distant, let me also remind you that even by fbi statistics, if you add up all of the women in the united states who have been murdered by their husbands or boyfriends since 9/11, and then you add up all of the americans killed in 9/11 and in iraq and in afghanistan, and you combine all of those numbers, more women have been killed by their husbands and boyfriends since 9/11 than all of those americans who were murdered in 9/11 in afghanistan and in iraq. we pay a lot of attention to foreign terrorism but what about domestic terrorism? what about crimes in our houses, schools and movie theaters that are 99% committed by white, non-poor men with nothing to gain from their crimes, nothing to gain from their crimes but who are addicted to what they got born into.

they did not invent it, but they became addicted to the idea of masculinity and control. those crimes, i think, we might refer to as supremacy crimes, which is their motive and really think about the why of it and the cost of the falsely created ideas of gender. but here's the good news. thanks to a landmark book i've been talking about to some of you about for a year at least called "sex and world peace" by valerie hudson and other scholars, we now can prove with 100 countries that the biggest indicator of whether a country is violent within itself or will use military violence against another country, the biggest cause is not poverty or lack of natural resources or religion or even degree of democracy, it's violence against females. it is that that is experienced

first and that that normalizes all other subject, object dominated, dominator, conquering, superior, inferior relationships. and, you know, in my list, i haven't included everything we know. i mean, the equal rights amendment would be nice if we had the constitution, right, don't you think? [ applause ] the fact that three-quarters of all immigrants now fighting a great battle in this town are women and children. you know all of those things. but those are ten. i just picked arbitrarily, so i dare anybody to say that this revolution is over because now we are on to the ways of denormalizing violence and dominance.

we're understanding that we'll never have democratic countries unless we have democratic families. we're understanding that the idea of conquering nature and women is the problem and not the solution. we're returning to the original and natural paradigm of 95% of human history which was the circle, not the pyramid, not the hierarchy. as bella abzug would say, our movement came from a period of dependence. we were dependent. so we naturally had to get up there and become independent and self-identified, and now we're ready for a declaration of interdependence, of interdependence among our movements and within each other. we are discovering that we in

this room and everywhere else and we in nature and we human beings are linked. we are not ranked. so moving forward, if we just do it every day is not rocket science, and it's actually fun. and it is infinitely interesting. just for one simple example, those who are used to power may need to not talk and those with less power may need to learn to talk as much as we listen, right? in both cases it is all about balance and understand the end doesn't justify the means. the means are the ends. the means become the ends. so if we want, at the end of our revolution, not that there is an end, but in our imaginable future progress, if we want to have dancing and friendship and laughter and work we love in the future, we have to be sure to have some dancing and friendship and work that we love and laughter along the way. this is the small and the big of it. and we've just begun. [ applause ]

>> thank you. we're here at the national press club so we'll start with the media question. how do you think the representation of women in the media has changed since you first got involved in the industry, and where do we still need to go? >> how long do we have? [ laughter ] no. >> we have a while. >> well, it has changed. i mean, because there are smart, competent journalists and all kinds of specialists on television that we didn't see before, i remember that the -- just to show you how bad it was. there was only one woman who did the weather and she was rising from her bed in a satin nightgown saying, well, it's going to be stormy tomorrow. you can't make this stuff up.

[ laughter ] all right. so we have progressed, but obviously women are still something like 15 years younger in order to be on camera, so just as you get experience, you're gone, you know, and there are fewer, and we're more diverse than we were but not diverse enough and think how important it is. think how important it is. i mean, who would have thought that a little girl named oprah in the south, you know, would have looked at barbara walters and thought, i can do that. you know, we need to see people who look like us. so i would say we have token

victories. we've realized the problem, and as the women's media center always points out, part of it is not on camera but a big part is who is making the decision about what story gets covered and that's, you know, more like 3% women in the clout positions, so i would say we've made symbolic victories, and we know what's wrong, but we're not even halfway there. >> given how far we have to go, does calling attention to the disparities both of women in the media, as well as women sources create change, and if not, how do you create change? >> no, it does because consciousness, as we all know in every social change and revolution on earth, consciousness comes first. the understanding of what's wrong and what could be, and we and i know other people here, i mean, the women's media center have she source, so there are endless lists of experts if you want to find somebody who is an expert who is a female human being, you know, we need those sources and we need to not just accuse the media but help the media find other folks. and we ourselves need to do it. you know, sometimes i think that men get up in the morning -- not the men here who are exempt from

everything i say, but get up in the morning and look in the mirror and say, i see a public intellectual. women don't usually do that. we need to go to each other and say, hey, you're an authority on this. get training at the women's media center or somewhere so you are comfortable on camera. i can tell you from calling people up to get on camera, it is harder, you know, for -- to get women to do it because of our self-image and because, of course, we think we have to do our hair and all of those guys have a blue suit hanging in a closet and put it on and go racing off. so there are both internal and external barriers. >> is it incumbent on journalists to seek out more women sources or is it incumbent on women to empower themselves to be sources? >> you know, it's so interesting that anything that is only two choices is wrong. have you ever noticed that? [ laughter ] i think it comes from falsely dividing human nature into

masculine and feminine and so we need, of course, both. we need both, but it gets to be ridiculous when you survey all of the people who are writing about reproductive issues and 80% of them are guys without the organs they're writing about. you know, so this -- so this is not something you're supposed to -- you're not supposed to say the "o" word here. so the answer is both of responsible. i think that when we are looking at a story that arguably has more female experience or more experience from a particular racial or ethnic group, sexuality experience, you know, we ought to understand that at least half of our sources, at least half of our sources ought to have that kind of experience. >> this questioner says she, maybe he, but probably she saw you speak at the university of

utah in 1975. the questioner asks if you could go back to tell yourself to chill out about one issue what would it be and what one issue would you tell yourself to get more fired up about? >> hi! >> hi! [ laughter ] well, i think that the issues that i was chilled out and should have been more chilled out about had to do with self-criticism, and it is still a problem i think for a lot of us because i walk around after i have spoken i'm sure in utah thinking, you know, and another

thing or i should have done or something, so i wish i didn't do that so much to what i should have been more in an uproar about is monotheism or religion. i mean, religion is too often politics you're not supposed to talk about. spirituality is democratic and in each of us it's a different story. but institutionalized monotheistic religion, if god looks like the ruling class, the ruling class is god. let's face it. so we have refrained from speaking about it in spite of all of the history of say colonialism where they were very clear, the bible and the gun. that's what conquered -- you have to take away people's feeling that there is something sacred within themselves. that there's authority within

themselves and get them to submit to other authority and not only for reward in this lifetime, but for life after death. excuse me. i mean, you know, unprovable, so, you know, very useful. no, i am much madder about that and wish i that i had talked about it there because i do remember at the universities in utah there was an enormously high rate of suicide because of the strictness about sexual expression and so on. and still i probably in my memory -- maybe you can tell me -- but i don't think i was saying this at the time. >> what keeps you going? what keeps the fire burning? and have you ever wanted to just hang it up and why didn't you? >> well, where would i hang it? no, i mean, first of all, first of all, people say to me, well, aren't you interested in something other than feminism? and i always try to think if there is anything that wouldn't

be transformed if anything matter and so far i haven't been able to find anything and it's so interesting. it's like a big aha. you figure out what could be and you know, it's just constantly, constantly interesting. as to what keeps me going, it's you. i mean, it's our friends. it's -- you know, we're communal animals. we cannot do it by ourselves. and i'm so lucky that because of the magazine and the movement and many other groups, i have a community. so when i am feeling crazy and alone, i have people to turn to and we cannot, we cannot keep going without that. actually, sometimes people ask me what one thing would you like for the movement? and i always think a global aa. that's what i would like. so that wherever he went, you know, any place in the world by a river, in the school basement, wherever, we would know that we could find a group that however different shared values and was free and leaderless and sat in a circle and talked, spoke their own stories and listened to each

other's stories and figured out that we are not crazy, the system is crazy basically and supported each other. >> as you reflect back on the women's movement so far, what would you design as the seminal moment? >> well, it would be an ovarian moment. [ applause ] i think each of us has a different one probably. each of us had a first or maybe several memorable ahas, oh, that's why. i was a journalist and worked

freelancing in new york, and even after we started "new york" magazine, i was the girl writer. they were very nice guys. jimmy breslin and tom wolfe, and all these nice guys would say, you write like a man and i would say, thank you. and it wasn't until -- i mean, the experiences in my case, maybe yours too, had to pile up before i saw the pattern. and then i had an epiphany related to my own experience which is maybe true for each of us that i covered a speak-out about abortion and i realized that i had not told the truth about having an abortion myself at 22 and why not and why? you know, if one in three american women approximately has needed an abortion at sometime in their life, why not?

what was secret about it. you know. and then as soon as i started to speak about it, you know, then i discovered that it was often part of other people's experience or their family's experience. i remember sitting in a taxi in boston with flo kennedy. the great flo kennedy. right? and she had written -- flo had written a book called "abortion wrap." which was totally about this -- and we were talking about her book, and old irish woman taxi driver, very rare probably as a taxi driver, turned around to us and said, honey, if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament. and that's where that came from. i mean, i didn't make that up. so it's that kind of experience of telling our own stories. >> what do you think about the fact that women in your home city of toledo can no longer obtain an abortion without driving over an hour. >> yes, we are moving backward

not in public opinion. if you look at properly phrased -- who should make this decision, the government or the individual, overwhelming majorities say it should not be the government, it should be the individual and the physician so we're not moving backward in public opinion, but we are moving backward in -- as we can see, the anti-choice forces have not been too successful in washington, so they've moved to state legislatures. though they murdered abortion doctors and firebombed clinics, that has proven not to be as successful as what they're doing now, which is getting state legislationers to make impossible to fulfill rules for local clinics. and the only way we can change this is to pay attention to our state legislatures. i believe that president clinton just said this last week. you know, if we don't want a

divided washington, we have to vote as much in off-year elections and for state legislatures as we do in presidential elections because as long as some, many state legislatures can -- i mean, they're in control of the insurance companies and people who build prisons and then put people in them who don't deserve to be in prison, and then they redistrict in order to make that control permanent, which is why the house of representatives is as it is and the senate is not. you can't redistrict a whole state. you know, you can only -- so our response has to be organizing and knowing who -- most americans don't know who their state legislators are, and

that's why they are able to -- an anti-choice right wing minority is able to do this state by state. and it is very much about backlash against the changes in this country. i mean, they're very clear. white women are not having enough children, they say to me. you know, and it's why the issues all go together. so, you know, anti-immigration, anti-birth control, anti-abortion and so on. so we have to take back our state legislatures. >> citing the example of working moms versus stay-at-home moms, a questioner asked, what are your thoughts on the way women treat

each other? >> well, if we were ever asked a question that included men, we might give a better answer. i mean, do we ever ask men, can you have it all? you know, we need work patterns that allow everybody to work and also have a life and have kids if they want to. men too. the whole idea of stay-at-home moms and moms who -- i mean, the language is bananas. women who work at home work harder than any other class of worker in the united states, longer hours, no pay. [ applause ] so let's just never again say women who don't work. it's women who work at home or who also work at and let's always ask all of those questions of men too. it's just divisive can you have it all? i mean, not everybody even wants it all, so, you know, and if you have to do it all, you can't have it all obviously whether

you're a man or a woman. >> you recently commented on miley cyrus' recent hypersexual public appearance. can you expand on the issue of women using their sexuality to get ahead? >> well, if you have a game in which -- okay, i believe that the miss america contest, if you count up the contests in each state and the national contest is still the single biggest source of scholarship money for women in the united states. this is crazy. but if a handsomeness contest was the biggest source of scholarship money for guys, you can bet they would be there. you know. [ laughter ] so we play the game by the rules that exist, but we need to change the rules obviously. so it's not that we're not responsible for our actions, we are. if feminism stands for anything,

it's that we are responsible for our actions, but we also need to look at the context. as wilma always said, context is everything. and what choices are there? so, you know, if that's the way the game that exists, that's the game people will play. >> miley included or excluded, what is your message for today's young women? >> well, my big serious message is don't listen to me. [ laughter ] listen to yourself. that's the whole idea. and i -- the best thing i can do for young women i think is listen to them, because you don't know you have something to say until someone listens to you, and each of us has

authority and unique talents inside us, so people sometimes, often ask me at this age, who am i passing the torch to. and i always say, first of all, i'm not giving up my torch, thank you very much. [ applause ] but also i'm using my torch to light other people's torches because the idea that there's one torch passer is part of the bonkers hierarchical idea, and if we each have a torch, there's a lot more light. lighting a young woman's torch often means listening to her and supporting what it is that she wants to do and encouraging her. >> do kids today know enough about the feminist movement, and let's include boys in those kids. should they know more, or is it a victory that it does not occur to many kids that things may not be equal for girls? >> well, it would be nice if they learned history, don't you

think? they don't learn the history of the women's movement, the civil rights movement, you know, i mean, you can seek it out. now this, that's a step forward. you can find those areas of study. but, you know, the textbooks of texas are a pretty good example of eliminating the history of social justice movements because heaven forbid we learn how it was done before, we might learn it again. do it again. so, again, i think it's the context that we need to look at rather than blaming the individual. however, having said that, if you gave me a choice between knowing history and getting mad about the present, i would say get mad about the present even if you don't know history. just keep going. i didn't walk around saying thank you for the vote. i don't know about you. i got mad because of what was happening to me. and i don't think gratitude ever radicalized anybody.

you know, so i hope i don't have to choose between knowing history and looking at unfairness in the present. but if i had to choose, i would choose getting mad about the present. >> is there any effort in the groups you're involved with to include more of the women's rights history in school curriculum? >> is there any -- >> any effort to include about women's rights history in the school curriculums? >> yes, no, absolutely. you know, the feminist press was a pioneer, for instance, in integrating women's history into textbooks and creating those textbooks, and there are a lot of schools and a lot of devoted teachers, a lot of school systems, a lot of educators probably in this audience, right, who are trying to do this. but the average textbook is still pretty slender. and you still -- you know, it's the politics of studying history. i mean, you still learn more about europe than about africa in general. you still -- it is profoundly

profoundly political the way we study history, and now we have pioneers and reformers, and at least we know there is such a thing as women's history. the most cheerful thing that happens to me is on campus when i'm complaining about my education where it was like one sentence that said women were given the vote, somebody will stand up and say why didn't you take women's studies? it's so great. so it is getting better, but it's still not the norm. >> you touched on care givers a couple times. this questioner asked women raising families get the least spoils in terms of political capital in the u.s. what must happen so that women and children they are raising are able to make gains politically? >> well, you know, it has to be said that the voting booth is the one place on earth where the

single mom and the corporate executive are equal, where the very richest and the very poorest are equal. so it does have to do with knowing what the issues are on our school boards or in our state legislatures and getting ourselves out there, however difficult that may be, and it usually in my experience comes back to groups. you know, do you have a group with shared experience with whom you can talk and discover that it's not fair and that if you do "x" and "y" and you start this particular campaign in your neighborhood or campaign for your school board, you know, you need, i think, to have that shared experience. and i traveling around the country all the time as i do, i see mainly women's groups, sometimes men are part of it too. but they have been together for

10 years, 20 years, 25 years, they're alternate families, they have seen each other through unequal education of their kids, through single motherhood, through divorce. i mean, we need these alternate -- these kinds of alternate families. >> a questioner says, women now make up 60% of college goers. should this surpassing males be celebrated, or is it a problem? >> well, as i was saying, no, it's not necessarily a problem but i think we ought to be able to look at all the alternatives. you know, we -- maybe we're, you know, frustrated programmers. and if we learn to code, you know, we wouldn't have to go to college in quite the same way. maybe, you know, i think we're still a bit of a prisoner of the idea that a woman should be able to go to work in nice clothing and clean and so on and shouldn't be under the sink

fixing the plumbing that would make them three times more money. so it's -- it's not that it's wrong, it's just that college has been so oversold. so oversold as a life changing mechanism. and especially when you end up in such huge debt. i just think people need to be able to look at a wider range of alternative alternatives. >> for those of us wishing to earn a world class feminist education without life crushing debt, would you please share some resources? >> how long do we have? >> actually, you know, maybe we should do this as a group exercise, everybody should pop up. i've already given you sex and world peace by valerie hudson as a great resource, right? there's dark at the end of the street, which is a great

retelling of the civil rights movement with more women's stories added. let's tell our favorite books. julie? >> makers. >> yes, thank you, makers. makers three hour television special on pbs now is also a wreb site with about 200 interviews, which is a huge wonderful resource. a very, very important present. and historical resource. what other favorite books do we have here? >> words of fire. absolutely. great, yes, very, very important. >> stephanie kuntz, the way we never were.