>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. [ Silence ] >> I think we're going to go ahead and get started. I know more people will join us but our panelists today are such fascinating people and I know have a great deal of information to impart and I don't want to cut that short in any way. So let me take this opportunity to welcome you to the Library of Congress. My name is Roberta Shaffer and everyday I have the pleasure of serving as the 22nd Law Librarian of Congress. It's also my pleasure, although, there are a sort of quotes around pleasure to welcome you to our 4th Annual Commemoration of Human Rights Day. It is my personal dream that someday we will actually not commemorate Human Rights Day, but we will celebrate the fact that there is no longer a need to discuss human rights around the world. I'm not hopeful at this point that I will live to see that day, but one can always hope. Before we begin, I wanted to just say a few words about the Library of Congress and in essence, sort of our part in human rights and our contribution to it as a library. And it really starts with the unit that's hosting us today the Law Library and that is that we collect over 240 jurisdictions living and dead legal systems and jurisdictions. And that is not inclusive of the 4th-- the 56th US jurisdictions that we also collect. And then these phenomenal collection are really the stories and the history of human rights for all peoples, but in particular, women, both good and bad. So, laws that have helped the cause of women, and those that have really been the very constraints that have been put on women and their rights through the ages. In addition to the Law Library, the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress contains phenomenal collections of women from across all the professions. In the Legal Arena, women like Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg who may have been spokespeople for women's rights. And in other areas, women themselves who fought the cause of human rights for their own groups and for women went large. So this institution in its own right brings a lot of credibility to the discussion of women's rights and human rights. And it is therefor a pleasure to be hosting the program this afternoon in which we will look at that broad topic of women's rights and opportunities with 3 distinct lenses on those topics. So, I will just briefly go to-- I guess point you to our lovely program and in there, you will see rather lengthily but I'm sure not adequate enough descriptions of the backgrounds of our three distinguished panelists this afternoon. We'll start with Dr. Sharon Hrynkow who is the Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans, Environment, and Science at the US Department of State. She is a neuroscientist by training and I think that gives her an immense amount of credibility in the discussion that focuses on law. Our next speaker will be Steven Shapiro, someone who I just met today face to face for the first time, but a person I personally have admired for many years. Anytime I see his letter to the editor in the various newspapers I read on a daily basis, I'm always going right to that point first. He is, as many of you probably know, the Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, our nation's oldest and largest civil liberties organization. He has a staff of approximately 90 full time lawyers and they maintain an incredible array of a portfolio, of topics that are related to our concerns today with women and human rights as well as myriad other things, a free speech, racial justice, religious freedom, due process, privacy, reproductive and women's rights, of course, immigration rights, gay rights, voting rights, prisoner's rights, and the death penalty. So, I think we will see after today that we are on excellent hands with them, with Steven's leadership. And then clearly last, but not least, our own Graciela Rodriguez-Ferrand who is a senior legal specialist here at the Library of Congress in the Law Library focusing her areas of expertise on South America and Spain. She was originally an Argentine lawyer and professor at the University of Buenos Aires. She's written numerous reports of relevance to her topic and our topic today on behalf of the US Congress. And we are delighted that all three of them are joining us. At the end of their formal presentations, we'll have time for questions and answers. Let me just take a brief moment before turning the floor over to Sharon to tell you some housekeeping issues, but first of all, a huge thank you to the Human Rights Day Committee at the Law Library which is chaired by the wonderful Connie Johnson who's sitting in the front. She will be the timekeeper today, but through Connie's persistence and energy, we always find a topic and then a fabulous group of panelist to fill the topic. I'd also like to tell you that we will have a reception following the question and answer period. So, if I seem a little punitive because of time and I cut off the question and answer period, please don't feel that you will not have an opportunity to discuss any issue or ask a question of our panelist at the end in a more friendly and informal setting then perhaps an audience-panelist relationship. And then last, we are starting a formal evaluation system today at the Law Library and so you will receive, where you see at your chairs perhaps, a yellow form, it's a-- hopefully short enough for you to complete on the spot. We're very interested in using feedback so that we can improve the programs that we provide throughout the year. I'd also like to thank the friends of the Law Library and also invite any of you who are not yet members to join the friends at the Law Library. We are always looking for supporters and that means intellectual as well as financial. So, without further ado, I will ask you to-- oh, if in the event of an emergency, unlikely like a water emergency or something like that, please do not be alarmed. Law Library Staff will come to the sides of the aisles and will direct you out of the building. And this has never happened except for that one earthquake, so I'm hoping that our odds are really good. But don't worry, you are in excellent hands on every level. With that, please put any objects that you might have brought into the room with you in the seat or under the seat in front of you. And then since we have a neuroscientist as our first speaker, I'm going to ask you to make sure that your minds are in their open and fully engaged positions. Thank you so much Susan-- Sharon, excuse me. Thank you so much, Roberta. I'm delighted to be here today and I do want to thank you and your whole team for the very warm welcome that you've given to me and my fellow panelist today, so thank you very, very much. I am delighted to have an opportunity to say a few words to you about women and empowering women in science specifically on-- to-- on Human Rights Day and to mark Human Rights Day. And I'm particularly excited because earlier this year, I had the honor to be part of the US delegation to the commission on status of women in New York which focused on empowering women and girls through Science and Technology and that's what I will use to base my comments on today. During the CSW meeting, we watched UN women be born. So this is a new UN entity designed entirely to empower women. And at the launch of UN women, Michelle Bachelet, the executive director said over and over again, "Women's Rights are Human's Right-- our-- or human rights and human rights are Women's Rights." And so having an opportunity today to bring all of these together with you is a great pleasure for me indeed. Let me say a word about science as I start out, just as a reminder to all of us as we look around the world and recognize the challenges that we have in front of us, whether it's climate change or food security or insecurity or pandemic disease, we know that science is where we are going to find the solutions. President Obama early on in his tenure made a point to go to our national academies of science to make a big push for science as part of his administration. And so we have a drumbeat of momentum and activity around science as a way to mobilize our economy, really, as an engine of our economy and also to progress forward worldwide. So the State Department has a strong emphasis on science as part of our diplomatic work. And so, I just want to always start with a word on the import of science as we go forward and tackle the challenges in front of us. I'd also like to note that science, as we practice it in the United States, actually, share some common values with democracy. So our scientific system is based on openness. It's merit-based. It's a system that pushes new ideas forward and allows risk, and it also allows failures. So our system-- and these are democratic values. And so as we look at ourselves as scientists and as we look at science as broad, we often find common ground in our shared value system and how we look at the world. But now, let me turn to women because that's what I really want to talk about today, women within this broad enterprise of science. I have to start with a word on the state of affairs for women which worldwide is not great as we well know. In this country and in countries around the world, women are not represented at the top echelons of science, whether it's in academic departments or if it's in the private sector. Now, there are many, many reasons for this. We talked about leaky pipelines where women drop out after certain stages in their career. So the number is able to reach the top echelons are certainly not there. And we'd lose girls, girls who's interest in science at well-known stages, middle school and at the end of high school, girls tend to lose interest in science. So we have a problem with our pipeline, that's for sure. But then it's not only a numbers problem that we have. So as we look at the state of affairs for women, we have to take stack of the causes for women not reaching the upper echelons. And numbers alone cannot explain this. The National Academies has done wonderful study or there are many studies on these. And what we have found out is that there are explicit biases, certainly, but there are also implicit biases. And I want to just say a word about this. So we can all understand what the explicit biasism and I have many anecdotal experiences where women have told me that they have been told in job interviews that they're qualified for the job, but there's no way that they're going to get it just because of their sex. Now that-- those are not US stories, but these stories are happening around the world and that foreign women with whom I meet readily shared these kinds of stories. But if we look at the numbers just in one field, say in the behavioral sciences, 30 percent of all doctorates in behavioral sciences go to women and it's been that way for 30 years. So one would expect that 30 percent of all academic chairs of departments would be women, but in fact, that's not the case. 15 percent of academic chairs are women. So it's not only a numbers issue and this brings us back into the conversation about implicit biases. We all hold implicit biases. In the scientific world, we've got some well documented cases where peer reviewers who are looking at scientific proposals for funding both men and women hold women to a different standard than men. So if a woman is a working mom and puts forward a scientifically valid proposal, sitting around the table, her peers, both men and women are judging her a little bit more harshly than the male applicant with the very same quality of proposal. And when this was discovered by the National Science Foundation, this, of course, led to some change and actions so that peer reviewers, before that they sit down to look at proposals, they actually get a little training on implicit biases so that they can start to understand that while the woman maybe a working mom and she puts forward that she can do xyz in terms of scientific work, she shouldn't be penalized just because of the fact that she does other things or if she teaches or mentors which women in science tend to like to do. So these implicit biases are part of the rationale for why women are not reaching the upper echelons to the extent that we would expect them to. And that brings me to where I want to be in terms of my prescription. And the three points that I would like to make today for you more or with you. And that's about changing mindsets, in changing mindsets in order to be able to allow women in science to reach their fullest potential. We talked about-- much of what I'm about to say, in our officially US position at the Commission on Status of Women meeting and I invite you to go to the agreed conclusions from the Commission on Status of Women just to see the kinds of things that we agreed with our partner governments around the world on this topic. But the first one is transforming institutions. You know, we are very good at training scientists in this country, but we're not very good at allowing scientists to move forward to reach their very fullest potential. And the way that we need to move forward in order to be able to do that is by placing women in institutions that encourage them, that value them equally with their male counterparts. In order to get there, we really have to have a fresh look at our own institutions. One of the ways that we do this in our country for women in academic science is supported through the National Science Foundation in the ADVANCE program. And I commend you to go and have a look at that. The ADVANCE program provides support to US universities to create search committees that are gender balanced, to create flexible programs so that if a woman scientist needs to leave a laboratory for child bearing or child rearing for a period, that there are ways to provide postdocs or other opportunities for her to keep her work going in her potentially short absence. So this is a very flexible program that allows universities to, on their own, tailor programs and policies that will be more family friendly certainly, and by the way, men benefit from this as well. We don't view these as only a women's issue, these are now family issues in many ways. And allow the women to take time off even for elder care, which is an increasing issue in our country, and then to return back to the lab. The National Institute of Health which is my home institution has a similar reentry program for women who leave at-- for pregnancy purposes so that they can come back to the lab, get a little retooling and continue their work after a period of sometimes 2 or 3 years. You know the science move so rapidly that many women can be left out. So unless we tailor special opportunities for them to return, we will in effect, not only lose them and lose their talent and expertise, but we lose the investments that we've made in them, and as-- on a population basis, that's not a wise thing to do. So from the State Department perspective, we like to talk about these best practices that keep women engaged in science and allow them to move forward fully. And this was the kind of transformative notion, one of them that we put forward at the Commission on the Status of Women. But second, my second point has to do with changing mindsets within ourselves and in our societies. So we are all acculturated very early on to what are the proper roles we should have in society. What is it that we can be professionally? A lot of our views are formed early in life, you know, we all know, you know, the boys playing with the trucks and the girls playing with the dolls. There are many, many influences on us as we grow up and go forward and make career path decisions even, you know, early on in middle school or high school. I want to talk about just one actor that has-- that plays in our view like crucial role in terms of shaping what we think we can all be and that's the media. And I will tell a little bit of Geena Davis, the actress, the Academy Award-winning actress who was on our delegation at the Commission on Status of Women. And she was on the team because she has a nonprofit which analyzes G and PG rated films to look at the ratio of male to female characters which is 3 to 1 and these G and PG rated films. So this is what the youngest of our population are viewing. And to analyze the kinds of roles that they play. She found in one study that looked at G films between 2006 and 2009, there was no female character in the G rated film in the field medical science as a business leader in law or politics. She's very concerned about this so she is using every opportunity to raise the profile. She thinks that, you know, if you see it, you can be it. And if girls do not see themselves out in the media, then their dreams perhaps are not what they might be. In fact, she has some data which shows that the more TV a girl watches, again, this is in our country, the more TV a girl watches, the fewer career options she thinks she has. And this is troubling because we want girls to see every career option on their path. And so we are very interested in pursuing work like this on the media and the factors that come into play in terms of career path. So that's about changing mindsets in societies, isn't it? So she takes her data, goes to Hollywood to casting directors and is trying to make a difference and demonstrating with data which, of course, as scientists, we love that. With data that the girls are not there to the level or the women in major roles that one would like to see and she's having an impact, that's the good news. But I also want to say something about women's attitudes themselves in our own mindsets. There's a couple of points here that I'd like to make. One is that women in science or women in general do not seek awards. There's a database called Race Project which tracks professional awards, so recognitions given across all of the fields of science and medicine. And the data are very clear that number one, women are not receiving awards at the level that one would expect given there proportion in the field. So for example, if physicists are 20 percent female, you might expect that 20 percent of the honorary awards in physics are going to women, but that doesn't happen. It's more like 5 percent. And part of reason is that women do not like to be solid by being viewed as self-promoting. And in a culture like ours where awards actually matter and professional recognition, international recognition matters as part of tenure and promotion, I think that women need to understand that there's a proper way and a proper role for them to go about nominating other women for awards, perhaps nominating themselves for awards, which happens with our male counterparts. So that's something about changing mindsets on-- in societies and in ourselves. My third point relates to using technology, changing mindsets through technology to empower women. And I'll just give a couple examples. The internet has afforded us a fantastic opportunity for women in science to become empowered. Over the last few years, there are several networks of women in science that have sprung up around the world. There's an Arab network for women in science and technology, there's an interior American network of academies of science which has a focus on women. Women in World Neuroscience, in my field, we are networked heavily. And these networks, which are largely virtual networks, operate to reduce isolation of women. Certainly, they bring women into a community. There's possibilities to share best practices through these networks and potentially, the opportunity to create international research collaborations. So the power of the network is actually very strong and the power of the internet in bringing women together in new ways is extremely empowering. I'd like to make one more point about the technology dimension and that has to do with technology available to all women. We were chatting a little bit and I know that my colleague, Graciela, will speak about domestic violence. I want to tell you just about one of Secretary Clinton's new initiatives related to technology to empower women. And this is mWomen, m standing for mobile phones. Earlier this year, she launched with Cherie Blaire in her foundation and GSMA which is an umbrella organization of mobile phone providers, a new initiative called mWomen. So women in poor countries are 21 percent less likely to own a mobile phone than a man. And this initiative aims to reduce the gap between male and female ownership of cellphones. Why is this important? Well, cellphones are, of course, empowering technologies. They can be used to get weather reports. They can be used to help to determine crops that could be planted. Men and women find markets for their goods on a daily basis. But relating to domestic violence, they're also very important documenting tools. Girls have been using cellphones when they're available to document abuse at schools, which happens in many parts of the world. It's not safe for a girl to go to school. So the mobile phone allows the girl to take a photo of her abuser, sometimes, her own teacher, and send this forward and get some action in that regard. So with the mWomen, empowering women through technology as a very, very important opportunity and we would like to see more of that kind of public-private partnership go forward. I'm going to close then with my remaining 10 seconds with just a comment on the Iraqi women scientist situation. So in 2005, when the new constitution was created, Iraqi women were able to resurge. And the women in science who had really been repressed for a very, very long time, decades, suddenly found themselves with an opportunity to move forward. Several of them are in the United States right now training through the Iraqi Women's Fellowship Foundation. And when they do return home, they contribute to the fabric of the democracy and to the scientific advances in their countries. So I think that for those women, they are empowered, they're retooled, they're getting retooled and they're going home. And this is the kind of empowerment that we would like to see. In fact, one of them said to me just earlier this year that science makes me free. So she looks at her situation and what is going on and she feels that science is her way out and it has really empowered her. And so that's the message I want to leave with all of you today. I want to thank you for your attention and thank you so much for inviting me. [ Applause ] [ Noise ] [ Background Noise ] >> So I, too, would like to thank Roberta and the staff of the library for inviting me here today. Although, I do have to say that in the many e-mails that were exchanged before today, not once was I told nor I suspect my co-panelist that for the first time in the hist-- 200-year history of the library, we were the first speakers ever to be evaluated on our performances, so. [ Laughter ] [ Inaudible Remark ] So please be kind and gentle. The-- so my role I think today at least is I have to find it is to be the optimist on this panel, to be upbeat on this panel. And it's a role that I'm comfortable playing for a couple of reasons. One is despite the many challenges that still confront us on women's rights and many, many other human rights issues, I truly do believe that there is more freedom and more equality in the world today than has ever existed in recorded history. And secondly, because you cannot be a human rights activist as I have been throughout my career, unless you're an optimist, because otherwise, we would all get out of this business. So I'm going to begin back in the 18th century because I don't think we can appreciate where we are unless we understand where we have come from. It's important to not minimize the difficulties that we confront today, but it's important equally, I think, not to forget what we have already overcome and the progress we have already made. And so, back in 1768, this week actually, in 1768, the first edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica was printed. I owe this fact to Garrison Keillor in the Writer's Almanac which I highly recommend to all of you. But Garrison Keillor tells me and if Garrison Keillor tells me, I believe, that the first issue of the Encyclopedia Britannica was published in 1768. It was published in Scotland. It was a product of the Scottish enlightenment and it came out, it's quite a remarkable story. It came out in weekly installments from 1768 until 1771 when it was completed. And when it was completed in 1771, the first the edition, it ran through several thousand pages. And among those seven thousand pages, there was an entry for women and this is what the entry for women said in its entirety. Female of men. [Laughter]. So that's where we start from. Eight years later, we have the declaration of independence in the United States, still one of the great human rights documents of all time. And the declaration of independence, of course, famously says, "All men are created equal." Now, sometimes, when people say, use man in that kind of phrase, what they really mean is all people are created equal and they are using man fairly unfairly to represent both genders. But that is not what our founding fathers meant that if it said all men, they meant to all men [laughter]. And that was I think in fairness because they weren't even thinking about women. Women had not entered their consciousness and of course not only did they not mean or not only did they mean only men, they meant only white men and not only did they mean only white men, they meant only white propertied men. And so women were pretty much an afterthought in the founding documents in this country. Fast forward, another 100 years and we get to the famous case of a Myra Bradwell. Myra Bradwell was a woman lawyer in Illinois who wanted to be admitted to the bar of Illinois in the 1870s. And to be admitted to the bar, to be able to practice in Illinois at that time, what you needed was the approval, sort of an interesting process. You need the approval of two justices on the Illinois Supreme Court. They had to certify to your good character and ability. And the Illinois Supreme Court refused to approve Myra Bradwell's admission at the bar of the State of Illinois and they refused to approved it solely on the grounds that she was a woman and there were no woman admitted to the bar and they didn't see any good reason why there ought to be women admitted to the bar and which just reminds of another story I will digress for one second that my wife who is sitting out here has this wonderful story about being at a rotary club event maybe 15 or 20 years ago because she ran as nonprofit arts organizations that was receiving an award from the rotary club. And she was sitting next to a woman on the days who was an officer of what this rotary club girl was giving Nancy's [phonetic] organization and award. And the woman was telling a story that the rotary club had just recently, not so recent, I mean ten years prior admitted women for the first time, and they admitted women for the first time because United States Supreme Court ordered them to admit women. And this woman said to Nancy, "You know, my father was a member of the rotary's club for a very long time and he was very opposed to the admission of women." And I said to him, "Dad, you know it will be a better club if it has women it." And he said, "I know it will be a better club, but we don't want a better club, we want our club." [Laughter]. So that's the way the male lawyers felt in Illinois. In 1872, and the way they justified it, which was, it's still pretty interesting was to say, well, women obviously could not become lawyers because the relationship between an attorney and a client is a contractual relationship. And at that time, women lawyer-- women, not women lawyers, married women could not enter into contracts without the permission of their parent, of their parents. Its ju-- that's a Freudian slip. [Laughter]. The permission-- the permission of their husbands. And so since they were not capable of entering into contracts on their own, they couldn't form attorney-client relationships, and if you couldn't form an attorney-client relationship, you could not be a member of the bar. Well, Myra Bradwell was not content with that result and so she appealed the decision of the Illinois Supreme Court to the United States Supreme Court. And the United States Supreme Court in 1872, when one of this infamous decisions that lives on, agreed with the Illinois Supreme Court that Myra Bradwell should not be-- had no right, had no constitutional right to become a lawyer in the State of Illinois. And there was an opinion on the case that was written by Justice Joseph Bradley and here's what Justice Bradley said among other things, he said, "The Civil Law as well as nature herself-- " so nature was a woman. "The Civil Law, as well as nature herself, has always recognized a wide difference in the respective fears and-- spheres and destinies of men and women. Man is or should be woman's protector and defender. The natural and proper tumidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it from many of the occupations of civil life. The harmony, not to say the identity of interest and views which belong or should belong to the family institution is repugnant to the idea of a woman adopting a distinct and independent career from that of her husband. The paramount destiny in mission of women are to fulfill the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. So that was the view with the supreme court in 1872. Fast forward another 100 years till 1981 and Sandra Day O'Connor is appointed to the Supreme Court by Justice Ronald Reagan to be first female Justice ever on the Supreme Court. She has joined 12 years later by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And now there are of course 3 Justices on of the 9 on the Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg, Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Elena Kagan. And I can only tell you for those of us who have the privilege of practicing in front of the United States Supreme Court or if any of you have gone and observe the United States Supreme Court, it makes an enormous difference to look up at that convention say three women sitting there. And the audience feels it. I am sure the members of the court feel it and it is more than visual that it affects the jurisprudence of the court. It affects the courts decision making process and it affects it not because women think differently than man or decide cases differently than man, but every judge brings to bench of their own life experiences. And the life experiences of a woman are differently on the life experiences of a man and that came home in a very personal opinion way for me. Two years ago, when we had a case in front of the Supreme Court involving a 13-year old girl named Savana Redding. Savana Redding was a junior high school student in Arizona, and as a result of something that the assistant principal was told by another junior high school student. Savana Redding was suspected of distributing ibuprofen in the school. And so she was called into the principal's office and asked if she had any ibuprofen on her and she said, "No", they said, "Can we look in your purse"? She said, "Yes". They didn't anything. They said, "Can we look in your bag pack"? She said, "Yes". They didn't find anything. They said, "We're going to send you to nurses office and we're going to strip search you." And they took off all her clothes. They felt under her bra. They felt under her underwear. They found nothing. She never had ibuprofen in the school. And she then ultimately sued the school for violating her right to privacy. Case in the way these things do work its way back up to the United States Supreme Court. And I think to many of us certainly to me, well however the court decided it, the indignity and the invasion of privacy involved when a 13-year old girl is strip searched by her school administrators seemed very obvious. That is not the way the oral argument went in front of the court. At that point, Justice O'Connor had already retired from the court. Justice Ginsburg was the only women sitting on the court. And there was this sense during the oral argument that in some ways, the reaction that Savana Redding had over reacted to what had happen to her. And various justices made various comments during the course of the oral argument that were along the lines of, you know, we were all in junior high school, we had to get undressed in front of our fellow students in the locker room, sort of what's the big deal? Within a week after the oral argument Justice Ginsburg gave an interview to the Supreme Court report a [inaudible] from USA today. And the interview was about how it felt for Justice Ginsburg, a pioneer of women's rights to be the only women on the Supreme Court. And she had began by saying, "I miss Justice O' Connor tremendously, I look forward to the day when their will be other women on the Supreme Court." But she then referred back to this argument that had taken place only a few days early which is an extraordinary thing. Justice is in the Supreme Court do not often talk about cases before they have been decided. And this is what she said-- about her colleagues on the court, they have never been a 13-year-old girl, she said referring to the other justices, it's a very sensitive age for girl. I didn't think my colleagues, some of them quite understood. And then 2 months later, Savana Redding won her case in Supreme Court by a vote of 8 to 1. Now, I don't if Justice Ginsburg's public comments had any relationship or what so ever to the outcome of the case, but the fact that she felt compelled to speak out as a woman about the experience of these 13-year-old girl and use the newspaper to educate her fellow Justices. I think it says everything you need know about why we need diversity on the bench not only gender diversity, racial diversity, other kinds of diversity, but certainly gender diversity. The first case, in which the United States Supreme Court ever declares a law unconstitutional on the grounds that it discriminates against women, is in 1971. And its case called read versus read, and it was a challenge to a law that said, "If somebody dies without a will in deciding who is going to administer the state, there is an order of priority." First you start with the parents and then you'll go at the children and then you go the cousins and then you go the nephews. It was just an order of priorities that who would be the Administrator. But if then said, if they are 2 people on the same category, the administrator shall be the man. And what happened in read versus read sounds like a divorce case, it was a divorce case, they were divorced parents of a minor child who died. And the father by virtue of this automatic gender discrimination became the Administrator of the State. The mother said I want to be the Administrator of the State, why does he automatically get it? And the case goes to United States Supreme Court, argued by Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And the Supreme Court for the first time says, "No, this automatic assumption that men are more qualified than women, is arbitrary and irrational and unconstitutional." First time the Supreme Court every said that, right? It's not a case-- this is not a case of the court leading for culture. This is a case of the culture leading the court. It's not an accident that this case happens in 1971, right, we've just come through it in the 60's, The Women's Movements, its exploding, right? And the Supreme Court is reacting to those cultural forces around it. Ruth Bader Ginsburg then argues as a lawyer for the ACIU I'm proud to say is series of women's right cases in front of the United States Supreme Court over the next decade. And she adopts a very interesting strategy which is many of the early cases that she brings to the Supreme Court challenging sex discrimination are brought not of on behalf of women, but brought on behalf of men. Because she fought the court, then old nine men would understands sex discrimination better if it was the men that was discriminated against. So the second case she brings to the Supreme Court is a case called Frontiero versus Richardson. Frontiero versus Richardson is a case in which there is a Federal Law, there's a Federal Law that says if you were in military, and you're a man, your wife automatically gets dependence benefits, already automatically gets the military, medical and dental benefits. If you were a woman in the military, your husband doesn't get those benefits, unless he is actually dependent on you. So the wife's dependency on the man is assumed. The man's dependency on the woman has to be proven. Supreme Court in Frontiero versus Richardson says that's unconstitutional. Two years later, she bring a case to the Supreme Court called Khan versus Chevon and the issue that there is a state law that Justice Ginsburg has challenged that says, "If you are a widow, you are automatically exempt from property taxes because it assumed you don't have a source of income because your husband has died. If you are widower, you are not automatically exempt from property tax exemptions. Again, the Supreme Court strikes that law down. And then finally, we get to 1996, 1998, I cannot recall, '96 I think, Justice Ginsburg is on the court, she's not arguing in front of the bench, she's on the bench looking down at the lawyers. And she writes the opinion for the court in the case called United States verus Virginia which is a challenge to the Admission's Programs at the Virginia Military Institute which admitted only male cadets. And they admitted only male cadets because they were proud of the fact that they had such a rigorous training program, what they called adversative trainings, word that I still think is not a word, and which maybe a reason not to go to [inaudible]. [Laughter]. And then men couldn't-- men couldn't, women could not keep up. Women could not keep up. And Ruth Bader Ginsburg for the court strikes down that rule, male only rule and says 2 things. It says, not only it's an unconstitutional but if you're going to-- the government is going to discriminate against women, you not only need a reasonable explanation, you need what she called an exceedingly persuasive justification. And secondly, she said your offer to provide equivalent courses at another school separate but equal for women, is no more tolerable for women than it was for racial minorities. And so there are now to my knowledge as a formal matter, only two instances, maybe there are more but there are only two that I know. Only two instances in Federal Law where Federal Law still discriminate on its face, right, in its words between men and women. One has to do with immigration law. We have a rule that says if you are born out of wedlock, overseas outside the United States, it's much easier to acquire United States citizenship if you're out of wedlock. Mother is an American and if you're out of wedlock, father is an American, right? And the second one which maybe has more salience and relevance is that under federal law and federal practice, women are excluded from combat duties in the military. But other than that, the formal legal barriers to gender equality have largely fallen away and been discredited. Having said that, let me just-- and I know my time is up so I'll just end in 2 more minutes. Let me just say go back to something that Sharon was saying, right? One of the things we have learned about women's rights as we've learned about equality across the board whether it's racial, religious, or gender, is in some ways eliminating the formal barriers, the explicit biases is much easier than eliminating the implicit biases. And as the implicit biases that are what caused the fact that women still are in 77 cents on a dollar for every dollar that men earn, that women are 40 percent, almost 50 percent across the board, not just in sciences, not just in academia. 50 percent of the workforce and only 40 percent of the managerial force and those attitudes which are cultural and deeply embedded don't have the sanction of law. But at the sanction of tradition behind them are much, much harder to overcome. And we are still struggling I think very much in that battle for all the reasons that Sharon said. And the second thing that has to be said I think is that we are now facing the greatest assault on reproductive rights that we have seen in our country since Roe V. Wade in 1973 said the right for decision about whether to carry a child the term or not belongs to a woman and her family and her doctor and now to the government. That right is under attacked in a way that it has never been before and it's Justice Ginsburg, I think recognized from the very beginning. Women cannot a true, true equality. In our society, in our economy, in our professions, in our democracy, unless they have control over their own reproductive choices. And so we have tremendous battles ahead. Progress is never linear but as we think about those battles ahead, I think it's also important not to forget how far we have become. So thank you very much. [ Applause ] [ Inaudible Remark ] >> Good afternoon. Thank you Roberta, thank you David for giving me this opportunity to share this panel with this distinguished experts. And I'm going to be talking about a problem that has become a serious concern all over the world but especially in Latin America. Latin America is the developing region that has achieved the greatest expansion into formal recognition of women's rights, in term of education, access to labor market, civil rights, property rights. And this recognition is reflected in the adoption of international and regional conventions and its implementation in domestic laws. Six countries in the region, Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador and Guyana, had reached the 30 percent quota of women members of congress. And currently there are 4 presidents in the region that are women, Argentina, Costa Rica, Brazil, and Trinidad and Tobago and the last here, Chile. These advances happen mainly because of the extraordinary work of activism and awareness campaigns of women's organizations and NGOs. In spite of these very important advances, the reality of women in the region is still far from acceptable, and in many cases it has deteriorated in the last decade. One of the most serious factors contributing to such deterioration is the systemic violence against women and girls in the region and the escalate of killings of women. Violence affects women especially those situations of vulnerability such as indigenous women, internally displaced in war zones like in Columbia in an environment of poverty and economic dependency with no access to the education. Now, the consequences and the costs of violence against women go beyond the pain and suffering of the big thing and her family. Because it includes the costs of health care, the treatment, the support of abused women and their children and to bring their perpetrators to justice. The violation of women rights and this related violence are not new problems as we have seen in the prior presentation. Throughout history, gender based violence has been a social tool to keep the subordination of women and therefore, this is something that has to-- we have been trying to fight for so many years. To overcome the unequal distribution of power that exists between women and men in our society. This prime is generally perpetrated by current or past partners, husbands, or close male relatives but also by others unrelated to the victims. One of the main problems in dealing with violence against women is impunity which is a direct consequence of a deficient system of access to justice. In Latin America, access to justice is low but in the case of women is even lower. Women distrust the system because it is slow, and in many cases the courts, the court personal do not take women's reporting and claims seriously especially to do stereotypes. Judges do not have gender prospective training in law schools or in their profession career. And therefore without an efficient access to justice by women, the legal framework becomes insufficient. Another additional problem is that in the case of domestic violence which then generally takes place at home. It is a mother that is considered by society as a private matter that should be kept at home and resolved at home. In practice, this means that these primes are not reported and are not punished. In response to this problem, several international and regional instrument have been recognized, have been adopted and recognized violence again women as a human right violation. Two of the most important ones are the UN convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women of 1994 and it's Optional Protocol of 1999 that requires member countries to establish policies that eliminates violence against women and empower them to report violence and demand punishment at the national level. The other very important instrument, international convention is the convention-- Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women signed in Belem do Para in Brazil 1994. That has been adopted by all Latin American countries. This is a historic convention because it's the first and the only international instrument in the world that addresses specifically the issue of violence against women. Under this convention, violence against women is any act of gender based violence that results in the physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women including threats, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty whether public or private. This is a legally binding instrument and requires member countries to enact domestic legislation of violence against women. In this regard, the convention has provided a foundation for the adoption of domestic violence laws in all countries in Latin America most, almost all countries have already adopted this kind of laws. And even some countries have gone further to enact laws on the so called second generation legislation on violence against women to include other type of violence such as rape, trafficking, sexual harassment and exploitation or emotional or economic violence and even femicide. The conventional so requires the countries to exercise due diligence in the prevention, investigation and punishment of the crime and requires to keep statistics of incidence of violence. It has its own follow up mechanism to examine the prowess made by the state parties in achieving the objectives of the convention. Under the convention of Belem do Para, every woman has the right to have her physical, mental and moral integrity perspective. With a life free of violence, with personal freedom and security, equal protection under the law and prompt access to justice. Women around the world and especially in Latin America have used the courts to international courts especially to get justice, winning cases that benefited not only themselves but it expanded as it to justice for million of other women. I want to highlight two-- two of the most relevant cases decided by Inter-American Court of Human Rights. One is the case of Maria da Penha. In 1983, Mara da Penha, a Brazilian pharmacist was the victim of 2 homicide attempts by her then husband and father of three daughters inside their home in Fortaleza, Brazil. Her husband, an economist and college professor shot her while she was sleeping causing her irreversible paraplegia. On a later occasion, he tried to electrocute her in the bathroom. Until 1998, 15 years after the crime and in spite of two lower court decisions of the state of Sierra, one in 1991 and the other one in 1996, that found her husband guilty. There was still no final decision in the process because of multiple appeals and procedural motions and her husband was still free. So Maria da Penha, the Center for Justice in International Law and the Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women Prides submitted the case before the Inter-American Commission. Brazil never responded the petition and remained silent through out the process. In a 2001 decision, the Inter-American Commission made the Government of Brazil liable under International law for negligence, omission and tolerance of violence against women and violation of the commitments are then taken by under the conventional Belem do Para. This decision concluded that the Brazilian State had violated the rights of Mrs. da Penha to a fair trail and judicial protection. It also concluded that this violation was part of a pattern of discrimination evidenced by the condoning of domestic violence against women in Brazil through ineffective judicial action. Under this decision, the Brazil was required to complete the criminal prosecution of the aggressor, investigate irregularities and unjustified delays in the prosecution of the case, provide symbolic and monetary redress for the victim, provide training on gender perspective to law enforcement and judges, streamline criminal procedure and increase the number of especial police stations for women with appropriate funding. As a result of this important decision mark on March 2002, the husband was finally convicted but release only after 2 years in prison for good behavior. In 2004, the criminal code was amended to include the criminal-- the crime of domestic violence. In 2006, Brazil enacted the general law on the access of women to a violence-free life named Maria da Penha Law in her honor. Since the passing of this law in 2006, women police stations had been filing criminal cases of violence against women and undertaking inquiries and advanced cases through the criminal justice system. The new law created a special court for domestic and family violence against women that are now supported by a multi-disciplinary staff including social workers and psychologists. These specialized courts worked closely with police, shelters, healthcare centers, training, and employment facilities. Mrs. Penha received monetary compensation of 60,000 Rials, that means its 30,000 dollars, and a public apology from the government. In the same ceremony, the Brazilian state acknowledges international responsibility, I mean, the great coverage in the news media. The investigation and accountability related to the irregularities and unjustified delays in the process are still pending. This was the first time that the convention of Belem do Para was applied in the Inter-American Human Rights System with the decision in which a country has it made responsible on domestic violence. Maria da Penha has become an incredible activist against violence against women in Brazil. She has now her own institute and has recently been decorated by the Kings of Spain for her amazing story and her struggle against violence against women. The other emblematic case on violence against women is the cotton field case of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. During the past 20 years, hundreds of women in general, young and poor have been abducted and tortured before being killed in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. In November 2001, 8 bodies were found in Ciudad Juarez cotton field. The investigation of the case by local authorities was tainted with irregularities. There was never a prompt search in view of the disappearances. And the whole investigation and criminal process was grossly deficient. To put an example, in the course of the investigation, it was found that the local authorities refused to take denunciations of disappearance of the girls. The police would say to the relatives that they should wait and comeback in 24 hours, 72 hours, that they-- the girls might have gone with their boyfriends that, you know, that they should wait. They couldn't do anything. When they should know that those first hours after a person disappear are precisely the most important moments in the disappearance investigation. The families were never informed about the findings of the corpses and the forensic evidence was also flawed. The case was closed without ever finding the real perpetuators of these crimes. The Inter-American Court accepted the case in 2007. On December 10, 2009, 2 years ago, the Inter-American Court rendered its decision on the case establishing that violence against women in Ciudad Juarez was part of a pattern of systematic violence based on gender, age, and social class. The decision made Mexico liable for violation of the human rights of the victims and their families and responsible under international law and the Inter-American Human Rights System for failure to comply with its obligations, to protect the life of the 3 victims in a context of violence against women that has been documented in Ciudad Juarez since 1993. The court ordered-- establish that when dealing with structural problems of violence and discrimination, preparations have to have a transformative effect. And this is a crucial finding in this case with regard to the problem of access to justice in general. The significance of this decision lies in its approach to preparations because it'd not only provides monetary compensation for the victim and the families but the Mexican government had to provide symbolic regress and guarantees of non-repetition including the commitment to investigate the murders according to specific due diligence standards and implement gender training for police and judges. The court declared that the reparations should be already oriented to identify and eliminate the structural factors of discrimination and transform the underlying gender in equalities that paid rise to the violence. This decision made sure that the remedial measures ordered targeted the causes of the problem and not the symptoms. [ Pause ] What-- oh, there you are. This is a memorial site for the victims of cotton field case that Mexico was required to build under the decision. This was inaugurated 3 weeks ago and it was not attended by the president of Mexico. It was [inaudible], lower level, you know, official, so the relatives of the victims didn't attend the ceremony of the inauguration. To conclude, the countries in Latin America have made progress in the fight against violence against women, desecrated awareness of the problem but the level of violence is still very high and is at an unacceptable level. The Inter-American conventions have proven to be instruments of change. They inspired legislative and policy changes. And the Inter-American Court decisions are a great opportunity to adapt them as a legal and political instrument for actions at the local, regional, and international levels to where both in prevention and also in the punishment of a crime. The decisions also have created a clear international consensus as to the legal obligations of the states. And in my opinion, international conventions of decisions make it more difficult for countries to ignore this issue because it is a political [inaudible]-- stigma for governments to be called and exposed before an international court for violation of this type of crime-- this type of negligence on their part. Looking for the future, I believe that it is necessary to strengthen the existing Human Right System, provide adequate funding to women's support programs, implement the laws, improve acces to justice through a speedy and efficient procedures, provide training on gender issues not only to judges and law enforcement but also in law schools, and keep statistics on the incidence of this crimes. Also, the monitoring and-- of the court decisions are really very important to check and to make sure that the judges that courts are applying the laws with a gender prospective and that the law can not keep on being neutral when you have a general component in any of these cases. Thank you very much. [ Applause ] [ Pause ] >> I want to thank all of our panelists for their wonderful prospectives and for at least giving us something to not be depressed about in each of their presentation. So now I'd like to open the floor for questions or comments. You're also happy I guess. [Laughter]. Connie [phonetic]? >> [Inaudible] your scope at the very beginning of the role of NGOs, one of government [inaudible] coordinations in promoting in women's rights, were there any particular groups that you wanted to highlight [inaudible]? The women of the [inaudible]-- will you-- can speak a little background. >> I-- is this working? >> Uh-hmm. >> I am-- you're in the course of the research for this presentation, I found like a number of institutions that have been very active in working in with this problem. But mainly, the ones that I saw a very really active are the Center for Women's Rights in the OAS. And the [inaudible]-- let me give you the name, is the center-- hold on. Maybe, you know, [inaudible] [laughter]. But these are groups that form within other international regional organizations like the OAS. And for example in Brazil, Maria da Penha has a group and an institution in a very active role in working with this problem. >> If I could just add one thing, Graciela was too gracious to say this, but the United States is one of the very few countries in the world not to have ratified the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. And that is sadly typical of a much broader attitude in the United States towards International law. And not only do we tend to disregard international law but there are large segments of this culture in society in our politics that are affirmatively hostile to it. And that is a real impediment to the advancement of human rights in the United States, because human rights is increasingly especially since World War II. It'd become an international movement and the United States has gone from being a leader in that movement to an outlier in the movement. And I will say that one of the things that is very discouraging, as a human rights lawyer is that when you now go to international conferences, there was a time in which everybody would look to in United States for leadership. And now that is not the case. There are other places around the world or other courts around the world for people look, they look to the South African Constitutional Court, they look to the German Constitutional Court, they look to the Canadian Supreme Court. They rarely anymore look to the United States Supreme Court. When they talk about US cases, they talk about brown versus board of education 50 years ago. And we are losing a real opportunity I think to lead to where we started at the human rights revolution, we no longer lead it. >> I got the name. I got the name. >> Okay, good. [Laughter]. >> The name-- Center for Justice and International Law and the Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women Rights, it was difficult, you know. [Laughter]. Come on. >> Not an easy in acronym. >> No, not easy, different number. >> Cliff, I think there are 2 questions in this round here. Theresa have one I think in it? >> Well, I don't [inaudible] I mean since you mentioned the [inaudible] of congress, it has been the [inaudible] for experiencing it here and [inaudible] to the preview, I long the same language with [inaudible], I don't know whether the Latin-American countries got to do sign [inaudible], the conventional, the [inaudible] of the child which is very important and is very relevant in this discussion. And whether they [inaudible]-- >> I can double check but I am sure, pretty sure than most Latin-American countries have already ratified this with it. And also this-- most of the countries that have amended their constitutions in the last 10 years have included these conventions as part of the top of hierarchy of the laws in the country. So, human rights treaties have the same legal hierarchy as the constitution. So it's very difficult to not comply with these treaties. >> Okay. Yes, I mean other people can correct me if I'm wrong. I believe the answer is there are only 2 countries in the world but if not ratified the convention on the rights of the child in the United States in Somalia I believe is the answer. [ Laughter ] >> Yes, I have a question. This is from [inaudible] to our educational system, is there a lot of discussion around [inaudible] education as the single [inaudible] education [inaudible] women's participation in the sciences now which is like [inaudible]-- >> Well, I be glad to finally be able to say [laughter] respond-- thank you. In terms of coed education, I think that of course in this country and in every country including a reference in the declaration of human rights is that parents get to decide what king of education their children receive. In terms of the value of coed education, again, that's a parental decision. There are many different systems to educate. What I can say is that for girls in coed situations, the study show that teachers, men and women tend to in science classes call on boys more, that when a boy answers a question, the teacher will prompt the boy more often, you know, to try to pull information out. Whereas, if the girl answers the very same question, its okay, thanks, lets move on kind of thing. So, I think that we still have some of these very subtle attitudinal issues to deal with in coed classrooms. Now, there are many girls who are favor and feel more free. And the single sex class room and women's colleges do a very good job of training women leaders in science. In fact, we're about to launch an activity at state department that will sort of shine the light on that kind of activity. But I think that at the end of the day, it's a parental decision based on the kind of experience one wants their child to have. >> Question here. [ Inaudible Remarks ] >> I'd like to say something, [inaudible]. Did everyone hear the question? >> Okay, maybe I can re-summarize it but at least as far as I understand, it's about land ownership and property rights-- [ Noise ] I'd like to say from a health prospective, so I've spent most of my career in global health and started working on AIDS early on about 20 years ago. And land ownership actually has something to do with AIDS. And we just marked World Aids Day just on December 1 not a week or so ago. What's the link between land ownership and in this case a very critical health problem? The factors that women who are stigmatized, if they become HIV infected because of their husbands and social practices that put married women at risk for getting AIDS, they can be-- if her husband dies, she can lose her home. The house goes to the brother or in other male relatives. So, she is now HIV infected and out in the street even potentially without her children who remain with the family. So in that case, since she is not able to maintain her home and her land or have property rights. She is at direct risk for even worse conditions. Often times those women turn to prostitution is the only possible way of eking at a living. And so their plight is in this case directly tied to the fact that they cannot own property. So, I think you've raised an incredibly important issue, thank you. >> That sounds great. >> Did you want to comment or Steve, do you want to comment on that? >> The only thing that I wanted to add is that the essential insight of the human rights revolution is that human rights are rights that belong to all of us by virtue of being human beings, and that includes men and women both and equally. And there's obviously a very large debate about what is a universal human right that should apply to all peoples and all places and what rights can be culturally and politically determined by individual countries and individual cultures. But my own view of it would be that, that the right to own a property and own land is indispensable to being a fully recognized and functioning human being in most societies and that it cannot be a right that is limited on the basis of gender. And too often, violence against women is justified or at least to excused on cultural grounds, and Secretary Clinton gave a really remarkable speech two days ago about gay rights. And for those of who have not read it, I really do urge you to take a look at it and read it 'cause it really was remarkable. But in the course of it, she was comparing the gay rights revolution to the women's rights revolution and one of the sentences in the speech was, she said the violence against women is not cultural, it is criminal. And I believe that that is the case. Depriving women of the right to own a land is not criminal in the same sense, but I think it is a violation of basic human rights. >> I wanted to say that is regarding property rights in some cultures and some countries that have also customary law in place. This is a serious problem because you have to create a system by which both systems are consistent. And regularly, the balance goes towards against the women. So for example, in many countries with indigenous populations like Peru, Columbia, Ecuador, you know, this has been a critical issue of how and still, they are still struggling with finding a solution on how to deal with these problems, same thing with for example, rape in the indigenous populations because well, under indigenous tradition, girls initiate their sexual life early. Well, that doesn't mean that you can rape an Indian girl because even if in your tradition that is accepted, you live in a country that have a rule of law that applies over, you know, have a president-- >> I think there was another question Cliff. >> Thank you. I may have missed this segment of the presentation which is on women's rights in the US and unfinished agenda. >> Yeah. >> This question is for Mr. Steven Shapiro. I notice from your profile that you also do work in Asia. Having been born and grown up in two different continents, in continent of Asia and in America, like very intimately identify what the cultural differences and very happy to see Secretary State. I did see that comment including her recent visit to Asia in the Bali Summit with the President. I have a question about what do you think is the major difference of the unfinished agendas that are critical in the US as opposed to Asia or do they both share a common thread, have they come far in the history of women's rights in a little bit? >> Well I-- I am anything but an expert on Asia. I have been affiliated with the Humans Right Watch and in various ways that has done work in Asia, but it's not the area of my expertise so I really am, I'm really just don't feel confident to talk about the state of women's rights in Asia and nor do I think is I know this much that Asia is not a monolith. And that the situation is very different depending upon what part you talk about in Asia. I do think in the United States and this is true with the battle for equality, generally speaking, it's true with race as well as it is true of gender. We have largely succeeded in creating formal equality in the United States and that is to say the laws that expressly discriminate on the basis of race or religion or gender have pretty much been eliminated. What we still have a very long way to achieving is in a [inaudible] of equality. And the reasons for that are incredibly complicated and they are different, you know, for gender than they are for race. Although, women who are also members of minorities, cultures and traditions often suffer under, you know, a duel, you know, they face multiple hurdles. But maybe others can talk about Asia. I just don't feel like I'm competent to do that. >> Anyone in the audience would care to make a comment Cliff, may I ask you to do a sprint up to the this road? You think they-- okay, [inaudible]. >> This is just a comment for Sharon. I remember you mentioned that, you know, there are once a [inaudible] and he said that he should, you know-- what-- I mean, childhood increase the percentage, but I think that shouldn't be based on the child whoever it should get that in respective of the gender, I mean, that's just a comment. >> No-- >> And I don't know why I should be discriminating that, you know, like you know, women should have the respect they need and, you know, 80 percent [inaudible] instead of saying that everybody, you know, who has been [inaudible]. >> Absolutely. I wholeheartedly concur with what you just said. What I've observed is that women, however, who are quite talented superstars are not as adept or even as enthusiastic about seeking awards and receiving awards as their male peers. That's the point. And then there's an attitude issue in women who do not wish to view to be-- wish to be viewed as self-promotional because in our culture, women who overly self-promote are viewed as-- well, it's a majority, let's just say that. So the idea is [laughter]-- I am from the State Department, [laughs] [inaudible] on my words, yeah. [ Laughter ] Anyway, I agree with you. We're a merit based society and merit should rule [laughs]. >> Are there any other questions? >> Could I just say a word about data? That- >> Yes, please. >> I wanted to say something about the import of having data and whether it's women in science or women in anything. It's so important to be able to track progress. Now, we have laws in place that propel us forward in many ways, but unless we track where women really are, we're not able to quantify success. The US on women in science has a very good job. We collect data and we disaggregate it by sex, that's very good. We also disaggregate, to a great degree, by race and therefore, we know that women of color in science fair worst in this country. One of the things that we're trying to talk about with partners around the world is this collection of data disaggregated by sex and race. Now, there's only a few other countries in the world that actually do this. But unless we can count what we have now, we will not be able to track progress and so we think that that's very important >> Cliff, I think there's a new question here. This is-- that would be a second question. [ Inaudible Remark ] Please wait for the microphone [laughter]. >> Okay. Thank you. I just actually want to contribute something because we can talk about the human rights in Asia and I'm under a foreign law specialized on covering China in the Library of Congress. And before talking about human rights in China, I think everybody who is listening will know that's a lot of concerns over this issue in China. But when you talk about women's rights, I do have something like special to share like if you know like after the 1949, when communist party took over power, the first law passed by the new China is now constitutional law but it's a marriage law. And in that law, it's the first law passed by People's Republic of China. And in that law, it's clearly stated that women are equal, that men and women are equal. And it's not just a declaration actually, it-- to some extent, it's true, like in my family, my father actually always gave all of his salary to my mother and she control all the finance [laughter] of the family. And it's not that they're rare, it's very common in many families. And-- but also, like in many legislations who can't read similar articles of provisions what this got. But the reality, it always has another thing, like you can also find something like very expressly, like inequality. I mean, like for example, when I work for a university and the court is hiring assistant to the court from the recent university graduates, and they clearly-- that's in 2000, and they clearly said that they want only boys, only male graduates. The reason for that is that for that court, that division, they have only male judges there. So they are considering like if they send judge to like for business travel, if all the colleagues are males, they can share room. But if they have only one girl there, she must have her separate room. So, that's very [inaudible] for the court to do, for the convenience of the court, for the administration of the court. So they decide that they hire only male graduates from the law school to that court. I think they're still thinking this way, but now, maybe nowadays, they don't list if its there. But still, that's not what I mean [laughter]. That's maybe in the decision makers' minds that if they tend to hire males in that way. So this is my-- a little bit contribution. >> Yeah. I'm just going to tell one very quick story. But there was a very big case last year in the United States which is sex discrimination case against Walmart. Walmart is the largest employer in the United States. And the case was brought on behalf of one and a half million women employees in Walmart and the question was, could they band together as a group and sue Walmart for sex discrimination? And the Supreme Court ultimately said the answer to that question was, no, for technical reasons that are in some ways all that interesting to talk about. But the more interesting part was the policy, the hiring practices that Walmart had put in place. They had of formal policy that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex. And then they had a hiring policy that said individual store managers had tremendous discretion to hire and promote whoever they wanted to, it didn't have to all be clear through the central office. The hiring was-- the employment decisions were decentralized. And then when you looked at this decentralized decision making system across the board, what you discovered was across the country, women were being paid less at Walmart and being promoted less often at Walmart, right? And the Supreme Court ultimately said, but how can that, as long as we have 1500 stores and 1500 store managers making individual decisions, how can we say there is any discrimination going on here across the board every-- we have 1500 different decision makers. And then quest-- the obvious question response is how do 1500 individual decision makers reach the same discriminatory result? [Laughter]. Unless there is something very deeply embedded either in the corporate culture and/or the larger culture that contributes to that outcome and that is I think sort of micro cause of what we're now struggling with. >> I think I'll conclude now so that we can enjoy some social time together in the back with the-- with the reception. I'll just thank our panelist. It was a wonderful and varied presentation. We thoroughly enjoyed it and I think you all came together in the Q and A beautifully. [ Applause ] [ Inaudible Remarks ] >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress.