislation tomorrow to get 30% women on the board. >> i would, too, but it wouldn't be force. >> okay. i think it's a definition of force. asking them to report on it is not force. >> that's right. >> what i'm saying there isn't a change, they're aware that thereby targets. like norway, like sweden, where they have made significant difference. see, we'll go for the whole time. you better -- >> six panels where i actually had a real disagreement. i love it. >> it's okay. it's all right. >> wonderful.

>> and from you. >> now we can open it up, if anyone has any questions? and we can start right over here. >> so, if the population of women that is in the realm of consideration for boards, is so small, what can we do, well, i mean, you know, as you mention, the number of ceos and the number of women that are in these areas, in the visibility of men that are creating these boards, how do we create more visibility of highly qualified population that we know exists and push women into the arena that makes them viable candidates and desirable candidates for these boards? >> well, we are doing that, a story, diana can talk about in terms of the champion program,

and most countries, companies, states that i'm working in, in new york, we are lifting up women who are visible or who have those qualifications. i mean, we're taking responsibility for actually finding the women ourselves and putting them in front of people. we're working across the states sometimes. we're working in the women's forum. actually, for the facebook campaign, there are 27 women so far that they found that could be on the board of facebook, because of what's needed and who are the people on there? i think -- i guess i wanted to say, i believe in quotas because we have tried about 1,000 other ways, and the women, while you are right, they're not as many women who have been in that executive suite that makes them available, but there are enough women who have enough competencies and enough history and you don't just have to come from the executive suite to be there for us to go and say that you could have actually a third woman on your board without

stretching what you need. it's not about taking people who don't have the qualifications, but we have those women. >> right, right, yeah, i guess that's my point. there's a lot of qualified women who may not have made that executive level that create the visibility out there. >> yeah, they're not as visible, but they are people who have the qualifications. >> so, one of the things we do in explore for success is encourage women in things that aren't natural things for them. and i would like the women in this audience to think when someone says you did a fabulous job on that project, could you use the two words thank you rather than say i had a fabulous team, or it was nothing, or something else? just say thank you, i enjoyed the challenge and i had a great team. could you make sure that at least five other people you work with know where your career, not just women, mainly men, in fact,

4 to 1, because that's where it is up there, know what you would like the direction your career to go in. because, if you don't let that be known, and it shouldn't have to be known, but we do know in australia that a woman, i say, one, two, three, the engagement ring is strike one. the wedding ring is strike two. and pregnancy is strike three. therefore, they know that your brain is going to atrophy, and you're not going to be useful at anything. and most of our men in senior positions in australia have women who are at home, with the family, or who have gone into part-time work that doesn't necessarily take full use of their skills. so, at this stage, women have to be able to articulate where they want to go, and that's what explore is all about, taking the women and ensuring that they can become visible in organizations. because if they are not coming through in senior management, we're not going to address the board thing.

>> i think we're in the same place around board representation as i was mentioning before around access to capital issues. we still live in a world that pretends that the best and the brightest, the biggest, smarty pants people on the planet, are middle class white boys. it's still where we are. and so when i'm recruiting board members, there is an abundance of talented women. there is an abundance of indigenous women that offer incredible resources to my company. because i'm not just looking for a particular thin slice of qualifications. i'm not just looking for people who have made a lot of money. we do have, you know, a really talented middle age, middle class white guy, former cfo who knows lots about how to chase a single bottom line hard, and he's on the board. but he's one of a group of collective people that are

contributing to build a business that is more than just the pursuit of quarterly profit down one single track, which is what men's brains are so darn good at. i appreciate that he carries that intelligence into the mix, but it's not the only form of intelligence. so, we're back to the stranded asset, stranded talent, wasted people, all over the world. and we have to learn to see those other aptitudes in ourselves and in other people and in people whose pigment is really different. >> i just want to build on that, because i love this. i mentioned this in a couple of panels, but warren buffett at the fortune summit looked at the women submit there, the most powerful women summit, said i had two sisters and they both were smarter than me, and one of them's here. and he said, they both actually had the same amount of love from the family as me, but they didn't have the same opportunity. and he said, america's gotten some place, but do you imagine where america would have gotten

if we used all of our resources, including the resources of women? and, i mean, i think when the richest, most successful man in america is willing to say that, that other men, actually, could say it, too. [ applause ] >> okay. it looks like we have a question right over here. >> yeah, hi. very great discussion, but i'm looking at also going back to childhood and onward. do you think there's sufficient focus on that aspect of bringing more women into, i mean, into the business workplace and pleases of boards and stuff? do you think there's enough attention on that and if not, what would your recommendations be? >> in childhood? >> from childhood on, i mean, you're talking about now, but you know, thinking ahead, to the next generation, the next

generation -- >> i find it a fascinating field where there's been quite a bit of study. my brother was pre-war, i was post-war, and my father didn't see my brother until he was 5 years old. i am my father's daughter. i never really bonded strongly with my mother. i loved her very dearly. but it was my father who made a difference in that way. and he came from a view that women and men should have expect the same opportunity. there has been significant research that many successful women have had fathers like that. and the other thing that has shown up, in australia, we have a lot of people in single-sex schools, probably up to 25% to 30%, and when i look down at successful women in so many different areas, nicole kidman went to the same school i did,

which was a single-sex selective girls school. so, somebody has to take the leadership positions in that environment. so, there is a whole string of people from my school, who i didn't know, of course, but have turned up being successful in so many different areas, it's amazing. so, i don't know, and -- but there's certainly some research along those lines. >> i think you have to actually look at two things. the film misrepresentation. which if you haven't shown it here, it should be shown here because it shows the representation of women to girls and has the most amazingly articulate girls on that film about what it does to their spirit, what it does to their ambition what, it does to their sense of whether they can be powerful. so i would look at that film. and you have to begin to look at where girls are, and that's been scary. for me i've gone to mattel to get them to make a white house

president barbie and then a white house computer engineer barbie. because actually it is good to have misrepresentation, but it is good for girls to pick up a doll that they dress and she's a computer engineer. you have to use different things to get to young girls. i've done it with take our daughters, i've written books about girls and et cetera. but what i think is important for us to think about here is the more powerful women get and we have gotten more powerful, even though we're not in the seats of power, the ms. push back there has been and the more the clothes look like little girls that women wear, the more little girls are told about princess -- i have 11 grandchildren and the little girls wear princess dresses and they are really tough little girls but they want a princess dress. we put them on the swings and have them get their dresses torn. but they wear these -- there is a pushback towards girls being girls, so that's because there's a fear of, i think, what's going

on. so, we have to know that and help get it through. >> and there seems to be an opportunity in the mothering of boys that if you see the success of fathers mentoring their daughters, mothers having a different approach on their sons. and, i certainly, not being a mother, couldn't say what that is, but that would be something extraordinary to take a look at, given the other part of this formula, is always that the masculine energy in how it seems to suppress the opportunities of women. >> but for a mother to enter -- to teach a girl to be tough goes toward the power. to teach a boy to be more feminine, to be more thoughtful, et cetera, goes towards the fear of homosexuality in this country, and so mothers have tried very hard, i think, to --

i'm sorry, you got me on this subject. >> it's not necessarily the same tactics moving forward will solve a dilemma. if it didn't work with mothers treating the sons a certain way because of this taboo of femininity of a son, there are other role models, i'm sure, that have done things with their sons that produce some remarkable sons that could be replicated. so, the looking at the developmental phase, which is important, should include how to handle sons. >> i completely agree. >> neither of my sons are homosexual, and when my youngest son who spent ten years in the army, found out he was having a girl, he said she sure will know how to throw a ball. and he is a devoted, involved, loving father, and i have great,

you know, i feel really positive that the girls growing up in both of my son's families will have a fabulous supportive male role model at home. and that makes me extremely proud. >> well, i just want to say, i actually have sons like that, too, for the mothers, i'm just saying there's a taboo around homosexuality, not that you're raising sons to have sexual orientation differently, and i've had success. my son is the best mother i ever saw actually, and i tell him so every day. >> okay. >> but my sons are good mothers, but i also -- i mean, i feel that mothers try very hard with their sons, but the society is a very hard one. that's all. beside that, i'm fighting with jo today. >> you're not fighting with me. >> maybe we have some -- >> this is good. >> we have questions up here in the balcony, in the very back? >> yes, i have a question related to what diana was discussing about how women are

socialized in a strategy to project modesty, in response to compliments. and i was recently reading a book called "gender speak" by a psychological linguist who stalked about how women tend to use subordinate language across cultures. as we see positions of leadership in our professions, how can we avoid using subordinate language without feeling that we have to emulate masculine gender role identity? >> there's a wonderful article by barbara annis -- >> yeah. >> thank you. about how women introduce ideas roundtable. they say, maybe we should consider, or another option might be, so, we're inclined to use a lot of worlds that have doubt attached to them? and they're read by alpha males or females as showing your incompetence or lack of thought. it is really worthwhile practicing some of those things. saying things like, i don't

believe we can move forward until we have considered so and so. you can still sound authentic, you don't have to thump the table and say we're not going to do anything until we've done this. but there are ways to change the way you enter a conversation that change the way you are perceived. and i've also had young women who said they never heard in meetings, who i've said, just sit forward. just sit up, sit forward and take the space you own. how many other people fight on airplanes with the person next to them? >> sure. >> any man who takes the arm of my airplane, the instant he moves his elbow, i will be there. it's a statement of space. and we need to learn some things -- do i think we should have to learn them? no, i don't. but until we get the change we'd like to see in our culture, then, i'm sorry, women from the age of, kind of 20 to 50 are

going to have to learn some of those tricks so they are seen and taken seriously. >> and then right back here? >> i'm in the generation where, in the late '60s and early '70s we used demonstrations to shut down universities and get our message heard which helped stop a war. now women, we have numbers, education and we have money and so, if we really want someone, a female representation on the board for apple, i would suggest one of the best ways to do that is to use our buying power and also our not buying power. stop buying apple products as a cohesive effort and get organized about it, and there will be a woman on that board in a short time, i would imagine. >> did you mean google? >> i'm sorry, i said apple, i mean facebook. i apologize --

>> keep buying your apple products, please. >> keep buying your apple products and your google products. >> they need to know what you're planning to do before you do it and then you need to do it. >> i -- sorry. >> no, that was it. >> that's what we're doing. we're telling them that we are doing and then we're going to do it, but she's right. facebook is hard. they could boycott facebook or girlcott facebook, that is probably true. there are other ways to do it. but you are right, product is a very good way to demonstrate. >> all right, right over here? just wait for the -- >> okay. as a female student in a male-dominated field of film, i was curious about your experiences like in male-dominated field like for jo, i can't think of the right

word, but the fields that you've never been comfortable working in, does that make sense? >> it's complicated. >> yeah. >> that was just your experience. what advice do you give to women who are in very tough fields, like male-dominated fields or just tough fields? >> i started in film so i know what you're talking about, and i also -- i spent ten years developing grass roots mechanisms to develop tax policy, things like the carbon taxes, i worked on the bc carbon taxes. i worked on that until it was implemented and then i was done doing taxes. but i spent a decade being almost always the only woman, when i was lobbying government officials. there would be a room of 15 people, playing with policy, talking about the horse trading stuff that happens in policy conversations, and there would be me and a woman taking notes. and i had cabinet ministers that i would invite to meetings and in those days i worked at home

and i nursed my son until he was 4 years old and one of my tests for working with politicians, i invited them to my house for a meeting and nursed my son. it became my acid test on if i really wanted to do work with people or not. and it changed people's perspective. it really did. so, i think we have to do it, we have to show up, we have to go through the discomfort of being the only woman at the table, the only woman who has a seat, the only woman in the room until it's not the case. >> someone once said to me, at least they'll know you've arrived. and make that arrival count. >> okay. so, right here? >> you've been talking about some of the behaviors that women need to adopt in order to get up to the table and to be recognized. on the other hand, you've talked about getting these male champions of change. and for women we have a very

clear incentive for wanting to change our behaviors. and i'm curious, what are some of the incentives for these men to actually change? because if i think about drivers of change, it is often an opportunity or it's a threat. and i just would like to hear, what is your perspective on what those drivers and incentives would be for the men we seek out as these advocates of change? >> we have a talent shortage in australia. our unemployment rate is under 5%. and that is driving people to think a little differently. until, i think it's five years ago, we had no train drivers who were females in new south wales. and it all came back that they used to have to jump out the trains and change the points, and it really was very physical. now they have to press buttons. all of a sudden, it changed. we have very large companies in the mining industry that now say they'd rather have women driving their big trucks, because they

drive them more carefully. they have less accidents. they are better cared for. so, there are things that start people thinking differently. and we need to promote those things. but for men in australia, it's about, how are you going to get the talent? if they all leave you after five years in your organization, what are you going to do? you know? how many people are we going to bring into australia as immigrants, who may or may not be qualified. and we've got all these women who are qualified. it is not rocket science. find a way to incorporate the women in our organizations. it does take a little while to get the message through. >> in the states, one of the things that's happening is sponsorship because what has happened is women are leaving in their mid-30s at enormous levels, and every company in america really is trying to figure out why their women are leaving. when the women leave, they say,

i'm leaving to take care of my children, but usually it's not that. they start a small business, they go some place else. and so, they are actually desperate to keep their women, because they're not moving women up. so, there is an incentive for the companies. but what they have found is, women will tell you they are mentored to death even though mentoring helps but they're not sponsored. some of the best companies are starting sponsorship programs, which is different, in that somebody's advocating for you when you're not in the room, pushing you up the ladder, and those programs seem to be working. and what's also working, as women get in there, there's so much research now that it is over the top. around the difference women make and about how women are now at least as good as or better than men on every aspect of leadership that keeps coming out review," et cetera. and men are saying it as well as women. it's moving. it's just slow. >> i can say that in business, when the discussion becomes

about affirmatively providing women opportunity, that there's a certain surge of interest that women have for the conversation, obviously, but men tend to wither under some kind of light that appears negative. they get quiet. they don't necessarily approach the subject matter as making a difference in it. and the very few who do have, i think, an extraordinary ability to be different. to actually recognize that their deviance from the norm. and there's an advantage to that. and there's also a disadvantage. so, right now, it's to no one's surprise, it hasn't flipped where that advantage business case advantage and advantage in terms of personal career, has moved to a level where most men want to do that.

but it's important to recognize that there is a withering. i've seen it happen in speeches that i've done, where women have gotten excited about the opportunity and the men have gone the other way and sort of slithered out of the room. so, whatever that is, that's got to be addressed. i'm not sure exactly what it is, the drivers, but it's a great question. >> if we could give all senior businessmen a 25-year-old woman daughter -- >> yes. >> that really changes the agenda -- >> absolutely. >> because suddenly they become furious about what happens in the workplace. >> true. >> but i don't quite know how you manage that. >> it's true. it's actually true. >> right down here in the third row? >> my biggest challenge is when i bill for a service and i'm growing my service or i'm

helping someone even more and more, how to address to them that the rate needs to increase and how, in your personal experience, how have you addressed pay increases? >> it's a really key question, and your question has a bunch of different dimensions, i think. so, i grew up with a working class background, nobody was in business in my family, business people were, you know, negative. there was -- i got no training in business through my entire education, because my university career was in the arts. so, there's something, i think, really essential about teaching everyone, but particularly teaching women basic business economics and finance and how to own our numbers. one of the big phenomenons that's talked about a lot in progressive business communities, whether it's sbn or "b" corporations, is that there's something about women

often that shrinks from the money, that shrinks from the numbers, that shrinks from finance, and we have to tackle that. we have to get really good at it, and there are mentors out there to really help women. really get good at the numbers side of business, because it is an essential piece. you don't get to bring your values forward and you don't get to do the transformative work of reinventing the world in business, if you don't make the numbers work. but if there's an energetic thing to owning numbers, right? you have to learn how to get the -- the energy present when you say i need to charge more and here's why, right? because we shrink from that, and i think that is half of the equation. when i was introducing the notion that women aren't getting capitalized and financed, so let's just say 50% of the problem is the majority of people making the decisions about money are men and it's