[Music]
good afternoon now you’ve had your snack
but the deal is you don’t get to fall
asleep about a year ago I went bowling
with my two four-year-olds John and I on
Elise on Elise didn’t wait for me to put
the bowling ramp down kids use a bowling
ramp and they can’t lift it up and throw
it
she took the bowling ball ran around the
ramp heaved it at the pins with all her
might struck a superhero pose and
proclaimed to the entire bowling alley
I’m a leader yeah that’s my daughter
she’s a leader she calls the shots in
the house at that point that was a very
kernel or the seed of the beginning of
this book I started looking around for
books on women presidents and prime
ministers because why not her right and
heck we were gonna have a woman
president it looked like so I looked
around and there had been nothing
published in 12 years well there have
been 55 women presidents and prime
ministers in the past 12 years so that
seemed like an oversight I’m a writer
I’m an editor I mean how hard can it be
so I just yeah I’m very hard as the
answer so I’ve taken a fast year to
write a book about the hundred-and-eight
apparently there is one more that I
missed in the first draft women
presidents and prime ministers it’s been
an amazing year I found out so many
things that I had no idea and that I
found out also a lot of people didn’t
know about women’s leadership and that’s
what I’ve come here to share with you
today so let me start with some stats so
first of all I’m a leader second time
she did it I got it
that’s her so when I was young man when
I was a boy Indira Gandhi you know there
is her Golda Meir Margaret Thatcher very
small number of women were leaders now
that number has increased in the 80s it
was eight or nine and now it’s grown by
over 400 percent and there are currently
18 women in office and in the past
decade there have been 44 108 altogether
just look at them so it’s grown by 400%
and that’s that’s the good news the bad
news is it’s still only 9% of national
leaders or women so yeah we’ve come a
long way but really not not clearly not
as far as we had hoped so how does it
break down here’s some stats for you
Europe has had 44 women leaders Asia 24
Africa 15 remarkable you know Africa
gets universally panned for not having
many women leaders not the case Central
America and the Caribbean have had 11
South America has had 8 the Pacific area
has had 4 and North America comes up in
last place with 2 now this was shocking
for me because I’ve always grown up
beacon of democracy North America and
for us to be lagging so far behind the
rest of the world is very surprising
aleko Hammond of Greenland was prime
minister of Greenland for one year and
Kim Campbell was Prime Minister of
Canada for four months so even though
we’ve had two women it’s not a lot of
time in there so big fact number one
that I discovered that I didn’t know
before was that women come from far more
diverse backgrounds than men than their
counterparts has been American
presidents 57 percent of them were
lawyers right our Congress 40 percent of
them were lawyers but women yes there’s
a number of lawyers that that became
national heads but there are artists
they’re activists their accountants
their economics economists there are
teachers there’s a engineers there are
guerrilla fighters and soccer moms there
are dancers and flight attendants and
that’s important why is diversity of
because women bring diverse perspectives
to the table that are normally not heard
and those for those perspectives are
valuable
so having diversity is I think one of
the biggest things that women bring to
the table let’s talk about a couple of
these women and their careers and how
they affected their Nations Sarah Coogan
gawe of Namibia she’s a current prime
minister at 27 years of age she was
working in the president’s office she
was an accountant and she was so good
with the book the books that they asked
her to become the national budget
director after that she became a finance
minister now she is prime minister and
Namibia for the first time in its
history has balanced its books and run a
surplus natasha mythic of Serbia for
year-and-a-half she was the interim
president by succession she wasn’t
elected she went by elevation and she
was an activist in her term she created
an environment where a democratic
election could take place very valuable
peacemaker right she redefined what it
was to be a president youthful
enthusiastic blunt honest you know not
afraid to laugh in interviews this
redefined what it was to be a leader and
her background was two years before she
was running around in a car I kid you
not with Thelma and Louise written on it
leading the protest to overthrow
Milosevic true story you can’t make this
stuff up Kirsty casual aid of Estonia
was a power plant manager Angela Merkel
you might not have known was a quantum
chemist I have no idea what a quantum
chemist is but you know she’s smart one
of my favorites I mean agreed Fatima of
the Mauritius she is a biologist who
runs a biomedical park and the Mauritius
are in Africa but they’re a little
island chain off to the east in the
Indian Ocean and what she does is she
looks at the flora and the fauna of the
Indian Ocean and looks for cures for
cancer looks for cures for alternative
medicinal of plant based antibiotics
additional types of proteins things that
you know nobody’s even really looking at
in that area
she gave a TED lecture that was so
popular
viral that when they had a
constitutional crisis in 2016 and the
president wanted to stay on longer the
powers that be got together and they
said what about that lady that ran that
Ted lecture that was so good
yeah they drafted her she won she now
has the biggest bully pulpit in the
world and she could talk about that
stuff all day long
Hilda Heine of the Marshall Islands was
a teacher when she became president last
year she realized that 90% of her time
is going to be spent talking about the
fact that her islands are sinking
they’re being reclaimed by the Pacific
people are fleeing the islands so she’s
using her teacher background to talk to
the global leaders about global warming
so we’ve seen that women are diverse
could there be a half a dozen things
that women do when they get to office
consistently ninety ninety-five percent
of a whoa I’m glad you asked yes they do
I bet you you could tell me three or
four of them don’t don’t call out about
that kind of a show but the first one is
the economy every president Prime
Minister works on the economy but the
other ones are excellent women protect
women children the environment health
care and our peace builders and persons
of national reconciliation let’s hear
from women
they are almost universally a force for
good when they lead a nation it’s it’s
remarkable
they protect and they make peace if I
led it to tomorrow you may never have
heard of her she was the president the
first freely elected president of
Nicaragua you may have heard of Daniel
Ortega the sandanista who won the civil
war after he won the civil war he called
an election she wanted she beat Daniel
Ortega she put together a 19 party
coalition she used to be the the
journalist that headed the LA prensa her
claim to fame was that quote
reconciliation is better than victory
what does that mean it means that that
friendship that you see that’s a nation
reconciling the friendship that she went
out of her way to make with Daniel
Ortega helped heal a nation people
thought it couldn’t be done
knit in Nicaragua did you Bhandari did
his husband picture their madam was a
communist rebel after the war was over
he retired and he they believed that he
was assassinated she had always been
peripherally involved in politics but
she got very involved in politics and
rose up the chain a few years ago the
monarchy of Nepal said ok I will allow
democracy so all the leaders tried to
come together and figure out how they
were gonna do a constitution they pulled
on Vidya and they asked her if she could
bring the Maoist guerillas in because
you can’t have peace when you’ve got a
Maoist insurrection right so because of
her credentials left-of-center she sat
down with the malleus got them to come
in
got them to disarm integrated them into
society she did such a great job that
they said would you consider being
president she says yes on one condition
give us the women’s mandate and they got
it she single-handedly brought a 30%
quota system for women in the
legislature of Nepal outpacing most of
the rest of the world right
Sabine Bergman poll only intellect in
the office for six months East Germany
had an elected official that was Prime
Minister yeah yeah they did they had a
woman and what did she do she worked her
heart out
to work herself out of a job after six
months they applied to reunify with West
Germany and peacefully reunified the
East with the West
she took a minor cabinet position in the
unity cabinet and then disappeared
that’s selfless that’s peace building
now the tragic part how are these women
treated I hate to tell you but they are
treated awfully I mean awfully you know
the misogyny the sexism the
discrimination the abuse the violence
that we see on a local level around the
local news is on steroids when women
fight or when women try to obtain the
highest office in the land
look at that statistic 40% of Asian
women who have been president prime
minister so their mid 24 of them 11 of
them have been jailed injured in an
assassination attempt or killed it’s
it’s ungodly it’s a it’s a huge
statistic 37% that’s three of the eighth
of South American women that have led
nations had been tortured actually
tortured by the very country they would
one day go up grow up to lead you know
Michelle Bachelet she’s a current
president of Chile she and her father
pictured there just a little while after
that picture were arrested he was
tortured to death
she was also tortured she survived and
became president dilma rousseff you
remember she was the Brazilian President
was impeached a few years ago some are
calling it a parliamentary coup she was
a she was a little she was a rebel she
was a guerrilla but she didn’t fight she
wasn’t a violent rose who do messages
back and forth and stuff when they
captured her they put her on trial
tortured her so severely they broke her
dental palette that’s why she speaks
with a lisp
just last month read millisecond Eska
the president she was the world’s
youngest in the modern age the world’s
youngest female president 32 of
Macedonia properly called the former
Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia have
to say that she was attacked on the
floor of the Parliament thrown to the
ground by her hair by nationalist thugs
in all of the articles they talked about
the male policymakers that were injured
she was mentioned by name only once
usually they said some woman was
to the ground by her hair world’s
youngest Prime Minister on the women’s
side Prime Minister of the country
didn’t mention her name
why is it so hard on women leaders when
they’re clearly a good force for good I
mean why well there are three obvious
answers well two obvious one not so
obvious the first obvious one is the
misogyny the sexism the discrimination
that we spoken it’s their people some
people just don’t like women or aren’t
used to a woman in leadership the second
is a problem that we have here in the
United States it’s the power of the
incumbency that’s why we still get the
same Congress people over and over and
over because it’s tough to beat them
because the the districts are drawn a
certain way so the power of incumbency
is a second the third this is the tricky
one here in the United States and
especially in the older democratic
republics you have a subtle bias that’s
barely perceived for men and against
women in many of the aspects of
government when I was young man I want
to be a constitutional lawyer
yeah-hoo-hoo grows up thinking you know
eight years old because then there is I
being able to teach her but I love the
Constitution still do the Constitution
is the most beautiful man-made document
on behalf of mankind ever I think
mankind womenkind not so much heresy
right
no at the founding of our republic in
1787 when the founding fathers got
together and wrote the constitution they
wrote a document that only gave rights
to people that look like them these were
white anglo-saxon landed gentry who are
either farmers lawyers or merchants
that’s a very small sliver of the pie
right 80% of the people that lived in
the Republic did not get rights
african-americans clearly it’s not for
free blacks and even the free blacks
only got rights in certain states women
forget about it they didn’t get the
franchise for 130 years immigrants never
etc etc and so forth you think about a
first second think of your your founding
women think of any women you know think
of five
women you know right off the top of your
head put them together in a room say you
have to write the new Constitution of
the United States how many of them are
gonna write a constitution that doesn’t
include their sons their brothers and
their husbands husbands okay but it’s
not gonna happen not wired that way men
did this hey I love the Constitution but
it’s a big oversight and we’ve never
gone back and corrected it
it’s almost heresy to talk about it but
it’s a huge omission there’s a woman
named Catherine MacKinnon she wrote
towards a feminist theory of state in
this book she since the time when I read
this 20 years ago she said something
that really struck a chord and I think
it stayed with me all that time she said
that because the law is elevated because
the law is perceived as neutral it’s
it’s never really criticized you never
really look at how the laws are created
well women weren’t at the table when the
Constitution was written when the Bill
of Rights was drafted they weren’t there
for any of the important amendments they
weren’t there when the burdens of the
law were created gosh knows they weren’t
there
when the system was created I mean
you’ve got a system where the
prosecution the defense fight over not
the truth not justice but who wins there
are issues here it’s a year and my
biggest conclusion is it women rock they
just do they’re a force for good and I
have a couple questions why do we not
have more what do we need to do in the
United States to get more well the first
thing we need to do if you’re an addict
if you have a problem and whatever
you’re going on in your life the first
thing you need to do is figure out there
is a problem we need to be able to
handle that criticism we need to realize
that we are lagging behind everybody
else that we’re in last place tied with
Russia China another place around the
world for never having a national leader
we are also in a hundred and first place
behind nations like Zimbabwe Cuba Sudan
and Saudi Arabia for women legislature
legislators that’s a fact we’re behind
those countries
we’re behind dictatorships all over the
world we have 19% women in the House of
Representatives 21 in the Senate because
mirror prints keene she was the first
Prime Minister of an independent
Lithuania remember Landis Bergen when
they broke away from the Soviet Union
she was his prime minister she was
fantastic she has a quote that says a
country ruled only by men cannot be
considered a true democracy indeed so
what can we do to fix this there is a
fix and there is a solution you’ll be
happy to know now you heard about it
when I talked about BG Bhandari it’s the
women’s mandate the women’s mandate was
born in 1995 during the Beijing
conference after the Beijing conference
they were looking for ways that we can
get more women into politics and
national leadership so the United
Nations in 2000 put together a series of
proposals and the proposals said do a
mandate do a quota system they went to
the 50 lowest performing countries for
women’s representation they said all 50
of you should do this 40 of them did and
almost all of those 40 countries are now
in the top half of the world and no
longer at the bottom that’s a fact these
are some of the countries how do you
bring that to the United States
constitutional amendment that’s tough
it’s timely because a lot of people are
talking about the electoral college
electoral college has essentially
elected two presidents in the past 16
years that the popular vote did not
elect Bush and Trump that was never the
intention of the electoral college it
was to give smaller states a place at
the table
by replacing the electoral college with
the women’s mandate what you do is you
give those smaller states their power
back on a practical daily basis because
they get as many senators as the big
states do they retain that power
actually it’s more powerful for small
states because they don’t have it every
174 years they have it every day the
Congress convenes
give women the vote but do it in
Congress when I went to school here and
when I went to Georgetown and when I
went to Culver I was a big liberal arts
guy and I believed in that stuff to my
core liberal arts education will Seidel
you with thoughts about big ideas
they’re always going to be asking the
big questions I took a year once and
went to Europe to research genocide and
genocide prevention I wrote my master’s
thesis on it I wrote a book about how to
prevent genocide and then I founded the
Center for the Prevention of genocide
which existed for four years here it was
the initial source of the sources on
Darfur when that broke we helped stop
massacres in Sulawesi Indonesia in
eastern Congo we were we testified in
Congress about the LRA we did a number
of things in four years that were
amazing but that was purposefully done
when I ran it when I wrote this book for
my daughter it started off as a lark it
was a lark but I stumbled across a
universal truth accidentally how do we
get from a world where there’s warfare
and genocide and famine and all these
bad things that happen and there’s a lot
of good in the world but how do we get
from there to a place with less war with
less genocide with less famine what does
that roadmap even look like what does
the prescription sound like we’re even
talking about this the prescription the
roadmap the panacea for me begins with
women and women leaders thank you
[Applause]
good afternoon now you’ve had your snack
but the deal is you don’t get to fall
asleep about a year ago I went bowling
with my two four-year-olds John and I on
Elise on Elise didn’t wait for me to put
the bowling ramp down kids use a bowling
ramp and they can’t lift it up and throw
it
she took the bowling ball ran around the
ramp heaved it at the pins with all her
might struck a superhero pose and
proclaimed to the entire bowling alley
I’m a leader yeah that’s my daughter
she’s a leader she calls the shots in
the house at that point that was a very
kernel or the seed of the beginning of
this book I started looking around for
books on women presidents and prime
ministers because why not her right and
heck we were gonna have a woman
president it looked like so I looked
around and there had been nothing
published in 12 years well there have
been 55 women presidents and prime
ministers in the past 12 years so that
seemed like an oversight I’m a writer
I’m an editor I mean how hard can it be
so I just yeah I’m very hard as the
answer so I’ve taken a fast year to
write a book about the hundred-and-eight
apparently there is one more that I
missed in the first draft women
presidents and prime ministers it’s been
an amazing year I found out so many
things that I had no idea and that I
found out also a lot of people didn’t
know about women’s leadership and that’s
what I’ve come here to share with you
today so let me start with some stats so
first of all I’m a leader second time
she did it I got it
that’s her so when I was young man when
I was a boy Indira Gandhi you know there
is her Golda Meir Margaret Thatcher very
small number of women were leaders now
that number has increased in the 80s it
was eight or nine and now it’s grown by
over 400 percent and there are currently
18 women in office and in the past
decade there have been 44 108 altogether
just look at them so it’s grown by 400%
and that’s that’s the good news the bad
news is it’s still only 9% of national
leaders or women so yeah we’ve come a
long way but really not not clearly not
as far as we had hoped so how does it
break down here’s some stats for you
Europe has had 44 women leaders Asia 24
Africa 15 remarkable you know Africa
gets universally panned for not having
many women leaders not the case Central
America and the Caribbean have had 11
South America has had 8 the Pacific area
has had 4 and North America comes up in
last place with 2 now this was shocking
for me because I’ve always grown up
beacon of democracy North America and
for us to be lagging so far behind the
rest of the world is very surprising
aleko Hammond of Greenland was prime
minister of Greenland for one year and
Kim Campbell was Prime Minister of
Canada for four months so even though
we’ve had two women it’s not a lot of
time in there so big fact number one
that I discovered that I didn’t know
before was that women come from far more
diverse backgrounds than men than their
counterparts has been American
presidents 57 percent of them were
lawyers right our Congress 40 percent of
them were lawyers but women yes there’s
a number of lawyers that that became
national heads but there are artists
they’re activists their accountants
their economics economists there are
teachers there’s a engineers there are
guerrilla fighters and soccer moms there
are dancers and flight attendants and
that’s important why is diversity of
because women bring diverse perspectives
to the table that are normally not heard
and those for those perspectives are
valuable
so having diversity is I think one of
the biggest things that women bring to
the table let’s talk about a couple of
these women and their careers and how
they affected their Nations Sarah Coogan
gawe of Namibia she’s a current prime
minister at 27 years of age she was
working in the president’s office she
was an accountant and she was so good
with the book the books that they asked
her to become the national budget
director after that she became a finance
minister now she is prime minister and
Namibia for the first time in its
history has balanced its books and run a
surplus natasha mythic of Serbia for
year-and-a-half she was the interim
president by succession she wasn’t
elected she went by elevation and she
was an activist in her term she created
an environment where a democratic
election could take place very valuable
peacemaker right she redefined what it
was to be a president youthful
enthusiastic blunt honest you know not
afraid to laugh in interviews this
redefined what it was to be a leader and
her background was two years before she
was running around in a car I kid you
not with Thelma and Louise written on it
leading the protest to overthrow
Milosevic true story you can’t make this
stuff up Kirsty casual aid of Estonia
was a power plant manager Angela Merkel
you might not have known was a quantum
chemist I have no idea what a quantum
chemist is but you know she’s smart one
of my favorites I mean agreed Fatima of
the Mauritius she is a biologist who
runs a biomedical park and the Mauritius
are in Africa but they’re a little
island chain off to the east in the
Indian Ocean and what she does is she
looks at the flora and the fauna of the
Indian Ocean and looks for cures for
cancer looks for cures for alternative
medicinal of plant based antibiotics
additional types of proteins things that
you know nobody’s even really looking at
in that area
she gave a TED lecture that was so
popular
viral that when they had a
constitutional crisis in 2016 and the
president wanted to stay on longer the
powers that be got together and they
said what about that lady that ran that
Ted lecture that was so good
yeah they drafted her she won she now
has the biggest bully pulpit in the
world and she could talk about that
stuff all day long
Hilda Heine of the Marshall Islands was
a teacher when she became president last
year she realized that 90% of her time
is going to be spent talking about the
fact that her islands are sinking
they’re being reclaimed by the Pacific
people are fleeing the islands so she’s
using her teacher background to talk to
the global leaders about global warming
so we’ve seen that women are diverse
could there be a half a dozen things
that women do when they get to office
consistently ninety ninety-five percent
of a whoa I’m glad you asked yes they do
I bet you you could tell me three or
four of them don’t don’t call out about
that kind of a show but the first one is
the economy every president Prime
Minister works on the economy but the
other ones are excellent women protect
women children the environment health
care and our peace builders and persons
of national reconciliation let’s hear
from women
they are almost universally a force for
good when they lead a nation it’s it’s
remarkable
they protect and they make peace if I
led it to tomorrow you may never have
heard of her she was the president the
first freely elected president of
Nicaragua you may have heard of Daniel
Ortega the sandanista who won the civil
war after he won the civil war he called
an election she wanted she beat Daniel
Ortega she put together a 19 party
coalition she used to be the the
journalist that headed the LA prensa her
claim to fame was that quote
reconciliation is better than victory
what does that mean it means that that
friendship that you see that’s a nation
reconciling the friendship that she went
out of her way to make with Daniel
Ortega helped heal a nation people
thought it couldn’t be done
knit in Nicaragua did you Bhandari did
his husband picture their madam was a
communist rebel after the war was over
he retired and he they believed that he
was assassinated she had always been
peripherally involved in politics but
she got very involved in politics and
rose up the chain a few years ago the
monarchy of Nepal said ok I will allow
democracy so all the leaders tried to
come together and figure out how they
were gonna do a constitution they pulled
on Vidya and they asked her if she could
bring the Maoist guerillas in because
you can’t have peace when you’ve got a
Maoist insurrection right so because of
her credentials left-of-center she sat
down with the malleus got them to come
in
got them to disarm integrated them into
society she did such a great job that
they said would you consider being
president she says yes on one condition
give us the women’s mandate and they got
it she single-handedly brought a 30%
quota system for women in the
legislature of Nepal outpacing most of
the rest of the world right
Sabine Bergman poll only intellect in
the office for six months East Germany
had an elected official that was Prime
Minister yeah yeah they did they had a
woman and what did she do she worked her
heart out
to work herself out of a job after six
months they applied to reunify with West
Germany and peacefully reunified the
East with the West
she took a minor cabinet position in the
unity cabinet and then disappeared
that’s selfless that’s peace building
now the tragic part how are these women
treated I hate to tell you but they are
treated awfully I mean awfully you know
the misogyny the sexism the
discrimination the abuse the violence
that we see on a local level around the
local news is on steroids when women
fight or when women try to obtain the
highest office in the land
look at that statistic 40% of Asian
women who have been president prime
minister so their mid 24 of them 11 of
them have been jailed injured in an
assassination attempt or killed it’s
it’s ungodly it’s a it’s a huge
statistic 37% that’s three of the eighth
of South American women that have led
nations had been tortured actually
tortured by the very country they would
one day go up grow up to lead you know
Michelle Bachelet she’s a current
president of Chile she and her father
pictured there just a little while after
that picture were arrested he was
tortured to death
she was also tortured she survived and
became president dilma rousseff you
remember she was the Brazilian President
was impeached a few years ago some are
calling it a parliamentary coup she was
a she was a little she was a rebel she
was a guerrilla but she didn’t fight she
wasn’t a violent rose who do messages
back and forth and stuff when they
captured her they put her on trial
tortured her so severely they broke her
dental palette that’s why she speaks
with a lisp
just last month read millisecond Eska
the president she was the world’s
youngest in the modern age the world’s
youngest female president 32 of
Macedonia properly called the former
Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia have
to say that she was attacked on the
floor of the Parliament thrown to the
ground by her hair by nationalist thugs
in all of the articles they talked about
the male policymakers that were injured
she was mentioned by name only once
usually they said some woman was
to the ground by her hair world’s
youngest Prime Minister on the women’s
side Prime Minister of the country
didn’t mention her name
why is it so hard on women leaders when
they’re clearly a good force for good I
mean why well there are three obvious
answers well two obvious one not so
obvious the first obvious one is the
misogyny the sexism the discrimination
that we spoken it’s their people some
people just don’t like women or aren’t
used to a woman in leadership the second
is a problem that we have here in the
United States it’s the power of the
incumbency that’s why we still get the
same Congress people over and over and
over because it’s tough to beat them
because the the districts are drawn a
certain way so the power of incumbency
is a second the third this is the tricky
one here in the United States and
especially in the older democratic
republics you have a subtle bias that’s
barely perceived for men and against
women in many of the aspects of
government when I was young man I want
to be a constitutional lawyer
yeah-hoo-hoo grows up thinking you know
eight years old because then there is I
being able to teach her but I love the
Constitution still do the Constitution
is the most beautiful man-made document
on behalf of mankind ever I think
mankind womenkind not so much heresy
right
no at the founding of our republic in
1787 when the founding fathers got
together and wrote the constitution they
wrote a document that only gave rights
to people that look like them these were
white anglo-saxon landed gentry who are
either farmers lawyers or merchants
that’s a very small sliver of the pie
right 80% of the people that lived in
the Republic did not get rights
african-americans clearly it’s not for
free blacks and even the free blacks
only got rights in certain states women
forget about it they didn’t get the
franchise for 130 years immigrants never
etc etc and so forth you think about a
first second think of your your founding
women think of any women you know think
of five
women you know right off the top of your
head put them together in a room say you
have to write the new Constitution of
the United States how many of them are
gonna write a constitution that doesn’t
include their sons their brothers and
their husbands husbands okay but it’s
not gonna happen not wired that way men
did this hey I love the Constitution but
it’s a big oversight and we’ve never
gone back and corrected it
it’s almost heresy to talk about it but
it’s a huge omission there’s a woman
named Catherine MacKinnon she wrote
towards a feminist theory of state in
this book she since the time when I read
this 20 years ago she said something
that really struck a chord and I think
it stayed with me all that time she said
that because the law is elevated because
the law is perceived as neutral it’s
it’s never really criticized you never
really look at how the laws are created
well women weren’t at the table when the
Constitution was written when the Bill
of Rights was drafted they weren’t there
for any of the important amendments they
weren’t there when the burdens of the
law were created gosh knows they weren’t
there
when the system was created I mean
you’ve got a system where the
prosecution the defense fight over not
the truth not justice but who wins there
are issues here it’s a year and my
biggest conclusion is it women rock they
just do they’re a force for good and I
have a couple questions why do we not
have more what do we need to do in the
United States to get more well the first
thing we need to do if you’re an addict
if you have a problem and whatever
you’re going on in your life the first
thing you need to do is figure out there
is a problem we need to be able to
handle that criticism we need to realize
that we are lagging behind everybody
else that we’re in last place tied with
Russia China another place around the
world for never having a national leader
we are also in a hundred and first place
behind nations like Zimbabwe Cuba Sudan
and Saudi Arabia for women legislature
legislators that’s a fact we’re behind
those countries
we’re behind dictatorships all over the
world we have 19% women in the House of
Representatives 21 in the Senate because
mirror prints keene she was the first
Prime Minister of an independent
Lithuania remember Landis Bergen when
they broke away from the Soviet Union
she was his prime minister she was
fantastic she has a quote that says a
country ruled only by men cannot be
considered a true democracy indeed so
what can we do to fix this there is a
fix and there is a solution you’ll be
happy to know now you heard about it
when I talked about BG Bhandari it’s the
women’s mandate the women’s mandate was
born in 1995 during the Beijing
conference after the Beijing conference
they were looking for ways that we can
get more women into politics and
national leadership so the United
Nations in 2000 put together a series of
proposals and the proposals said do a
mandate do a quota system they went to
the 50 lowest performing countries for
women’s representation they said all 50
of you should do this 40 of them did and
almost all of those 40 countries are now
in the top half of the world and no
longer at the bottom that’s a fact these
are some of the countries how do you
bring that to the United States
constitutional amendment that’s tough
it’s timely because a lot of people are
talking about the electoral college
electoral college has essentially
elected two presidents in the past 16
years that the popular vote did not
elect Bush and Trump that was never the
intention of the electoral college it
was to give smaller states a place at
the table
by replacing the electoral college with
the women’s mandate what you do is you
give those smaller states their power
back on a practical daily basis because
they get as many senators as the big
states do they retain that power
actually it’s more powerful for small
states because they don’t have it every
174 years they have it every day the
Congress convenes
give women the vote but do it in
Congress when I went to school here and
when I went to Georgetown and when I
went to Culver I was a big liberal arts
guy and I believed in that stuff to my
core liberal arts education will Seidel
you with thoughts about big ideas
they’re always going to be asking the
big questions I took a year once and
went to Europe to research genocide and
genocide prevention I wrote my master’s
thesis on it I wrote a book about how to
prevent genocide and then I founded the
Center for the Prevention of genocide
which existed for four years here it was
the initial source of the sources on
Darfur when that broke we helped stop
massacres in Sulawesi Indonesia in
eastern Congo we were we testified in
Congress about the LRA we did a number
of things in four years that were
amazing but that was purposefully done
when I ran it when I wrote this book for
my daughter it started off as a lark it
was a lark but I stumbled across a
universal truth accidentally how do we
get from a world where there’s warfare
and genocide and famine and all these
bad things that happen and there’s a lot
of good in the world but how do we get
from there to a place with less war with
less genocide with less famine what does
that roadmap even look like what does
the prescription sound like we’re even
talking about this the prescription the
roadmap the panacea for me begins with
women and women leaders thank you
[Applause]
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