WEBVTT 00:00:01.000 --> 00:00:03.000 Salaam. Namaskar. 00:00:03.000 --> 00:00:05.000 Good morning. 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:07.000 Given my TED profile, you might be expecting 00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:09.000 that I'm going to speak to you about 00:00:09.000 --> 00:00:11.000 the latest philanthropic trends -- 00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:13.000 the one that's currently got Wall Street 00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:15.000 and the World Bank buzzing -- 00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:17.000 how to invest in women, 00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:20.000 how to empower them, how to save them. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:22.000 Not me. 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:24.000 I am interested in how women 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:26.000 are saving us. 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:29.000 They're saving us by redefining and re-imagining 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:32.000 a future that defies and blurs 00:00:32.000 --> 00:00:34.000 accepted polarities, 00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:37.000 polarities we've taken for granted for a long time, 00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:40.000 like the ones between modernity and tradition, 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:43.000 First World and Third World, 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:45.000 oppression and opportunity. 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:47.000 In the midst of the daunting challenges 00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:49.000 we face as a global community, 00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:51.000 there's something about 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:53.000 this third way raga 00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:55.000 that is making my heart sing. 00:00:55.000 --> 00:00:57.000 What intrigues me most 00:00:57.000 --> 00:00:59.000 is how women are doing this, 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:01.000 despite a set of paradoxes 00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:04.000 that are both frustrating and fascinating. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:07.000 Why is it that women are, on the one hand, 00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:10.000 viciously oppressed by cultural practices, 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:12.000 and yet at the same time, 00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:15.000 are the preservers of cultures in most societies? 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:17.000 Is the hijab or the headscarf 00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:19.000 a symbol of submission 00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:21.000 or resistance? 00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:24.000 When so many women and girls 00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:26.000 are beaten, raped, maimed 00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:28.000 on a daily basis 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:30.000 in the name of all kinds of causes -- 00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:32.000 honor, religion, nationality -- 00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:35.000 what allows women to replant trees, 00:01:35.000 --> 00:01:37.000 to rebuild societies, 00:01:37.000 --> 00:01:39.000 to lead radical, non-violent movements 00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:41.000 for social change? 00:01:41.000 --> 00:01:43.000 Is it different women 00:01:43.000 --> 00:01:46.000 who are doing the preserving and the radicalizing? 00:01:46.000 --> 00:01:48.000 Or are they one and the same? 00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:51.000 Are we guilty, as Chimamanda Adichie reminded us 00:01:51.000 --> 00:01:53.000 at the TED conference in Oxford, 00:01:53.000 --> 00:01:56.000 of assuming that there is a single story 00:01:56.000 --> 00:01:58.000 of women's struggles for their rights 00:01:58.000 --> 00:02:00.000 while there are, in fact, many? 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:02.000 And what, if anything, 00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:04.000 do men have to do with it? NOTE Paragraph 00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:06.000 Much of my life has been a quest 00:02:06.000 --> 00:02:09.000 to get some answers to these questions. 00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:11.000 It's taken me across the globe 00:02:11.000 --> 00:02:13.000 and introduced me to some amazing people. 00:02:13.000 --> 00:02:16.000 In the process, I've gathered a few fragments 00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:19.000 that help me shed some light on this puzzle. 00:02:19.000 --> 00:02:21.000 Among those who've helped open my eyes 00:02:21.000 --> 00:02:23.000 to a third way 00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:26.000 are: a devout Muslim in Afghanistan, 00:02:26.000 --> 00:02:29.000 a group of harmonizing lesbians in Croatia 00:02:29.000 --> 00:02:32.000 and a taboo breaker in Liberia. 00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:34.000 I'm indebted to them, 00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:36.000 as I am to my parents, 00:02:36.000 --> 00:02:39.000 who for some set of misdemeanors in their last life, 00:02:39.000 --> 00:02:42.000 were blessed with three daughters in this one. 00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:44.000 And for reasons equally unclear to me, 00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:47.000 seem to be inordinately proud of the three of us. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:50.000 I was born and raised here in India, 00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:52.000 and I learned from an early age 00:02:52.000 --> 00:02:55.000 to be deeply suspicious of the aunties and uncles 00:02:55.000 --> 00:02:57.000 who would bend down, pat us on the head 00:02:57.000 --> 00:02:59.000 and then say to my parents 00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:01.000 with no problem at all, 00:03:01.000 --> 00:03:04.000 "Poor things. You only have three daughters. 00:03:04.000 --> 00:03:07.000 But you're young, you could still try again." 00:03:07.000 --> 00:03:09.000 My sense of outrage 00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:11.000 about women's rights 00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:15.000 was brought to a boil when I was about 11. 00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:17.000 My aunt, an incredibly articulate 00:03:17.000 --> 00:03:19.000 and brilliant woman, 00:03:19.000 --> 00:03:22.000 was widowed early. 00:03:22.000 --> 00:03:25.000 A flock of relatives descended on her. 00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:27.000 They took off her colorful sari. 00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:30.000 They made her wear a white one. 00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:33.000 They wiped her bindi off her forehead. 00:03:33.000 --> 00:03:35.000 They broke her bangles. 00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:37.000 Her daughter, Rani, 00:03:37.000 --> 00:03:39.000 a few years older than me, 00:03:39.000 --> 00:03:41.000 sat in her lap bewildered, 00:03:41.000 --> 00:03:43.000 not knowing what had happened 00:03:43.000 --> 00:03:45.000 to the confident woman 00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:47.000 she once knew as her mother. 00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:49.000 Late that night, I heard my mother 00:03:49.000 --> 00:03:51.000 begging my father, 00:03:51.000 --> 00:03:54.000 "Please do something Ramu. Can't you intervene?" 00:03:54.000 --> 00:03:57.000 And my father, in a low voice, muttering, 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:01.000 "I'm just the youngest brother, there's nothing I can do. 00:04:01.000 --> 00:04:03.000 This is tradition." 00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:05.000 That's the night I learned the rules 00:04:05.000 --> 00:04:08.000 about what it means to be female in this world. 00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:11.000 Women don't make those rules, 00:04:11.000 --> 00:04:13.000 but they define us, and they define 00:04:13.000 --> 00:04:15.000 our opportunities and our chances. 00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:18.000 And men are affected by those rules too. 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:21.000 My father, who had fought in three wars, 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:24.000 could not save his own sister 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:26.000 from this suffering. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:32.000 By 18, 00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:34.000 under the excellent tutelage of my mother, 00:04:34.000 --> 00:04:36.000 I was therefore, as you might expect, 00:04:36.000 --> 00:04:38.000 defiantly feminist. 00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:40.000 On the streets chanting, 00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:42.000 "[Hindi] 00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:44.000 [Hindi] 00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:47.000 We are the women of India. 00:04:47.000 --> 00:04:49.000 We are not flowers, we are sparks of change." 00:04:49.000 --> 00:04:52.000 By the time I got to Beijing in 1995, 00:04:52.000 --> 00:04:54.000 it was clear to me, the only way 00:04:54.000 --> 00:04:56.000 to achieve gender equality 00:04:56.000 --> 00:04:58.000 was to overturn centuries 00:04:58.000 --> 00:05:00.000 of oppressive tradition. 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:02.000 Soon after I returned from Beijing, 00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:05.000 I leapt at the chance to work for this wonderful organization, 00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:07.000 founded by women, 00:05:07.000 --> 00:05:10.000 to support women's rights organizations around the globe. 00:05:12.000 --> 00:05:14.000 But barely six months into my new job, 00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:16.000 I met a woman 00:05:16.000 --> 00:05:19.000 who forced me to challenge all my assumptions. 00:05:19.000 --> 00:05:21.000 Her name is Sakena Yacoobi. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:23.000 --> 00:05:25.000 She walked into my office 00:05:25.000 --> 00:05:27.000 at a time when no one knew 00:05:27.000 --> 00:05:30.000 where Afghanistan was in the United States. 00:05:32.000 --> 00:05:35.000 She said to me, "It is not about the burka." 00:05:35.000 --> 00:05:37.000 She was the most determined advocate 00:05:37.000 --> 00:05:39.000 for women's rights I had ever heard. 00:05:39.000 --> 00:05:42.000 She told me women were running underground schools 00:05:42.000 --> 00:05:45.000 in her communities inside Afghanistan, 00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:47.000 and that her organization, the Afghan Institute of Learning, 00:05:47.000 --> 00:05:50.000 had started a school in Pakistan. 00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:53.000 She said, "The first thing anyone who is a Muslim knows 00:05:54.000 --> 00:05:57.000 is that the Koran requires 00:05:57.000 --> 00:06:00.000 and strongly supports literacy. 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:02.000 The prophet wanted every believer 00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:04.000 to be able to read the Koran for themselves." 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:06.000 Had I heard right? 00:06:06.000 --> 00:06:08.000 Was a women's rights advocate 00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:11.000 invoking religion? 00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:13.000 But Sakena defies labels. 00:06:13.000 --> 00:06:16.000 She always wears a headscarf, 00:06:16.000 --> 00:06:18.000 but I've walked alongside with her on a beach 00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:21.000 with her long hair flying in the breeze. 00:06:21.000 --> 00:06:23.000 She starts every lecture with a prayer, 00:06:23.000 --> 00:06:26.000 but she's a single, feisty, 00:06:26.000 --> 00:06:28.000 financially independent woman 00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:31.000 in a country where girls are married off at the age of 12. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:31.000 --> 00:06:34.000 She is also immensely pragmatic. 00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:38.000 "This headscarf and these clothes," she says, 00:06:38.000 --> 00:06:41.000 "give me the freedom to do what I need to do 00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:43.000 to speak to those whose support and assistance 00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:46.000 are critical for this work. 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:48.000 When I had to open the school in the refugee camp, 00:06:48.000 --> 00:06:50.000 I went to see the imam. 00:06:50.000 --> 00:06:53.000 I told him, 'I'm a believer, and women and children 00:06:53.000 --> 00:06:55.000 in these terrible conditions 00:06:55.000 --> 00:06:58.000 need their faith to survive.'" 00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:00.000 She smiles slyly. 00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:02.000 "He was flattered. 00:07:02.000 --> 00:07:05.000 He began to come twice a week to my center 00:07:05.000 --> 00:07:07.000 because women could not go to the mosque. 00:07:07.000 --> 00:07:09.000 And after he would leave, 00:07:09.000 --> 00:07:11.000 women and girls would stay behind. 00:07:11.000 --> 00:07:13.000 We began with a small literacy class 00:07:13.000 --> 00:07:15.000 to read the Koran, 00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:18.000 then a math class, then an English class, then computer classes. 00:07:18.000 --> 00:07:21.000 In a few weeks, everyone in the refugee camp 00:07:21.000 --> 00:07:23.000 was in our classes." 00:07:23.000 --> 00:07:26.000 Sakena is a teacher 00:07:26.000 --> 00:07:29.000 at a time when to educate women 00:07:29.000 --> 00:07:31.000 is a dangerous business in Afghanistan. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:31.000 --> 00:07:34.000 She is on the Taliban's hit list. 00:07:34.000 --> 00:07:37.000 I worry about her every time she travels across that country. 00:07:37.000 --> 00:07:40.000 She shrugs when I ask her about safety. 00:07:40.000 --> 00:07:43.000 "Kavita jaan, we cannot allow ourselves to be afraid. 00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:45.000 Look at those young girls who go back to school 00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:47.000 when acid is thrown in their face." 00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:49.000 And I smile, and I nod, 00:07:49.000 --> 00:07:51.000 realizing I'm watching women and girls 00:07:51.000 --> 00:07:54.000 using their own religious traditions and practices, 00:07:54.000 --> 00:07:56.000 turning them into instruments 00:07:56.000 --> 00:07:59.000 of opposition and opportunity. 00:07:59.000 --> 00:08:01.000 Their path is their own 00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:04.000 and it looks towards an Afghanistan 00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:06.000 that will be different. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:08.000 Being different is something the women 00:08:08.000 --> 00:08:10.000 of Lesbor in Zagreb, Croatia 00:08:10.000 --> 00:08:12.000 know all too well. 00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:14.000 To be a lesbian, a dyke, 00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:16.000 a homosexual 00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:18.000 in most parts of the world, including right here 00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:20.000 in our country, India, 00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:22.000 is to occupy a place of immense discomfort 00:08:22.000 --> 00:08:24.000 and extreme prejudice. 00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:27.000 In post-conflict societies like Croatia, 00:08:27.000 --> 00:08:30.000 where a hyper-nationalism and religiosity 00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:32.000 have created an environment unbearable 00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:34.000 for anyone who might 00:08:34.000 --> 00:08:36.000 be considered a social outcast. 00:08:36.000 --> 00:08:38.000 So enter a group of out dykes, 00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:41.000 young women who love the old music 00:08:41.000 --> 00:08:43.000 that once spread across that region 00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:45.000 from Macedonia to Bosnia, 00:08:45.000 --> 00:08:47.000 from Serbia to Slovenia. 00:08:47.000 --> 00:08:50.000 These folk singers met at college at a gender studies program. 00:08:51.000 --> 00:08:54.000 Many are in their 20s, some are mothers. 00:08:54.000 --> 00:08:57.000 Many have struggled to come out to their communities, 00:08:57.000 --> 00:09:00.000 in families whose religious beliefs make it hard to accept 00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:02.000 that their daughters are not sick, 00:09:02.000 --> 00:09:04.000 just queer. 00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:07.000 As Leah, one of the founders of the group, says, 00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:10.000 "I like traditional music very much. 00:09:10.000 --> 00:09:12.000 I also like rock and roll. 00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:14.000 So Lesbor, we blend the two. 00:09:14.000 --> 00:09:16.000 I see traditional music like a kind of rebellion, 00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:19.000 in which people can really speak their voice, 00:09:19.000 --> 00:09:21.000 especially traditional songs 00:09:21.000 --> 00:09:23.000 from other parts of the former Yugoslav Republic. 00:09:23.000 --> 00:09:26.000 After the war, lots of these songs were lost, 00:09:26.000 --> 00:09:28.000 but they are a part of our childhood and our history, 00:09:28.000 --> 00:09:30.000 and we should not forget them." NOTE Paragraph 00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:33.000 Improbably, this LGBT singing choir 00:09:33.000 --> 00:09:35.000 has demonstrated how women 00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:38.000 are investing in tradition to create change, 00:09:38.000 --> 00:09:41.000 like alchemists turning discord into harmony. 00:09:41.000 --> 00:09:43.000 Their repertoire includes 00:09:43.000 --> 00:09:45.000 the Croatian national anthem, 00:09:45.000 --> 00:09:47.000 a Bosnian love song 00:09:47.000 --> 00:09:49.000 and Serbian duets. 00:09:49.000 --> 00:09:51.000 And, Leah adds with a grin, 00:09:51.000 --> 00:09:54.000 "Kavita, we especially are proud of our Christmas music, 00:09:54.000 --> 00:09:57.000 because it shows we are open to religious practices 00:09:57.000 --> 00:09:59.000 even though Catholic Church 00:09:59.000 --> 00:10:01.000 hates us LGBT." 00:10:01.000 --> 00:10:03.000 Their concerts draw from 00:10:03.000 --> 00:10:05.000 their own communities, yes, 00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:07.000 but also from an older generation: 00:10:07.000 --> 00:10:09.000 a generation that might be 00:10:09.000 --> 00:10:11.000 suspicious of homosexuality, 00:10:11.000 --> 00:10:14.000 but is nostalgic for its own music and the past it represents. 00:10:14.000 --> 00:10:17.000 One father, who had initially balked at his daughter 00:10:17.000 --> 00:10:19.000 coming out in such a choir, 00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:21.000 now writes songs for them. 00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:23.000 In the Middle Ages, troubadours 00:10:23.000 --> 00:10:25.000 would travel across the land 00:10:25.000 --> 00:10:28.000 singing their tales and sharing their verses: 00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:31.000 Lesbor travels through the Balkans like this, 00:10:31.000 --> 00:10:33.000 singing, connecting people divided 00:10:33.000 --> 00:10:36.000 by religion, nationality and language. 00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:38.000 Bosnians, Croats and Serbs 00:10:38.000 --> 00:10:41.000 find a rare shared space of pride in their history, 00:10:41.000 --> 00:10:43.000 and Lesbor reminds them that 00:10:43.000 --> 00:10:46.000 the songs one group often claims as theirs alone 00:10:46.000 --> 00:10:48.000 really belong to them all. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:48.000 --> 00:10:55.000 (Singing) NOTE Paragraph 00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:10.000 Yesterday, Mallika Sarabhai showed us 00:11:10.000 --> 00:11:12.000 that music can create a world 00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:14.000 more accepting of difference 00:11:14.000 --> 00:11:17.000 than the one we have been given. 00:11:17.000 --> 00:11:19.000 The world Leymah Gbowee was given 00:11:19.000 --> 00:11:21.000 was a world at war. 00:11:21.000 --> 00:11:24.000 Liberia had been torn apart by civil strife for decades. 00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:28.000 Leymah was not an activist, she was a mother of three. 00:11:28.000 --> 00:11:30.000 But she was sick with worry: 00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:32.000 She worried her son would be abducted 00:11:32.000 --> 00:11:34.000 and taken off to be a child soldier, 00:11:34.000 --> 00:11:36.000 she worried her daughters would be raped, 00:11:36.000 --> 00:11:39.000 she worried for their lives. 00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:41.000 One night, she had a dream. 00:11:41.000 --> 00:11:43.000 She dreamt she and thousands of other women 00:11:43.000 --> 00:11:45.000 ended the bloodshed. 00:11:45.000 --> 00:11:48.000 The next morning at church, she asked others how they felt. 00:11:48.000 --> 00:11:50.000 They were all tired of the fighting. 00:11:50.000 --> 00:11:53.000 We need peace, and we need our leaders to know 00:11:53.000 --> 00:11:56.000 we will not rest until there is peace. 00:11:56.000 --> 00:11:59.000 Among Leymah's friends was a policewoman who was Muslim. 00:11:59.000 --> 00:12:02.000 She promised to raise the issue with her community. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:02.000 --> 00:12:04.000 At the next Friday sermon, 00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:06.000 the women who were sitting in the side room of the mosque 00:12:06.000 --> 00:12:09.000 began to share their distress at the state of affairs. 00:12:09.000 --> 00:12:12.000 "What does it matter?" they said, "A bullet doesn't distinguish 00:12:12.000 --> 00:12:14.000 between a Muslim and a Christian." 00:12:14.000 --> 00:12:16.000 This small group of women, 00:12:16.000 --> 00:12:18.000 determined to bring an end to the war, 00:12:18.000 --> 00:12:21.000 and they chose to use their traditions to make a point: 00:12:21.000 --> 00:12:23.000 Liberian women usually wear 00:12:23.000 --> 00:12:25.000 lots of jewelry and colorful clothing. 00:12:25.000 --> 00:12:27.000 But no, for the protest, they dressed 00:12:27.000 --> 00:12:29.000 all in white, no makeup. 00:12:29.000 --> 00:12:31.000 As Leymah said, "We wore the white 00:12:31.000 --> 00:12:33.000 saying we were out for peace." 00:12:33.000 --> 00:12:35.000 They stood on the side of the road on which 00:12:35.000 --> 00:12:37.000 Charles Taylor's motorcade passed every day. 00:12:37.000 --> 00:12:39.000 They stood for weeks -- 00:12:39.000 --> 00:12:42.000 first just 10, then 20, then 50, then hundreds of women -- 00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:45.000 wearing white, singing, dancing, 00:12:45.000 --> 00:12:48.000 saying they were out for peace. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:48.000 --> 00:12:50.000 Eventually, opposing forces in Liberia 00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:53.000 were pushed to hold peace talks in Ghana. 00:12:54.000 --> 00:12:57.000 The peace talks dragged on and on and on. 00:12:57.000 --> 00:12:59.000 Leymah and her sisters had had enough. 00:12:59.000 --> 00:13:01.000 With their remaining funds, they took 00:13:01.000 --> 00:13:03.000 a small group of women down to the venue of the peace talks 00:13:03.000 --> 00:13:05.000 and they surrounded the building. 00:13:05.000 --> 00:13:08.000 In a now famous CNN clip, 00:13:08.000 --> 00:13:10.000 you can see them sitting on the ground, their arms linked. 00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:13.000 We know this in India. It's called a [Hindi]. 00:13:14.000 --> 00:13:16.000 Then things get tense. 00:13:16.000 --> 00:13:19.000 The police are called in to physically remove the women. 00:13:19.000 --> 00:13:22.000 As the senior officer approaches with a baton, 00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:24.000 Leymah stands up with deliberation, 00:13:24.000 --> 00:13:26.000 reaches her arms up over her head, 00:13:26.000 --> 00:13:28.000 and begins, very slowly, 00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:31.000 to untie her headdress that covers her hair. 00:13:31.000 --> 00:13:34.000 You can see the policeman's face. 00:13:34.000 --> 00:13:37.000 He looks embarrassed. He backs away. 00:13:37.000 --> 00:13:39.000 And the next thing you know, 00:13:39.000 --> 00:13:41.000 the police have disappeared. 00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:43.000 Leymah said to me later, 00:13:43.000 --> 00:13:46.000 "It's a taboo, you know, in West Africa. 00:13:46.000 --> 00:13:49.000 If an older woman undresses in front of a man 00:13:49.000 --> 00:13:51.000 because she wants to, 00:13:51.000 --> 00:13:53.000 the man's family is cursed." 00:13:53.000 --> 00:13:55.000 (Laughter) 00:13:55.000 --> 00:13:57.000 (Applause) 00:13:57.000 --> 00:14:00.000 She said, "I don't know if he did it because he believed, 00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:02.000 but he knew we were not going to leave. 00:14:02.000 --> 00:14:05.000 We were not going to leave until the peace accord was signed." NOTE Paragraph 00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:07.000 And the peace accord was signed. 00:14:07.000 --> 00:14:09.000 And the women of Liberia 00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:12.000 then mobilized in support of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, 00:14:12.000 --> 00:14:14.000 a woman who broke a few taboos herself 00:14:14.000 --> 00:14:16.000 becoming the first elected woman head of state 00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:19.000 in Africa in years. 00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:23.000 When she made her presidential address, 00:14:23.000 --> 00:14:25.000 she acknowledged these brave women of Liberia 00:14:25.000 --> 00:14:28.000 who allowed her to win against a football star -- 00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:30.000 that's soccer for you Americans -- 00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:32.000 no less. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:32.000 --> 00:14:34.000 Women like Sakena and Leah 00:14:34.000 --> 00:14:36.000 and Leymah 00:14:36.000 --> 00:14:39.000 have humbled me and changed me 00:14:39.000 --> 00:14:42.000 and made me realize that I should not be so quick 00:14:42.000 --> 00:14:45.000 to jump to assumptions of any kind. 00:14:46.000 --> 00:14:48.000 They've also saved me from my righteous anger 00:14:48.000 --> 00:14:51.000 by offering insights into this third way. 00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:54.000 A Filipina activist once said to me, 00:14:54.000 --> 00:14:56.000 "How do you cook a rice cake? 00:14:56.000 --> 00:14:59.000 With heat from the bottom and heat from the top." 00:14:59.000 --> 00:15:01.000 The protests, the marches, 00:15:01.000 --> 00:15:03.000 the uncompromising position that 00:15:03.000 --> 00:15:06.000 women's rights are human rights, full stop. 00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:09.000 That's the heat from the bottom. 00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:11.000 That's Malcolm X and the suffragists 00:15:11.000 --> 00:15:13.000 and gay pride parades. 00:15:13.000 --> 00:15:15.000 But we also need the heat from the top. 00:15:15.000 --> 00:15:17.000 And in most parts of the world, 00:15:17.000 --> 00:15:19.000 that top is still 00:15:19.000 --> 00:15:21.000 controlled by men. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:21.000 --> 00:15:24.000 So to paraphrase Marx: Women make change, 00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:27.000 but not in circumstances of their own choosing. 00:15:27.000 --> 00:15:29.000 They have to negotiate. 00:15:29.000 --> 00:15:32.000 They have to subvert tradition that once silenced them 00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:35.000 in order to give voice to new aspirations. 00:15:35.000 --> 00:15:38.000 And they need allies from their communities. 00:15:38.000 --> 00:15:40.000 Allies like the imam, 00:15:40.000 --> 00:15:42.000 allies like the father who now writes songs 00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:45.000 for a lesbian group in Croatia, 00:15:45.000 --> 00:15:48.000 allies like the policeman who honored a taboo and backed away, 00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:50.000 allies like my father, 00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:53.000 who couldn't help his sister but has helped three daughters 00:15:53.000 --> 00:15:55.000 pursue their dreams. 00:15:55.000 --> 00:15:57.000 Maybe this is because feminism, 00:15:57.000 --> 00:15:59.000 unlike almost every other social movement, 00:15:59.000 --> 00:16:02.000 is not a struggle against a distinct oppressor -- 00:16:02.000 --> 00:16:04.000 it's not the ruling class 00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:07.000 or the occupiers or the colonizers -- 00:16:07.000 --> 00:16:10.000 it's against a deeply held set of beliefs and assumptions 00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:13.000 that we women, far too often, 00:16:13.000 --> 00:16:15.000 hold ourselves. NOTE Paragraph 00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:18.000 And perhaps this is the ultimate gift of feminism, 00:16:18.000 --> 00:16:21.000 that the personal is in fact the political. 00:16:21.000 --> 00:16:23.000 So that, as Eleanor Roosevelt said once of human rights, 00:16:23.000 --> 00:16:26.000 the same is true of gender equality: 00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:29.000 that it starts in small places, close to home. 00:16:29.000 --> 00:16:31.000 On the streets, yes, 00:16:31.000 --> 00:16:34.000 but also in negotiations at the kitchen table 00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:36.000 and in the marital bed 00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:38.000 and in relationships between lovers and parents 00:16:38.000 --> 00:16:40.000 and sisters and friends. 00:16:42.000 --> 00:16:44.000 And then 00:16:44.000 --> 00:16:46.000 you realize that by integrating 00:16:46.000 --> 00:16:48.000 aspects of tradition and community 00:16:48.000 --> 00:16:50.000 into their struggles, 00:16:50.000 --> 00:16:53.000 women like Sakena and Leah and Leymah -- 00:16:53.000 --> 00:16:55.000 but also women like Sonia Gandhi here in India 00:16:55.000 --> 00:16:58.000 and Michelle Bachelet in Chile 00:16:58.000 --> 00:17:01.000 and Shirin Ebadi in Iran -- 00:17:01.000 --> 00:17:03.000 are doing something else. 00:17:03.000 --> 00:17:05.000 They're challenging the very notion 00:17:05.000 --> 00:17:08.000 of Western models of development. 00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:11.000 They are saying, we don't have to be like you 00:17:11.000 --> 00:17:13.000 to make change. 00:17:13.000 --> 00:17:16.000 We can wear a sari or a hijab 00:17:16.000 --> 00:17:18.000 or pants or a boubou, 00:17:18.000 --> 00:17:21.000 and we can be party leaders and presidents 00:17:21.000 --> 00:17:23.000 and human rights lawyers. 00:17:23.000 --> 00:17:26.000 We can use our tradition to navigate change. 00:17:26.000 --> 00:17:29.000 We can demilitarize societies 00:17:29.000 --> 00:17:31.000 and pour resources, instead, 00:17:31.000 --> 00:17:34.000 into reservoirs of genuine security. NOTE Paragraph 00:17:35.000 --> 00:17:38.000 It is in these little stories, 00:17:38.000 --> 00:17:40.000 these individual stories, 00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:42.000 that I see a radical epic being written 00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:44.000 by women around the world. 00:17:44.000 --> 00:17:46.000 It is in these threads 00:17:46.000 --> 00:17:48.000 that are being woven into a resilient fabric 00:17:48.000 --> 00:17:51.000 that will sustain communities, 00:17:51.000 --> 00:17:53.000 that I find hope. 00:17:53.000 --> 00:17:55.000 And if my heart is singing, 00:17:55.000 --> 00:17:58.000 it's because in these little fragments, 00:17:58.000 --> 00:18:00.000 every now and again, you catch a glimpse 00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:03.000 of a whole, of a whole new world. 00:18:03.000 --> 00:18:06.000 And she is definitely on her way. NOTE Paragraph 00:18:06.000 --> 00:18:08.000 Thank you. NOTE Paragraph 00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:16.000 (Applause)