WEBVTT

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Why do we think

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that stories by men are deemed
to be of universal importance,

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and stories by women are thought
to be merely about women?

NOTE Paragraph

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My grandmother left school
when she was 12.

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She had 14 children.

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My mother left school when she was 15.

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She was a secretary.

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I graduated from university
to become a theater director,

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and that progress is entirely to do
with the fact that people I'll never meet

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fought for women to have rights,

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get the vote, get education,
have progress.

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And I'm determined to do the same,
and obviously you are, too.

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Why not?

NOTE Paragraph

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(Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

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So I started a festival called WOW,
Women of the World, seven years ago,

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and it's now in 20 countries
across five continents.

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And one of those countries
is Somaliland in Africa.

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So I traveled there last year,

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and part of the joy I had in going there
was going to these caves.

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The Laas Geel caves.

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Now, these caves contain some
of the oldest cave paintings in the world.

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These paintings are thought to be
round about 9,000 to 11,000 years old.

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Art:

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what humanity has done
ever since it evolved.

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It's how we speak about ourselves,

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how we understand our identity,

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how we look at our surroundings,

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who we find out about each other

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because of the meaning of our lives.

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That's what art is for.

NOTE Paragraph

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So look at this little picture.

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I think it's a little girl.

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I thought it was a bit like me
when I was a little girl.

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And I thought, well, who painted
this joyful, youthful figure?

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And I asked the curator of the caves.

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I said, "Tell me about the men
and women who painted these."

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And he looked at me
absolutely askance, and he said,

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"Women didn't paint these pictures."

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And I said, "Well,
it was 11,000 years ago."

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I said, "How do you know?"

NOTE Paragraph

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(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

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And he said, "Women don't do these things.

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Men made these marks. Women don't."

NOTE Paragraph

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Now, I wasn't really surprised,

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because that's an attitude
that I've seen continuously

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all my life as a theater maker.

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We are told that divine knowledge
comes down through the masculine,

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whether it be to the imam,
the priest, the rabbi, the holy man.

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Similarly, we're told that creative genius
resides in the masculine,

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that it is the masculine

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that will be able to tell us
about who we really are,

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that the masculine will tell
the universal story

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on behalf of all of us,

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whereas women artists will really
just talk about women's experiences,

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women's issues
only really relevant to women

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and of passing interest to men --

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and really only some men.

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And it's that conviction,

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that that we are taught,

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that I think colors so much
of whether we're prepared to believe

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that women's stories really matter.

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And unless we're prepared to believe
that women's stories really matter,

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then women's rights don't really matter,

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and then change can't really come.

NOTE Paragraph

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I want to tell you
about two examples of stories

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that are thought to be
of universal importance:

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"E.T." and "Hamlet."

NOTE Paragraph

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(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

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So I took my two children
when they were little --

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Caroline was eight and Robby was five --

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to see "E.T."

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And it's a fantastic story
of this little alien

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who ends up in an American family

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with a mum, two brothers and a sister,

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but he wants to go home.

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Not only that, but some
really bad scientists

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want to do some experiments on him,

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and they're looking for him.

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So the children have a plot.

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They decide they're going to take him
back to his spaceship

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as soon as they can,

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and they plop him in a bicycle basket,

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and off they ride.

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But unfortunately, the baddies
have found out, and they're catching up

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and they've got sirens
and they've got their guns,

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they've got the loud-hailers,
it's terribly frightening,

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and they're closing up on the children,

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and the children are never
going to make it.

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And then all of a sudden, magically,
the bikes fly up in the air,

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over the clouds,

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over the moon,

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and they're going to save "E.T."

NOTE Paragraph

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So I turn to see my children's faces,

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and Robby is enraptured,
he's there with them, he's saving E.T.,

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he's a happy boy.

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And I turn to Caroline,
and she's crying her eyes out.

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And I said, "What's the matter?"

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And she said, "Why can't I save E.T.?
Why can't I come?"

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And then all of a sudden I realized:

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they weren't children;

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they were boys --

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all boys.

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And Caroline, who had invested
so much in E.T.,

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well, she wasn't invited to save him,

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and she felt humiliated and spurned.

NOTE Paragraph

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So I wrote to Steven Spielberg --

NOTE Paragraph

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(Laughter) (Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

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and I said, "I don't know
if you understand

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the psychological importance
of what's happened,

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and are you prepared to pay
for the therapy bills?"

NOTE Paragraph

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(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

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Twenty years later, I haven't
had a word back from him,

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but I'm still hopeful.

NOTE Paragraph

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(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

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But I thought it was interesting,

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because if you read reviews
of what he intended with E.T.,

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he says very specifically,

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"I wanted the world to understand

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that we should love
and embrace difference."

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But somehow he didn't include
the idea of girls' difference

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in this thinking.

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He thought he was writing a story
about all humanity.

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Caroline thought he was marginalizing

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half of humanity.

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He thought he was writing a story
about human goodness;

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she thought he was writing
a lad's heroic adventure.

NOTE Paragraph

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And this is common.

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Men feel they have been given the mantle
for universal communication,

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but of course, how could they be?

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They are writing from male experience
through male's eyes.

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We have to have a look at this ourselves.

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We have to be prepared to go back
through all our books and our films,

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all our favorite things,

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and say, "Actually, this is written
by a male artist --

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not an artist.

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We have to see
that so many of these stories

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are written through a male perspective.

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Which is fine,

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but then females need to have
50 percent of the rights

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for the stage, the film, the novel,

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the place of creativity.

NOTE Paragraph

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Let me talk about "Hamlet."

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To be or not to be.

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That is the question.

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But it's not my question.

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My question is: Why was I taught
as a young woman

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that this was the quintessential
example of human dilemma

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and human experience?

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It's a marvelous story,

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but actually, it's about a young man
fearful that he won't be able to make it

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as a powerful figure in a male world

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unless he takes revenge
for his father's murder.

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He talks a great deal to us
about suicide being an option,

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but the reality is that the person
who actually commits suicide, Ophelia,

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after she's been humiliated
and abused by him,

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never gets a chance to talk
to the audience about her feelings.

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And then when he's finished with Ophelia,
he turns on his mum,

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because basically she has the audacity
to fall in love with his uncle

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and enjoy sex.

NOTE Paragraph

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(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

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It is a great story,

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but it is a story about male conflict,
male dilemma, male struggle.

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But I was told this was the story
of human beings,

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despite the fact that it only
had two women in it.

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And unless I reeducate myself,

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I am always going to think

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that women's stories
matter less than men's.

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A woman could have written "Hamlet,"

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but she would have written it differently,

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and it wouldn't have had
global recognition.

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As the writer Margaret Atwood says,

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"When a man writes about doing the dishes,

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it's realism.

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When a woman writes about doing it,

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it's an unfortunate genetic disposition."

NOTE Paragraph

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(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

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Now, this is not just something
that belongs to then.

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I mean, when I was a young girl,

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wanting desperately
to be a theater director,

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this is what my male lecturer said to me:

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"Well, there are three women
directors in Britain," he said, "Jude."

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"There's Joan Knight, who's a lesbian,
there's Joan Littlewood, who's retired,

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and there's Buzz Goodbody,
who's just killed herself.

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So, which of those three
would you like to be?"

NOTE Paragraph

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(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

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Now, leaving aside
the disgusting slur on gay women,

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the fact is, he wanted to humiliate me.

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He thought it was silly
that I wanted to be a director.

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And I told my friend Marin Alsop,
the conductor, and she said,

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"Oh yes, well, my music teacher
said exactly the same.

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He said, 'Women don't conduct.'"

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But all these years later,
we've made our mark.

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You think, "Well, it'll be different now."

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I'm afraid it's not different now.

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The current head
of the Paris Conservatoire

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said recently, "It takes
great physical strength

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to conduct a symphony,

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and women are too weak."

NOTE Paragraph

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(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

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The artist George Baselitz said,

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"Well, the fact is women can't paint.

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Well -- they can't paint very well."

NOTE Paragraph

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The writer V.S. Naipaul
said two years ago,

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"I can read two paragraphs and know
immediately if it's written by a woman,

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and I just stop reading,
because it's not worthy of me."

NOTE Paragraph

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Audience: Whoa!

NOTE Paragraph

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And it goes on.

NOTE Paragraph

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We have to find a way

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of stopping young girls and women

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feeling not only that
their story doesn't matter,

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but they're not allowed
to be the storyteller.

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Because once you feel
that you can't stand in the central space

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and speak on behalf of the world,

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you will feel that you can offer
your goods up to a small, select group.

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You will tend to do smaller work
on smaller stages,

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your economic power will be less,

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your reach of audiences will be less,

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and your credit will be less as an artist.

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And we do finally give artists
these incredible, prominent spaces

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in the world,

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because they are our storytellers.

NOTE Paragraph

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Now, why should it matter to you
if you're not an artist?

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Supposing you're an accountant
or an entrepreneur or a medic

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or a scientist:

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Should you care about women artists?

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Absolutely, you must,

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because as you can see
from the cave paintings,

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all civilizations,

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all of humanity

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have relied upon artists
to tell the human story,

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and if the human story
is finally told by men,

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take my word for it,

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it will be about men.

NOTE Paragraph

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So let's make a change.

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Let's make a change
to all our institutions,

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and not just in the West.

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Don't forget -- this message
of incapability of women

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to hold creative genius

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is being told to girls and women
in Nigeria, in China, in Russia,

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in Indonesia.

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All over the world, girls
and women are being told

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that they can't finally hold the idea
of creative inspiration.

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And I want to ask you:

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Do you believe that?

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Do you believe that women
can be a creative genius?

NOTE Paragraph

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(Applause and cheers)

NOTE Paragraph

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Well then, please go forward,

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support women artists,

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buy their work,

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insist that their voices are heard,

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find platforms on which
their voices will be made.

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And remember this:

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that in a sense, if we're going
to get past this moment

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of a world where we know
that we are unequal,

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it's artists who have to imagine
a different world.

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And I'm calling on all artists,
women and men,

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to imagine a gender-equal world.

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Let's paint it. Let's draw it.

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Let's write about it. Let's film it.

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And if we could imagine it,

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then we would have the energy
and the stamina

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to work towards it.

NOTE Paragraph

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When I see this little girl,

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11,000 years ago,

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I want to know that the little girl now

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can stand there and think
she's entitled to her dreams,

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she's entitled to her destiny

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and she's entitled to speak
on behalf of the whole world,

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be recognized for it

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and applauded.

NOTE Paragraph

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Thank you.

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