0:00:01.417,0:00:03.893
Shah Rukh Khan: "A girl[br]should be seen, not heard."

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"Be quiet," or, "chup."

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These words are often used[br]to silence girls right from childhood,

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well into adulthood

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and deep into old age.

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I'm proud to introduce our next speaker,[br]a true champion of the female voice,

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an advisor on poverty,

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gender and development for the World Bank,

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United Nations and several NGOs[br]in India and the world over.

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She calls herself a cultural detective.

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Let's raise our voices to welcome[br]renowned social scientist and author

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Deepa Narayan.

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(Music)

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(Applause)

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Deepa Narayan: The goal[br]of every loving parent

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is to raise good girls,

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but what parents actually do

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is to constrain, confine[br]and crush their girls.

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So as they crush their girls,

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they prepare them for abuse.

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This would be so devastating

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that no parent would be able to bear it,

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so it's disguised.

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In India, we call this "adjusting."

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I'm sure you've heard the word.

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"Darling, just adjust a bit.

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Just adjust.

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No matter what happens, just adjust."

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"Adjust" trains girls to be powerless,

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not to exist, not to be seen,

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not to have a self,

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and it trains boys to claim power[br]and authority over the world.

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And in the meantime we keep talking about[br]gender equality and women's empowerment.

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After 2012, after the gang rape[br]in a moving bus in Delhi,

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I really wanted to understand[br]the roots of abuse.

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So I started asking[br]a very simple question:

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what does it mean to you[br]to be a good woman or a good man today?

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And I was so surprised by what I heard,

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the answers particularly[br]that young people gave,

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that the project became a research project[br]and it took over my life.

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For three years, I listened[br]to over 600 women, men and children,

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educated, middle class,

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and it led to 1,800 hours of listening

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and 8,000 pages of notes,

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and it took another year[br]to make sense of it.

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Nowadays, we see well-dressed, educated[br]women like many of you in this room,

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all of you in this room, and myself,

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and we think the world has changed,

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but these external changes[br]are extremely misleading,

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because on the inside,[br]we have not changed.

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So today, I'm not going[br]to talk about poor people.

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I'm going to talk only about[br]the middle and upper classes,

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because we are the ones most in denial.

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We are the ones who have said[br]over and over again

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that when women are educated,

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when they're employed

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and they earn incomes,

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they will be equal, empowered and free.

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They're not.

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Why?

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From my research, I identify seven habits

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that delete women,

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that make women disappear,

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but these habits persist

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because they're so familiar to us

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and we've made them good and moral.

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Why would you change or drop[br]anything that's good and moral?

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So, on the one hand, we love our children,

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we love our daughters,

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and on the other hand, we crush them.

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Habit one: You don't have a body.

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The first step to make a girl a ghost[br]is to make her body disappear,

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to pretend that she doesn't have a body.

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Akangsha, who is 23, said,

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"In my family, we never[br]spoke about the body, never."

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And it is in this silence

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that millions and millions of girls[br]get sexually molested,

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and they don't even tell their mothers.

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And it's the negative comments from others

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that leads to 90 percent of women[br]saying that they dislike their bodies.

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When a girl rejects her body,

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she rejects her only house

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and invisibility and insecurity

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become her very shaky foundation.

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Habit two: Be quiet. Chup.

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If you're not supposed to exist

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and you don't have a body,

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how can you have a voice?

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So just about every woman said,

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"When I was little,[br]my mother used to scold me and say,

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'Don't speak, be quiet, be chup,

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speak softly, don't argue[br]and never answer back.

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Jawab nahi Dena.'"

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I'm sure you've all heard that.

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And so girls become afraid,[br]and they withdraw.

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And they become quiet and they say,

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"Let it go. Jaane do.

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What's the point? Nobody listens."

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Educated women said

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that their number one problem

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was their inability to speak up,

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as if there was a foot on their throat

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ready to choke them.

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Silence slices off women.

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Habit three: Be a people pleaser.

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Please others.

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Everyone likes a nice woman[br]who always smiles,

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who never says no, who is never angry,

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even when she's being exploited.

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Amisha, who is 18, said,

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"My father said,

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'If I don't see you smiling,[br]I don't feel good.'"

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So she smiles.

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So her father is teaching her,

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my happiness is more important[br]than your happiness.

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And in this business of trying[br]to make everyone happy all the time,

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girls become afraid to make decisions.

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And when you ask them, they say,

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"Anything, whatever! Kuch bhi!

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Everything goes. Chalta hai."

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Darsha, who is 25,

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said with great pride,

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"I'm highly elastic.

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I become whatever others want me to be."

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Such girls give up their dreams,

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their desires,

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and nobody even notices,

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except for depression.

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It moves in.

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Another slice of a girl is taken off.

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Habit four: You have no sexuality.

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I think you'd all agree that[br]with a population of over 1.3 billion,

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sex is not new to India.

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What is new is that[br]more people now acknowledge

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that women, too,[br]have a right to sexual desire.

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But how can a woman who has not[br]been allowed to own her body,

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who hasn't been educated about her body,

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who may have been sexually molested,

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who cannot say no

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and who has been filled with shame,

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how can she claim her sexual desire?

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A woman's sexuality is suppressed.

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Habit five: Don't trust women.

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Imagine how the world would change

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if women came together in solidarity,

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but as to make sure[br]that this doesn't happen,

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our culture places high moral value

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on loyalty to men and family secrecy.

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Woman after woman said,

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"I know only one trustworthy woman,

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and that's me."

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Even Ruchi, who is 30

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and who works on women's empowerment[br]at Delhi University, said,

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"I don't trust women.[br]They're jealous and they backbite."

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Obviously, then, in cities,

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women don't join women's groups,

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and when you ask them why, they say,[br]"We don't have time for gossip."

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It's much easier [br]to demolish a woman who is alone.

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Habit six: Duty over desire.

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Muskan gave a very long definition[br]of a good girl, and she's only 15.

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"She is kind, gentle, polite, loving,

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caring, truthful, obedient,[br]respects elders,

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helps everyone unconditionally,[br]and is good to others and fulfills duty."

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Tiring, isn't it.

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By the time you fulfill duty,

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whatever little desire[br]is left is also lost.

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And when sacrificing mothers[br]have nothing left to say

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except talk about food --

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"Have you eaten? Khana kha liya?[br]What will you eat?" --

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men like Saurabh, who is 24,[br]call them "boring."

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A woman becomes a residue.

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Habit seven: Be totally dependent.

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So all these habits[br]collectively crush women,

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fill her with fear

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and make her totally dependent[br]on men for her survival,

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and this allows the system[br]of male power to continue.

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So all these seven habits[br]that we thought were good and moral

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snatch life away from girls

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and position men to abuse.

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We must change.

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How do we change?

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A habit is just a habit.

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Every habit is a learned habit,

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so we can unlearn them

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and this personal change[br]is extremely important.

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I had to change too.

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But this doesn't change the system

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that crushes millions of other women.

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So we have to go to the roots.

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We must change what it means[br]to be a good woman and a good man,

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because this a foundation[br]of every society.

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We don't need elastic women,[br]we need elastic definitions,

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for men too,

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and this big societal change[br]cannot happen without men's involvement.

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We need you.

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We need men to become champions of change,

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to develop strong change muscles.

0:10:01.083,0:10:03.601
Otherwise, it will be two more centuries

0:10:03.625,0:10:05.976
before our girls, and our boys,

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are safe and free.

0:10:08.292,0:10:14.559
Imagine half a billion women[br]coming together, with the support of men,

0:10:14.583,0:10:17.684
to talk to one another[br]for conversation, for change,

0:10:17.708,0:10:19.601
both personal and political,

0:10:19.625,0:10:21.976
and imagine men in their own circles,

0:10:22.000,0:10:26.268
and imagine women and men coming together[br]to just listen to each other

0:10:26.292,0:10:28.684
without judgment, without blame,

0:10:28.708,0:10:31.518
without accusations and without shame.

0:10:31.542,0:10:33.601
Imagine how much we would change.

0:10:33.625,0:10:35.518
We can do this together.

0:10:35.542,0:10:37.958
Women, don't adjust.

0:10:39.167,0:10:41.083
Men, adjust.

0:10:41.958,0:10:43.726
It's time.

0:10:43.750,0:10:45.101
Thank you.

0:10:45.125,0:10:48.958
(Applause)

0:10:49.542,0:10:51.175
SRK: How well said, how wonderful.

0:10:51.175,0:10:52.937
Everyone, Deepa, please.

0:10:53.000,0:10:54.809
Listening to her, I realized

0:10:54.833,0:10:58.393
that even in the simplest conversations[br]that we have with women,

0:10:58.417,0:10:59.976
we're actually being aggressive.

0:11:00.000,0:11:02.893
For example, I do tell[br]my daughter sometimes,

0:11:02.917,0:11:06.059
"Yaar Tu hasti hai to mujhe[br]accha lagta hai varna bura lagta hai".

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So sorry, I would never do that.

0:11:07.708,0:11:09.768
Aaj Se main meri beti ko yahi bolunga.

0:11:09.792,0:11:11.101
Whatever you're doing,

0:11:11.125,0:11:13.726
mujhe accha hi lagta hai,[br]aur accha nahi bhi lagta hai

0:11:13.750,0:11:16.601
Toh mera kya, tum wohi karo jo[br]tumhare ko lagta hai, right?

0:11:16.625,0:11:19.518
(Applause)

0:11:19.542,0:11:21.018
How did you feel,

0:11:21.042,0:11:26.976
first listening to so many[br]unfulfilled stories, desires,

0:11:27.000,0:11:28.309
lack of independence,

0:11:28.333,0:11:32.851
of girls that you normally would assume[br]we think these girls are better off?

0:11:32.875,0:11:34.381
DN: Very depressed.

0:11:34.381,0:11:37.268
It was shocking for me,[br]and that's why I couldn't stop,

0:11:37.292,0:11:41.268
because I had no plans to do a study[br]and no plans to write a book.

0:11:41.292,0:11:45.101
I'd written 17 books before,[br]and I thought, "I'm done,"

0:11:45.125,0:11:47.268
but when I went to St. Stephen's College

0:11:47.292,0:11:52.393
and I heard, at most elite colleges[br]you well know from Delhi,

0:11:52.417,0:11:54.476
and the young women and the men,

0:11:54.500,0:11:58.351
what they said about what it meant[br]to them to be a woman and man

0:11:58.375,0:12:01.643
sounded not like me[br]but like my mother's generation.

0:12:01.667,0:12:04.768
So then I went to another college[br]and another college.

0:12:04.792,0:12:06.476
The thing that was striking to me

0:12:06.500,0:12:09.934
is that each woman felt she was alone,

0:12:09.958,0:12:13.351
that she hides her fear[br]and hides her behavior,

0:12:13.375,0:12:15.375
because she thinks it's a personal fault.

0:12:16.125,0:12:19.059
It's not a personal fault, it's training,

0:12:19.083,0:12:21.393
and I think that's the biggest revelation

0:12:21.417,0:12:24.851
is that, if we stop pretending,

0:12:24.875,0:12:26.601
then the world changes.

0:12:26.625,0:12:29.309
SRK: Do you girls all agree[br]with what Deepa is saying?

0:12:29.333,0:12:32.184
(Applause)

0:12:32.208,0:12:33.934
Already see that young girl saying,

0:12:33.958,0:12:36.559
"Heard, heard what she said?[br]You say this to me."

0:12:36.583,0:12:38.268
Yeah, that's the way it should be.

0:12:38.292,0:12:41.018
You, boy, you adjust.[br]We are not adjusting anymore, OK?

0:12:41.042,0:12:42.601
(Applause)

0:12:42.625,0:12:44.976
Thank you so much.[br]Have a good evening. Thank you.

0:12:45.000,0:12:46.150
(Applause)