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I want you to imagine

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what a breakthrough this was

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for women who were victims of violence

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in the 1980s.

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They would come into the emergency room

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with what the police would call "a lovers' quarrel,"

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and I would see a woman who was beaten,

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I would see a broken nose and a fractured wrist

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and swollen eyes.

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And as activists, we would take our Polaroid camera,

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we would take her picture,

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we would wait 90 seconds,

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and we would give her the photograph.

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And she would then have

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the evidence she needed to go to court.

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We were making what was invisible visible.

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I've been doing this for 30 years.

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I've been part of a social movement

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that has been working on ending

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violence against women and children.

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And for all those years,

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I've had an absolutely passionate

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and sometimes not popular belief

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that this violence is not inevitable,

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that it is learned, and if it's learned,

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it can be un-learned, and it can be prevented.

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(Applause)

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Why do I believe this?

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Because it's true.

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It is absolutely true.

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Between 1993 and 2010,

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domestic violence among adult women

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in the United States

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has gone down by 64 percent,

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and that is great news.

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(Applause)

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Sixty-four percent. Now, how did we get there?

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Our eyes were wide open.

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Thirty years ago, women were beaten,

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they were stalked, they were raped,

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and no one talked about it.

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There was no justice.

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And as an activist, that was not good enough.

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And so step one on this journey

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is we organized,

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and we created this extraordinary

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underground network of amazing women

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who opened shelters,

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and if they didn't open a shelter,

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they opened their home

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so that women and children could be safe.

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And you know what else we did?

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We had bake sales, we had car washes,

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and we did everything we could do to fundraise,

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and then at one point we said,

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you know, it's time that we went

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to the federal government

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and asked them to pay for these

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extraordinary services that are saving people's lives.

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Right? (Applause)

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And so, step number two,

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we knew we needed to change the laws.

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And so we went to Washington,

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and we lobbied for the first piece of legislation.

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And I remember walking through the halls

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of the U.S. Capitol,

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and I was in my 30s, and my life had purpose,

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and I couldn't imagine

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that anybody would ever challenge

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this important piece of legislation.

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I was probably 30 and naive.

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But I heard about a congressman

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who had a very, very different point of view.

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Do you know what he called

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this important piece of legislation?

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He called it the Take the Fun Out of Marriage Act.

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The Take the Fun Out of Marriage Act.

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Ladies and gentlemen, that was in 1984

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in the United States, and I wish I had Twitter.

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(Laughter)

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Ten years later, after lots of hard work,

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we finally passed the Violence Against Women Act,

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which is a life-changing act

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that has saved so many lives. (Applause)

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Thank you.

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I was proud to be part of that work,

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and it changed the laws

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and it put millions of dollars into local communities.

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And you know what else it did? It collected data.

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And I have to tell you, I'm passionate about data.

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In fact, I am a data nerd.

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I'm sure there are a lot of data nerds here.

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I am a data nerd,

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and the reason for that is I want to make sure

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that if we spend a dollar, that the program works,

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and if it doesn't work, we should change the plan.

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And I also want to say one other thing:

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We are not going to solve this problem

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by building more jails

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or by even building more shelters.

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It is about economic empowerment for women,

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it is about healing kids who are hurt,

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and it is about prevention with a capital P.

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And so, step number three on this journey:

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We know, if we're going to
keep making this progress,

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we're going to have to turn up the volume,

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we're going to have to increase the visibility,

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and we're going to have to engage the public.

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And so knowing that, we went
to the Advertising Council,

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and we asked them to help us

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build a public education campaign.

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And we looked around the world to Canada

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and Australia and Brazil and parts of Africa,

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and we took this knowledge

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and we built the first national

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public education campaign

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called There's No Excuse for Domestic Violence.

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Take a look at one of our spots.

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(Video) Man: Where's dinner?

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Woman: Well, I thought you'd be home a couple hours ago, and I put everything away, so—

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Man: What is this? Pizza.
Woman: If you had just called me,
I would have known—

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Man: Dinner? Dinner ready is a pizza?
Woman: Honey, please don't be so loud.

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Please don't—Let go of me!

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Man: Get in the kitchen!
Woman: No! Help!

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Man: You want to see what hurts? (Slaps woman)

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That's what hurts! That's what hurts!
(Breaking glass)

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Woman: Help me!

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["Children have to sit by and watch.
What's your excuse?"]

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Esta Soler: As we were in the process

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of releasing this campaign,

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O.J. Simpson was arrested

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for the murder of his wife and her friend.

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We learned that he had a long history

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of domestic violence.

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The media became fixated.

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The story of domestic violence

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went from the back page,

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but actually from the no-page, to the front page.

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Our ads blanketed the airwaves,

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and women, for the first time,

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started to tell their stories.

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Movements are about moments,

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and we seized this moment.

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And let me just put this in context.

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Before 1980, do you have any idea

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how many articles were in The New York Times

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on domestic violence?

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I'll tell you: 158.

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And in the 2000s, over 7,000.

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We were obviously making a difference.

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But we were still missing a critical element.

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So, step four: We needed to engage men.

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We couldn't solve this problem

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with 50 percent of the population on the sidelines.

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And I already told you I'm a data nerd.

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National polling told us that men felt indicted

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and not invited into this conversation.

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So we wondered, how can we include men?

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How can we get men to talk about

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violence against women and girls?

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And a male friend of mine pulled me aside

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and he said, "You want men to talk about violence

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against women and girls. Men don't talk."

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(Laughter)

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I apologize to the men in the audience.

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I know you do.

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But he said, "Do you know what they do do?

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They do talk to their kids.

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They talk to their kids as parents, as coaches."

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And that's what we did.

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We met men where they were at

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and we built a program.

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And then we had this one event

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that stays in my heart forever

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where a basketball coach

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was talking to a room filled with male athletes

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and men from all walks of life.

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And he was talking about the importance

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of coaching boys into men

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and changing the culture of the locker room

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and giving men the tools to
have healthy relationships.

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And all of a sudden, he looked
at the back of the room,

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and he saw his daughter,

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and he called out his daughter's name, Michaela,

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and he said, "Michaela, come up here."

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And she's nine years old, and she was kind of shy,

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and she got up there,

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and he said, "Sit down next to me."

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She sat right down next to him.

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He gave her this big hug, and he said,

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"People ask me why I do this work.

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I do this work because I'm her dad,

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and I don't want anyone ever to hurt her."

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And as a parent, I get it.

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I get it,

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knowing that there are so many sexual assaults

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on college campuses

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that are so widespread and so under-reported.

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We've done a lot for adult women.

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We've got to do a better job for our kids.

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We just do. We have to. (Applause)

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We've come a long way

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since the days of the Polaroid.

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Technology has been our friend.

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The mobile phone is a global game changer

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for the empowerment of women,

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and Facebook and Twitter and Google and YouTube

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and all the social media helps us organize

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and tell our story in a powerful way.

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And so those of you in this audience

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who have helped build those applications

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and those platforms, as an organizer,

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I say, thank you very much.

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Really. I clap for you.

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(Applause)

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I'm the daughter of a man

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who joined one club in his life,

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the Optimist Club.

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You can't make that one up.

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And it is his spirit and his optimism

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that is in my DNA.

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I have been doing this work

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for over 30 years,

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and I am convinced, now more than ever,

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in the capacity of human beings to change.

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I believe we can bend the arc of human history

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toward compassion and equality,

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and I also fundamentally believe

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and passionately believe

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that this violence does not have to be part

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of the human condition.

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And I ask you, stand with us

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as we create futures without violence

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for women and girls and men and boys everywhere.

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Thank you very much.

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(Applause)