How I became a feminist at the age of five | Mercedes Erra | TEDxHECParis

Mercedes Erra, a businesswoman, is the founder of BETC and the Executive President of Havas Worldwide. Also a co-founder of the Women's Forum for the Economy and Society, she speaks of her becoming aware of gender inequality at age five, a turning point in her life. Her talk outlines the importance of women in the business world and the possibility for each person to choose his or her life.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

So, hello!
The teleprompter is there...

It's unmanageable for me,
I don't know how to watch my time.

But there it is.
I'm happy to be here.

I just arrived from Deauville,
from the Women's Forum.

I go every year, because I think

there aren't a lot of places where
you see lots of women together.

In my line of work,
I see lots of men together

and so that does me good.

I was asked to reflect
on a "turning point" in my life,

and I tried to think, since very often,
I'm asked questions like,

"So, how did you get there?"

I don't know where, but at any rate,
I'm still asked how I got there.

"What's your secret?
Why did you think to do this and that?"

First, to do what, I don't really know,
but what that means is,

to allow your ambition to unfold,
things that we mostly use for boys.

For girls, ambition is always
something a little more complex,

because for girls,
ambition is, first of all,

to succeed in their personal life and
professional life at the same time

and that isn't something
from the olden days, that's today.

Here's an anecdote:

The other day, I was at Sciences-Po
[Paris Institute of Political Studies]

And I speak about the little things
like that in my life.

My life seems to interest them,

so if there's a problem,
we'll talk about it.

But generally, I give a little talk,
and then the conference president,

a remarkable young woman,
who was just telling me that

besides Sciences-Po
and the École Normale Supérieure,

she'd studied at the Paris Conservatory,
and was an excellent actress -

so I really didn't see
where the problem was - told me,

"It's wonderful - when I listen to you,
I think that maybe I'll make it."

And then I thought,

"Brilliant! How can she imagine
that she's not going to make it?"

Well, because in women's heads,
it's still complicated:

how can we succeed in both
our professional and...

our own, private lives?

And how all that's a little contradictory;
we ask these questions again and again.

Anyway, I was explaining that recently
I hold a conference at the office,

believing that I was helping the office.

We had a great idea; I thought,

"We'll do two weeks on balancing
professional and private lives."

Wonderful idea - everyone
got to work; everyone loved it.

I opened the conference,
and in the hall, I suddenly noticed

that only girls were there, and I said:

"Why aren't there any boys here?"

And they said,

"Well, they don't have problems balancing
their private and professional lives."

I said, "How about that!"

And there, we begin to understand
that there may be an issue.

Maybe there are still problems,
and we shouldn't lose our temper.

For years this has been the situation,
for thousands of years.

So we're not going to change
all that in just one day.

But fortunately it's changing very quickly
for me, and tonight I thought,

"Since they've asked me
for a turning point,

I'd like to pay tribute to someone
who is very important in my life."

So that's me. I was cute, anyway.

That was at age 5, the turning point.
That's my brother beside me.

You see, I was already managing
boys pretty well,

and then, immediately after,
you'll see my mom.

Wonderful mom!

And I think I owe a lot to my mom,

and I owe a lot to that woman, who was
beautiful, but above all very odd.

And I was raised in a funny way.

What does that mean,
to be raised in a funny way?

My mom was born in Spain,
and my dad was born in Spain.

And they only had one view of the world:
that men "worked", they said,

and that women didn't at all,
they were at home.

So my mom was home, and my dad worked.

And none of that was questioned at all.

To be a woman in the home
was not questioned at all.

It was normal, it was history, etc.

I think that it was lucky for me that
my mom was a failed stay-at-home wife.

And that failed stay-at-home wife
never stopped commenting on her life.

Without cease, without cease,
she talked about her everyday life.

And I was a little girl,
and we were immigrants.

We had arrived in France;
we didn't have much cash.

So my mom did lots of things at home.

She cooked, she fetched coal,
she took care of children, etc.

What they called "doing nothing"!

Dad was normal; he got up in the morning,
he got ready, then he went off to work.

To work!

And I was a little girl who listened and
watched, and I had the opposite feeling.

I felt that it was my mother
who was slaving away.

And besides, she felt the same way,
as she ceaselessly said to me,

"Well, it's certainly not much fun.
No one cares what I do."

You have already heard moms say that.

"No one cares what I do.
I bring order; they bring disorder.

How annoying it is to make food
three times a day!"

Because it's not fun; it's repetitive.
And it was constantly like that.

At that time, when you were at home,
you had no maternity leave.

So my pretty mom worked
right up to the night before her labor.

She fetched her coal, her children, etc.

And afterwards, she came home quickly,
and then the business was settled.

So that today, it hurts me a little
when someone says to me:

"Oh, maternity leave, just so-so,
and I couldn't stay till the end,

even if I had nothing to do
but think, and that's not at all tiring.

Anyway, it doesn't affect
the abdomen at all.

Thinking doesn't help deliver a baby."

It was rather a hard life, and
she wanted something a bit different.

So she didn't find it amusing.
She told me some very strange things.

At the time, I went to the canteen,

and everyone thought that the canteen
was absolutely disgusting, to be honest.

Well I thought it was good!

Because my mom disliked cooking
so much that it was average.

The worst was the day that she told me:

"It's too bad that I can't go
to the canteen with you."

I was the only little girl who dreamed
of going to the canteen with her mom.

So I think that really,
she had had enough of that!

Then my dad came home in the evening.
Frankly, later and later.

There were four of us children.

He came home at night and said:

"I'm tired! I don't want to go out again!"

And I saw my mother thinking,

"Great; I've been home all day,
from morning till night;

the days are all the same,
and I never go out."

Now when you don't go
out, what happens?

Well, in the morning, there's no reason
to take care of your appearance,

because in any case,
it's just to keep the house.

And my dad grew more and more handsome,

and mom, who was rather pretty,
took less care of herself.

It was obvious to me.

I thought that my mom
was very intelligent.

I didn't understand why
she was being held back.

And why she was made to do the real work.

And I thought my dad must have
a lot of fun outside the house.

And that simple idea gave me wings.

One thing I thought of right away was
that I wasn't going to settle for that.

And I wasn't going to do the real work.
I was going to have fun, like my father.

I was going to find a means to work
a little less like that, like my mother.

I, too, would be able to go out
in the morning, nicely dressed.

I, too, would have the feeling
that I was doing great things.

I, too, would receive money;
I'd never hear my dad say, now and then:

"Who earns the money?"

And those are things
that you have also heard.

"Who earns the money?"
That simplified my life forever.

When I finished school, I never thought

that there was a problem balancing
professional and private life.

I thought that we had to enjoy life,
to have fun, to work, to earn money.

I thought that it was normal.

I thought that if my mom
had had that opportunity,

she was already wonderful, but she'd be
even more so, and certainly more radiant.

I thought all of that,
and that gave me wings.

And when I had the good fortune
to receive the Legion of Honor,

I just said that when we reverse
life roles, and we believe that the one...

that we think of as "really" working,
that we understand that in fact,

everyone in the world works...
we have to calm down!

The big bosses: calm down!

They don't have such an exhausting life.

I can promise you that, because I live it!

I think we're a little excessive, that
we don't realize who's really working...

We must be much more generous
with the word "work".

Women have always worked hard. Very hard!

Today, they work three hours more,
on average, in France,

but I think that if we calculated it
in other countries,

we'd get equivalent numbers.

They work three hours more
per day... in France!

Because when they come home from work
that's not it, they start working again.

And that's often the most exhausting part.

And why do they do it?
Because this independence is magical.

And this work outside the home is magical,
even when it's not as high-status as mine.

Not everyone has my good fortune,

whether they have had less education,
and therefore they do part-time, etc.

Even so, they prefer it.

These women who have worked so hard.

I'd like now just to give you
a global view of them.

70% of the work of humanity
is done by women.

They possess, they receive
10% of the remuneration

and they own 1% of the property.

In other places, we'd call that slavery,

when someone works and
receives nothing, and that's normal.

But 70%, 66%... I was stunned.

That means that in Asia, in Africa,
if you look at women

you're looking at those
who get the job done.

When you have that in your head,

you see the world a bit differently,
and you think, okay,

we're in a bit of a complex situation,
somewhat inherited,

and that won't be easy to change.

And that therefore, together,
we'll make it change.

We'll all make it change.

In this situation
of private vs. professional life,

we have to manage to do two things.

To stop putting this problem
into women's heads;

you need to calm down.

Your children won't come out better
because you stop working.

We know very well that...
children are very complicated.

There are some who work,
and who have problems,

and there are those who don't work,
and who have problems.

And all this is not related to it.

If you are well, they come out better
than if you're not well.

It's not the only solution, as children
are complicated, but that's it.

So we have to manage to remove
that from women's heads.

And we have to get it a little
into men's heads that

when you have children, you need
to take care of them, really, concretely,

and that there aren't two kinds of people:

those who do the dirty jobs
and those who do the good ones.

And when I say this to you,
I'm coming back to something.

Do you realize that, in France,

when we ask boys what they do at home,
well they've hardly changed at all.

They put in about 18 minutes more
than twenty years ago, overall.

I know that all of you
work hard in the house.

But overall, that's it,
and when we ask them

if there are things that
they'd never do, they say:

"Oh yes, totally disgusting things that
we'd never do, like changing the sheets!"

What? Are they sick?

Like doing laundry?
That's pretty astonishing!

There's not a world where
some people do disgusting things,

and some people don't do
disgusting things.

There's a world where we share
the fine things that others take care of,

and that as soon as we put in
a little bit of respect,

we're no longer speaking
of dignified jobs and undignified jobs.

All work, and this is
one of the world's problems,

all work deserves great respect.

And when I say that, I think that
we must succeed, and it's also...

It's not only on the boys' side
that an effort has to be made,

but also on the girls' side!

I also have to tell you that the fact
that the man is the father

is also in our heads!

If we keep on saying that
they don't know how to do it -

okay, I know that they have
some handicaps, but there is a limit -

generally, they must know how to do it.

There's no special solemnity,
no special... way to be.

It's just: we are willing to do it,
or we aren't willing to do it.

But as men and women,
we have to modify things to get there.

And why do I want to get there?

Because I think that equality
is a fantastic thing.

And I think that women today aren't
completely comfortable with themselves

while they have these doubts,
without interruption.

Can I succeed in everything?

Do you realize that girls doing
incredible studies ask me:

"Can I have children?"

Of course you can have children,
that goes pretty fast.

That's not automatically a problem.

Afterwards, you see, you organize,
the world becomes organized...

The world becomes organized,
and the business must get organized.

There's no reason not to deal
with the issue of children for everyone.

Do you know that in countries
where they give girls advantages

that they have not given to boys,
because they happened not to ask for them,

and they gave them only to girls,

for example, they lengthened
maternity leave again and again,

they have increased the problem

of salary disparity, and company rank,
between girls and boys.

So there's a simple rule:
we must give great things like that,

allowing time to be with the children,
to the mom and the dad.

And as we're in a big transition period,
we have to push a little.

That's why paternal leave,
in certain countries,

is lost if the dad doesn't take it!

And suddenly, they're taking it!

So then, let's come to...
finding simple, effective systems

to change a world that has endured
for a long, long time.

And when we have changed this world,
what are we going to get?

Why is this interesting?
Why does this seem so interesting to me?

I believe that a more balanced world,
that would allow human beings

not to think that there is a barrier
between the internal and the external,

between our family life, family business,
and our business outside the home,

would be a world that was
more respectful and less crazy.

Don't you think that would be good
for the very big bosses,

who give us lessons from on high,
and who have never understood

what was happening at the concrete level,
the simple, the daily, the human level,

and who make a whole drama,
as if they were the kings of the world?

There are no kings or queens of the world.
There are just people!

And I think that the fact
of having that balance

would make us more effective at our jobs,
and would get better results for everyone.

So I believe in it!

I believe in this magic
of recovered balance.

We're far from it yet.

I have had good fortune, and I'd like
to be able to pass that luck on to you.

It was Christine Lagarde, who was asked
to speak at the Women's Forum, who said:

"Listen up, girls; I'm going
to tell you something.

It's really good to work.

I work because it's good,
it's fun, it's interesting.

Do you realize that,
piled with diplomas as we are,

we have one piece of luck -
that of being able to choose our life.

And should we be complaining
that we don't have the opportunities

to go where we want to go?

Because we think that we won't be able
to manage both things?

Children today: we've never been
so wrapped up in them!

They have no fewer problems than before.

We must take care of them;
that means devoting some quality time.

But it means nothing else!

Remember our upbringing:

me, mine, my parents,
even with my mother at home,

she was not more trained to take such care
of children than I am today.

Because in the ideology, we weren't
so completely occupied with that.

So there you have it, I wanted
to explain to you why, at the age of five,

I became a feminist,
albeit a friendly one,

who believes that the day
we arrive at equality,

it will be a joy for women,
but especially for men.

Thank you.
(Applause)