on book tv what is the secret to a life of happiness? radio host hugh hewitt on the possible answers saturday 8:00.at and on american history tv from and to 2004 the issues concerns from five decades of union speechese sunday afternoon at 3:00. >> next a discussion about the of women in the united states from the ongoing project highlighting key issues headed by maria shriver. this was hosted bit atlantic and center for american progress. is about 3:20. progress. it is about three hours and 20 minutes.

>> for those who missed up in the morning i'm the vice president of the atlantic. have alle lighted to of you here today for the atlantic presents the shriver looking at women on the economic edge, a very, very important issue. i wanted to give a thanks again the company's and organizations that helped to make this possible. women's nation team, maria and her staff and for american progress and presenting underwriter the american federation of teachers supporting underwriters, and thomsonatories reuters. terrific inen giving up their support. i have gotten lots of good comments and questions and feedback during the break. keep those coming using #whatwomenneed and follow us at atlanta underscore live and @

report. also through your comment cards q&a and feel free to find any of us after the program. we will go straight through the afternoon. brace yourselves. we will skip the afternoon break to fit a little more in. you need to get up or get a coffee or stretch your legs, feel free to do so. are looking forward to a great afternoon of content. we are switching gears to talk about men, what men think and what the role of men is and we kick that off with theoken poetry by international traveling artist and the artistic director of the youth nonprofit sacrificial poets to start us into an talking more about women on the economic edge and starting off with men's role and help.n can thank you very much. [applause] men, what men think and what the role of man is. we are going to kick that off with spoken poetry by the international traveling artist and artistic director of the youth nonprofit sacrificial

programs. that will start us into an afternoon talking more about women on the economic edge and man's role and how they can help. thank you very much. >> my x chromosome, the one my he swear allegiance to my x chromosome. and aas a rolling stone doctor. prescription doses down to the to come uput seemed short on the monthly child support checks. tried to write inspirational songs of life to deadbeats, to the children that no support. i cling to the hope that it though feeling the pleasure. stuck. the press sure is stressing it a setup. featherso ruffle the

but she won't let up or respond to the letters and so i have allegiance to my x chromosome. labor.er went through her eyes and pupils dilated ten centimeters giving birth to a for me that will never die. though i carry the color of mars in my blood it is venus that remains closer to the sun. closer to her sun but venus is run in a world where 99% of the murder rates violence and caused by the male sex and we still say it is a man's world like that has been working for us. [laughter] equaln male plus violence ma lev lense. me fails for women who have cycles until men mow pause. i want men to pause and think twice. you see something you like, babe you looking nice, wife, think you twice and imagine your mother's face on her shoulders because every woman is someone's

daughter. most women is somebody's mother, grand mother, hover over history to ourder how we pray father but sin against our mother. rubber band my arms and isolate to bring the needle to overdose on estrogen until it is overflowing so i can strengthen my feminine side. we think of new age as if butnism were a novel city it was conceived on the eve that eve split from an oppressive adam. eve split from adam. eve split an atom and the energy relief was empowerment. a new vision through a nuclear figures and the family saw the first revision change the trajectory. arc to joan build the may tree arc. joan of arc. you see from the start women looked to the stars. gazing. for truth and it was found sometimes written in the dirt cal louse fingers. women can take a stand.

suffering orough suffrage and i like to think poets,ue female emcees, artists have learned from harriet tubman and keep their tracks underground. bring their people to the truth, iand and i find found power in my mama's hands, pushing a broom for 17 years and though i'm grown and consider raise a man on my own i my hand and swear allegiance to chromosome. [applause] >> please welcome to >> welcome to the stage, david gregory, michael eaton, kimmel and tony porter.

wow. good luck to us. that answers the question, that any moreing happen here. i just want to take a moment to adjust to the furniture fromently it is directly the jetson's home. i just want to mix sure i'm not sitting like this. [laughter] it is great to -- right., all fine. i'm not going to compete. great to have you all. be here. and great to be with maria for conversation and we are going to continue that conversation and talk about what about the men? are men in this conversation about women on the brink? what women need. partnerships they need in men and sort of understanding men a little better. what it wasknew like to be a man but i'm learning far more from my who isear-old daughter so amazingly articulate and smart. boysaid to me daddy, all do is they burp and fart and

shower and they smell and they are selfish. [laughter] honey we really shouldn't judge will stop you when i thank thik mistake.a men of not just that, we hope, god willing. and when we become men we think it means to be a man and i do think that is changing for us at all different levels different places in society. i think women in our lives are saying you got to change because needs and sorent where you stand has got to be a little different. peopleave some terrific here. tony porter is here. the co--founder of a call to men very -- in the very dashing purple sweater. katherine eaton is here. author of "doing the best i

fatherhood in the inner city" and michael stone brooke. the center forn the study of men and mass cue masculinities. you have write innocent shriver about mistake ain sums. there is an assumption there is whether they are fathers or husbands or maybe just fathers who don't want to sense of what it means to be a man and who are in anterested in being child's life or a woman's life. talk about that. >> i will start with some sense from which i speak. my research team and timothy mycoauthor and i spent seven years in communities across philadelphia and camden are talking about low income white, black and latino men. learned is counter to the stereo type which holds that babies,about sex, not and the minute they hear about the pregnancy they cut and run,

the men we talked to were surprisingly and in fact interested in becoming fathers and not just embracestatus but to the role. of course, the tragedy is that conditions,economic mass incarceration, family roles the traumand frankly of intergenerational poverty it status of claim the fatherhood in the way this they would like. end up doing is accomplishing fatherhood across partners in a serial fashion. father go around where fatherhood isn't fully satisfied but they get at least what it is they end up desiring. >> and they don't necessarily get the same respect as the young women who may not be married but they have children. they are still viewed with a certain status in their neighborhood, for instance. >> yeah, as men collectively we don't have status just by being men.

collective socialization of manhood how we are collectively taught to think, act and behave we are taught to have less value in women in general. will see that. we are taught to have less value in women and view women as the men and view women as objects, particularly sexual objects. we see that really as an equation that then equals violence against women. i as a man might not perpetrate violence against fabric.m part of that i'm part of that fertile ground that creates a culture of against women. >> interesting, maria and i were talking before we came out here call to action on the today show and as this conversation has gotten started they have gotten a lot of calls men saying hey, what about us, where do we fit into this? and still a fair amount of confusion about that for men. >> at all different income levels, certainly low income men at all different income levels you find that men are far

fact.in we keep hearing men don't want to talk about it. talknk we are desperate to about it. i think we are dying to talk about these sorts of things at single income level men say they want to be better fathers and be more involved in and get noies support for that that. from -- not only from support institutionally but don't get support from other men. when guys say they want to take parental leave or have to be home with their families, as we morning from nan they want to be home with older sick parents, they get no support. you are nots committed to your career. well, we will put you on the nevertrack but you will make partner. >> they get what a lot of women get. it from men.et so breaking or interrupting or beginning to figure out ways other menan support

taking these opportunities. is what they say they want. both women and men say that they thing.e same >> unpack this a little bit. there is the work place. challenge. there is just our social interactions where you know i would think this becomes a little more universal. on certainge based communities. anecdoteally we see a lot more are much more predisposed and certainly are being very involved in our children's lives, right, don't you think? >> interesting. middle class men have sort of taken the new father image and traditionalth the image of the bread winner. what poor men are doing is something really different. to redefineing fatherhood and say really the father model should be predominant. what i do, how i care should be

more important than the fact i can't contribute much. ways their gambut to be new dads is sort of because moms in society as you said sort of aren't giving them a chance. at theen't especially low end valuing the care work fathers can do. they are saying what have you lately, where is your pay czech and men are saying at the bottom i don't pay check, ist a want to be a parent. >> we are talking about partnership. not that you give it all up a. what we are talking about in the women who are in this position where they are doing it all. >> right. >> and men are sitting back well, maybe i should be one and not the other. the idea is how about just a relationship at any income level where you have partnership. cheryl sandberg writes about this. that is at one level. not just about that, about wealth, about the idea that we are in a relationship

partnership.ual >> it does seem to me, if i can respond to this directly, it the data on me that american men is that they are doing more house work and child care. they are beginning to, you know, than ever before. however, in our behaviors and our practices this is not because we had some big idelogical v-8 moment i want to be doing more house work. what men are doing in their is they are separating care.ork and child sociologists think of them in packages. parent.he fun dad takessed kids to the park cleansys soccer and moms the breakfast dishes and makes beds and starts lunch. >> a lot of men are doing house but they create extra time which is the hoorah for me

celebration after that. what i have done, let's take a few moments for that. >> right. premature self-congratulation. [laughter] we have to state in a that we still live male dominated society. stay clear that the issues that we are talking about here have been defined as women's issues. cleareve we have to stay depth of the problem is demonstrated by so few men being in this room. believe that we have to stay clear that we live in a society where men are taught to have a of interest in the experience of women. our boys teach it to at an early age. you were sharing about your aughter and she is on basketball team a boys team all except for her and they don't the boy to her. she is eight years old meaning

are eight years old. they are already taught to have in her.f interest new hampshire how does that translate forward thinkingbehavior and and socialization of men. >> i could see that she was upset. i said i want you to know that i notice this and it is upis thing upsetting know it is to you and unfortunately you will face a lot of this. talk about what that feels like and how you persevere. in the same car ride i talked to the boys and i said a respectr our family is and equality so let's talk about how you become a leader in the the other boys and tell the other boys who by the way, are not michael jordan last time i checked that they could pass the damn basketball. a lot of it gets to your point about this man box that you write about in your essay which is how do we talk to our boys starting differently in these early ages. >> can i push back a little bit?

>> okay. think it is easy for feminists like myself to think about men always in the power position. and i think within the family at least at the bottom of the income distribution this is not true. women are often vastly more powerful than men. and to really solve this problem that you are talking about we have to recognize the power imbalance. child is born outside of marriage, all of the legal woman who go to the is the presumptive custodian. men even who want to be involved hard time getting in. they are assigned child support without visit expectation. visitation. theifferent parts in society power is arrayed differentially. need to consider whether men don't need to be empowered in partners.they can be >> such as? >> i spent my entire career prior to this book working with single mothers so i love and admire and respect single mothers.

to we as women often tend think of children as our property. and too embrace a broader vision family that brings men in as not just pay checks but as is our responsibility as well as the responsibility of the men in our community. [applause] responsibility as well as man's responsibility. in certain relationships, there is a reflex to say look, thes >> theye are relegate and pushd aside a little bit into a different role. the idea of talking about respect and voice changing their image of women, but on the partnership issue, what about that? >> i respect what is being said and how that may look, but at when i look at

men collectively, the collective socialization of men, and i come from the community you are talking about. i was raised predominantly in the bronx. i understand those experiences of noncustodial parents and when thesystem got involved and system leaning toward the women in supporting women and those efforts and all of that, and while all that is good and real, , i am real time clear about men and the domination men put upon women. at the same time, i know there is work for women to do, but in the patriarchy society in which we remain, in a male-dominated society, women have their work and women have their issues, you know, but if the women's laundry list is this long and a man's

laundry list was the same, if worked on their list first, when it came time for women to work on their list, it's already begun to shrink up. i have respect for that, but i believe that as men -- i have questions. why are we not outraged? if we are talking about violence against women, which comes as a you are talking about the lack of interest that she is experiencing with boys. those very boys may never become violent man, but they will become part of the majority of men with that lack of interest. that is kind of rooted in in cap celaya's din homophobia. --is going to keep those encapsulated in homophobia. it will keep those same boys from holding other boys responsible who are violent.

the majority of men who would love to see women flourish do not hold them at -- do not hold the minority accountable. could be captain obvious for a moment, men are generally not getting together and going through a list of things they are feeling stressed about with regards to their relationships and their parenting. it is not something men get together and talk about. if i went out with a buddy, what did you guys talk about? nothing. that is what connection is about for men. >> it's like intimacy. >> right. men are not talking about hey, how do we want to navigate this? how am i dealing with the fact that i want to be involved but i have work demands and expectations. i don't know where i want to stand as a man.

i don't know how i want my masculinity to be defined because it is not comfortable for me to talk about with my friends, my boss, my coworker. there is no real outlet. conversations are the ones i think men need to be having. one, we need to hold each other accountable. we need to challenge men. the other is we need to find the language to support other men. when you do say you're going to stay home with your kid and be a ,edicated parent, not babysit, that other guys will say good for you. we need to know there are other men who will support us and other men who will hold us accountable and challenge us. for too long we have looked to women to validate us, support us, challenge us and hold us accountable. i think we need to be doing both. the response i have to the sheryl sandberg leaning and is

that men need to loosen up. >> across the country there are phenomenal organizations within the responsible fatherhood movement better getting men to engage in these conversations. families isor urban one of the finest of these organizations in the country. one of the reasons we could do this research is that men were so hungry to talk about this. in half of our conversations, men cried. in mcdonald's. in the middle of the day. is a palpable and felt need that is really profound. all of the institutional structures are essentially against us. when dad shows up at the hospital to see the ultrasound, the doctor wonder why he's here. --n dad comes -- that is not dad is not invited to head start. or he may be. i know headstart is doing more

to incorporate dads, but ours -- our institutions are systematically set up to exclude dads. if we want a truly gender equal society, we have to welcome men into the family the same way that we need to welcome women into the workplace. many levels of this, but one is helping dad understand that at all income levels and backgrounds, they have a unique role to play with .heir children a lot of dads may connect with a daughter at a certain age but once that daughter gets older and starts to pull back, you feel like well, i have nothing to do here. we start out being utterly irrelevant, and then we assert our relevance. for the first few weeks, but then we have to assert that relevance. where does that education, where

does that peer support come from to understand some of the nuances, to fight what could come from women which is that's great that you're interested but you're not really relevant here? isthe broader issue going on about domination in our society in general. it's about group oppression. , there is no need for middle class or above men to create space. why the heck would they? why do they need to create space to have this conversation? space, who are creating the common denominator they have is the group oppression around being financially poor. that moves them to creating space around their rights, around equality, around the foot of oppression on their throats. that creates the space. you move those same men into

middle-class economic -- what am i trying to say, move them into the middle class, and that space is not there, nor is the space needed. >> why do you say it is not needed? >> it is not needed for them. it is needed in society. >> there are middle-class families struggling with each other's role. >> i am talking more about how domination works. it is the same thing for white folks. there is very little -- so you will hear black and brown folks talking about racism all the time, but there is very little space created just for white gets alone to get create -- together and deal with racism. there's very little space for heterosexual people to get together alone and deal with sexism. >> i agree, but those things are not necessarily relevant to all middle-class people. but if you are parents together,

if you are working together, if you are navigating life together, this is a relevant issue where you need to create space to say what are you doing as a woman, what am i doing as a man, how are we navigating this path, how are we navigating our careers? i disagree that there is not a need to create the space. >> i am saying that group does not see the need. as a society, we surely see the need, but that group themselves, left alone, do not see the need to create the space. are so many men calling end like this morning saying what is my role in women on the brink? what more should i be doing echo what is expected of me? how can i have this conversation not just with my wife, my girlfriend, but also with a male coworker? when theseerence is

guys are calling in, it is different than what the -- than what tony is describing. tony is describing a group relationship. it is very difficult to embody that center. some years ago i tried to do this. about masculinity and everybody talks about how hard it is to be a man. but try to talk about male privilege or white privilege. i had a group of friends get together to talk about what it is like to be white in society. we sat down and one of my friends said i don't identify as white, i am italian. another said i am irish and the british called us black. i'm jewish, so all of a sudden we quickly have no white people in the room. how can those of us privileged by race, by class, by gender,

bisexuality, talk about that privilege? now, if you were to tweeted to these guys let's talk about how privileged we are as men, and they would not re-tweet. that is what tony is saying. we have in desperate need to add knowledge the unearned privileges that we have and also find ways to challenge and support each other. >> we're going to get questions from all of you. what is one thing we should take away and think about so we are not just thinking about the problems? questions? oh, keep going. back.on in the go ahead. >> i am with an organization called reel fathers. the power of movies and films to get fathers more engaged in the lives of their children. i came here late this morning

because i was in a nursery school helping to create a fathers group. i was told that three dads would show up. 12 did. there is a desperation for it. i want to share two thoughts, so it is not really a question. i want to share two thoughts. one is, i think about glass ceilings. there are too. there is a his and hers. we have been talking about. his is at home. that is one thought. i would like to share a word that i coined about a year ago. the word is dadvocacy. turn, i was inat mexico, flying back, found -- coined that term, i was in new mexico, flying back, sitting next to a woman getting her degree in gender studies. share i would like to

this word and get your reaction. what do you think it means? she said it must means it is against women. if you are for something, the immediate assumption is that you are against something. it is actually for women. >> thank you. >> that is really interesting. i think you really see those struggles in lower income families, probably all across income distribution. one thing i can say, echoing what mike and tony have said, is that the family is becoming is increasingly bifurcated. middle-class and poor kids are having very different family experiences. middle-class has gotten much more stable. divorce has gotten much lower than it was. they are living the dream.

they have equal partnerships, are more likely to stay together and are able to invest in their kids as never before. it's astonishing, actually. but at the bottom, things are not working out that way. and more often kids are living in homes where they don't have a dad and where men and male partners are moving quickly throughout the home. these households as both unstable and complex. in these highly complex households, children are really struggling. and of course there is a big about why this relates to economics, culture and all of that, but it is really important as we think howt men's role to realize you think about partnership in the context of a highly unstable and complex family were a child by the age of five has experienced two or three father figures, for example.

and how do you think about trying to parent across multiple households? i think that is another reason men at the bottom may be getting they are because struggling so much with managing this complexity. is that this had does mirror what women have been struggling with for a long time. are grappling with this and is something so new and novel to us that we fail to appreciate that this is something women have been struggling with for a long time. there are consequences to decisions you make about work and family and achieving balance. but these struggles are different at different levels in our society. >> they are. the thing katharine talked about, i fully connect with her about the financial experience for men and what is different in their experience?

i am still very guarded when i about dad groups and stuff like that. some of that is good stuff, and some of that is really a cover for men's rights organizations, who are springing up -- and i guarantee you by the time i get home today, i am going to have a list of e-mails just blasting me all over the place. you know, there are a lot of men's organizations that are forming for the sole purpose of eliminating, stopping, slowing down our quest for equality for women. a lot of times when we are talking about what's happening too often it is about that. i understand what the men are talking about, but i also understand that. , i understandhing the experience of men of color

and financially poorer men. i was a financially poor man myself. know is thatso poverty is a form of violence. violence against women. for example, one of six women in the united states of america will be raped. now you take that and multiply it -- you have to multiply that by about 30% more when you talk about women of color. when you talk about financially poor women. so you add -- we're talking about multiple forms of oppression on men and how that plays out in men's lives, but when you talk about multiple forms of oppression on women, let's talk about how that plays out in women's lives. and it is not because the men in those communities are more violent than other men. it is because we have less values in general. when we add the other forms of

oppression, our value lessons even more. women who areut dealing with multiple forms of oppression and what is happening in their lives as well. >> why do we just do this, go inn the line and quickly -- conversations like this, because they are so all-encompassing, i think it is great to walk away with something to think about or do out of this conversation. start with some take away here. >> i want to refer to one, and ad to something catherine said earlier about the father responsibility movement, because that is a movement of lower income men, men of color, and compare it to the father rights movement, which is largely a middle-class, recently divorced men's movement, and here is what i want to say in my

closing. i am thrilledean, to be on this panel and to look at the kinds of work that maria for thisbled here reason. politicallyvery important moment. there are people who have been working on gender equality. in the 1980s, we fought and lost the word family. to be pro-family meant you were anti-woman, antifeminist, right wing. we are now on a space where we are fighting over the words fathers and boys. if you say you are pro-boy, your antifeminist. if you are pro-father, your antifeminist, and these movements have been very rigorous. especially online. i will get the same e-mail list that you will. and so will you now.

i think we are actually in of losing the word man. i keep thinking which group in fathers, wesaid love you, we need you to come home and participate more. it was women saying that. my feeling is that these words are in play and we very much need to be clear that if you support gender equality, you favor fatherhood, we love boys and we support men. >> we women are supposed to lean into our careers, right? i like that. and we are admonishing men to lean into the family, but maybe we should think about whether we are letting them lean in as much as maybe they want to. maybe we are fighting the wrong

battles and not recognizing that men feel a need to be part of the family and we should think about ways to open up avenues for men to be equal parents. .> i want men outraged we have to move past the ignorance and learn to become outraged. i love men. i love being a man, spending time with men, being with boys. i love men. i am also sad for the experience of men. these same norms that created whereertile ground violence against women is at epidemic proportions in our country are the same norms that hold men hostage and keep us from being our full selves. i believe my freedom as a man is

connected to the freedom of women. i believe that if women are not liberated, i am not liberated. thatieve that it is vital we as men develop a voice to part of the become solution. understand there is no gray area. we are part of the problem. we are part of the solution. i am just so invested in men finding a way of understanding -- we have tos move away from this being a women's issue. was doing to country b what we are talking about here today that is happening to women, the united states of america would be there dealing with that figuring out what we are going to do and how we're going to do it. i want to see that same kind of outrage. we have more loving men than

not. we have well-meaning men, the majority of good men. i want them to create that outrage. this movement needs to be full of men. >> i think men have to do something uncomfortable, which is start a conversation without other men about wherever they are in their lives, whatever that stresses like. it is creating a new conversation around what it means to be a man, a husband, father, how you navigate that. whatever that level is at, pushing to have more of that uncomfortable conversation. thank you all very much. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

>> please welcome to the stage, michelle martin. >> come on in, come on, come on. sit down. it's hard to listen if you are uncomfortable in my experience. come on. you know you want to. despite your best feminist efforts you are wearing your 20 minute shoes. welcome, thank you all for coming.

a family living educator at the university for wisconsin, the ander for american progress really great people, i'm sure. thank you for coming today. i would like to pick up where the last panel left off. i understand we spent a lot of time talking today about what is and now i would like to talk about what we would like to be and what we would like to see. let me ask you, finish this sentence. the world i want to live and looks like what? >> maria shriver actually has a great line talking about this. she said we put the care in career. breadwinning and caregiving are both valued. bit about thise in the nation reimagined and the

solutions both public, private and personal. to me this means things like people pay. if we were to pay women what we paid men, we would cut the poverty rate for working women in their families -- and their families in half and add half $1 trillion to the national economy. >> make it more real. what does it look like for you? >> i think there are a number of things we can do to help women career and caregiving. i want to see more stories like barbies and melissa is -- melissa's. to do things like raising the minimum wage. two thirds of minimum-wage workers are women. it includes things like paid family leave. women are about half the workforce, and when they take time out to care for a child, a sick family member or

themselves, they often come back too much lower pay. we need paid sick days. the number one thing that women on the brink requested more than money was time to be home with their sick kid and not have to choose between groceries or staying home with their sick child. these are policies that are critically important to balance breadwinning and caregiving. tell you that for some women you are part of the world they would like to see because they would like to see more women in positions of political power, so thank you for your service. finish that sentence for me. the world i want to live in looks like what? women who find resilience through challenging times, not to just hold on by a rope, but actually find some type of meaning through their hardship. everybody in their life is going to have a hardship, and when we

use those stresses of times of , wema or times of distress cultivate life lessons that telik -- that help us in the next stress we have. we are also helping a future my mom or my dad did it, so they don't throw pity parties for themselves. my mom or dad got creative and reached out to social connections. what i would like to see is resiliency cultivated in the generation today that fuels future generations for their hardships, find that meaning that you will get out of whatever hardship that is and use that as a positive lens for outlook. resiliency has been studied all over the country.

the nine talks about keys to resiliency. some of them include positive outlook, maintaining connections, having a balanced relationship with your family. sometimes you need togetherness and sometimes you need separateness. call it beinge together alone. that is more like when you go to a bookshop and you don't want to be bothered by everybody else's selection so you go together alone. but in life it is important to go together or alone and have that self-awareness. finding ways to be resilient and moving forward so that you are thriving. i want to get you to tell me in a minute how we get there. together aloneng is called being in the bathroom. [laughter] the world you want to live in, what does it look like? >> a much higher percentage of our kids are reared by married workts and they all

together and cooperate. it is especially important for men to absorb doing more housework so that kids can have more time with their mothers. they need more time with their fathers, but it is very important for mothers to spend more time with their kids. with youngerially kids, they are better at it. their time is completely crunched, especially if they work. unless we have more of our kids being reared in married couple families, we are going to have a lot more disadvantage in the united states. >> what does the world you want to live in look like? visionarynder was a in the state of california. she talked about the need to live your life with dignity and purpose. us, particularly for

53 million women over the age of 50, it is to be able to age with economic security, which is increasingly difficult, and to be able to have a system, be in an environment that provides the kind of support, caregiving, long-term care and economic independence that people are going to need. it is a major challenge and that .s the world we want to see >> what keeps you up at night? >> the enormous challenge for older americans. we tend to, particularly in washington, d.c., talk about the aging america as a budget issue. the truth is it is a lot more complicated than that. there is no doubt there is a but ancomponent to it, enormous amount of people are

living longer and are going to have to live with limited means, particularly women. the answer is not just government or individuals. it is going to have to be a conversation. we really need to engage in these conversations. happily, i believe there is a robust dialogue beginning in acrossties and counties the country. >> but let's get to a specific yes this, know that. night?keeping you up at >> let me say something about old people first. i'm one. our public policy is directed disproportionately at old people. they grow the most in the future. they are the main cause of the federal deficit. we have been talking a lot about the war on poverty for the last few weeks because it was the

anniversary. i think the biggest success in the war on poverty all has to do social security and medicare being created and expanded. that is the one area of public policy where we have really committed our resources. members of congress protect programs.oms -- they are in good shape, may be too good. >> what keeps you up at night? is an old person, so she keeps me up at night. what keeps me up at night is kids and changes in the family lack of public understanding about what a price single moms and those kids are so manyecause they face

disadvantages. therefore times as likely to be for -- be poor during childhood. it has an immense effect on their development. be growing up themselves to in poverty. this is a concern that ought to at night.mericans up >> what keeps you up at night? >> so many things, unfortunately. my husband has to tell me stop thinking about those and go to sleep. i am very grateful for netflix to check out once in a while. a couple of things that keep me up at night are just thinking about the complexity of the issues that we have, being here ,n a room that is so inspiring and i am going to have a conversation with people that may not be on the same page. there may be a different story, but we bring so many different

perspectives when we have a rubber meets the road policy. i think about how we are going to make it all connect, what can i do, and what is out of my control? what is the reality i need to deal with. figuring out how it is going to come together does keep me up. strategizing and thinking about how we get this to work. as far as feeling like we are in a political moment -- wanted -- of the previous panelists what did one of the previous panelists say? are we in a vulnerable political moment? do you think we are so far apart on these issues, in just thinking about these basic issues of what families need, women need, men, how we should think about this that there is very little hope of moving it forward? >> i don't think so, and i can only speak about things at my level.

the office i sit in his nonpartisan, and we treated as such. of course everybody has political leanings. some democratse and some democrats on one side and on the other side, and they -- some democrats and some republicans on one side and on the other side, and they take on these issues. in those moments where we disagree but i can see the lines that are cross pollinating, those moments give me hope that this is not a party issue. this is a community issue. there is no issue that is not somehow related to a family. we are all part of a family. how can we get those pieces of the puzzle to come together yucca the other thing i will insecurity. i am a young woman. i just turned 34 yesterday.

i don't have a lot of initials behind my last name. i don't have a lot of money in my bank account. i am not a who's who in my community. i don't have any structures named after my family. i think about when will i have enough credit where i can just start waving a ron -- waving a wand and helping make things happen? will i ever have that? have in 20 years i will earned more political respect and cloud in my community, but that and i am earning i respect that process. >> how old was martin luther king when he led the montgomery bus boycott? >> really? >> that is why i am saying it is a skeleton in my closet to say

insecurity. i got invited by the shriver report to come and speak nationally, to put on this game have it all together, that would be a total fraud. i have insecurities and everybody in this room does two. what do we do to stop those insecurities? would not think she is using this process of acquiring influence and prestige as an excuse. and is the road i am on am going to be optimistic about the future. especially here in washington, a lot of people start when they are 30, 40, 50, then gradually acquire. it is an acceptable, wise thing. we have a lot of good public servants and a lot of people in up exactly who came like you are coming up. >> i think it is no small thing to be elected to a city council and take on a leadership position.

>> thank you. >> happy birthday. >> thank you. >> consider the alternative. melissa, why don't we talk about -- we were talking about a minute ago about where the rubber hits the road and whether we are in a moment where people are actually willing to move forward on some of these issues, and recognizing that people have very different, well meant but differences of opinion on these things. are there things related to the live in thatt to you think we can find agreement on? are we moving toward agreement, do you think? where is the consensus around things we are moving toward that you would like to see? >> >> in a poll the majority of republicans and democrats, women

n the brink, families of all incomes, agree we need to modernize the relationship with women. we need paid family leave. they agree child care is a huge barrier to work. what keeps me up at night is not that people don't agree with these things, but how we turn hat into shoe leather activism and make our representatives change it. >> but what about something like the minimum wage. you have a population that's aging, a big part of the population and a lot of people who are taking care of people who are older are older themselves and financially vulnerable. some would argue that raising the minimum wage at this point actually makes that harder because it makes it harder for people to get the care they need at a price they can afford. how does something like that get resolved in your opinion? >> we need to show that we're all dependent on one another.

you have people who are care givers for their parents, care givers for children, care givers for the sick and disabled. they all care about each other in a community. it's not caregiver against person being cared for. we need to figure out ways, and i think they spoke about this on -- on the panel earlier this morning, we talk about how we value care in our society. somebody caring for elderly parents or working as a home health aide earning poverty level wages, that's not good for the caregiver or the person receiving the care. there's been studies on the minimum wage that shows it doesn't cost jobs, there's ways use medicaid and child care credits to improve wages. we need to not pit elderly against children, we don't need to pit elderly against those receiving care. we need to have a system overall that values care.

>> what does that look like? tell me what that looks like. because if you're talking bt a household budget, what about child care and elder care have to come out of that budget, how does that happen? it's nice to say we can't pit people against each other, but who's picking up this etab? >> the book outlines public and private solutions. in terms of public solutions, part ol valuing people is recognizing that they need paid sick days and paid family leave. we talk about private solutions, corporations can offer those kinds of benefits to their employees. when we talk about wages, the government can be a provider. child care is one of the biggest barriers to work for low income women but i don't know any women across the income scale who isn't concerned about how

difficult it is to find affordable child care arrangements. the arch cost of child care is 40% of people's incomes. i think a discussion about the government ose role in comprehensive child care and pre-x is a conversation we're beginning to see happen. >> i want to say, at least for seniors, a substantial amount of he care giving is unpaid and uncompensated. really there, what we've seen in a number of places is employers starting to take a step in terms of additional flexibility in the workplace. that's something we want to continue to encourage. many people who provide care don't think of themselves as a caregiver, they say, yeah, i do ther rands, do shopping, so it's important to recognize that.

states are providing respite care for those taking care of seniors. i don't think there's going to be, i may be wrong, but i don't think there's going to be a massive government solution, whether it's at the federal level or state level. it's going to be a patchwork of family members, of employers and others having to step in, particularly on care giving. importantly, we've been talking to a lot of health care providers, hospitals, doctors, you would be stunned at the number of people who go in for very significant care, medical care, and as they leave the hospital, or the doctor's office, there's no thought about having a conversation with the person who is going to follow up. things like that can make an enormous difference. >> let's go back to the comment about people shouldn't confront each other and so forth. this is totally inappropriate in washington. politics is organized warfare between groups, especially under

conditions we have now where the money is short and it's not going to loosen up for a long time so if we spend it here, we cannot spend it here. so far, the political system has decided, ok, we're going to cut across the board. that means we'll be cutting children's programs, we're going to be cutting research on children and other things. that's exactly what we do now. we cut head start but we protected the programs for the elderly. that's the future because the congress set it up so that all programs for the elderly are on automatic pilot. we are confronting a really serious problem. we are going to have to fight. there's going to have to be some better organization to get our -- to switch these resources, take for example child care. i completely agree with you on child care. we don't spend nearly enough on child care especially because we have so many single mothers. this raises the broader point, we're not about to change. our demographic changes toward reductions in marriage and increases in female families are

not going to change. we're going to have many, many of our kids for the foreseeable future. we need to support the families even better than we do now. we do a lot now, we should do more, pesslirble -- especially on child care. we're going to have to save money somewhere in order to spend the money we ought to spend on kids and the future of the country or we're going to pay a price. >> can you talk more, ron, because you've been sounding the alarm for quite some time about family structure. marriage is one of the cores of your work, is the whole question of marriage. by the measures one might argue, i know we were hearing about family structure -- >> it totally failed. >> what we heard earlier is marriage among the middle class is more stable than it's ever been but among those financially

vulnerable it's more difficult than it's ever been. so the we is, what now? marriage is not the silver bullet against poverty but it is true that the percentage of family whors poor are less by a marriedheaded couple. >> if we had the marriage rate that we had in 1970 and we did this by matching people, match n age, race, and location, the poverty rate would fall 30% without any additional spending. that's one of the reasons i'm attracted to it. i'm also attracted to increasing marriage rates because it's good for kids. kids don't get a vote in this demographic change and continue to not get a vote. a lot of my colleague who was been in the marriage movement for a long time don't want to face up to facts.

we're not going to change this in our lifetime. we're not going to change it in god's lifetime and we have years and years and years of this and the consequence, the inevitable consequence is the private sector and public sector has to do more to support female-headed families and day care is a great example but there are others. >> like what? what's the way that we should support female-headed families since that's the way it's going? >> one thing i would like to see, i'd like to obama talk more about the advantages of families. i know he believes it, because he said it in his book. but he hardly ever talks about it. marriage is the greatest anti-poverty tool. people like obama and people on the city council, the mayors, governors, everybody, we should talk a lot more about it. i think -- >> don't you think he talks more about it than any other president because it's consider sod unusual for black people, particularly black men, to be committed to their marriages, you don't think he talks about

it? >> i don't think he talks about marriage in a way that people would say, this is a key to my life. it's key to my children's life. it's the best way to do it. i highly recommend it. that kind of thing. there's a thin line here. >> no, i was going to say, i think we spoke earlier this morning about how no one is against marriage but in some cases it's not a possibility for a variety of reasons. it could be even because of domestic violence, things didn't work out between the partners and it's better to be separated and just getting married, especially when there's a lot of lower income men who are themselves not financially stable is not going to resolve the problem. i think it's important to encourage stable relationships, it's important to encourage family planning, and in the shriver report itself, in our marriage, motherhood and men chapter, we speak about the importance of family planning. but i do think that to sort of put out there that if we were just to talk more about marriage

people would -- >> i didn't say just. that's one part of it. the cultural change here is that the status of marriage has declined greatly. we now accept it, you can co-habit, you don't have to co-habit it's fine to have a baby, there's no pressure not to, even if you can't support the baby, we'll give you public dollars to do it. the whole culture around family and marriage and commitment to children within a married couple family has changed dramatically. i bemoan that but i accept it as the way it's going to be so we need to find a way around it. i think if we had more of a public commitment and our policies, especially tax policy, were focused on two-parent, married couple families, we could improve somewhat. >> i take it by then you support same-sex marriage? >> yes, i have no problem with that. >> i'm just -- just to clarify you do support same-sex marriage. >> one thing i've been involved in is abused and neglected kids.

there are many cases, for many years that same-sex couples, men and women, have adopted kids and taken them out of the child protection system. which is a great thing. i came to this thinking that is a lot better, i know for sure that's a lot better than a kid being in foster care and we have some research on it, it's not great, but it's very difficult to show any harm to children because they're with married parents. that's controversial but i've read the research, i think it's not persuasive. you could not point to research and say, that screws up kids when they live with two moms or two dads. >> councilmember, you wanted to jump in? >> i think in a lot of plcymakers aren't just looking at family status. sometimes, stream of consciousness doesn't come to my mind as i'm going to make this decision because people are married? i'm going to make the decision

because people live in a household together, they have an arrangement, whether it's a committed partnership, two moms, two dad, if there's love in the home that's all i'm concerned about because that's going to be the fuel to get people and really children, our future, to where they need to go. on the other hand though, i think one of the main things we have to look at it is whether it's marriage or not marriage is looking at the income. right. so the color of money, the only color of money in america that mat sers green, as i was told by one of my history professors in civil rights. i think a lot about that. when you have a dual stream of income reduced to one stream of income, you'll have to make some choices. so when you look at home production versus market production in the home, we have to look at how many hours is someone getting basically subsidized for in their homes to do laundry or folding or could they hire, make a higher wage to get extra help if they don't have a person, significant other

in the home to help. got to look at the whole economic structure in that home. so i think that's -- it's just really prnt that we're looking that, it's not just a hetero-normative viewpoint that places priority on one man and one dad. there's so many reasons that's not going to happen. when it does happen, that's great. i hope that eventually we're not even discussing if it's a mom and dad in a home. we're just discussing if two people have enough to put a roof over their heads, keep themselves relatively happy, safe, and that's it. i hope we're talking about other issues in 20 years. >> why? on the older-- i'm set in the millenials and the younger set in the others, millenials don't give a rip. you've got a boyfriend and you're a guy? i don't care. you got a wife and you're a lady? cool. >> but the whole question of two

parents. i feel you. but on this question of it's better to have two parents in the home, whatever their gender is, do you agree with that? >> i absolutely do. in fact there's research, and i'm sorry i don't have it, i'd glad to give it to anybody, but -- in my undergraduate studies, women's studies and economics, which are perfect disciplines together to look at thing but research shows the best outcomes were households with two moms. and again, that is not something that i would say, ok, well then i'm going to make policy to say everybody should have two moms, no. absolutely not. but it just goes to show that we've put such a tight capital on a heteronormative family and not every research study shows that will provide the best outcome. we need to get beyond one model that we have that has worked really well for so many families and most of us are in this room

because of heteronormativity. it's going to be part of our society. but i just don't think it is this cornerstone that we need to build ourselves on. we need to build ourselves on many types of families and the key thing is, what do families need to thrive? >> let's talk about, we started talking about the minimum wage. i would like to talk more about child care. but i'm wondering, is child care the issue or is care giving the issue? that's my question, given what nancy is talking about in terms of where we're headed as a country. so talk about, what does the world you want to live in look like when it comes to this issue? >> it's both-and. people are caring for older relatives or even for a sick spouse. we were talking about the needs of military families coming home and the caregivers for military families often don't have the

support they need as well. it's across different generations. the world again that i want to live in is one that enables women and men, for that matter, to balance those the bread winning and care giving responsibilities. i think the policies in the shriver report which hopefully will help all of us sleep better through the night is public, it's private, and it's personal. it's everybody stepping up and getting the education that they need to earn higher wages. it's companies making sure a lot of these things don't cost money. the index we put out as part of the report, better benefits and pay cost money. but there's a host of other things employers can do to provide flexible and predictable schedule, to allow care givers to make personal phone calls during the work day to check on things. the vision we lay out is to boost the incomes of breadwinners and to value the role of care givers, including

raising the minimum wage, making sure that people have pathways to medium and high-skilled jobs, the information they need to make educational choices and what they need to succeed as a working parent. it means that they have flexible and predictable schedules and the right to request flexibility from their employer without being fired. it means we have comprehensive pre-x and child care proposal. the president outlined one plan. there's bipartisan legislation. this is something that should be bipartisan. in the poll it's bipartisan. bipartisan majority of americans support it. let's get the boots on the ground and turn it into law. >> this time has gone awfully fast. i knew this was going to go fast but not as fast as this. i would like to give each of you, i'm sorry, we were not offered the opportunity to hear from you in this program. we would like to have, wouldn't we? we would have liked to have heard from everybody. but next time. so in the time we have left, i'd love to hear from each of you

about what you'd like to see happen as david said, you can give us a charge, give us the takeaway, one thing you'd like us to be thinking about. >> i think again one of the great challenges we're going to have as a country and as families will be the increasing demands for care giving of young and old and i'd like us to see if we can begin a discussion that you've started here which is about concrete approaches we can take and to recognize that indeed much of our public policy supports the economic security of older people and that's very important in a family. if you look at 50 to 60-year-olds, about half of them are providing significant economic support toer that kids and grandkids. the whole family economy has changed and we have to recognize that. >> do you want to give us assignments? tell us if there's one thing you want us to do when we leave here. a lot of us are good

multitaskers. >> i'd love personally to have you all engage with aarp and work with us on the next step of how we might engage in this conversation, some specific actions we're working in every state and an awful lot of communities. >> i imagine a world a much higher percentage of our kids ive with married parents and that provides emotional and financial security for kids. knowing that's not going to happen, i want us at the state and federal level to provide more support to female-headed families to do a better job rearing kids. >> give us some homework. what do you want us to do to support that? >> start a local organization that helps single parents, both males and females to help with child care and counseling and whatever other issues they have. >> councilwoman? >> i would draw your attention to the idea of rei'll yhency and everybody has -- of resiliency.

everybody has a pivotal moment in their life. use that moment to make your dent on the world. get off your pity pot. as someone told me if you sit on your pity pot too long, you'll get ring around the rear. we can't have that. i want clean buns in this room. the homework is number one invest in yourself. if you're in a place where you think, it's my time to make my dend in the -- dent in the world, invest in yourself, ask for help, ask for what you need. contact me, i would gladly hold your hand over skype or facetime with anybody in this room. i want to see you invest in yourself. if you don't think you want to be in the spotlight but you want to help other people, ask somebody, how can i invest in you? how can i care about you? so if you see someone running a campaign, definitely give money to that woman. but ask her, can i take you out for snacks and an art craft with your daughter? that's what a friend of mine

did, taught me about self-care on that long journey. invest in yourself and invest in others. >> i think what catherine said is beautiful. it contributes to what i want to call people to do, wild you still can, download the shriver report for free. it lists 10 things you can do. i want to emphasize one in particular, vote. and to make your elected official earn the vote. not giving it away. that's something we emphasize to these solutions, holding the people who are representing us accountable for progress. the final thing is,ic this was represented this morning by the power, is tell your story. if you feel comfortable sharing your story, it can have such an impact by putting faces and voices to the conversations we've been having today. o to theshriverreport.com. and also we have our american story where we kind to deploy these stories in public policy

debates. >> thank you all. >> thank you. [applause] >> please welcome to the podium karen skeleton. i'm editor in chief of the shriver report. i'm here on behalf of my coed tores, olivia, roberta, daniellea, and we're proud to be here on your shoulders, many of you who have been working on the issues we describe in the shriver report, for most of your lives. our goal when we started the shriver report was to ignite a national conversation. to raise awareness about the 42 million women and the 28 million children who depend on them who

live on the brink, who work hard every day, who have the same dreams and aspirations as other americans, but are just not able make ends meet. we wanted to bring that conversation to main street for as maria says all the time, our wallct is a combination of street and main street. we think it's been able to break through the consciousness of this country in the last few day. our approach is a little unusual. we set out to do some ground breaking work around how this project is communicated and that took a combination of components that are unusual. again as maria said, we didn't want this to be a report that sat on the shelf and collected dust. we put on our thinking caps and

came up with a number of different elements that when put in combination would help propel this conversation into the national psyche. i'm just going to tell you about a few of them. first of all, you know about the book. it's still available, free for down loading for one more day. i'll tell you the breaking news is that over 25,000 copies have been down loaded since we aunched. a second component is a comprehensive, bipartisan national polysupported by the aarp that has tested the opinions of women and men across the country. it has got a very lit -- little, small margin of error and we're proud of its findings. we challenged our authors and contributors and partners to come up with solutions that were not run of the mill. things you might not have heard about before that broke the mold

of thinking about the issue of women live on the brink. we developed for the first time in this nation's history a modern corps, which is a evolution of the vista corps which maria's dad invented. it will be people who go out and help men and women who are eligible for government benefits but don't know they exist. it's a program maria starred as first lady of california and is still alive and thriving today. we worked with representatives from the family institute to develop a thrive index for businesses, a checklist of practices and policies that they could turn to to help lift up and strengthen low wage working women in the cubry.

we think this is the first of its kind in the nation. andeveloped with ann moseley idea for life education. a modern day look at the old fashioned home ec classes that used to teach you to cook and slow. what people are telling us now of course is that they need to know about financial literacy, about self-esteem, about how to have relation hipps -- relationships. those are the kinds of real life skills and practical skills we hope we can develop for young girls living on the brink. and men on the bripping. i also think you might have noticed around this stage today the beautiful photo journalism we commissioned for this report, led by barbara kinney, we asked seven female photographers, many of them award win, pulitzer prize winning, who have traveled the country shooting days in the

lives of women living on the brink. we're very excited about a classroom initiative that will bring the shriver report into university classrooms across the country. the university of california at berkeley, university of michigan, george washington university, harvard university, wellesley college. u.s.c. and many more universities will have this book taught in their classrooms. take orders from colleges who want to order a copy, i'm looking for spellman college in particular. of course we have built a historic social media campaign around a policy issue like this. it seems our twitter account was closed down for a little while because we had so many tweets and retweets they couldn't handle more of them. we have increased by 7,000% our reach on facebook just in the last few days.

we're up to about 1.5 million eople. we really believe our social community we're building on shriverreport.org is an important part of the power around the project. we have amazing media partners in "the atlantic" and nbc for maria. many of you have appeared for the last couple of days and of course we have this amazing live event. but one of the sexiest parts of our components and the one everybody really likes to hear about is our documentary, which is why i'm standing here to introduce it. when we first started the report, we knew that the subject of women's economic security and social inability wasn't the topic that most people wanted to talk about and so maria and the center for american progress, we came together and we thought how are we really going to break

through on this. and the way we were going to do it is to connect emotionally the real stories of the women you've seen here, the women who are photographed, with the american people. what is their story? so maria went to hbo and talked to the iconic document aaron sheila nevins and said would you make a documentary of our report and hbo put together the best am, the emmy award winning directors sherry cookson and nick dube, and hay zhoird country and found a 24-7 day care, the chambliss center for children, whose director and some of their workers are here today and they found ka treea gilbert. katrina gilbert is a 30-something-year-old single mother who works as a c.n.a.,

certified nursing assistant, in an elderly facility. she works hard every day and raises her children. her story tells the story of our report organically. it tells of her desire to be educated, her inability to make ends meet, of her relationship with her boyfriend and her ex-husband and her children and her day care center. t tells our story beautifully, emotionally, and compellingly. it's going to debut, it's going to air on hbo on march 17, st. patrick's day, so remember that. and with no further adieu, i would like to show you some clips from the film.

>> when me and my husband split, i had to do something. i was looking for a job for eight months. >> hi, mr. granger are you done? >> yes, i am. >> you are? you ate it all. >> yeah. >> lift your feet. here you go. there you go, bud. >> even nurses say, a c.n.a.'s job is the back bone of the nursing field. it can be rewarding. you meet very good people. but you also lose them and it's

very hard. >> yeah, john, i'll be back tomorrow. >> $9.49 an hour for what we do. >> what we're going to do is this. ive yourself a big hand. you're remembering what we've been doing. getting ready for the next step, going to kindergarten. you've got about seven months. it'll be kindergarten ready. guess what? it's going to be pinned on you. the choices you make. we say good choices get you what? >> good results. >> when you treat people right, when you talk to people right, when you do something that's not right you go back and make it right. hat's what makes a good you.

>> the kids are learning so much here. so much. if i went to a normal tai care, it would cost me $300 per week for all three of my children. how tissue that's a whole paycheck. you're working to payday care? how are you going to pay your bills? we got to go pay the rent. tell her bye. >> bye. >> have a good weekend. >> please welcome to the stage ron brown steen and crirsen jill brand. - brownstein and kirsten gillenbrand. >> senator guillen brand, former mber of the house --

gillenbrand, a former member of the house. you were at the brookings institution earlier this week talking about some of the ideas we're going to discuss here in the next few minutes. you said, quote, the key to an american middle class that's built to delive in the 21st century is women. why do you think that? >> because it's one of the greatest untapped potential in our economy for a lot of reasons. first of all, 2/3's of minimum wage earners are women. a lot of those are women with children. if you increase the minimum wage, you increase economic investment in our communities overnight. something as simple as paid family medical leave would help so many more women stay in the work force, be eligible for more promotions, be able to earn higher wages and put more back into the community if she has those opportunities with the flexibility paid leave would have. something as simple as affordable day care or universal pre-k would allow women to be in

the workplace. the woman in the video, her cost was not only her entire paycheck for day care but she didn't have a lot of options. so for a lot of women what happens is they'll stay out of the work force those first few years or they'll use informal kear for their children a lady down the street a lady in the building, a mother, an aunt. and that child may well not get the components of good early childhood education, but also if that caregiver is sick, she'll miss a day of work. she may not have sick days. if she's a low-wage worker, she may lose propotional opportunities or get fired. her career goes offtrack often because she doesn't have quality, affordable, reliable day care. each of those ideas are about making sure a woman can stay in the work force during her entire working life and achieve her full potential in the work force and because we're not doing that, it means a lot of economic growth isn't happening because literally half the work force is being undervalued. >> that's right where i wanted

to ask you. you have five distinct ideas. but what is the common thread? is it what you described? enabling women -- >> it's recognizing that the face of the workplace has changed and all the policies that workplaces utilize are stuck in the 1950's and 1960's. they literally still have the same policies we had in the 1950's and 1960's when in a block of 10 families, 10 homes, eight or seven out of eight of those homes you had a husband going to work and a mom staying at home. day care and child care were less urgent. today that block looks totally different. out of that block, five homes have two-income parents, three homes have a single mom working and only two homes have one parent that works and one parent at home. but you don't have any of the support that's necessary for working parents within today's workplace. >> talk about the decision to focus on women. you know there is some evidence that women are adapting better than men to the demands of the

information age economy. anthony caravalli in his chapter notes that 60% of all post-secondary degrees are women. the economic policy institute shows that wages for men are -- wages are lower for men and higher for women than they were 40 years ago. isn't it that too many men are falling off track? >> that may be an issue. but women make up more than half of the college degrees in this country and more than half of the advanced degrees in this country but are still enearning 77 cents on the dollar. so the real challenge is that you have this enormously qualified, well educated work force who is not -- either not being paid fairly, not reaching their full potential but also not necessarily being elevated within companies on various industries for many, many reasons but again, your best ideas aren't necessarily coming to the forefront. those small businesses women are

starting, they start their businesses with eight times less capital than male-owned small businesses but their success rate is just as high, if not higher. so what you're doing is you are undervaluing 50% of your work force in a way that hampers the economy. so the real idea is, if you want america's economy to grow and to excel and to reach its full potential, you need at least half the work force here that you are undervaluing to be utilized at their full potential. >> this entire project may qualify a a successful woman-started small business. talk about some of the ideas individually. paid family and medical leave the argument raised against that is the same one raise on the minimum wage, same one raised on the pler mandate on health care. the argument is you are increasing the cost of employment and therefore you will get less of it. what do you think about that? >> well, the place you should start to answer that question is you should ask businesses. any business that has paid leave will tell you it is worth every

bit of that investment because what you're gaining is a more loyal work forest, a happier work force, a more efficient work force and one that doesn't have to be constantly retrained. because when you retain that employee, that mom, for example, or a woman who is caring for an aging parent or a dying family member. when you retain that worker you don't have to retrain someone else when she leaves because she has to spend the last few months with her mother before she dies or has to spend a little time at home with the infant she just delivered because this is her fers child. you have to understand that you're losing some of your best and brightest by not creating flexibility within the work force. that's issue one. issue two, the way we've written this bill, we're making it extremely user friendly. it's piggybacked on the social security program. a small amount of money comes out of every worker's paycheck. an equal crecks from the worker themselves. it's about the cost of a cup of coffee a week. it's a small amount of money.

but if every worker provides this to have the flexibility at the moment you need it because your parents are aging or someone, god forbid, in your family is gravely ill. any worker, mel male or female, at any time, part-time or full-time, can take three nths, it's an earned benefit so it carried with you regardless of where you work. small businesses, 60% of small businesses say this is a great idea because it's not a program they have to run, it's automatic but they know they can keep their work force longer and their best workers because of this flexibility. >> again your agenda, universal pre-k, how would you achieve that? >> there are several bills being written right now but the one i'm working on, it would be a block grant to the state to say you must establish universal pre-k and should do it as part of the public school system. because education is generally handled by the state, to give the incentive to the states to get it done but make it part of the public school system so it's

not just for some children, it's for all children. and it becomes part of the normal curriculum. anyone who studied early childhood education an early childhood development knows those first few years are essential for a child to begin to learn about numbers, learn about letters, start reading before he or she get into kindergarten. if they don't have that early childhood education, it's hard to reach their full potential. >> the word you used was must. not providing states an incentive but requiring them to do so while providing resources. >> correct. >> why must? >> the goal of the bill, it's not mandatory, it's you will only receive this support if you do it but you must provide it to everyone. they can't pick and choose which kids are eligible. >> in the post-health care world, where half the states are refusing a 100% granten medicaid d you worry that allowing states would lead to blue

states do it and red states don't? >> this is an idea that doesn't seem partisan. we have some very significant republican leaders and philanthropists who have decided, if i'm going to leave a legacy on my country, it's going to be with early childhood education. there's already a narrative being developed within the conservative community that this is actually the best investment. i think it's something that can be -- can transcend parties and is mething that everybody ok with. >> what's the best way to do equal pay for equal work? >> the first bill president obama signed was the lilly ledbetter act, saying there was no statute of limitations. that's what happened to lilly ledbetter. she worked her whole career, didn't realize she was being

penalized, and when she tried to be compensated for it they said the statute of limitations had passed. what's still difficult, you're not proteched if you ask a male colleague, how much do you get paid? you can be fired for asking that question. what the fair pay bill that barbara mikulski is we incentivize employers to tell what you pay employees, you can't be penalized for asking about a salary, incentivizes people to publish what different industries are paying their workers so that you actually can figure out am i being paid fairly. it's illegal to be -- it's not illegal to be d -- it's already -- it's focused on transparency. >> i want to ask you about the chatchter in the report that notes that even the women in higher ed tend to clust for the majors that lead toward lower

paying jobs. the helping professions in many cases. this pipeline starts early. there's a report that of the approximately 30,000 high school students who took the a.p. computer science exam in 2013, only about 20% were women. is this cultural? can you get at this through law? are there other things you have to do to close the pay gaps an the choices people are making in their own careers? >> we have a goal of trying to incentivize more girls and minorities to go into stem subjects, science, engineer -- science, tech nelling, engineering and math this ebest way to do that is incentivize hands on learning. teaching a third grader to build a robot, teaching a fifth grader to build a robot. explaining to girls if you're the smartest girl in math an science you could help cure your grandma's cancer. inevitably and this is just anecdotal but when i go and see my son who is 5, when he was in his pre-k plass he would be

playing with trains and he'd be building the train tracks and trying to create transportation networks. his best friend sadie at the time was putting people along the tracks and telling stories about where the people were going on their journeys. that's not surprising because oftentimes women an girls focus on people,en relationships, on communities, on collaborative activities. it's almost how we're naturally wired more often than not. and boys more often than not are yeared to want to build, to build things that go fast, to build things that go high. that's what little boys do. and so it's not surprising that a lot of boys will go into math, science, engineering, because those are the tools they need to build. build all the things they dream of flying and riding and driving. so the goal for educators is to coach that young girl, you know, if you're really good at math, if you stick with math or science an engineering, you could figure out how to have

clean air, clean water for your community so your cousin's asthma is not as bad. a little girl will say, i would love to do that. because she can then put her mind around solving a problem about a community or person that she loves. and so that's all you have to do to a young girl. any time i go into manufacturing facilities around my state, i tour manufacturing all the time, usually it's about 70% male. i typically will go up to the women i see and say how did you get interested in engineering? they've always had a mentor. oh, my dad was an engineer, he encouraged me since i was young and i love it or they had a teacher, one teacher who picked them out and said you're really good at math or science and you should stick with it. you do have to make an effort because again we either are naturally wired are avoid it or our teachers don't move us in those directions but if you allow more women and minorities and encourage them to go into these careers it allows them to earn more money. eight out of nine of the fastest

growing industries require proficiency in stem. and so unless you get the young stuventes early, when they're in their younger years, to be interested in these topics and give our teachers incentives to do the hands on learning and to get the level of expertise to inspire the kids you're not going to reach your goal. it takes effort, it takes a community commitment and it takes a real education of our teachers to how do you bring out the best in all your students so they are equally as poised to go into higher paid professions. >> let's go to the audience for a few questions. right there, one right behind you. identify yourself. >> my name is stephanie, i'm representing the ywca national capital area. my full-time work, i work with students who overcome adversity and have financial need and provide scholarships to these students to go on and lead successful careers. my question is pertaining to what you were saying about starting the kids early and

getting girls interested in stem early and that's one of the things i have been disappointed about was like race to the top. i don't see that in there about starting kids early and that -- that pre-k through 5 of starting them to get interested in stem. that's not there. that science piece. and what is it that we can do more to encourage that at the -- at that level and working with our teachers to be able to teach that because they have all this -- all their effort is focused on testing. >> right. you're right. it's not in there. it should be in there. we should urge all our communities and states to focus on. i have a bill that would basically fund hands on early childhood education for k through 12 to get kids interested in stem and give awards and grants to schools that will incentivize the hands on learning to get the girls and minorities focused on the subject.

you can ensentiv schools, urge governors to make it part of their goals, i think the more you talk about it, the more the educational community will say, that's a great idea. let's do that. it's about amplifying your message and getting more senators and congresspeople to share that view and fund programs that do it best. >> a question over there. stand up. the microphone will find you. hold on one second. >> hi, my name is gloria brown marshall, i'm a professor but i have a nonprofit and we produced a report on the status of black women and girls. question deals with the povertyization of women. it's obvious that women could do all these things for the economy and for their families, do you think the fact that it's not happening may be to keep women dependent so that they will city dependent on men somehow, go back to that style of living that you talked about from the

1940's and 1950's that somebody is holding this hope out that, you know, they don't need to be as self-reliant as they are and should go back to the traditional home? that would be very shortsighted because women have a lot of offer. we are smart, we have great business ideas. we help companies perform better. a statistic i lowe, when at least one woman is on a company board, that company is 40% less likely to have to restate their earnings. in light of their financial collapse, i think every company should want women on their corporate boards. i think there's a recognition that women bring something unique to the workplace. we have a different, often times we have a different management style a different problem lving style, we see growth differently, and this combination of male and female

voices together is what creates much better policy, both better public policy from a government perspective and better policy from a corporate perspective. i think that for those who would like women not to participate in the workplace or not participate in our economy, it's undervaluing women and undervaluing what their contributions are and i think that's a mistake because again, why wouldn't you want all of your talent trying to move the u.s. economy forward? any clear thinking person would want that. i think we just have to keep advocating the reasons why women's voices matter so much, what we do bring to the table, why it's good for our economy, why it's good for our families and urge leaers to make sure we change the workplace rules to reflect who is doing the work. women are ding the work all across america. we should be supporting them. because still, we will take responsibility for 70% of child cair and household work in our home and so we do need that flexibility. we do need to be paid fairly.

we do need to make sure that our young children are wellocked -- looked after so we can do our job and stay on track in our careers. >> quick question here. >> hank wallace. to encourage those voices, senator, to sound more authoritative, what can you do to encourage a new generation to say instead of ask, to avoid talk but actually to say declarative statements without a question mark at the end of -- t the end of the sentence? >> the interesting thing about women is we often are collaborative in nature. we generally prefer to be well liked. we like people around us to be happy. and so women often -- what's wrong with you? >> it's what we do. we are happy people and we like

everyone to be happy around us. it's some skills we learn often as being mothers and daughters, we are the ones who feed everybody at the table, we are the ones that make sure our kids are happy and healthy. that's the kind of work we typically do. and so there's this issue of likeability. and so for a lot of young women, they want to be well liked. and so they may often feel insecure that if they're too aggressive, too pushy, or too declarative, they won't be well liked. i encourage the women that work for me to be aauthoritative, to state their opinions, to hold their ground and if they want to do it in a nice way, god bless them. i prefer to work in a nice way too. ut they have to know that they are responsible for their job, for their opinions, for what they have to do as i try to encourage young women who work for me to add that professional veneer. there's a certain standard of professionalism that is required for success in business in

general and so to meet those standards, you do have to be blessed like a young girl and more like a young aspiring woman or professional. just work at it. it's part of our nature and it's not a bad part of our nature, it's just part of our nature. sometimes you have to learn skills to excel in whatever profession you choose so for example, if you are a young lawyer and you're going in front of a judge, there's a certain way you're going to need to dress and speak and perform to be well received and you just need to know what those parameters are so if you want to be well received you can meet those ideals. and so it's a choice every young woman is going to make about how she wans to be and how she wants to be received. what's most important is to give women the tools they need and knowledge they need about how to be successful and they can make their own decisions. >> and a final question to get us out the door. when you think about the issues you are talking about here, what has more influence, party or

gender? when you talk about this agenda, do you feel you get more agreement from male democratic colleagues or female republican olleagues? [laughter] the fair answer is, it depends. there are many female republican colleagues who agree completely on this agenda, i get along very well and we do consensus building and bipartisan legislation. most of my male colleagues who are democrats fully agree with this agenda. some may hesitate. but that means there's room for growth. so i am eager to talk to them about those issues. thank you.t, [applause] > please welcome to the podium

-- >> hi. good afternoon. hi maim is sara j. aruman. my story is that my life changed dramatically on seventh, 2001. in my case there was a restaurant at the top of world trade center tower one called windows on the world. on that morning, 73 workers died and 250 workers lost their jobs and about 13,000 restaurant workers lost their jobs in the months and weeks following the tragedy. i was asked to start a relief center for those who lost their jobs an survivors after 9/11. roc, the restaurant opportunity center. it's grown into a national movement.

we have 13,000 restaurant workers in 32 cities across the country, about 100 employer partners who work with us, providing livable wages and good working conditions and several thousand consumer members. and we've grown so fast -- thank you. why have we grown so fast? we've grown so fast because this industry just continues to explode. the restaurant industry right now is the second largest private sector employer in the united states. one in 12 americans right now works in the restaurant industry. over 10 million workers and yet it happens to be the absolute lowest paying employer in the united states. every year the department of labor reports the 10 lowest paying jobs in america and every year the seven lowest paying job, seven of the 10 and the two absolute lowest paying jobs are the people who cook and serve our food. why? why? how is it you've got the largest and fastest growing industry proliferating the lowest paying jobs?

it's because of the national restaurant association which we call the other n.r.a. which back in 1996 under the leadership of a man named herman cain who you may remember tried to run for president. under the leadership of herman cain they struck a deal with congress where they said we, the other n.r.a., will not oppose an increase in the overall minimum wage as long as the minimum wage for tips workers stays frozen forever. so it's been frozen at $2.134 for the last 22 years. and who are tips workers? they are not the guy at the fancy fine dining restaurant on the corner of this building. 70% of tipped workers are women. they work at the ihop and the apple bees and the olive garden and red lobster and denny's. they suffer three times the poverty rate of the rest of the u.s. work force and u.s. food stamps at double the rate of the rest of the u.s. work force.

the women who put food on our table can't afford to put food on their own family's table. what else does it mean? it means when you live on a peage of $2.13 an hour your wages are so low they go entirely to taxes and you live entirely off our tips. when you live after your tips your rent and bills go up and down -- do not go up and down but your income shifts from day to day, week to week, year to year, month to month, based on the pleasure of a customer and whether you let, as a woman, that customer touch you or look at you in a certain way. you are entirely reliant on the mercy of those who pay your tips who pay your wages, which by the way, is not your employer. my dream, my dream is that no woman in america should have to live off the mercy of customers. no woman should live my dream is that no woman should have to live off of the mercy of

customers. you the customer should pay our wages. my dream is coming true. there is a bill in congress that would finally raise the wage for both tipped and non-tipped workers. there are a number of states and localities where we are moving to eliminate the the were minimum wage for tipped workers altogether. what does that mean for tipped workers? it is 50-50 male-female. tipped workers are 70% female. this is the only industry that has found a way to engage in legal gender discrimination. making this dream and reality means many things -- a reality means many things. it means women lifted out of poverty.