tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. tonight, a conversation with the chair and president and editor in chief of the huffington post, are arianna huffington, on the status of women around the globe. march is women's history month. despite enormous social and economic gains, women in many countries struggle to have access to education and the rights in this country. the debate over women in the workplace is once again making headlines. we are glad you could join us for a conversation with the always provocative mariana huffington, coming at you right now. >> there is a saying that dr. king had that said there is always the right time to do the right thing. i just try to live my life every day by doing the right thing. we know that we are only halfway to completely eliminate hunger, and we have a lot of work to do.

walmart committed $2 billion to fighting hunger in the u.s. as we work together, we can stamp hunger out. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. tavis: march is women's history month and many places around the world, women struggle, lacking from major's human-rights. and this country, women battling with whether equal opportunity

results in equal representation. the feminine mystique, gender parity of feminism, the debate is as hot today as it was years ago. enter our arianna huffington, chairman, president, and editor in chief of the huffington post. good to see you on the west coast. >> great to be in the same room with you. tavis: it is always better when you are here. since i last saw you, this debate about women in the workplace has completely caught fire. i want to start in an unorthodox place. does the fact that women and girls around the world fighting for basic human rights and access to education, to live without violence, rape, the fact that they are having those debates while we are having these sheryl sandberg, anne- marie slaughter kind of debates, the that make america peculiar

or petty? >> i think we are dealing with different challenges. the challenges of women facing violence and rape, not being able to have a job or a basic human rights protected is a huge primary battle that affects all women. but the battle that we are facing here is really the battle of redefining what success is. it goes beyond winter if it affects men, the workplace, our world in general. look at where we are. we have a health care system that is unsustainable. partly because 75% of all of these costs are for chronic preventable diseases. they are because of the way we live. so many of them based on our lives becoming so stressed that success is equated with working

around-the-clock, burning out, and paying the price of a heart attack in your 50's in order to get a corner office. a lot of women are saying, that is not the world in which i want to succeed. women are not just saying, i want complete equality, which is absolutely necessary, they are also saying, i want to change this world. that is the debate i find most interesting. sheryl sandberg's book is very important. women need to learn to lean back, recharge, renew ourselves. otherwise, this life is not sustainable, either at the individual or collective level. tavis: there are a lot of women who wanted the sheryl sandberg, a lot of people have entered into this rat race of corporate america and they want to escalate to the top. god bless them if that is what they want to do with their lives.

is sheryl sandberg the kind of woman to advance a conversation about the role of women in america? >> the issue that she raises in her book are absolutely key. whether they are struggling to find a job or putting food on a table, or if they are running a big, multinational corporation. her point is that there are institutional barriers to success, but there are also personal, individual barriers to success, the voices in our heads that tell us we are not good enough. these are the voices that she is addressing in her book. she asks women to ask that question, what would i do if i was not afraid? a lot of the time, it is our own fears that stop us from fulfilling our dreams, from achieving what we want. it is not that we are able to do without fear. fear is part of human nature. the question is, can we pursue

our dreams even while we are afraid? that is a very important question to ask. she shared these great statistics. for example, if you look at a job opening, men will apply for the job even if they only meet 60% of the requirements. women have to meet 100% of the requirements before they apply for a job. we have to change that. we need to find confidence in ourselves to take risks, be willing to fail. that is another problem. women do not like to fail. everybody who has succeeded, including you, has failed along the way. women need to be willing to fail, get up one more tom, -- one more time, try again and succeed. that is a part of the debate that is incredibly important. sheryl sandberg has done a great job of addressing these issues. tavis: what came first, the

chicken or the egg? were women holding themselves back, were they at first not assertive enough or did the system beat them down and make them feel like they could not play on a level playing field? is it structural, institutional, or is it inside women's heads? i am not sure i buy it that it is just inside their heads. >> nobody is saying this is just inside women's heads. obviously, there have been historical, a huge institutional barriers and they still exist. we still have certain words which, when applied to men, mean something positive and when applied to women mean something negative. even the word ambitious. that is the kind of guy i want my daughter to marry. if you say i am ambitious, it means she is driven, you do not

want to stand in her wake. it is a very different connotation. institutional barriers are very real. we see them in corporate america and the fact that women still are not paid equally with men. but the voices inside our heads are also real. we need to address both at once. tavis: what has been your read? some people have taken a nuanced view of this and made the point that they are not necessarily on opposite sides of this debate, anne-marie slaughter and sheryl sandberg, but since their names have been at the forefront, you know that anne-marie slaughter wrote the review of sheryl sandberg's book, which i thought was fascinating. the whole conversation, which i find somewhat silly based on the question, where do you come down on the notion about whether or not women can have it all?

>> i think women can have it all if they are ruthless at prioritization. if they are determined to put their own human capital first. women are very bad at taking care of themselves. i really believe that you have to take care of yourself before you can take care of others. otherwise, you are operating from luck. you need to be able to nurture a yourself in order to be a good mother, be your that your job, good at servicing your community. i believe women can do it all. they can do it all at the expense of their health, their sleep, and the expense of their well-being. the biggest debate that interests me, can we find success beyond the metrics of money and power? you know a lot of rich, powerful

people who are incredibly miserable, not healthy in many fundamental ways, body and soul. that is not success. women have an opportunity to lead society in really finding success. we are putting on a conference on june 6, 3 defining success. we are calling it "the third metric." what is the third metric beyond money and power? it is a combination between well-being and wisdom. the problem with defining success in terms of money and power means that people feel they have to work around-the- clock, burned out, and the result is people making terrible decisions. just look around you. leaders, politics, media, greatess with high iq's, degrees, making terrible decisions. we see what is happening in washington, in the financial world that led to the crisis of

2008. that is not because people are stupid. it is because they were not wise. they did not tap into their own better judgment about what had begun. if you read steve jobs' biography, if you read about bill gates' life, they were very aware of the need to renew themselves. jobs told walter isaacson and that the best idea that he had that led to an iconic apple product came when he was engaged in meditation. not when he was plowing through another sleep-deprived night. tavis: this might come out of it in politics, but let me speak my own truth from my own upbringing. i have known you for a long time. before the post took off, while you were busy, because i know your daughters, you spend the time it took to get them where they are, in yale, out of yale,

etc. i wonder whether what is being sacrificed here are the babies, the children. an old african proverb says that when the elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. when the women are fighting over what these issues are, whether we can have it all, i wonder whether it is the grass that suffers. i realize that not every woman has a child. but as a man, i think about my mother. we have had these conversations about some of these issues. i cannot imagine what my life would have been like if i did not have the access to my mother. everybody cannot play the role that my mother played or be mariana huffington. i wonder if the children of this debate are getting lost in conversation. no matter where you come down on

this, if you are spending less time at home, less time with your children, if you do not have that mayer nursery next to your office, i wonder what happens to these children. if women carry -- if women care about anything, they care about their babies. what happens to the conversation as women are trying to figure this out? >> i had a similar mother who was completely devoted to her daughters. i cannot imagine what my life would have been without not just her presence, but her unconditional loving. at the same time, i feel that right now, women like the women i know. i know sheryl very well, anne- marie less well, but i know their children is a top priority. they have both been able to engage the fathers. the fathers are incredibly important and involved. we need to go beyond the idea that only the mothers are

responsible for bringing up the children. also, i have a feeling, i know it is true with me, that when they take the baby out, they put the guilt in. working mothers are perpetually guilty. i was always feeling i am not measuring up to my mother. i am not as good because i am not always at home. it is a matter of how do you prior ties. even now, when my daughters are 21 and 23, everybody who works with me knows that if my phone rings and it is one of my daughters, i will take that call, even if i am in the middle of a board meeting or whenever it is. they always have the sense that they are number one. that is what children need to know. no matter what happens, how busy you are, they are the most important part of your life. tavis: how much of this conversation is convoluted by the fact that, so often, it is men who are driving these conversations?

i am very spiritual, feel very good about this time around, that this conversation seems to be led by women. that has not always been the case. a bunch of males get a chance to ask the questions and raise the issues. how much of that reality has complicated this conversation heretofore? >> it has complicated the conversation. there is something different going on now. there is something in the zeitgeist, to use that un-tr anslatable german word, that makes women and men want to engage in the conversation of how do we reinvent the workplace. what has happened right now is, with new technologies, because we can work from anywhere, it seems that we are expected to work everywhere.

tavis: not at yahoo! >> the problem is, when do we disconnect? we are paying a price because we are all hyper connected. we need to learn to disconnect and reconnect with ourselves. when sheryl gave her speech about leaning in at the women's conference, i followed her speech with a speech entitled "sleep your way to the top, literally." one of the problems is that we are perpetually sleep-deprived. we are not making the best decisions and making the best choices. the best news is that corporate america is getting the message. 25% of companies have introduced some element of de- stressing, meditation, yoga in

the workplace. i am not just talking about silicon valley, i am talking about general mills, aetna, target. this year, in davos, at the world economic forum, there were all of these sessions about-and bringing the qualities of leadership to the forefront. that involves knowing how to renew yourself. tavis: how are the issues regard to paid leave for women and men when babies are born? >> they are much more liberal about paid leave. that -- they realize that that is the way to pay the best talent. retention is one of the biggest battles we are facing. people are becoming less attached to a particular company or employer. when they do not really care for someone as a human being, not just as a machine producing stuff, you are going to be able to repay employees at a much

higher rate. tavis: patriarchy is real. male privilege israel. sometimes, even with that being the case, we miss the mark when it comes to certain issues. i was fascinated to read a variety of pieces about the decision by ms. mayer at yahoo!, that all the employees had to report back to the company headquarters. there were women's pieces i've read who cautioned her, took one approach to what that meant for women in the workplace. another person took the opposite point of view, which is this is a business decision. it is not a women's issue. she wants all hands on deck. how did you read that decision? it got laid out in this decision about women in the workplace. >> i think it was really trampled on, in a way it. the question of when do we stop

being available for work. the problem right now is that there are people who are expected to be available, large majorities of people, around the clock. people in the financial sector especially who are expected to be on e-mail at 11:00, 12:00 at night. that is what have to stop. i told everybody that if i send e-mails out after hours over the weekend, it is because i am getting something off my to-do list. you are not expected to answer. managers need to get that message out. if it is urging, we will find you. otherwise, you need to live your own life, have time to recharge yourself and return to work able to be effective. and productive, not exhausted and completely drained. these are decisions that we all have to make an address together. tavis: i know that part of this answer as a party been given,

but this is asking more directly. how has been the ceo of this made her burgeoning social media empire, how has that changed your views about women in the workplace? >> that is one of the first thing i did when we moved into our offices after i bought the huffington post, was to create 2 nap rooms where people can take a nap if they are tired in the middle of the afternoon. the symbolic message was, we care for you. you matter. if you are tired, go have a nap. come back recharged. with healthy snacks everywhere. everybody knows that if they have a problem, they can talk to their colleagues, managers. creating a culture of caring and nurturing is something that is

incredibly important. i do not know whether that made it more likely to happen, but empathy, nurturing, compassion, our world needs more and more. women need to lead that way. we do not want women to lead the same way that men have a lead through the centuries. it has not exactly worked. tavis: i think we have a couple of snacks around here, but taking a nap on a tv show does not work. we have got to get on air. >> come on, guys. i'm going to organize you. you demand nap rooms. stay with me. we will make tavis take a nap, too. tavis: i need one. what is your sense about whether some parts of these conversations about women in the workplace, that this is retrograde. is this territory we have

covered before? it feels like some of the issues on choice and other issues, we had these debates years ago. is it just me or are we back to where we were on some of these debates? >> there is one thing that is new and one thing we are not talking enough about. the thing we are not talking enough about is that there are no choices. there are 25 million people in this country who are unemployed or underemployed. we need to remember that all the time. in a sense, what i'm saying is that one of the reasons why we have made so many bad decisions and continue to make them is because we have leaders who are disconnected from their own wisdom. i believe that profoundly. if we can look at leadership differently, if we can look at leadership in a way that is more mindful, has more heart and soul

in it, we will make better decisions for the millions of women left out of this debate because they need to go to the food bank to bring food for their children or if their husband does not have a job, they need to take any job at all in order to feed the family. these are incredibly important considerations and they do indicate a failure of leadership. this is something which would have been avoidable if we had better leadership. tavis: i ask this with caution because the whole notion of what electing barack obama would mean for black people was a question that was overrated five years ago. that is a conversation for another time. if hillary clinton were to run and win the next time around, how do you think that one major but signature statement would impact the psyches of women in

our society? >> i recall when hillary clinton resigned. when she fainted and had a concussion, my heart went out for her. five years ago, you remember that i fainted and hit my head on my desk. i broke my cheek bone, bandages on my right eye. whenever a woman drives herself in to that kind of exhaustion, and i feel that we are allowing ourselves to pursue the main measure of success, when hillary clinton was asked what she was going to do when she resigned, she said she wanted to be untired. she wanted to sleep in. i hope she can be a role model for how to do success differently. that would be a huge message to women everywhere. tavis: it is ok to you that

success for men and women looks different? >> i am saying that women have to redefine success for women and men. men need redefinition as much as women. i do not seamen redefining it. women are more likely to redefine it. we will still be outsiders. we are really still more aware of the need to close that gap between how we live our personal lives and how we perform at work. tavis: i was not being smart -- i was not being snarky when i said that. i love you very good to have you on the program. that is our show tonight. thanks for tuning in. as always, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for a conversation with snoop dogg, now snoop lion, about how he has remade his life.

>> there is a saying that dr. king had that said there is always the right time to do the right thing. i just try to live my life every day by doing the right thing. we know that we are only halfway to completely eliminate hunger, and we have a lot of work to do. walmart committed $2 billion to fighting hunger in the u.s. as we work together, we can stamp hunger out. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> be more. >> be more. pbs. pbs.