tomorrow. the national education association's annual meeting in washington, d.c. with a speech from vice president biden and an introduction from his wife, jill biden. the president of the nea, the nation's largest teachers union called on members to re-elect president obama. you can watch remarks live tomorrow at :0010 a.m. here on c-span3. coming up tonight, defense secretary leon panetta discussing a new national security strategy that emphasizes working together with other nations. >> we continue to see the destabilizing behavior of nations like iran and north korea, the rise of new powers across asia and the dramatic changes that we've seen unfold across the middle east and north

africa. these challenges coupled with the new fiscal reality led us to reshape our priorities with a new defense strategy for the 21st century. it is a strategy that places a greater emphasis on building the capabilities of others the help meet the security challenges of the future, and to sustain a peaceful and cooperative international order. >> you can see the secretary's full remarks from the u.s. institute of peace at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. this weekend head to the state capital in honor of thomas jefferson saturday at noon eastern. former senator and missouri

first lady on family life inside the governor's mansion from her book. >> p at one time in 1967, this was called the bloodiest 47 acres in america. >> a former warden takes you through a pententiary. this weekend pfrom jefferson ciy on c-span 2 and 3. next, young female activists speak out about their efforts to advance womens issues. among the speaker was sandra fluke who was criticized by rush

limbaugh for her views on women's reproductive rights. also was an msnbc speaker. this was part of the national organization for women held in baltimore. it runs just over an hour. >> a grant of $5,000 to support workshops devoted to the discussion of organizing women workers. the strengthening of unions and young activists. please give a round of applause. [ applause ] >> who is excited about this topic? who is excited that the mic sounds better? i'm excited. let's go. the women's movement in on fire

in 2012 and younger women are the flame. this is an anita hill moment for a new generation of feminists and younger women are leading a new awakening for women's rights. it's because of second way feminism and the legacy of the national organization for women that younger women have been born to believe that we should be treated as equals. it is because of second way feminism and the national organization for women that younger women know there's no freedom of religion when a woman is not free to act according to her on conscience. [ applause ] >> it's because of the national organization for women that younger women know there is no freedom in the marketplace when

a woman is paid according to her gender rather than her contributions to society. [ applause ] >> it is because of the national organization for women that younger women know there's absolutely no human right for men to control women. [ applause ] >> now those of you who know me i'm not afraid to push the envelope, so i'm going to do it. it's younger women who are leading the modern women's movement online. it is younger women who are leading the modern women's movement in the streets. [ applause ] it is younger women, like sandra fluke, crystal ball and tamika

mallory who are not waiting for the change that we wish to see. there's a generational shift taking shift in feminism. it is real. sit a shift that is about perspective and it is about power. perspective and energy, being told from birth that we are equal, being restrained by radical right wing men who aren't willing to accept our presence and our intelligence, and then a willingness to try be called a slut and try again. [ applause ] >> power sharing an excitement that we are here and we can launch and take away rush limbaugh's advertisers and

demand full abortion funding for all levels of government whether or not the established chains of command think it is the right wording, the right tactic, the right time. a willingness to demand that just as a great president of the united states must evolve to stand publicly for every person's right to live and love, so to a great organization must evolve to champion young women leading the women's movement forward without its tutelage. so to a great organization must evolve to celebrate young women leading the movement forward without direct construction. [ applause ] >> we should be so inspired to hear from the young feminist

leaders who will speak now. first up is a woman who, i'm going to say it, we should all e encourage to run for president of the united states, sandra fluke. we're not going to let you speak first, because we need to give you an award. please give a hand to our wonderful president of our organization, the national organization for women, terry o' neil who will introduce sandra by presenting her with a much deserved award. [ applause ] >> thanks. thanks to all of the amazing women who are up here today. sandra, i'm really thrilled to be giving you this award. tamika, you and i have been at rallies. we have been at conventions. we are walking together. we are marching together. krystal, you've just been fabulous. msnbc is my very favorite

channel. >> same here. >> thank you for all you're doing. a few short months ago, sandra fluke was a third year law student at georgetown juf university. she was a woman of accomplishment. among other thing she had been president of the georgetown reproductivity students for justice. she co-founded the new york state coalition for fair access to family court which successful lobbied for legislation that would allow lgbtq teen and other survivors of intimate partner violence to access protective orders. when representative darrell issa, i was waiting for that, chair of the house committee on oversight called a hearing for the purpose of sputtering and

railing against the obama administration's inclusion of contraception in the list of preventive health care services that insurance companies must cover without co-pays, mr. issa banned sandra fluke for testifying at his hearing. here is how mr. issa described this accomplished young woman. quote, a college student whob appears to have become energized over this issue. who is not appropriate or qualified to testify about contraceptive coverage. who does not have, quote, the appropriate credentials to speak at a committee hearing on birth control. because according to mr. issa the issue of contraceptive

coverage and health insurance plans is not about women. it's about the religious freedom of the united states conference of catholic bishops. now, as we all know a fire storm of protests erupted over this. minority leader nancy pelosi arranged a forum in which sandra would present her testimony. at that form elijah cummings asked her what can you tell us, what is it that makes you qualified to speak to the issue of contraceptive coverage. sandra looks directly at the panel and she says, i am an american woman who used birth control. [ applause ]

>> and that said it all with that one simple dignified response. sandra fluke claimed power for every single woman in the united states. because what she was signaling to us all is that any time we are effected by policies of powerful elites, we have a right to speak and to be heard. sandra's claim to power scared a lot of people. it really, really scared rush limbaugh. rush limbaugh is not just any blow heart, i mean extremist right wing radio host. he's one of the most feared power brokers in the entire republican party today, and that comes not from any left wing

person. that comes from a republican party operative who worked in the george w. bush white house saying that rush limbaugh is a feared power broker throughout the republican party. mighty rush limbaugh was so upset of the fact of sandra speaking truth to power that he decided he was going to take her down. he claimed that her advocacy for contraception coverage made her a slut and a prostitute. he said she was having so much sex that she needs a whole lot of contraception and she wants other people to pay for it. think about that. mighty rush limbaugh doesn't seem to understand the birth control pill is not like viagra. you don't take a birth control pill just before having sex

like, oh, never mind. sandra fluke was not cowed by limbaugh's relentless defamatory character assassination. in fact, just the opposite happened. women and men around the country were disgusted by limbaugh and in short order he lost nearly 100% of his national advertisers. so, please, all of you join me in honoring this amazing champion, this role model, now 2012 woman of courage. [ cheers and applause ]

>> thank you so much for that very warm and lively welcome. i love speaking to a room full of my kind of women not staying in their seats and not staying quiet during comments. i have to say thank you so much to terry and all of you and to now for recognition of what i've done in this way. i have to say that i feel less like a woman of courage and more like a woman who knows how to follow a good model because i like, i'm sure every young feminist in this country has learned so much from the trails that so many of the women in this room blazed. i want to say thank you for all that you have done for me, for other women my age and all that you continue to do. thank you very much.

[ applause ] >> i especially want to say thanks for having my back the last few months. [ applause ] >> there were a lot of people who spoke out on my behalf and that's really what made it possible for me to do what i did in terms of trying to frame the conversation and trying to say some important things in the wake of the situation and now and also miss krystal ball, we're two of the loudest effort in really trying to support me and support this conversation. i think you so very much. i think what was so fantastic about the last few months and the energy that we have seen is than it has been around a lot of

young women getting involved. not just young women but many women stepping to the fore. i want to say thank you to erin and how she introduced this. it's not about young women becoming more active. there are some of my generation who really did have this assumption that we lived in a post-feminist world. i think they have awakened from that delusion, hopefully. there are many, many young women who have already been engaging and active and really working on these issues and the last few months have been a lot about making that visible and having that be seen by the country that feminism is alive and well in this country and young women are active and empowered and working hard on these issues. with that i think i'll transition into what we're speaking about for the rest of our time here today which is young women organizing and young

feminists organizing. i have to say that i probably share this feeling with my other panelists. it's a little odd for each of us to say what are young women organizing about? what are we working on? we could turn to so many of the young women in this room and say tell us what you're working on. i think that's one of the beautiful and powerful things about young women's activism. it's not focused on one single issue. these are young feminist who is are empowered to work on a whole variety of things the and we're going out and working on them in tandem and spreading on the web and doing it all in so many different ways. i'll say a bit about a few of the things that i'm excited about, and i know we will as well. there's really so much happening. one of the things that happens when darrell issa calls you a college student and rush

limbaugh calls you a co-ed is you get tapped as several years younger than you are. i spent the last few months trying to figure out how to be young and cooler and hipper than i was. so my typical approach to young feminist organizing is twitter. right? today, i tweeted out and asked young feminists what i should talk about in terms of what we were doing and working on and what we're organizing about. of course, i got back a few of the responses of things that have been in the news later which are really important. things like equal pay and health care and tragic but temporary closing, because it's going to be temporary of the clinic in mississippi. the last clinic that was providing abortions in mississippi. of course, reproductive choice in a lot of other flavors. they are active on this issue that have fwn headlines of the

day. i know that krystal will talk about some of those as well.bfw day. i know that krystal will talk about some of those as well.efwe day. i know that krystal will talk about some of those as well.efw the day. i know that krystal will talk about some of those as well.nfw the day. i know that krystal will talk about some of those as well. he day. i know that krystal will talk about some of those as well.hea day. i know that krystal will talk about some of those as well. he day. i know that krystal will talk about some of those as well. they also tweeted back something that has been highlighted as we have seen male lawmakers deny me a seat and the lawmakers not allowed to speak there as well. these are quotes so they'll be in twitter speak. let's stop asking men to vote the way we want. put women in power in 2012. i think boehner sold cars. we can do much better. the next woman tweeted we need more young women to get off the sidelines and run for office. [ applause ] >> sandra. >> krystal.

this one said electing women who don't quit because they have children leaving us stuck with yet another good old boy white man. i'm going to reframe that as the call for work family balance and support for working women and women in office. and they also tweeted to me about some of the things that i think really do move young feminists which were one woman said i think body rights and image are the two major issues for women. i think said acceptance. a third said transwomen acceptance. here is an e-mail from my mom. i'm going to skip that one. this woman said to me, most young women i know are not engaged in women's issues to the

depth and bredth that my gender was, the baby boomers.adth thatr was, the baby boomers. i don't have the answer to that. i think perhaps one thing that could help us to overcome this is that i think maybe young feminists and young people who aren't engaged see things through a different lens. i think a lens of gender equality might be one that works better. i know everyone understands that issues like body image and transfolks and gender identity are issues that affect men as well as women, and that's always what this movement has stood for is thinking about the ways that the issues affect all of the members of our families, not just women. i think that's something we need to think about in our messaging

and language. organizes like now have done a fabulous job in breaking down barriers for women. i think it's the young women don't feel necessarily that it's about being a woman that is the proper. they don't feel the discrimination so pressured and so coherently than it was in the past generations. i think they do see things like they are not free to express their gender identity in whatever way they want to and perhaps they're male siblings or peers are not free to express themselves. i think that is one of the ways that this generation can be appealed to is to think about gender equality and breaking down the barriers that hurt all of us and thinking about it in those terms. we know that's a frame of all the issues we worked on. i do not mean we should discard any of the things we are working

on or the feminist identity. i think we have to make sure to explain our movement and explain our issues in way that appeals to this generation and how they feel about the world and what's happening. that's my stab at wisdom. i'm sure that it will fall short in some ways. [ applause ] >> it's my attempt. with that i will turn it over to i believe, krystal is next. i'll turn it over to erin to introduce krystal. [ applause ] >> thank you so much. you are such an inspiration, sandra. for those of you who don't know krystal ball, another major inspiration for young women and young people. she made it safe for the facebook generation to run for office. she is the new msnbc co-host of

the brand new show "the cycle." she's a political writer. she's an activist and she's a former congressional candidate. [ applause ] >> if you're not on twitter, you've got to get on twitter and start following krystal. she is so active in combatting media masogony. she was among the first to call for a boycott of our long term acquaintance rush limbaugh's advertisers following his long smear of sandra. by the way, rush said he was going to leave the country if the affordable care act was upheld. has he left yet?

talk about walking the walk. she was endorsed by virginia now and she survived a very tough primary to become the democratic nominee for the first district of virginia. i remember going to a younger women's event that krystal was at, but she talked about how people told her you've got to cut your hair and shouldn't talk about being a mom. she said i'm not going to do that. i think she is so cool. well, she didn't successfully unseat the republican incumbent. her campaign raved nearly one million more more than 6,000 donors. following her congressional campaign she was named by forbes magazine on the magazine's most

powerful women of the midterm elections list. [ applause ] >> the week magazine has rated her as one of the top eight political stars of 2010. we're so excited to have krystal with us today. [ applause ] >> that was an awesome introduction. i hope i can live up to all of that. thank you so much. i just have to take a minute to say how cool it is to be in this room with this group of ladies and the men who support those ladies, and with sandra, who really did inspire a lot of the work that i did this year. to be on a panel with sandra talking about young women organizing is a little surreal. thank you now for giving me that opportunity and erin and terry

and all of you for being here. i really appreciate it. i wanted to start with one of my favorite quotes to set the scene from alice walker author of "color purple". she said the most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any. i know that i'm preaching to the choir in this room. this is a group of women who know they are powerful and not afraid to use the power. i think it serves as a reminder for why some have been less engaged. they have been taught by our political system to think they don't have any power. there's two ways to look at what's happened this year. there's the pessimistic way, and i know you all are familiar with the stats. we've had in 2011, over 1100 provisions introduced in state legislatures nation wide telling women what they can and can't do with their lives and bodies. a record number.

we've had unbelievable assaults on planned parenthood. we had seven states in 2011 either defund or massively cut the funding. we had another eight states in 2012 that are considering doing the same. we have texas, which has decided they would rather their women, their low income women not have preventative well women care at all than partner with planned parenthood in that program. we have the horrible situation in mississippi where the woman remaining clinic is in danger of closing, but hopefully going to be coming back. we've had transvaginal probes in my home state of virginia. those negative things are one way to look at this year. there's another way to look at this year. we also had komen for the cure make a horrific decision in ending their partnership with planned parenthood, but that wasn't the end of the story as you all remember.