so i think there's something for me in trying to get to know people and touch them at every level. it gets harder where you are, by the way. it gets harder where i am, but not impossible, and particularly in this age of social media and other things. so, you know, maybe a little humility doesn't hurt on occasion for a very senior leader. trust. i didn't hear the -- i think the governor alluded to trust, but for our profession trust is really the -- it's really the gold standard. you don't walk out of a forward operating base in afghanistan unless you have a certain level of trust for the men or women to your left or right, your leadership, your guidance, your medics, your chaplain. and by the way, you mentioned 2 million men and women in uniform. it's probably 2.4 active, guard and reserve, but you add to that about 3 million family members who we also feel a responsibility for. >> so where does responsibility fit into this equation?

>> well, you know, i think it is if trust is kind of the gold standard of what it takes to be a real leader in the military, then i think responsibility and its kissing cousin, accountability, are probably right there as well. and, you know, we've had a few missteps here recently that we're trying to overcome -- missteps that i attribute to 10 years of frenetic activity. we forgot about how we balance character and confidence. and i think we forgot a little about how we balance character and competence. we began to value competence. by the way, you can't have either/or, actually. you know, you don't want a leader in a combat zone who's really a man of great character but can't fight his way out of a

paper bag, but nor do you want, you know, the ultimate warrior god who isn't a man of character. >> so these are ceos of enterprises, of businesses. the military leads people into harm's way. but putting that distinction aside, are the attributes of a good leader roughly the same, or different between the military, being a ceo of a company, or being a schoolteacher? >> i think there is always a baseline of attributes that are exactly the same. i think probably -- i mean, i get asked all the time, why are you you? had we outsource you? sure, go ahead. you know, some days on capitol hill i'm absolutely ready to do that. [laughter] but you know, i do think -- let me say this. we are a profession, which is to say that we commit ourselves, what we like to believe, to an uncommon life. and we accept by becoming a member of a profession to live to a certain ethical -- an ethos, really.

not just special skills and at least. it's also about a particular ethos. in our case, it's serving the people of the united states and ensuring the common defense, or in the way i describe it is keeping the country immune from coercion. but it is a profession, which requires certain things of us. continuing education, a renewable of our commitment to that. it is up or out. we are an up or out organization. and so i don't know how it all works inside of your businesses or your occupations. and some of you may actually describe yourself as a profession. but the one thing i would tell you, and it has become apparent to me in my job, you are not a profession just because you say you are. you have to earn it and re-earn it. >> let's do a quick survey. how many ceo's in the audience have military service?

>> happy veteran's month. >> what does that look to you? 11, so maybe 10% of the group here. there was a recent study done by the university of texas. let me tell you what is said about ceo's that have military backgrounds. for those of you who don't, there will be waivers outside later on that you can pick up. this is out of the mccombs school of business. firms -- they look at ceo's to have military background and ceo's who didn't. here is what they discovered the differences between the two. ceo's have a military -- with a military experience are less likely to be sued in class- action lawsuits, to backdate options, to engage in earnings management, the use tax havens.

interestingly, they are also more likely to pay more tax. they have a 1% to 2% higher effective tax rate. this academic reached the conclusion. i want to hear yours first. why is that? what is it about the military background that causes that evident behavior in a ceo? >> you are killing me. i mean, you want me to opine about why we're more ethical than they are, and they're out there? [laughter] look at them. they can hear us. [laughter] you know, i don't know -- i don't know where the data comes from. and by the way, you know, many of the most ethical, responsible, admirable men and women i've ever met are in sessions like this, who do so much for not only their own organizations but wounded warriors and gold star families and -- you know, i don't want to

opine about what makes us different or what makes you different. i think it's more useful to us to see where we have common ground. and i think where we should -- and i think and i sense where we do -- have common ground is in caring about the future of our country. i mean, that's why you're here, i think, and why you're engaging with civilian, political and military leaders to figure out, what are we going to do? because, you know, the title here, "leadership in a dangerous world," that's really true. so i'm going to dodge that one. [laughter] >> so while you're dodging, here's what the academic said -- >> oh, here we go. >> -- "further validating our use of military experience as a proxy for respect for rules, authority and societal values." >> yeah. >> so they followed the rules. >> well, i like to think we follow the rules, but on occasion we don't. and when we don't, we hold people accountable. and, you know, remember i mentioned, though, we -- probably other than the medical

profession, i think our continuing education program for leaders in the military is second to none, really. and, you know, we -- as i said, we try to renew our commitment to being part of a profession at various intervals along the way. and then secondly, i do think there's something extraordinary about being given the responsibility for people's lives. that should cause us all pause and put everything else we do in perspective. and so i'll accept that part of our uniqueness, which gives us some balance in both physical courage and moral courage that may be unique in our profession. >> so there were miscalculations in iraq and afghanistan. was that -- was that a failure of leadership or was that something else? >> you know, i -- we're -- the book hasn't yet been written, actually, and particularly in iraq, as you see them struggle with, you know, what we -- the opportunity we gave them.

is it a failure of leadership? sure. i think, you know, at some -- at some level i think we have to look back and acknowledge what we -- what we didn't know and maybe should have before we took the precise actions we took. on the other hand, look, i mean, once we were engaged in it, the leadership demonstrated at every level, and in particular at the lower levels with those captains and sergeants and villages and towns and districts, and even today in afghanistan, where they are -- they've become so committed, so captured by the experience of trying to make the lives of iraqi children and afghan children better. you know, even if they do make the odd misstep, it's pretty hard to be critical, for me, having seen the effort they've made. >> so you've written a great deal on this topic -- >> yeah. >> -- and have said that it's kind of critical to running the armed forces.

and you said that you -- that you read a great deal on it as well. are there -- are there people who have written, on the topic of leadership, books that you look back on and say that this is really kind of worth sharing with others? are there two or three great writers on the subject? >> yeah, i -- you know, it's funny -- it's funny you used that phrase, is there -- are there two or three great writers? there's no shakespeare of leadership out there, as far as i -- as far as i've been able to tell. and so i read broadly, and i read voraciously, and i read both fiction and nonfiction. so -- by the way, some of the -- i think some of the better -- maybe the best books about leadership available today are written for the business community, for developing leaders in business. and i mean, i could rattle them off, but i don't want to be accused of necessarily advocating any one in particular. but there are some good ones out there. and then on the -- >> rattle a couple off. >> well, i mean, i'm a big fan of "managing the" -- i don't

want give you the authors, you'll have to google it, but you can. so "managing the unexpected" i found to be a -- you know, it left some echoes. and i read, by the way, to see if i can produce some echoes for myself later, when i confront issues. "starfish and the spider," about the difference between hierarchical and decentralized organizations. on the fiction side, i don't -- i don't think i've ever found a better work of fiction that describes leadership than "once an eagle" by anton myrer, about the world war -- the period between world war i and world war ii. so i think it's a matter of -- >> why is that? why that? >> well, because the conceit that he sets up is comparing a leader -- he turns out to be a west pointer -- who -- which pains me -- turns out to be a west pointer in the book -- who, with all the advantages, begins to feel entitled about leadership, and he rises through the ranks.

and then the parallel is a man named sam damon -- this guy's named courtney massengale, this guy's sam damon -- and he rises through the ranks from the enlisted ranks, battlefield commission, kind of struggles his way through, and watching him struggle his way through, and he makes some mistakes along the way and -- but his -- and learns from those mistakes and becomes the better of the two leaders, i think -- well, not "i think doug" he does become the better of the two leaders. >> so putting the policy issues aside in washington -- >> really? [laughter] >> what's wrong -- what would you advise -- what is the leadership prescription that the players, the actors in washington need now to get through the gridlock? >> well, first of all, because of my role within the administration and within the department, that's well beyond my responsibility. but if you're asking citizen

dempsey, not general dempsey, i think that the issue of relationship-building is actually what seems to me to be the key to success. and i -- you know, governor christie talked about building relationships, reaching across the aisle, you know, doing things that will cause people to try to find some common -- some common ground. i don't know -- you know, i've spent most of my career outside of washington, so i can't speak, you know, with any -- with any clarity or nostalgia, as some do, about the old days. i suspect the old days were pretty much like these days, it just wasn't played out in the social media and in 24/7 news coverage. but i do think that the key will be at some point when things are reach such a state that, you know, i think the nation will demand it.

and i don't know when that occurs. >> we're not at that now with the government shutdown? >> i don't know. you know, i -- you know, i keep i keep an eye on my own force, those 2.4 million men and women, to make sure that they have the kind of clarity, as much clarity as we can give them, as much certainty. i tell people that, you know, we, the military, we actually -- we don't have a reputation for it, but we really do embrace change. we are nothing like the -- i joined the military in 1970 at west point, almost 40 years now, and the military i joined then is nothing, i mean nothing like the military today. in fact, the military we have today is nothing like it was in 2003, nothing. you -- i mean, you'll recognize unit insignias and patches and some of the equipment, but it's a very different military. so what i tell people is, you know, we embrace change, but we do a considerable disservice to those young men and women who serve if we live in perpetual uncertainty. and we're living in a bit of what i would describe as

perpetual uncertainty. >> karl eikenberry, former commander in afghanistan and also our former ambassador to afghanistan, wrote an op-ed in another national newspaper -- we like to call it "brand x" -- saying that, look, if you examine the military culture now, as changed as it has over the last couple of decades, it's become increasingly divorced from the rest of society. saw 10 percent of people raise their hand here, 20 percent of congress has a military background. used to be in the mid-70s back in the mid-'70s. instead, what you have now is kind of a family business, what he called the military caste, the sons and daughters of those in the military, going into the military, and the rest of citizenry says, you know, it's their job to go off and fight our wars. and from that, he argues, comes a lot of negative things, including misjudgments on the political side about what

conflicts to get involved with. and he's suggesting a selective amount of drafting go on, targeting particular, you know, groups of highly able individuals to bring them into the military, to re-engage the citizen soldier. does that idea, to somebody who manages an all-volunteer army -- does that resonate at all? >> well, we haven't thought about it in those terms, although i did read that study and the suggestion, for example, by stan mcchrystal about universal service. and we are looking at the potential in the future of kind of lateral exit and re-entry, possibly. but to your point about selective service, i don't know how many of you are aware, but only one out of four young men and women in america between 18 and 22 can get in the united states military, one out of four. now, none of us should be very proud of that, but if you went to a selective service, if you're not going to lower the standard, you're going to get about the same -- you're going to get about the same people you would get. i mean, one out of four isn't a huge population from which to draw. secondly, i did grow up in a draft army, my first -- well, i guess, five years or so, was in a conscript army.

and there were some -- there were more holes in that selective service system than there were holes in a nice emmenthaler swiss cheese -- i'm sitting with a danish fellow here from -- who lived in germany. my point is, i would never sign up for any process that would lower our standards or that would -- that would be so hard to implement that -- and would have so many ways of avoiding service that we would end up with a lower-quality military. the reason i'm such an advocate of the professional all- volunteer force now is because that's what the nation needs. it needs a force that stays as well-trained as it can be because the world doesn't hang around waiting for you to get -- you know, get your act together when something goes badly. >> you're not worried about what eikenberry was talking about, that it's gotten separated from the rest of citizenry of america? >> you know, do i worry about it? sure i do.

in fact, i spend a lot of time another thing about -- by the way, another leader attribute i'd -- i would encourage you to consider is a -- i have a -- what i call a campaign of learning and a personal campaign of learning. i have a colonel that i hired who stays with me, and once a week for at least a two or three-hour block, he exposes -- he allows me to be exposed to business or industry or academia or something i don't know anything about. so i was out at a -- at a rapid prototyping center out in california last week. i was at goldman sachs the week before that; i was -- i may have visited some of you on occasion. but anyway, the point is, as i go around and connect with people, there is a deep appreciation of military service, maybe not a deep understanding of it. but i'd rather strap on that as

>> so while you were out in california, you were also talking about changing the compensation program, possibly, for the military. >> right. >> there's the sequester, there's talk of general cuts in defense spending, and yet, you also describe this era as, while there aren't major conflicts, perhaps the most dangerous period in your lifetime in america, because of all sorts of non-state actors, as we've seen. so budget cuts and sequesters and compensation change is changing the military, and yet, that national security concerns that you have -- where are you going to lead the military? where do you want to take this organization while you're still chairman of the joint chiefs over the next five -- to build it out so that it's capable of addressing those concerns over the next five to 10 years? >> yeah, i mean, this could take, you know, the next 20 minutes, not the next 9:32 here. but so i've got four focus areas i talk about: one, we got to achieve the national objectives we currently have established

for ourselves: rebalancing to the pacific, finishing our work in afghanistan and -- i mean, you -- i could list those for you. so we're either going to back into '20 -- 2020 -- or we're going to shape it. and i'd rather shape it than back into it. and we can talk about what that force might need to look -- to look like. third, a recommitment to the profession: after 10 years of being extraordinarily busy and fighting two wars, it's time for us to be introspective about who we are as a -- and how do we connect with the american people and how do we see ourselves? and then the third -- fourth one is keeping faith with american military -- the military family active, guard, reserve, families, veterans, gold star families and so forth. now, just one last -- one point about keeping faith, people sometimes think it's about making sure that i continue to

argue for better pay, better compensation, better health care, better retirement. that's part of it, or at least adequate pay, compensation, health care and retirement. it's also about making sure they're well-trained, well-led and well-equipped. and if we don't get our manpower look, it's a bit of a business for me at my level. if i don't get the manpower costs under control then the institution will suffer irreparable harm in modernization, training and readiness. >> some of that instability and some of that concern, state and non-state actors, very much pertains to the mideast. >> yeah. >> and i'm wondering if you could kind of just walk us through the big picture on the mideast. it seems that perhaps more unstable than ever. we have legacy in iraq of what looks to be kind of dissolution in some regards, iran's effort to get a nuclear weapon. syria demands and desires for

the u.s. to have some kind of role there, we're just not sure how to untangle that role. and yet, at the same time, very firm commitments to an ally in the region, israel. the big picture on the forces that are shaping your decisions and your thinking on the mideast? >> yeah. so the middle east, and let me include in that probably north africa -- mideast, north africa. three things i would suggest to you. one is the -- a changed relationship between the governed and the governing. so what -- you know, i think books will be written for the next several years about what is this thing that we kind of optimistically described as the arab spring several years ago. and it's many things, but it's certainly the relieving of pressure that was -- that was being brought to bear by dictators on societies that had that had been suppressed for many, many decades. and so you have a changed

relationship between the governed and the governing among a populace that doesn't know what to do with it, frankly. and so i think it's a bit naïve to think that in the first generation of that change we would move somehow from dictatorship to -- you know, to democracy, certainly, but maybe not even all the way to representative government. >> blue thumbs of the first -- [inaudible] -- notwithstanding. >> yeah. yeah, i mean, look it's a step, but it's a step. so it's a changed relationship between the governed and the governing that i think will take, you know, a decade or more to finally settle. secondly, it's being played out in a -- in an environment where there's a -- somewhat of an internal struggle within islam for control. and it gets at the sunni-shia schism -- it's a fault line. and right now, the fault line runs from beirut to damascus to baghdad. and players on both sides are trying to influence the actions

in their favor. and then the third factor is -- what that creates is ungoverned space. or, if not ungoverned, governed less than we would like to be governed. and in that ungoverned space migrates extremists. so you've got this changed relationship between the governed and the governing, this internal conflict within islam in some cases which is more prominent than in others, but it's prominent throughout the region -- and then that arab spring was hijacked, in many ways, by these extremist organizations on both sides of that sunni-shia schism, and it makes for a very volatile, complex, long-term challenge. >> what do we do -- >> i don't know. [laughter] >> -- if the charm offensive of

iran goes awry, israel wants to buy refueling planes from us, you know why -- >>yeah. >> what are our obligations to israel in the face of what still looks to be an intractable iran? >> well, i feel like we have a deep obligation to israel because of, i mean, a matter of history, but also a matter of what they bring to the region. you know, they bring an example of what could be. you know, if we had one of my israeli counterparts sitting here today, they would tell you that most of the arabs living in israel have a better life than the arabs living in the rest of the region. now, that's true -- >> but if israel loses faith in the negotiation process and decides to bomb iran, where is the u.s. military? where's the u.s. in that equation? >> well, we have some -- we have some defined obligations to israel that we would meet. and that's why we're in constant constant -- contact and collaboration with them. but you know, my counterpart and

i have talked about the fact that there's also a strategic opportunity for israel. there's no state right now that's threatening israel, as there was just 10 years ago. i mean, egypt's unstable, syria's unstable, jordan is struggling. so -- and not that jordan was a threat to israel in the first place, but the point is, israel's got a strategic opportunity, and i think they are beginning to think themselves about how to take advantage of it. >> you wrote a letter to carl levin, at his request, this summer outlining possible things that the military -- u.s. military could do to support rebels in syria. none of them looked like very good options. have any of those options improved, in your mind? would you be able to find the right people to arm? would you have the confidence that the weapons weren't getting to the wrong people? >> well, even in that letter, the options were described as scalable, which is to say, you know, the top-end option, which would be if you wanted to topple the regime and do so through the

imposition of a no-fly zone or seizing chemical weapons yourself, that's what got all the headlines. but any of those options is actually scalable. i worry that -- and have said so that we might have more confidence in our ability to limit conflict. you know, history's against those who think they can limit conflict. some of you may know that on the 10th of november, 1964, robert mcnamara declared that we would never send combat troops to vietnam. and i'm not sure how some of you think that worked out, but it wasn't one of the greatest predictions ever made in the history of american statesmanship. >> right. >> so, look, my obligation is to articulate options and articulate risk. and then those who we elect make decisions about which options they're interested in based on the risks that we would accrue. are the options getting better?

no, i don't think so. i think they're probably becoming more complex. but again, to my way of looking at it, that was absolutely predictable. >> abe in japan wants to change the constitution to be able to create a more robust military, presumably to offset a rising china. is that something that is -- you would endorse? would you see that as kind of a valuable development in asia, or is that just going to accelerate the existing arms race? >> no, i don't -- you know, it's to be determined, but i do think we have -- for some time, we have encouraged japan to match its economic power that it brings to the international community and to the region with some extended military capability that could be integrated into regional architectures not to threaten any particular player in that part of the world, but rather, to make us a more capable

alliance. and so -- >> are the territorial disagreements there manageable, or is this going to aggravate them? >> well, the territorial issues are manageable if all of the parties to them continue to behave as they are, which is to say, responsibly, mostly through law enforcement with the occasional misstep. but, you know, that's where we, i think, can provide our influence and our -- and our assistance in continuing to encourage a diplomatic solution. and, you know, look, the chinese have a much different view of time than most anybody else, and i think, as long as we can continue to encourage both sides to be patient, i think there is a chance that over time, diplomacy might make a difference. >> so we have a few minutes for questions from the audience. yes, dan yergin, right here.

>> general dempsey, my question follows from a question that john just asked you about the middle east. >> and what? did i avoid it and you're re- engaging me or what? >> well, it's a kind of, fill in the footnotes here. >> ok. >> obviously, the u.s. energy position has changed dramatically in the last five years. does this -- and a lot of talk about whether this changes u.s. strategic interests -- is there any clarity in your mind yet as to whether it does and how it does or doesn't? >> i wouldn't describe my feelings about it as in any way clarifying, although i will tell you that as we take a look at long-term -- probably beyond 2020, we do think there will be there will be -- that our energy independence, if that's ever entirely possible, will change the dynamic in -- notably in the mideast, but also europe. probably not as much in the

pacific, by the way, in our -- in our current assessment. in fact, i mentioned i was at goldman sachs last -- a week ago friday, and that was the topic. we had two topics. one was the future of energy security and the national security implications, and they're going to run a conference, by the way, in april. i'm not inviting you to it; i can't, but it -- they're asking some very good questions about what changes may accrue if energy policy is changed to allow this breakout to occur. and then the other one was cyber, by the way. we had a pretty rich conversation about cyber threats. >> yes, please. over here. >> general dempsey, question about -- it appears that with the amount of resources and energy we're spending in middle east that we're not getting as much financial benefit from it

than some of the other allies who have spent far less or committed far less are getting, you know, better opportunities taking advantage of the financial arrangements and opportunities -- how do you see that? is that -- is that -- is that in line with your strategy or is that something that we need to rethink about going forward? >> yeah, it's pretty hard to answer that question. i think you've answered -- i think you've -- at least, you've shared your opinion with me on the answer to that question. [laughter] yeah, look. i've seen it even in my own experience. i spent two full years, from '05 to '07, building the iraqi security forces with american taxpayer dollars, and then there was a point in time where they went off to russia to procure some weapons on their own.

you know, i think that we do better at that than you might think, not as well as you might like. and i think it's reflective of who we are as a nation that we don't hold people ransom to our assistance. and, you know, i'm more proud of that than i am disappointed in it, and i think it just takes some big, solid diplomacy to convince -- i mean, look. we've got some close allies who are considering procuring weapons systems that wouldn't be interoperable with us. by the way, that's the leverage we have. you normally can't appeal to them on the basis of good will. i've found that doesn't go very far. [laughter] >> by the way, and the point is that most people actually do -- would rather be like us than anyone else. we're still the ally of choice across the world, and it's one of the things we should seek to preserve as we go forward. >> general, you observed that the military force today is nothing like it was in 2003.

>> right. >> can you describe those differences? >> sure. i'll give you a couple of images, maybe. in 2003 i was a division commander in baghdad. i had roughly 32,000 troops there, kind of a traditional tank division with some appendages, some paratroopers and some military policemen and cavalry scouts. and almost everything we did came through me. so if you were a young captain on the streets of baghdad in those days, you waited for the division staff to give you the information you needed so that you could then apply yourself

across the city. today -- so my -- the image here would be everything was top- down. anything of value to you came from the top down. we've almost flipped that on its head entirely. it's now most things of value come to us from the bottom up. and we've changed our systems in order to allow that, our communications systems. we've empowered -- you would describe it as empowering the edge. so a captain now, in a combat outpost in the pakistan border in afghanistan, probably has as much access to national-level intelligence and local intelligence as i did as a division commander. it's phenomenal, really. my worry, by the way, is we're going to bring that force back that has been -- you know, has been allowed to shape things and to be leaders and have both responsibility and authority, and we're going to bring them back. and if we don't find a way to continue to inspire them, they're going to go work for you [laughter] so i got to worry about that. >> another question? yes, please. >> hi, general. thanks for coming. we're convening a group tomorrow to talk about cybersecurity. how bad is it out there? >> you know, i've found that it's not helpful when the

chairman uses words like "crisis" or "meat axe" or, you know, these really powerful adjectives. but we are vulnerable, make no mistake about it. my job, by the way, through the cyber assets that i control, is to defend and protect my network, the military network. the problem is my military network depends on your network. so 90% of what we do is shared in the -- you know, across the internet with commercial. and as you know, there's some problems with incentives for cybersecurity for information sharing that i think we have to break through. we're really vulnerable. and i would simply say to you, i know what we can do, and we're not -- this is back to governor christie -- we're not the only smart guys on the planet. >> we haven't talked about

afghanistan. so after 2014, can afghanistan live without isaf and the united states? >> after 2014, afghanistan can live without a ubiquitous presence of u.s. military forces in their country. they can't live without any. and importantly, they can't live without the financial support that we've made both on the military side, but also at the in japan, at a donors conference, that the -- that we made to them economically. so the real question that i -- that we are grappling with is what size -- you know, most people think, what size presence should the united states leave there in order to maintain security? that's actually, to me, the wrong question. it's what size force does the united states and the contributing nations need to leave there to guarantee that the money we've all committed to afghanistan will continue to

flow, because if security deteriorates to a point where -- i think it's $6 billion a year or so has been committed to the economic side of afghanistan from the international donors. if that money dries up or if the money dries up that we're providing, along with donors, then they can't survive. this really comes down to what will it take to guarantee that the commitments we've made monetarily will continue to be realized. >> the defense department's identified china as a primary concern over the next generation. what in asia concerns you from a national security standpoint? >> i would be -- so there's a couple things. one is, i worry more about a china that falters economically than i do about them building another aircraft carrier, to tell you the truth. i think we can find our way forward with them militarily. i don't think -- it will be competitive, and at times it

will be contentious, but it doesn't have to be confrontational. so there's that aspect of it. and then you've got -- someone mentioned the territorial disputes. i -- you know, i think the potential for miscalculation is certainly there. and there's -- you know, you look back at history. miscalculations with major powers who are kind of emerging on the scene is normally a problem. and then i should have probably mentioned right from the start north korea, because north korea is the rogue nation, with some confidence, we believe, nuclear weapons, and the intent to find a delivery mechanism that could reach out across the region and potentially to the united states. so i actually worry more about a provocation from korea that escalates than probably anything else that i deal with on a daily basis. >> that problem's not contained

by china? >> china is -- i believe is working to influence. "contain" is a strong word. i think china is trying to influence the dprk into a more moderate behavior regionally. the problem of course is that they're still so opaque, the leader himself is so young and so inexperienced, and we have these cycles of provocation. we happen to be in a cycle, you know, where the provocations are absent right now, but we'll see. you know, the -- if the provocations continue, the fear, of course, is that those being provoked, notably the republic of korea, will tire of being provoked, and it's a very dangerous -- it's still very dangerous there. >> general dempsey, thanks very much. please join me in thanking him. [applause]

>> president obama awarded the medal of freedom. recipients included bill clinton, oprah winfrey, and sally ride. that ceremony sunday at 10:35 eastern on c-span. highlights, including lyndon .ohnson's address to congress at 2:00, your questions for robert care row -- robert caro.

and coverage of the state funeral. jfk, this weekend on c-span three. the founder of ms. magazine, gloria steinem, spoke at the national press club on monday. she stressed the importance of women voting. this is one hour. >> it's not often that one person can define an era. gloria steinem is the face of the feminist movement and was dubbed "the leading icon of american feminism" by joelle attinger in "time" magazine. she solidified her feminist legacy by co-founding "ms. magazine" in 1972. more than 40 years later, she is still a consulting editor to the magazine now published by the feminist majority foundation.

ms. steinem celebrated the magazine's 40th anniversary right here at the national press club last year. she said then it was the right place to do it since she was also the first woman to appear as a national press club luncheon speaker after women were finally admitted to the club's membership in 1971. [applause] she received a man's tie as a thank you. [laughter] she's in town this week to receive the presidential medal of freedom from president obama. [applause] ms. steinem is a granddaughter of a suffragist and worked as a journalist in the 1960s after living here in washington during high school and heading to smith

college, from which she graduated phi beta kappa. after college, she spent two years in india on a chester bowles fellowship where she wrote for indian publications and was influenced by gandhi and activism. in 1968, she helped found "new york magazine" where she was a political columnist and wrote feature articles. as a young journalist, she also wrote for publications including "esquire" and was once hired on for a stunt as a playboy bunny for an essay that was later made into a tv movie starring kirstie alley. she's helped found the women's action alliance, the national women's political caucus, and most recently the women's media center. [applause] along the way, ms. steinem has been criticized as a threat to male privilege and even knocked by fellow feminists when she wrote a self help book, and by some when she got married. today, she's a documentary producer, an author, as well as a regular on the speaking circuit and says the fight for

equal rights for women is hardly won. not only here in the u.s., but especially in developing countries. today, she'll talk to us about big things left undone in a speech titled, "still to come: the unfinished and the unimagined." please help me give a warm national press club welcome to writer, author, lecturer, editor, feminist, gloria steinem. [applause] >> first, i have to say what an incredible collection of talent and great hearts and great minds there are in this room. you have to promise me to meet each other. it drives an organizer crazy to see people who may not know each other. and as you have already heard, i get a big sense of history when i come back here including my

own history. and i can just say that as the first woman speaker, i remember so clearly my knees knocking and my voice quaking and losing all my saliva. does that happen to you when you get -- each tooth gets a little angora sweater because i was so aware of the responsibility. however, when they gave me a tie, i felt completely free to say outrageous things. and since then, it's so great that we've had, what, 11 female presidents of this illustrious institution we had to picket to get into in the first place, and so many great women have joined great men in speaking here. and we did gather last year to celebrate the 40th anniversary

of "ms. magazine" thanks to the feminist majority. and i just want to say a deep thank you to the feminist majority. and to ellie smeal and to kathy spillar for carrying this forward. and we have here the great -- you've heard we've got the great beverly guy-shefftal, right, who's a great troublemaker. [applause] and johnnetta cole, educator and now -- what's your proper title at the museum of african art? >> director. >> director? okay. [laughter] and alison bernstein, who insists on calling herself bernstein even though it makes me steinem, who is a great educator and a great international activist. and there are just so many of you here. i just want to tantalize you to make sure you look around and see three or four people you

don't know and you introduce yourself. and it is a celebration of my inclusion among 15 people i greatly admire who are being presented with the medal of freedom by president obama. there's no president in history from whose hand i would be more honored to receive this medal. and, it gives me a chance to say here, i'm especially grateful for this lunch. because actually, when we get the medal, we can't talk. [laughter] i'm grateful to have the opportunity to say here that i would be crazy if i didn't understand that this was a medal for the entire women's movement. [applause] it belongs to shirley chisholm and bella abzug and patsy mink. in the future, it would be great for robin morgan, susan brown

levine -- i'm just lobbying a little bit here -- joanne edgar, barbara smith, gloria anzaldua. and so many more. and it has already honored rosa parks and rachel carson and dorothy hyde and delores huerta. and my dear friend, chief of the cherokee nation, wilma mankiller, who i accompanied when she received her medal. now, of course, it's with all of that illustrious company i get uppity. i can remember that dick cheney received -- as did henry hyde, whose self-named amendment has hurt uncounted numbers of women, especially low income women, for the last 37 years and we're still counting, right? but, the power of this honor may be even more evident in the withholding than in the giving. i was reminded by ellen chesler,

biographer of margaret sanger, that president lyndon johnson, even as he signed the first federal and international family planning act into law, refused to bestow the medal of freedom on sanger. he feared reprisal from the catholic church. ellen told me that when she looked at sanger's private history papers at smith college, i'm proud to say that's the biggest archive of women's history, she found a poignant little handwritten note from sanger asking that her body be buried here next to her husband. but that her heart be removed to japan, the only country in the world that had ever bestowed a public honor on her. so, i hope this is retroactive in honoring the work of margaret sanger. i hope she would celebrate this recognition, that reproductive freedom is a human right, at least as crucial as freedom of

speech, and that no government should dictate whether or when we have children. [applause] whether we are male or female, the power of the state must stop at our skins. she also might say that the backlash against reproductive freedom by a right wing extremist minority, especially in state legislatures they now unfairly control by redistricting, is proof of panic of their misogynist, racist and immigrant-fearing efforts to keep this country from becoming, as it is about to be, no longer a majority european american nation. it is becoming one that looks more like the world and better understands the world. so sanger might say, as i do,

that there is no president for the united states who is more responsible for understanding that representative freedom is a basic human right than president obama. however, there may be a movement problem with me as a recipient because of my age. i'm trying to absorb the fact that i'll be 80 next year. [laughter] [applause] i plan to reach at least 100, but i am really worried -- i mean a little worried about mortality. but i'm also worried that my age contributes to the current form of obstructionism, all the people who say that movements are over and use ridiculous terms like post-racist and post- feminist. excuse me? right.

i can testify personally that the very same people who were saying 40 years ago that feminism was unnatural and unnecessary are now saying, well, it used to be necessary, but it's not anymore. just to name one parallel to show how ridiculous this is, if it took more than a century for abolitionists and suffragists to gain legal and social identity as human beings for all women and men of color, now that we need legal and social equality and no power based on race or sex or ethnicity or class or sexuality, that's likely to take at least a century, too, don't you think? and we're only 40 years into it. also, as original cultures say, as wilma mankiller always said, it takes four generations to heal one act of violence. so, truly, we are just beginning. so, i would like to contribute a few examples of the adventures

before us. >> good evening. women's issues aren't separate from other issues. theng equal would be biggest economic stimulus this country could possibly have. the axis of women's policy research tells us that paying women of all races equally to men would put 20 billion more into the economy and would be more effective than propping up banks on wall street. , notmoney would get spent put it is was bank accounts. it would create jobs and help the poorest kids to were those who depend on a mother's income. ?o we economic stimulus

i don't think so. after we do that, we need to value caregiving work. it caregiving work, a third of the productive work in this nation. -- we could do that. decide's ability to whether and when to have a child is not a social issue. rights.human it is the biggest indicator of whether she is agitated or not, and can work outside the home or not, is healthy or not, and how long she lives. this country gives the highest rate of unplanned admits sees -- pregnancies in the del valle to world. it has the least sex education, which allows pornography to be sex education.

erotica means love, mutual pleasure, and free choice. we have shown as a movement of rape is not sex, it is violence. we have not been successful in china pornography is ray far from erotica. three, it relates to two and one. women with children are less likely to get hired are paid well while men with children are more likely to get hired or paid well. this is just the tip of the iceberg. nothing else is going to work in a deep sense until men raise children as much as women do. children will keep on lively men by thinking they can't be loving and nurturing, and they can. just as well as women. lively women by thinking that they have to be loving and nurturing. this is huge. read the mermaid and the

minotaur, a book before it's time. i think we are finally ready for her. far -- four, the u.s. is the only modern democracy without some modern system of child care. five. we're the only advanced country that endangers our college students by saddling them with debt at the exact time they should be free to explore. women pay the same tuition as men and get paid at least a million dollars less over there lifetimes to repay those loans. which reminds me, much has been made of the fact the woman outnumber men on college campuses. many are just trying to get out of the ink collar ghetto and into the white-collar ghetto. made in blue-collar union jobs are earning more than the average college-educated woman. no wonder men are choosing not to run up all that college debt.

six. the digital divide is pretty good proxy for power. more than 80% of internet users are in industrialized countries, and the fuse on any continent are in africa. it tells us something here at home. many women are only about two percent of -- a part in computer use, 67% of white non-hispanic households use the internet. of black households have access. .t is about power it is series. it is polarizing. let's hear it for the librarians are the only ones i know of systematically fighting to democratize computers. while we are celebrating marriage equality victories, great. let's not forget that 51% of us in the noted state say homosexuality should be accepted

by society. that was the question in the public opinion poll. 69% of people in canada do. are we not comparable to canada? people in germany do. on campuses, students ask me why the same groups oppose lesbians and birth control? [laughter] i think many of us don't yet understand that the same groups oppose all forms of sexual expression i cannot end in conception. sometimes i fear that our opposition understands our shared interest that are than we do. enough people understand that racism and sexism are intertwined and can only operated together? to maintain racial differences in the long run, if the control the production, which means controlling the bodies of women.

those of the so-called superior group are often restricted. those of the so-called inferior group are exploited. both suffered. sex and casteor --ia, justices is true in just as it is true here. it is a truth that these things can only be uprooted together. still, i think our common mes dark, is someti interest better than we do. here is a final shocker for anybody says it is post anything. violence against females in the world has reached such a peak preference to such practices as fgm and sex trafficking, to sexualized violence in war zones, to child marriage, and pregnancy which is

the biggest cause of the age female deaths in the world. what may be the first time in human history, females are no longer have to human race. on this spaceship earth, there are now 101.3 men per 100 women. so, before we think of causes as distant, of that cause as so, before we think of causes as distant, of that cause as distant, let me also remind you that even by fbi statistics, if you add up all the women in the united states who have been murdered by their husbands or boyfriends since 9/11, and then you add up all the americans killed in 9/11 and in iraq and in afghanistan, and you combine all 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 and 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 violence 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 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 in my list, i haven't included everything you know. i mean, the equal rights amendment? it still would be nice if we had the constitution, don't you think? cedaw? [applause] the fact that 3/4 of all immigrants now fighting a great battle in this town are women and children. i mean, 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 onto the ways of de-normalizing 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 in women is the problem, 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 with 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, it's not rocket science and it's actually fun and it's infinitely interesting. just for one simple example, those of us who are used to power need to listen as much as we talk. and those with less power may need to learn to talk as much as we listen, right? but in both cases, it's all about balance and understanding that 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. >> thank you. we're here at the national press club, so we'll start with a 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? >> we have a while. >> well, it has changed. 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. 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. 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 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's making the decision about what story gets covered and that's more like 3% women who are in the clout positions. so i would say we've made symbolic victories, 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 create change 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, the women's media center,

have shesource so that there's endless lists of experts if you want to find somebody who is an expert in aeronautics who's a female human being. we need those sources, 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 -- i mean, 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. but, women don't usually do that. so we need to go to each other and say, hey, you're an authority on this. and then get training at the women's media center, or somewhere, so you're comfortable on camera. i can tell you from calling people up to get on camera, it is harder 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 those guys have a blue suit hanging in the closet and just 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. [laughter] have you ever noticed that? i think it comes from falsely dividing human nature into masculine and feminine and then everything is -- so, of course, we need both, we need both. but it gets to be ridiculous when you survey all the people who are writing about reproductive issues and 80 80% of them are guys without the organs they're writing about. so, this is not something -- you're not supposed to say the o word here? so, the answer is that both are responsible. but 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, 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 and 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? >> ah. >> hi. >> hi. [laughter] well, i think that the issues that i should have been more chilled out about had to do with self criticism and it's still a problem, i think, for a lot of us because i walk around after i've spoken, i'm sure in utah, thinking, you know, "and another thing," or, "i should have done." so i wish i didn't do that so much. to what i should have been more in an uproar about is monotheism and religion.

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 the history of, say, colonialism, where they were very clear, the bible and the gun, that's how we're going to conquer. 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? unprovable, so very usable. -- useful. no, i am much madder about that and wish i had talked about it there because i do remember that 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? [laughter] no, 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's anything that wouldn't be transformed by looking at it as if everybody mattered, and so far i haven't been able to find anything. and also, it's so interesting, you know. it's like a big aha. you figure out what could be and it's just constantly, constantly interesting. as to what keeps me going, it's you. i mean, it's our friends. 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 we went, 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 others' 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 define as the seminal moment? >> well, it would be an ovarian

moment. [laughter] [applause] i think each of us has a different one, probably. each of us had a first, or maybe several, memorable aha moments, oh, that's why. i was a journalist, worked freelancing in new york and even after we started "new york magazine" i was the girl writer. and the other guys, and they were very nice guys, jimmy breslin and tom wolfe, all these nice guys, would say to me, "you write like a man." and i would say, "oh, thank you." and it wasn't until -- the experiences in my case, maybe yours, too, had to pile up before i saw the pattern and then i had an epiphany which was related to my own experience. which maybe is true for each of us, which is 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? if one in three american women, approximately, has needed an abortion at some time in their life, why not? what was secret about it, you know? and then as soon as i started to speak about it, then other -- i discovered 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, and flo had written a book called "abortion rap," which was totally about this and we were talking about her book. and the old irish woman taxi driver, very rare, probably, as a taxi driver, turned around to us and she said, "honey, if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament." and that's where that came from. i didn't make that up. so, it's that experience, i think, of telling our own stories, of truth telling. >> a couple of questioners ask

whether 40 years after roe v. wade we are moving backwards rather than forwards on women's right to choose. one questioner asks 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. you know, if you look at properly phrased who should make this decision, the government or the individual, overwhelming majority say it shouldn't 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 legislatures 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. if we don't want a divided

washington, then we have to vote as much in off year elections and for our state legislatures as we do in presidential elections.

as long as state legislatures are in control of insurance companies and people who build prisons and the people in there that don't deserve to be in prison and then they redistrict in order to keep that control permanent. that is why the house representatives is what it is and the senate is not. you cannot redistrict whole state. so, our response has to be organizing and knowing the state legislators. most americans don't know who their state legislators are. that is why there is an anti- choice, right-wing majority that is able to do this state a

state. it is very much about the backlash against the changes in this country. they are very clear that white women are not having enough children. it is why the issue -- the issues go together. the anti-immigration, anti-birth control, anti-abortion, and so on. we have to take back our state legislature. >> 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? >> if we were ever asked a question that included men, we might give a better answer. [laughter] do we ever ask a man, do you have it all? we need work patterns that allow everyone to work and also have a life and have kids if they want to. men, to double oh. -- men, too. the idea of stay-at-home moms -- the language is bananas. women who work at home work harder than any other class of worker in the united states. longer hours and no pay. [applause] let's never again say women who do not work or women who work at home are who also -- always ask all of those questions is men, too. it is divisive -- can you have it all? not everyone wants it all. if you have to do it all, you cannot do it all whether you are a man or a woman. >> you commented on miley cyrus's hypersexual outlook appearance. can you talk about women using sexuality to get ahead? >> if you have a gain in which -- i believe if you count up each of the contest and the national contests of beauty contest, it is a single biggest source of scholarship or women in the united states. it is crazy. if they did this for guys, you can bet they would be there. [laughter] we play the game by the rules that exist. we need to change the rules obviously. it is not that we are not responsible for our actions. we are. if we are to stand for anything, it is that we are responsible for our actions. we also need to look at the context. context is everything and what choices there are. is that -- if that is a game

that exist, that is again that people will play. >> what is your message for today's young women? >> my big message is, don't listen to me. [laughter] listen to yourself. that is the whole idea. the best thing i can do for young men and is to listen to them. you do not know you have something to say until someone listens to you. each of us has authority and unique talents inside us. people often ask me at this age, who am i passing the torch to?

i only say that i am not giving up my torch. [laughter] [applause] but also, i'm using my torch to light other people's tortures will stop the idea that there is one torch forever is part of the idea -- if we each have a torch, there is 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? let's include boys in those kids. should they know more? or does it occur to them that

things may not be equal for girls? >> it would be nice if they learned history, don't you think? they do not learn history of the women's movement or the civil rights movement. you can seek it out. that is a step award. you can find those areas of study, but the textbooks of texas are a pretty good example of eliminating the history of social justice movements because

heaven forbid they learn how it was done before and they might learn it again. -- do it again. again, it is the context that we need to look at rather than blaming individuals. however, having said that, if you gave me a choice between knowing history and getting mad about the president, i would say to get mad about the present even if you do not know history. just heat going. i didn't walk around saying thank you for the vote will stop i do not know about you.

i got mad because of what was happening to me. i do not think gratitude ever radicalized anybody. i hope i do not have to choose between knowing history and looking at unfairness in the present. if i had to choose, i would choose getting mad about the present. >> is any effort in the groups you are involved with to include more about women's rights history in school curriculum? an effort to include more about

women's rights history in school curriculums? x yes. absolutely. the feminist press was a pioneer in integrating women's history into textbooks and creating those textbooks. there are a lot of schools and devoted teachers and school systems. a lot of educators in this audience probably, right? they're trying to do this. the average textbook is still pretty slender. it is the politics of studying history. you still learn more about europe than africa. it is profoundly political the way we study history. now we have pioneers and reformers and at least we know there is such a thing as women's history. the most tearful thing that

happens to me is on campus when i'm complaining about my education -- cheerful thing that happens to me is on campus when i'm complaining about my education and some incense up and say, why did you not take women's studies? [laughter]

it is getting better. it is still not the norm. >> you touched on caregivers a couple of times. women who are raising and supporting families often get the least spoiled in terms of political capital in the u.s.

what must happen so women and children are able to make gains politically? >> it has to be said that the voting booth is the one place on earth where that single mom and the corporate executive are equal, where the very richest and the poorest are equal. it just had to do with knowing what the issues are on our school boards and in our state legislatures and getting ourselves out there however difficult that might be. it usually come in m spans, comes back to groups. do you have a group with shared experience with whom you can talk and discover that it is not fair and if you do at -- do x and y in your campaign and campaign for your school board, you need, i think, to have that shared experience. traveling around the country as

i do, i see mainly women's groups and sometimes men are a part of it as well. they have been together for 10, 20, 30 years. they had seen each other through an equal education of their kids through single motherhood and divorce. we need these kinds of alternate families. >> women now make up 60% of college goers. should this be celebrated or her problem? -- or a problem? >> as i was saying that it is not necessarily a problem, but i think we ought to be able to look at the alternatives. maybe we are frustrated programmers and if we learned to code, we would not have to go to college. i think we are still a bit 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. it is not that it is wrong, it is just that college has been oversold. so oversold. so oversold as a life-changing mechanism, especially when you end up in debt. i think young people should look at a wider range of alternatives. >> for those of us wishing to earn a world-class feminist education without life crushing debt, would you share some resources? [laughter] >> how long do we have? [laughter] maybe we should do this as a group exercise. i have given you sex and world peace by valerie.

there is "dark at the end of the street." it is a dark retelling of the civil rights movement with more women stories added. let's tell her favorite books. julie. >> "makers." >> yes. a three-hour tv special is also a website with about 200 interviews. it is a huge, wonderful resource. very important president -- presence. >> [inaudible] >> "words of fire." absolutely. we have fiery people right here. great. very important. >> [inaudible] >> "the way we never were." it really shows the degree of which the changes in society of which men were separated from children and did not develop those parts of their humanity that come from raising children was part of creating the kind of hierarchy we are dealing with now. women leave the home and have childbearing and not enough men entered childbearing and develop the rest of themselves. "feminism is for everybody." >> ms. magazine in the

classroom. >> yes. a very important resource. even in women's prisons, very important resource. a classic, especially for women who are in a traditional role. >> [inaudible] >> tell us where you live and we will find you. [laughter] there is no shortage. the junior league has also become much more an engine of social change than it was when i was growing up. >> i will cut in for one more political question. >> there was a wonderful book in which he interviewed about 15 women from indian country. thank you are saying that. what you glimpse as you do in various works from women in

indian country is a crucial fact that we are learning in women's history which is the suffrage movement at the underground railway and many other things are mainly function of native indian country. native women were -- had equal power. they're called a petticoat government because female elders had to sign the treaties. women control their own fertility. the native women referred to european women asked those who die in childbirth. they were appalled at these women who would come from the were stage of patriarchy and couldn't decide when to have children and couldn't have them under their own conditions. we're walking around on a history we do not know. there are many women in indian country who are trying to bring

it back. there is a friend whose work you should look up as well. has written a book called "everything we want once it's here." that is not only driven native cultures in this country, but also of -- in south africa and show you with a digging stick of what they do for migraines. it is true of the dahlis in indian. don't let anyone tell you that it is human nature that we live this way. no. it once was different and so could be. native women are funny about it.

you need to have a sense of humor given what they have gone through. what did columbus call "primitive"? equal women. [laughter] >> at couple of housekeeping matters. on december 3, we have the honor roll, the president of colombia. we also have the chairman and ceo of general motors. december 19, a grammy winner and bluegrass legend. generally 15, christine lagarde, head of international monetary fund. -- january 15, christine lagarde, head of international monetary fund. i am pleased to present our guest with a traditional national press club coffee mug. [laughter]

i am pleased to give you a mug. [applause] >> what did you do with that tie? [laughter] >> i haven't the faintest idea and i don't care. [laughter] i have one more book. there is a wonderful, well written, well researched book called "exterminate all the --" by sven who is swedish. it is about the invention of racism. it is a brilliant book. exactly why that europeans have become overpopulated because this breast women and these women have babies -- suppress women and these women have babies -- he does not say that. in order to overtake other peoples land, they invented the idea that they were inferior. it is a brilliant, brilliant book. let's keep this going. don't you love this? keep doing it. depending around ideas. [applause] >> thank you for coming today. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> thank you tour national press club staff, including our broadcast center and journalism institute for helping organize the event. you can find more information about the national press club online at www.press.org. thank you. we are adjourned.

>> this week on "newsmakers" representative mac thornberry. he is leading an effort. he got the but u.s. forces in afghanistan, military benefits, and u.s. intelligence gathering practices. here is part of the interview. >> i do not think anyone can give you a date. if anyone gives you a specific day, what you are doing is telling the enemy how

long we have to wait before we are gone and you are also telling the people you are trying to help that you cannot rely on us for long. if pacific -- a specific date is always a mistake. we should be there long enough to help them stand on their own two feet. if you look back, they have made incredible progress in just the past couple of years. they are in the league of essentially all of the combat operations right now. what they can't do is -- they are getting there. again, pat them on the back for the tremendous progress that they have made. it is thanks to our help and so wonderful servicemen and women who have been there. they have done a lot of good work. we're on a good track. you do not want to cut it off before you have accomplished your goal. texas republican mac thornberry on "newsmakers." >> on wednesday, president obama

awarded the presidential medal of freedom to 16 people in a white house ceremony. recipients included former president bill clinton, opera from free, and sally ride -- oprah winfrey, and sally ride. >> thank you. a little fresher. nice to be back again. nearly eight years ago when i began my time as chairman, one of my priorities was to make the federal reserve more transparent and to make monetary policy as clear and transparent as recently possible. i believed then as i do today that transparency money terror policy enhances public understanding and confidence and promotes discussion of policy options come increases accountability a monetary policy

for reaching their objectives, and making policy more effective by tightening the linkage between monetary lse financial conditions and the real economy. this bonding to the financial crisis and its aftermath became the fed reserve main focus. -- responding to the financial

crisis and its aftermath became the fed reserve main focus. supporting a reconnaissance con -- recovery as required more transparency monetary policy than ever before. i will discuss how communications have evolved in recent years and how enhanced transparency is increasing the effectiveness of monetary policy. despite the challenges inherent in communicating in an unprecedented and economic and policy environment, about a feature that can only be imperfectly for seen, i will explain why i believe the policy transparency remains an essential element of the fed reserve strategy for meeting its economic objectives. to understand the critical role

about monetary policy in recent years, it is useful to start by discussing the role of monetary policy communication more generally, including the relationship between policy communication and the broader policy framework. making monetary policy is sometimes compared to driving a

car with policymakers stepping on the accelerator other breaks depending on whether economy needs to be sped up or slowed down at that moment. that analogy is imperfect for at least two reasons. wrist, the main effect of monetary policy on the economy are not immediately -- first, the main effect of monetary policy on the economy is not immediate.

maker -- policymakers cannot -- must try to look well ahead. it is a difficult task. second, the effects of monetary policy on the economy today depend importantly not only on current policy actions, but also on the public's expectation of how policy really well -- will evolve. it is a current speed of the car depending on whether what the car expects the derby to do for the future. the public expectation of

monetary policy matters today because expectations have important effect on current financial conditions. it affects employment and inflation over time. because investors can choose freely between holding a longer security or rolling over a sequence of short-term securities, longer-term interest

rates today are mostly linked to market participant expectations of how short-term rates will revolve. if monetary policy makers are expecting to keep short-term rates low, then current interest rates are likely to be low as well or else be equal. in short, monetary policy expectations matter. indeed expectations matter so much that a central bank might be able to make policy more effective by working to shape those expect patience. experience -- shape those expectations. there are basic principles of

transparency. policymakers stay clear objectives, as well as plans for obtaining those objectives. our example, over the past two decades, many banks have introduced explicit targets for inflation. it is supplemented by regular publication of the central banks economic forecast and provisional plans for achieving its object is in the medium-term . it helps increase transparency and predictability of policy in

a number of countries. in the spirit, the federal market committee as clarified the policy strategy. because of its dual mandate that specifies maximum employment and price stability is policy objectives, that that reserve cannot adopt its target as an exclusive goal. nor would it have been appropriate to say we provide a objective for some measure of employment or unemployment in parallel with the inflation objectives. in contrast to inflation, the

maximum level of employment that can be sustained over the longer run is determined primarily i nonmonetary factors, such as demographics, the mix of work or skills, labor market situations, and advances in technology. as these factors involved for maximum employment levels might change over time. consequently, it is beyond the power of the central banks that is immutable or independent of

the underlying structure of the economy. the approach on which they agreed is described in a statement of longer run goals and strategy issued in january 2012 and reaffirmed in january of this year. the statement begins by affirming that commitment to meeting inductance -- objectives. and the dual mandate, the sea

price stability at the two percent longer-term inflation goal. -- it they see price stability at the 2% longer-term inflation goal. they recognize that such assessment is unnecessarily certain and subject to revision. in practice, the committee expresses objectives in terms of

the longer run a normal rate of unemployment. currently, participants of the longer run rate has probably reported in the quarterly survey of economic projections ranging from 5.2 026%. -- 5.2% to 6%. many central-bank supplement that objectives with published forecast that implicitly or exquisitely lay out plans for achieving their goals. although the size and diversity of the policy committee has made forecasting difficult, but churches report each

participants view of the most likely future path of inflation, unemployment, and output growth conditional on that individual view of appropriate monetary policy. in recent years, the survey has included participants rejections of future rates that they see most likely to achieve the committee's goals. the committees to object to its of maximum employment and price debility or complement three. -- price stability or koppel mentoring -- complimentary -- in short, the fed reserve has made significant progress in recent years in clarifying its goals and policy approach and provide regular information about the future path of policy. this increase transparency with the framework of policy as aided the public and policy expectations and reducing uncertainty and make policy more effect is. the financial crisis and its aftermath has recently greater challenges and demands upon the fed reserve communication. we have had to contend with persistent affects of the financial system, the collapse of the housing crisis, new shops in europe and elsewhere,

restrictive fiscal policy at all levels of government, and the enormous blows to output and employment associated with the worst u.s. recession since the great depression. for the first time since they began using the federal fund rate as its policy rate, that rate is effectively at zero it cannot be lowered further. consequently come in has provided needed support to an economic recovery and minimize the risk of inflation. the fed reserve has had to adopt new policy tools that brings her own communication challenges. and the remainder of my talk, i will discuss how the fed reserve will try to further inform the public's expectations of how the f1c will incur the rules. it has large-scale purchases of securities. as economy weekend over 2008, the f1c repeatedly cut it short term policy rate. in december of that year, the target was reduced to a range of -- and declined nearly 20. using the standard means of further easing and cutting the target interest rate was on number -- was no longer possible. it was not the only challenge the committee faced. there's the depth of the recession combined with ongoing concern about the function of the financial system. it raised significant he -- effectiveness of monetary policy and supporting growth. the recovery for most recessions have been relatively rapid with production, on a plumbing, and other variables could you beating -- unemployment, and other variables could you beating -- contributing. in the aftermath of the recent crisis, the committee had to consider the possibility that a highly accommodative policy might be required for a number of years. the federal funds rate effectively at zero created an important asymmetry for policy planning. on one hand, if the economy were to recover rapidly and inflation were to increase, monetary policymakers would be able to respond in a normal way by reason the federal fund rate. on the other hand, if the economy were to remain weak and recover only gradually, the case we face, they would not be able to cut the fund rate further. in the latter case, the economy could face an increased risk of deflation are falling crisis. as the case of japan illustrates, it could mean

economic growth while being difficult to escape. to try to free up such outcomes, strong case existed for monetary policy before -- then suggested by standard policy rules calibrated in normal times. the committee faced a situation in which more monetary policy accommodation is needed and possibly for quite a long time. it's basic policy tool, the federal fund rate target, has been pushed to its limit. to put the committees problem in another way, standard policy rules and a range of other analyses implied that to achieve the f1c's objective, -- achieve the f1c's objective -- it depends not just on the current values of policy, but on public expectation of future settings of that rate. they could ease policy further by sharing the public and markets that it will keep the policy rate low for some time and for a longer period than the public initially expected. at first, the committee employees language sent that message. after the stated in 2008 that it would likely be appropriate for the federal fund rate to be near zero for some time, it change to an extended period. such language did not convey precisely the committee's intentions. in august 2011, the in dash committee introduced a specific date into its guidance -- the committee introduced a specific date into its guidance. this guidance was more precise in language than the committee had been using. it appears to have been effective to highly accommodative policy. following the introduction of dates into the statement, and just rates and service measures moved in waste broadly consistent with the writings. -- guidance. it did not explain how future policy would be affected by changes to the economic outlook, an important limitation will step in deed, the date and the guidance is pushed out twice in 2012 and moved to 2015 and leaving the public unsure. in december of last year, the address this issue by having its guidance more directly to its economic objectives. introducing so-called steak contingent guidance, the committee announced for the first time -- state contingent guidance, the committee announced for the first time and inflation expectation remained stable in your target. this formulation provided greater clarity about the factors influencing their thinking and future policy and how that thinking might change as outlook changed. as my colleagues and i have recurrently explained, the condition stated in the guidance at thresholds and not triggers. pressing one of the thresholds

will not automatically give rise to an increase in the federal funds rate target. instead, it will signal that it is appropriate for the committee to begin considering whether an increase in the target is warranted. this threshold helps explain my the committee was willing to express the guidance in the labor market in terms of the on a plumbing rate alone. in the judgment of the committee, the unemployment rate , it is probably the best single some indicator of the state of the labor market. it is sufficient for finding threshold given by the guidance. however, after the unappointed threshold is crossed, many become -- including such measures as payroll employment, participation rate, the rate of hiring separation. in particular, even after unemployment drops come as long as inflation remains will behaved, the committee can be patient in seeking assurance that the labor market is sufficiently strong before considering any increase in the target for the federal funds rate. because of the severity of the recession and because short-term interest rates were near zero, it became clear early on that more monetary accommodation would be needed and can be provided in short-term interest rates alone, even if guidance was kept low well into the future. they began supplementing its policies in forward rate guidance with large-scale asset purchases. open market purchases of longer- term u.s. treasury securities as security issues by government- sponsored enterprises, primarily mortgage backed securities.

the large-scale asset purchases and forward guidance of the federal funds rate support the economy by putting downward pressure on longer-term interest rates. the affect rates through different channels. the difference is broken down into two components. one reflects expected path of interest rates and the other is called the term premium. the term premium is the extra return that investors require to be willing to hold a longer-term security to maturity affair with the expected yield from rolling over short-term security for the same period. as i have noted, forward guidance affects long-term interest rates primarily by imposing investors expectations of future short-term interest rates.

the other in contrast most directly affects term premiums. as the fed buys a larger share of the stock, the quantity of the securities available for private sector portfolio declines. as the security is are just, they should become more valuable . consequently, their yield should follow as investors demand a premium for holding them. . . .