-
I am so excited to be here.
-
Everything in America
is so much bigger than in Europe.
-
Look at me -- I am huge!
-
(Laughter)
-
It's fantastic!
-
And TED Talks -- TED Talks
are where everybody has great ideas.
-
So the question is: Where do
those great ideas come from?
-
Well, it's a little bit of debate,
-
but it's generally reckoned
that the average person --
-
that's me --
-
has about 50,000 thoughts a day.
-
Which is a lot,
-
until you realize that 95 percent of them
-
are the same ones you had the day before.
-
(Laughter)
-
And a lot of mine are really boring, OK?
-
I think things like,
-
"Oh! I know -- I must clean the floor.
-
Oh! I forgot to walk the dog."
-
My most popular:
-
"Don't eat that cookie."
-
(Laughter)
-
So, 95 percent repetition.
-
That leaves us with just a five percent
window of opportunity each day
-
to actually think something new.
-
And some of my new thoughts are useless.
-
The other day I was watching
some sports on television,
-
and I was trying to decide
why I just don't engage with it.
-
Some of it I find curious.
-
This is odd.
-
(Laughter)
-
Do you think it would be
worth being that flexible
-
just to be able to see
your heel at that angle?
-
(Laughter)
-
And here's the thing:
-
I'm never going to be able
to relate to that,
-
because I'm never going
to be able to do it, OK?
-
Well, not twice, anyway.
-
(Laughter)
-
But I'll tell you the truth.
-
The truth is I have never been
any good at sport, OK?
-
I've reached that wonderful age
when all my friends say,
-
"Oh, I wish I was as fit
as I was when I was 18."
-
And I always feel rather smug then.
-
(Laughter)
-
I'm exactly as fit as I was when I --
-
(Laughter)
-
(Applause)
-
I couldn't run then. I'm certainly
not going to do it now.
-
(Laughter)
-
So then I had my new idea:
-
Why not engage people like me in sport?
-
I think what the world needs now
-
is the Olympics for people
with zero athletic ability.
-
(Laughter)
-
Oh, it would be so much more fun.
-
We'd have three basic rules, OK?
-
Obviously no drugs;
no corruption, no skills.
-
(Laughter)
-
It would be --
-
No, it's a terrible idea.
-
And I also know why I don't engage
with sport when I watch it on television.
-
It's because probably 97 percent of it
is about men running
-
and men kicking things,
-
men trying to look
neatly packaged in Lycra.
-
There is --
-
(Laughter)
-
Not always successfully.
-
There is --
-
(Laughter)
-
There is so little
female sport on television,
-
that a young woman watching
might be forgiven for thinking --
-
and how can I put this nicely --
-
that the male member
is the very lever you need
-
to get yourself off the couch
and onto a sports ground.
-
(Laughter)
-
The inequalities in sport
are breathtaking.
-
So this is what happens to me:
-
I have a brand-new idea,
-
and immediately I come back to an old one.
-
The fact is, there is not now,
-
nor has there ever been
in the whole of history,
-
a single country in the world
where women have equality with men.
-
Not one.
-
A hundred and ninety-six countries,
-
It hasn't happened
in the whole of evolution.
-
So, here is a picture of evolution.
-
(Laughter)
-
We women are not even in it!
-
(Laughter)
-
It's a wonder men have been able
to evolve quite so brilliantly.
-
So --
-
(Laughter)
-
It bugs me and I know
I should do something about it.
-
But I'm busy, OK?
-
I have a full-on career,
-
I've got three kids,
I've got an elderly mom.
-
In fact, if I'm honest with you,
-
one of the reasons I came out here
-
is because TED Talks said
I could have 15 minutes to myself,
-
and I never have that much time --
-
(Laughter)
-
(Applause)
-
So I'm busy.
-
And anyway, I already had a go
at changing the world.
-
Here's the thing, OK?
-
Everybody has inside themselves
what I call an "activation button."
-
It's the button that gets
pressed when you think,
-
"I must do something about this."
-
It gets pressed for all sorts of reasons.
-
Maybe you face some kind of inequality,
-
or you've come across
an injustice of some kind,
-
sometimes an illness strikes,
-
or you're born in some way disadvantaged,
-
or perhaps underprivileged.
-
So I was born gay, OK?
-
I've always known,
-
I don't think my family
were the least bit surprised.
-
Here is a picture of me aged four.
-
I look cute,
-
but inside I genuinely believed
that I looked like Clint Eastwood.
-
(Laughter)
-
So my activation button
was pressed when I had my kids --
-
three wonderful kids,
born to my then-partner.
-
Now here's the thing:
I work on television in Britain.
-
By the time they were born,
I was already hosting my own shows
-
and working in the public eye.
-
I love what I do,
-
but I love my kids more.
-
And I didn't want them
to grow up with a secret.
-
1994, when my son, my youngest was born,
-
there was not, as far as I was aware,
-
a single out, gay woman
in British public life.
-
I don't think secrets are a good thing.
-
I think they are a cancer of the soul.
-
So I decided to come out.
-
Everybody warned me
that I would never work again,
-
but I decided it was
absolutely worth the risk.
-
Well, it was hell.
-
In Britain, we have a particularly vicious
section of the right-wing press,
-
and they went nuts.
-
And their hatred stirred up
the less stable elements of society,
-
and we got death threats --
-
enough death threats
that I had to take the kids into hiding
-
and we had to have police protection.
-
And I promise you there were
many moments in the still of the night
-
when I was terrified by what I had done.
-
Eventually the dust settled.
-
Against all expectation
I carried on working,
-
and my kids were and continue
to be absolutely fantastic.
-
I remember when my son was six,
he had a friend over to play.
-
They were in the next room;
I could hear them chatting.
-
The friend said to my son,
"What's it like having two mums?"
-
I was a little anxious to hear,
so I leant in to hear and my son said,
-
"It's fantastic,
because if one of them's sick,
-
you've still got another one
to cook for you."
-
(Laughter)
-
So my activation button
for gay equality was pressed,
-
and along with many, many others,
-
I campaigned for years for gay rights,
-
and in particular, the right to marry
the person that I love.
-
In the end, we succeeded.
-
And in 2014, on the day
that the law was changed,
-
I married my wife,
who I love very much, indeed.
-
(Applause)
-
We didn't do it in a quiet way --
we did it on the stage
-
at the Royal Festival Hall in London.
-
It was a great event.
-
The hall seats two-and-a-half
thousand people.
-
We invited 150 family and friends,
then I let it be known to the public:
-
anybody who wanted to come and celebrate,
please come and join us.
-
It would be free to anybody
who wanted to come.
-
Two-and-half thousand people turned up.
-
(Applause)
-
Every kind of person you can imagine:
-
gays, straights, rabbis,
nuns, married people,
-
black, white -- the whole
of humanity was there.
-
And I remember standing
on that stage thinking, "How fantastic.
-
Job done.
-
Love triumphs.
-
Law changed."
-
And I --
-
(Applause)
-
And I genuinely thought
my activation days were over, OK?
-
So every year in that same hall,
-
I host a fantastic concert to celebrate
International Women's Day.
-
We gather the world's only
all-female orchestra,
-
we play fantastic music by forgotten
or overlooked women composers,
-
we have amazing conductors --
-
it's Marin Alsop there
from Baltimore conducting,
-
Petula Clark singing --
-
and I give a lecture on women's history.
-
I love to gather inspirational stories
from the past and pass them on.
-
Too often, I think history's what I call
the Mount Rushmore model.
-
It looks majestic, but the women
have been entirely left out of it.
-
And I was giving a talk in 2015
about the suffragettes --
-
I'm sure you know those magnificent
women who fought so hard
-
for the right for women
in Britain to vote.
-
And their slogan was "Deeds, not words."
-
And boy, they succeeded,
-
because women did indeed
get the vote in 1928.
-
So I'm giving this talk about this,
-
and as I'm talking, what I realized is:
-
this was not a history
lecture I was giving;
-
this was not something
where the job was done.
-
This was something where
there was so much left to do.
-
Nowhere in the world, for example,
-
do women have equal representation
in positions of power.
-
OK, let's take a very quick look
at the top 100 companies
-
in the London Stock Exchange in 2016.
-
Top 100 companies:
How many women running them?
-
Seven. OK. Seven.
That's all right, I suppose.
-
Until you realize that 17
are run by men called "John."
-
(Laughter)
-
There are more men called John
running FTSE 100 companies --
-
(Laughter)
-
Than there are women.
-
There are 14 run by men called "Dave."
-
(Laughter)
-
Now, I'm sure Dave and John
are doing a bang-up job.
-
(Laughter)
-
OK. Why does it matter?
-
Well, it's that pesky business
of the gender pay gap.
-
Nowhere in the world
do women earn the same as men.
-
And that is never going to change
-
unless we have more women
at the top in the boardroom.
-
We have plenty of laws;
-
the Equal Pay Act in Britain
was passed in 1975.
-
Nevertheless, there are still
many, many women
-
who, from early November
until the end of the year,
-
by comparison to their male colleagues,
-
are effectively working for free.
-
In fact, the World Economic
Forum estimates
-
that women will finally
get equal pay in ...
-
2133!
-
Yay!
-
(Laughter)
-
That's a terrible figure.
-
And here's the thing:
-
the day before I came out to give my talk,
-
the World Economic Forum revised it.
-
So that's good, because
that's a terrible -- 2133.
-
Do you know what they revised it to?
-
2186.
-
(Laughter)
-
Yeah, another 53 years, OK?
-
We are not going to get equal pay
-
in my grandchildren's
grandchildren's lives
-
under the current system.
-
And I have waited long enough.
-
I've waited long enough
in my own business.
-
In 2016 I became the very
first woman on British television
-
to host a prime-time panel show.
-
Isn't that great? Wonderful, I'm thrilled.
-
But --
-
(Applause)
-
But 2016! The first!
-
Television's been around for 80 years!
-
(Laughter)
-
It may be television's not so important,
-
but it's kind of symptomatic, isn't it?
-
2016, the UN were looking
for a brand-new ambassador
-
to represent women's empowerment
and gender equality,
-
and who did they choose?
-
Wonder Woman.
-
Yes, they chose a cartoon, OK?
-
(Laughter)
-
Because no woman was up to the job.
-
The representation of women
in positions of power is shockingly low.
-
It's true in Congress, and it's certainly
true in the British parliament.
-
In 2015, the number of men
elected to the parliament that year
-
was greater than the total number of women
-
who have ever been members of parliament.
-
And why does it matter?
-
Here's the thing:
if they're not at the table --
-
literally, in Britain, at that table
helping to make the laws --
-
do not be surprised if the female
perspective is overlooked.
-
Now, having a female leader
of a country, I think, is helpful.
-
If I may, I recommend it to you --
-
(Laughter)
-
(Applause)
-
It's a great role model for young people
to see a woman in charge.
-
In 2016, Britain got its second
female Prime Minister;
-
Theresa May came to power.
-
The day she came to power
she was challenged:
-
just do one thing.
-
Do one thing in the first
100 days that you're in office
-
to try and improve
lives for women in Britain.
-
And what did she do? Nothing.
-
Nothing.
-
Because she's much too busy
cleaning up the mess the boys made.
-
Even having a female leader,
-
they always find something better to do
-
than to sort out the pesky
issue of inequality.
-
So I keep talking about equality
like it matters. Does it?
-
Well, let's take a very quick look
at the STEM industries, OK?
-
So science, technology,
engineering and mathematics.
-
Pretty much important in every
single aspect of our daily lives.
-
There is the thickest and most incredibly
well-documented glass ceiling
-
in the STEM industries.
-
What if the cure for cancer
-
or the answer the global warming
-
lies in the head of a young female
scientist who fails to progress?
-
So I thought all these things,
-
and I knew I had to do "Deeds, not words."
-
And I spoke to my wonderful friend,
-
brilliant journalist
Catherine Mayer in Britain,
-
and we rather foolishly --
-
and I suspect there was wine involved --
-
(Laughter)
-
We decided to found
a brand-new political party.
-
Because here's the critical thing:
-
the one place women and men
are absolutely equal is at the ballot box.
-
We had no idea what we were doing,
-
we didn't know how complicated
it was to start a political party.
-
I thought, "It can't be that difficult,
men have been doing it for years."
-
(Laughter)
-
So we started by calling it
"The Women's Equality Party."
-
And straightaway people said to me,
-
"Why did you call it that?"
-
I said, "I don't know,
I just thought we'd be clear."
-
(Laughter)
-
I didn't want what we were doing
to be a secret, you know? I just --
-
(Laughter)
-
Some people said, "You can't call it that!
It's much too feminist!"
-
Ooh! Scary word! Ahh!
-
I can't tell you how many times
I've heard somebody say,
-
"I'm not a feminist, but ..."
-
And I always think
if there's a "but" in the sentence,
-
it can't all be roses in the garden.
-
And then I started getting asked
the hilarious question,
-
"Are you all going to burn your bras?"
-
Yes! Because bras are famously
made of flammable material.
-
(Laughter)
-
That's why all women spark when they walk.
-
(Laughter)
-
Here's quick history sidebar for you:
-
no woman ever burnt her bra in the '60s.
-
It's a story made up by a journalist.
-
Thank goodness journalism
has improved since then.
-
So --
-
(Laughter)
-
I announced what we were going
to do in a broadcast interview,
-
and straightaway,
the emails started coming.
-
First hundreds,
then thousands and thousands,
-
from every age group: from the very young
to women in their '90s,
-
to hundreds of wonderful men.
-
People wrote and said,
"Please, can I help?
-
Please, can I visit you
at party headquarters?"
-
We didn't have a headquarters --
we didn't have a party!
-
We didn't have anything.
-
All we had was a wonderful,
tight group of fabulous friends
-
trying to answer emails
pretty much 24-7 in our pajamas.
-
We were all busy.
-
Many of us had careers,
many of us had children,
-
but we did what women do,
and we shared the work.
-
And almost instantly, we agreed
on certain fundamental things.
-
First thing: we must have
been the only political party in the world
-
whose main aim was
to no longer need to exist.
-
That's a fantastic idea.
-
We wanted to be the only political party
with no particular political leaning.
-
We wanted people from the left,
from the right, from the middle,
-
every age group.
-
Because the whole point
was to work with a simple agenda:
-
let's get equality
in every aspect of our lives,
-
and when we're finished,
-
let's go home and get
the other chores done.
-
(Laughter)
-
And we wanted to change
how politics is conducted.
-
I don't know if you have this,
-
but in Britain we have
two major political parties.
-
They're the dinosaurs of politics.
-
And how they speak to each other
is shameful and poisonous.
-
I'm sure you've never had
that kind of name-calling --
-
(Laughter)
-
And lying here.
-
Wouldn't it be great
if just one politician said,
-
"Do you know, my opponent has a point.
-
Let's see if we can't work together
and get the job done?"
-
(Applause)
-
And let's get more women
into politics, OK?
-
Let's immediately get
more women into politics
-
by being the only political party
to offer free childcare to our candidates,
-
so they can get out of the house
and start campaigning.
-
(Applause)
-
Within 10 months,
-
we had more than 70 branches
of our party across the UK.
-
We stood candidates for election
in London, Scotland and Wales
-
in May 2016.
-
One in 20 people voted
for our candidate for London Mayor.
-
And when the men in the race
saw how many votes we were attracting --
-
wonder of wonders --
-
they began to talk about the need
to tackle gender equality.
-
(Applause)
-
You know, I've been promised
change since I was a child.
-
It was always coming:
-
women were going to stand
shoulder to shoulder with men.
-
All I got were empty promises
and disappointment --
-
enough disappointment
to found a political party.
-
But here is my new idea for today --
this is my five percent, OK?
-
And this one is really good.
-
The fact is, this is not enough.
-
It is not enough to found one political
party for equality in a single country.
-
What we need is a seismic change
in the global political landscape.
-
And the wonderful thing
about the model we have created
-
is that it would work anywhere.
-
It would work in America,
-
it would work in Australia,
it would work in India.
-
It's like we've made the perfect recipe:
anybody can cook it,
-
and it's good for everybody.
-
And we want to give it away.
-
If you want to know what we did,
we're giving it away.
-
Can you imagine if we could mobilize
millions of women across the world
-
to say, "That's enough!"
to the traditional battles of politics,
-
to say, "Stop the bickering,
let's get the work done"?
-
We could literally change the world.
-
And I want that.
-
(Applause)
-
I want ...
-
(Applause)
-
I want that for our daughters,
-
and I want it for our sons.
-
Because the fact is:
equality is better for everyone.
-
Come on people, let's activate!
Let's change the world!
-
I know we can do it, and it wants doing!
-
(Applause)