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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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what the police would call "a lover's 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 unlearned, 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
-
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,
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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 airways,
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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,
-
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
-
that is in my DNA.
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I have been doing this work
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for over 30 years,
-
and I am convinced, now more than ever,
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in the capacity of human beings to change.
-
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
-
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)