[Music]
[Music]
good evening I purposely said I do not
want to see your faces
simply because I know this faces in here
are people who will be a little shocked
and those would be sitting there going
like this and then I’ll lose track of
what I’m saying I am the second-to-last
speaker and you notice no clicker for me
I I like to tell stories and I’ve got
three short narratives that I hope will
challenge some of the things we think we
know and probably make sure that this
evening stands for something I am a
child of Beijing I am one of those
people who can count back to why I’m
standing here and rather there’s a room
full of people who paid $100 and most of
them women to come and speak to a room
and listen to a room of people like me
speak in 1995 the fourth international
conference the United Nations conference
on women was held and when I say I’m a
child of Beijing I consider myself in my
generation the last born of Beijing the
first bones are the women who went
before us when before me and have made
it possible for me to be standing here
today
those women include laureate Nobel
laureate Wangari Maathai charity Neelu
Martha kirua Sally Koss gay Zipporah
catania women who in Kenya put up with
quite a bit of resistance to ensure that
young women like me women like
yourselves and the men in this room were
able to say the things we say and for me
to have the career I’ve had but it’s
about time that we stopped hanging on to
their tail coats and the best way I can
describe that is by talking about my
mother my mother’s probably if you think
about it it’s been 21 years since
Beijing she’s a fourth born of Beijing
and the last one and my mother is a
woman who I watched go to work when I
was seven eight years old I saw
learn how to type and take shorthand
Pittman so I’ll I saw her start off her
career as a secretary and then the
administration manager and today my
mother is a regional HR director for the
organization she works for my mother
didn’t learn how to drive until she was
about 35 36 and even when she bought her
first car there’s a little bit of
frowning in the neighborhood among the
family the in-laws today me buying a car
doesn’t even begin to feature on the
Richter scale my mother is a woman who
got permission from my father to perm
her hair my mother is a child of Beijing
today my mother doesn’t have black hair
she’s got two henna red that color my
mother for the longest time wore a shade
of red nail polish that was what my
father liked today her nails are painted
a different color each and every one of
them because now she does manicures with
my daughter my mother went back to
school at the age of 45 got a diploma a
higher diploma and eventually a degree
me being able to go to school go to
college pursue I don’t know how many
other degrees was not even a thought it
was a done deal and the only reason I
talked about her and the women that went
before us and especially as African and
Kenyan women in particular is that it’s
about time we stop leaning in and I’m
very aware of the movement that Sheryl
Sandberg started but my friends
we’ve been leaning in we’re 45 degrees
from the floor if we lean in any more we
will be flat okay it’s time to stand up
it’s about time we stood up stepped up
to the opportunities presented to us and
took them because actually the
opportunities are there they’ve been
created for us and especially for those
of us in this room for the last 21 years
and it’s about time we woke up to that
reality
the reality that leaning in is not going
to cut it anymore and also the reality
that if we do not as jockey dong said
take our place at the table I’m afraid
that the opportunities would begin to
shrink and
also the doors will begin to close we
owe it to our daughters and to our
younger sisters to stop leaning in
enough already
Hillary Clinton leaned in for eight
years of Barack Obama’s presidency
enough it’s about time we stood up and
stepped up I’m hoping I could come back
to this very conversation as I wind up
but I wanted to do a different story in
2011 I took a trip to Lloyd toc-toc with
a team from a mereth with the steamers
from Austria and there at the border of
Kenya and Tanzania
it’s Tanzania not Tanzania border of
Kenya and Tanzania facing montclair
Manjaro I realized that feminists and
men who are feminists actually existed
allow me to explain as the Messiah
meringues offered us meat served on
leafs as they insisted that we start
every discussion that we were there to
have by praying towards the mountain and
finished every discussion by praying
once again towards a mountain I learned
for the first time that in the Mark
community that we were in a annoy talk
talk that they insisted on being in the
same room to understand the issues of
why do you want our girls to go to
school why can’t we have that many
children and why don’t you want FGM why
do you want to stop early child
marriages and the conversations that
have been organized by a mereth ensure
the person who was having the
conversation with them was a woman in
this case a young lady called nice
Ariane they all called her nice and for
these morons who only spoke mom and it’s
Maher not Maasai she was their
translator so everything we said in
English was Swahili she told them in mom
and then when they were done they told
us how amazed and wonderful they were
about what she told them and why they
implemented it
so my friends long before Ryan Gosling
told us that she was a feminist long
before George Clooney said he was a
feminist they were here on this
continent and in this country we just
didn’t have a name for the
pakya I talked up for a moment let’s go
to somewhere I supported a charity
called some Borah women’s trust a couple
of years ago that’s because I caught a
story on the news about fathers in
particular who did one of two things the
slogan was I support my daughter I
support my daughter to go to school I
support my daughter to actually go as
far she can go but in like keep hear a
different conversation was happening
literally the only reason you do not
value your daughter’s education is
because you feel and believe that if you
sold her off as a bride you’d get Ketel
a politician in the area actually
offered the same men kettle to send
their children to school especially
their good daughters and I usually say
what I learned from being outside
Nairobi is that cultural problems need
cultural solutions political problems
need political solutions my talk talks
Samburu and it’s not just kenya the
young lady from Pakistan her name is
Malala when we hear her story we tend to
remember the men who shot her and we
forget about her father the man who
ensured and told her you will go to
school and who goes everywhere with her
around the world her consistent guardian
angel and and her biggest cheerleader
but maybe locked octo doesn’t bring it
home about these feminists who exist and
don’t have fancy names and don’t have
big titles and don’t get celebrated and
maryclaire like John Legend and Barack
Obama but they’re there
the other one is my own father you know
I always tell people who know me very
well they’re the reason I talk more
about my mom than my dad is that my dad
bless him but in his world I can do no
wrong so I usually tell him dad you have
no use to me you never criticize
anything and he’s like it’s okay
princess what do you want to do let me
explain this if Facebook came up with a
button that could do one click a hundred
likes another click 500 likes another
click a thousand likes my dad will be
the guy who clicks from there thousand
likes ten times it didn’t matter what I
said
so long before Will Smith declared he
was a feminist my dad was there it’s
just in Kenyan encumber we don’t have a
word for it and then I look at my own
career I’m very fortunate I serve on a
couple of boards but when I think back
to just the last two months every time
we end a meeting it has happened twice
and I don’t know whether any one fellow
directors are here but the gentlemen in
the room tend to say the women on our
board have been awesome they’re not
patronizing at all they’re not content
sending they mean it and they don’t even
know it and they’re feminists and lastly
I guess I need to talk about the people
who gave me a chance when I was 26 years
old to have a job the rules the airwaves
my directors and my managers have
probably always been my biggest
cheerleaders I made them a ton of money
but they’ve been my biggest cheerleaders
and the only reason I bring these
stories to you is that for me it’s about
time we started having the discussions
we want to have as women and include the
men in the room it is imperative that we
bring them to the table we invite them
to the room what makes me sad is in my
talk talk I learned that men are
important and they must be included in
the conversation and especially in
Africa in somewhere I learned this in my
board room I learned this at home I
learned this however a month ago
McKinley Africa had an amazing research
that they unveiled
it’s called women matter Africa
everybody should read it but the
pushback from the audience as the
evening went on is where are the men the
decision-makers the people who need to
know that this research says that women
matter of course the organizers were
very very gracious and Bill Rousseau
said I’ve heard you and the next time we
do this I will invite the men but they
were missing about a week later on the
International Day of the girl we were
yet in another forum amazing
conversations around girls and keeping
them in school
and the Supreme Court judge who spoke
before me joking don’t know and our
chief guest and a lot of people who
spoke asked the same question we’re all
here talking about things that need to
happen and the men are not chair not
that they don’t care but they were not
invited
my friends it’s about time we invited
men to the table they are willing they
want to hear they want to help but
they’ve been locked out let me go back
to where I began and this is how I’ll
end I am the last born of Beijing 21
years as a generation and the women of
my generation have come a long way we
have a longer way to go but it’s time to
start a new chapter and that chapter for
me we’ll start on the 8th of November in
the US for some strange reason that
great nation never got the memo they
didn’t get the memo and Indra Gandhi was
president they didn’t get it when
benazir bhutto was Prime Minister they
didn’t get it as Island and Iceland and
Finland and Switzerland elected women to
the top office in the land somehow they
didn’t get the memo they didn’t get the
memo
when Kosovo and Serbia and Estonia
elected women to the highest office when
the Philippines did it when their
neighbors in Brazil and Argentina had
women as presidents they didn’t even get
the memo
when Africa did it with Malawi with
Liberia they didn’t get the memo from
the Egyptians with Cleopatra we need to
send a memo to the US it’s time and it’s
about time a woman was in the highest
office in the land not because she’s a
woman not because she’s running against
somebody who’s not better than her but
because it’s time and the reason I know
the details of the countries from
Estonia to Mauritius and incidentally
somebody’s to check what goes on in San
Marino because the captain regions very
many women scary literally but it’s a
good thing but for some strange reason
we
all know that the US for some reason
impacts the rest of our lives
but I want my daughter who’s
five-and-a-half going on 15 with an
opinion to boots
I want my goddaughter who’s two years
old to count her years from when Hillary
became president I count everything I
have when I look back because we live
life forward and we connect the dots
backwards from Beijing I am the last
born of Beijing we are the last line my
generation everybody after us must look
back to a day when a woman occupied the
White House so my message is very simple
in case they didn’t get the memo I’d
like to send it out it’s time for a
woman to be in the White House and on
the 8th of November we’ll be looking for
that to happen simply because the world
would never be the same again the
narrative we tell in the evolution of
women and the conversations we have will
never be the same again my daughter’s
life at five and a half will never be
the same again so my message to
Secretary Hillary Clinton is when not if
when you get to the White House make it
good make it right not just because you
can because you can but because it’s
about time thank you good night
[Music]
good evening I purposely said I do not
want to see your faces
simply because I know this faces in here
are people who will be a little shocked
and those would be sitting there going
like this and then I’ll lose track of
what I’m saying I am the second-to-last
speaker and you notice no clicker for me
I I like to tell stories and I’ve got
three short narratives that I hope will
challenge some of the things we think we
know and probably make sure that this
evening stands for something I am a
child of Beijing I am one of those
people who can count back to why I’m
standing here and rather there’s a room
full of people who paid $100 and most of
them women to come and speak to a room
and listen to a room of people like me
speak in 1995 the fourth international
conference the United Nations conference
on women was held and when I say I’m a
child of Beijing I consider myself in my
generation the last born of Beijing the
first bones are the women who went
before us when before me and have made
it possible for me to be standing here
today
those women include laureate Nobel
laureate Wangari Maathai charity Neelu
Martha kirua Sally Koss gay Zipporah
catania women who in Kenya put up with
quite a bit of resistance to ensure that
young women like me women like
yourselves and the men in this room were
able to say the things we say and for me
to have the career I’ve had but it’s
about time that we stopped hanging on to
their tail coats and the best way I can
describe that is by talking about my
mother my mother’s probably if you think
about it it’s been 21 years since
Beijing she’s a fourth born of Beijing
and the last one and my mother is a
woman who I watched go to work when I
was seven eight years old I saw
learn how to type and take shorthand
Pittman so I’ll I saw her start off her
career as a secretary and then the
administration manager and today my
mother is a regional HR director for the
organization she works for my mother
didn’t learn how to drive until she was
about 35 36 and even when she bought her
first car there’s a little bit of
frowning in the neighborhood among the
family the in-laws today me buying a car
doesn’t even begin to feature on the
Richter scale my mother is a woman who
got permission from my father to perm
her hair my mother is a child of Beijing
today my mother doesn’t have black hair
she’s got two henna red that color my
mother for the longest time wore a shade
of red nail polish that was what my
father liked today her nails are painted
a different color each and every one of
them because now she does manicures with
my daughter my mother went back to
school at the age of 45 got a diploma a
higher diploma and eventually a degree
me being able to go to school go to
college pursue I don’t know how many
other degrees was not even a thought it
was a done deal and the only reason I
talked about her and the women that went
before us and especially as African and
Kenyan women in particular is that it’s
about time we stop leaning in and I’m
very aware of the movement that Sheryl
Sandberg started but my friends
we’ve been leaning in we’re 45 degrees
from the floor if we lean in any more we
will be flat okay it’s time to stand up
it’s about time we stood up stepped up
to the opportunities presented to us and
took them because actually the
opportunities are there they’ve been
created for us and especially for those
of us in this room for the last 21 years
and it’s about time we woke up to that
reality
the reality that leaning in is not going
to cut it anymore and also the reality
that if we do not as jockey dong said
take our place at the table I’m afraid
that the opportunities would begin to
shrink and
also the doors will begin to close we
owe it to our daughters and to our
younger sisters to stop leaning in
enough already
Hillary Clinton leaned in for eight
years of Barack Obama’s presidency
enough it’s about time we stood up and
stepped up I’m hoping I could come back
to this very conversation as I wind up
but I wanted to do a different story in
2011 I took a trip to Lloyd toc-toc with
a team from a mereth with the steamers
from Austria and there at the border of
Kenya and Tanzania
it’s Tanzania not Tanzania border of
Kenya and Tanzania facing montclair
Manjaro I realized that feminists and
men who are feminists actually existed
allow me to explain as the Messiah
meringues offered us meat served on
leafs as they insisted that we start
every discussion that we were there to
have by praying towards the mountain and
finished every discussion by praying
once again towards a mountain I learned
for the first time that in the Mark
community that we were in a annoy talk
talk that they insisted on being in the
same room to understand the issues of
why do you want our girls to go to
school why can’t we have that many
children and why don’t you want FGM why
do you want to stop early child
marriages and the conversations that
have been organized by a mereth ensure
the person who was having the
conversation with them was a woman in
this case a young lady called nice
Ariane they all called her nice and for
these morons who only spoke mom and it’s
Maher not Maasai she was their
translator so everything we said in
English was Swahili she told them in mom
and then when they were done they told
us how amazed and wonderful they were
about what she told them and why they
implemented it
so my friends long before Ryan Gosling
told us that she was a feminist long
before George Clooney said he was a
feminist they were here on this
continent and in this country we just
didn’t have a name for the
pakya I talked up for a moment let’s go
to somewhere I supported a charity
called some Borah women’s trust a couple
of years ago that’s because I caught a
story on the news about fathers in
particular who did one of two things the
slogan was I support my daughter I
support my daughter to go to school I
support my daughter to actually go as
far she can go but in like keep hear a
different conversation was happening
literally the only reason you do not
value your daughter’s education is
because you feel and believe that if you
sold her off as a bride you’d get Ketel
a politician in the area actually
offered the same men kettle to send
their children to school especially
their good daughters and I usually say
what I learned from being outside
Nairobi is that cultural problems need
cultural solutions political problems
need political solutions my talk talks
Samburu and it’s not just kenya the
young lady from Pakistan her name is
Malala when we hear her story we tend to
remember the men who shot her and we
forget about her father the man who
ensured and told her you will go to
school and who goes everywhere with her
around the world her consistent guardian
angel and and her biggest cheerleader
but maybe locked octo doesn’t bring it
home about these feminists who exist and
don’t have fancy names and don’t have
big titles and don’t get celebrated and
maryclaire like John Legend and Barack
Obama but they’re there
the other one is my own father you know
I always tell people who know me very
well they’re the reason I talk more
about my mom than my dad is that my dad
bless him but in his world I can do no
wrong so I usually tell him dad you have
no use to me you never criticize
anything and he’s like it’s okay
princess what do you want to do let me
explain this if Facebook came up with a
button that could do one click a hundred
likes another click 500 likes another
click a thousand likes my dad will be
the guy who clicks from there thousand
likes ten times it didn’t matter what I
said
so long before Will Smith declared he
was a feminist my dad was there it’s
just in Kenyan encumber we don’t have a
word for it and then I look at my own
career I’m very fortunate I serve on a
couple of boards but when I think back
to just the last two months every time
we end a meeting it has happened twice
and I don’t know whether any one fellow
directors are here but the gentlemen in
the room tend to say the women on our
board have been awesome they’re not
patronizing at all they’re not content
sending they mean it and they don’t even
know it and they’re feminists and lastly
I guess I need to talk about the people
who gave me a chance when I was 26 years
old to have a job the rules the airwaves
my directors and my managers have
probably always been my biggest
cheerleaders I made them a ton of money
but they’ve been my biggest cheerleaders
and the only reason I bring these
stories to you is that for me it’s about
time we started having the discussions
we want to have as women and include the
men in the room it is imperative that we
bring them to the table we invite them
to the room what makes me sad is in my
talk talk I learned that men are
important and they must be included in
the conversation and especially in
Africa in somewhere I learned this in my
board room I learned this at home I
learned this however a month ago
McKinley Africa had an amazing research
that they unveiled
it’s called women matter Africa
everybody should read it but the
pushback from the audience as the
evening went on is where are the men the
decision-makers the people who need to
know that this research says that women
matter of course the organizers were
very very gracious and Bill Rousseau
said I’ve heard you and the next time we
do this I will invite the men but they
were missing about a week later on the
International Day of the girl we were
yet in another forum amazing
conversations around girls and keeping
them in school
and the Supreme Court judge who spoke
before me joking don’t know and our
chief guest and a lot of people who
spoke asked the same question we’re all
here talking about things that need to
happen and the men are not chair not
that they don’t care but they were not
invited
my friends it’s about time we invited
men to the table they are willing they
want to hear they want to help but
they’ve been locked out let me go back
to where I began and this is how I’ll
end I am the last born of Beijing 21
years as a generation and the women of
my generation have come a long way we
have a longer way to go but it’s time to
start a new chapter and that chapter for
me we’ll start on the 8th of November in
the US for some strange reason that
great nation never got the memo they
didn’t get the memo and Indra Gandhi was
president they didn’t get it when
benazir bhutto was Prime Minister they
didn’t get it as Island and Iceland and
Finland and Switzerland elected women to
the top office in the land somehow they
didn’t get the memo they didn’t get the
memo
when Kosovo and Serbia and Estonia
elected women to the highest office when
the Philippines did it when their
neighbors in Brazil and Argentina had
women as presidents they didn’t even get
the memo
when Africa did it with Malawi with
Liberia they didn’t get the memo from
the Egyptians with Cleopatra we need to
send a memo to the US it’s time and it’s
about time a woman was in the highest
office in the land not because she’s a
woman not because she’s running against
somebody who’s not better than her but
because it’s time and the reason I know
the details of the countries from
Estonia to Mauritius and incidentally
somebody’s to check what goes on in San
Marino because the captain regions very
many women scary literally but it’s a
good thing but for some strange reason
we
all know that the US for some reason
impacts the rest of our lives
but I want my daughter who’s
five-and-a-half going on 15 with an
opinion to boots
I want my goddaughter who’s two years
old to count her years from when Hillary
became president I count everything I
have when I look back because we live
life forward and we connect the dots
backwards from Beijing I am the last
born of Beijing we are the last line my
generation everybody after us must look
back to a day when a woman occupied the
White House so my message is very simple
in case they didn’t get the memo I’d
like to send it out it’s time for a
woman to be in the White House and on
the 8th of November we’ll be looking for
that to happen simply because the world
would never be the same again the
narrative we tell in the evolution of
women and the conversations we have will
never be the same again my daughter’s
life at five and a half will never be
the same again so my message to
Secretary Hillary Clinton is when not if
when you get to the White House make it
good make it right not just because you
can because you can but because it’s
about time thank you good night
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