- 9 years ago
In the newly updated Shatterbox Anthology film "50/50," Emmy-nominated filmmaker and Webby Awards founder Tiffany Shlain embarks on the true history of powerful women around the world.
Women accounted for only 13% of the directors on the 700 top grossing films in 2014 — and only 7% of the top 250 films. Refinery29 wants to change this by giving 12 female directors a chance to claim their power. Our message to Hollywood? You can't win without women.
50/50 DAY
On May 10th, join thousands of organizations, companies, schools, museums, libraries and homes — anywhere people already gather — in a global conversation about what it will take to get to a more gender-balanced world in all sectors of society: business, politics, culture, home, and more.
http://letitripple.org/films/50-50/5050-day
ABOUT SHATTERBOX
Women accounted for only 13% of the directors on the 700 top grossing films in 2014 — and only 7% of the top 250 films. Refinery29 wants to change this by giving 12 female directors a chance to claim their power. Our message to Hollywood? You can't win without women.
ABOUT REFINERY29
Refinery29 is a modern woman's destination for how to live a stylish, well-rounded life. http://refinery29.com/
SEE MORE REFINERY29 VIDEOS
http://refinery29.com/video
SUBSCRIBE TO REFINERY29
Subscribe to the Refinery29 channel: http://bit.ly/subscribe-to-r29
For the latest trends and videos, visit: http://refinery29.com
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Women accounted for only 13% of the directors on the 700 top grossing films in 2014 — and only 7% of the top 250 films. Refinery29 wants to change this by giving 12 female directors a chance to claim their power. Our message to Hollywood? You can't win without women.
50/50 DAY
On May 10th, join thousands of organizations, companies, schools, museums, libraries and homes — anywhere people already gather — in a global conversation about what it will take to get to a more gender-balanced world in all sectors of society: business, politics, culture, home, and more.
http://letitripple.org/films/50-50/5050-day
ABOUT SHATTERBOX
Women accounted for only 13% of the directors on the 700 top grossing films in 2014 — and only 7% of the top 250 films. Refinery29 wants to change this by giving 12 female directors a chance to claim their power. Our message to Hollywood? You can't win without women.
ABOUT REFINERY29
Refinery29 is a modern woman's destination for how to live a stylish, well-rounded life. http://refinery29.com/
SEE MORE REFINERY29 VIDEOS
http://refinery29.com/video
SUBSCRIBE TO REFINERY29
Subscribe to the Refinery29 channel: http://bit.ly/subscribe-to-r29
For the latest trends and videos, visit: http://refinery29.com
Like Refinery29 on Facebook: https://facebook.com/refinery29
Follow Refinery29 on Twitter: https://twitter.com/refinery29
Heart Refinery29 on Instagram: https://instagram.com/refinery29/
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00I recently learned this fact that completely blew my mind.
00:03I'm at this event and I meet a woman named Laura Listwood.
00:06And we're talking, I'm like, what do you do?
00:07And she said, I convene elected women presidents
00:10and prime ministers for the United Nations.
00:12And I was like, wow, that's an amazing thing to do.
00:15How long have you been doing that?
00:16She said, oh, around 20 years.
00:18I was like, hmm, how many had there been 20 years ago?
00:22And she said, 15.
00:24So I was like, well, how many are there today?
00:27And she said, oh, around 50.
00:30And I was like, 50?
00:33How did I not know that, that there had been around 50 elected
00:38women presidents and prime ministers?
00:40And that made me think, gosh, maybe we've been just telling
00:44the story of scarcity for so long.
00:46And maybe it's time we told a news story of abundance.
01:05I woke up the next morning and I couldn't wait to tell Ken and our daughters
01:09about how many women had been elected heads of state.
01:12And then I proceeded to ask everyone around me who I thought might know the number.
01:16And nobody even came close to half.
01:17I asked friends, I asked CEOs of big companies, feminists, people on the street.
01:23How many elected women presidents and prime ministers in the whole world do you think
01:26there have been?
01:27Elected.
01:28No royalty.
01:29Two or three.
01:30Not many.
01:31Five, six?
01:32Ten?
01:32I would say under five.
01:34I don't know.
01:35How many?
01:35So the answer is 50.
01:3750?
01:38Really?
01:3850.
01:39Oh, wow.
01:4150.
01:42Oh!
01:43But not enough.
01:44But not enough.
01:45Yeah.
01:46I mean, I've always thought of myself as a feminist.
01:49My great-grandmother marched, my mother marched, I've marched.
01:53Even when I was growing up, my mom was writing her PhD thesis on the importance of mentors
01:58and mothers on successful women.
02:00And my dad wrote books about women in power.
02:04So I was completely disappointed in myself for not knowing.
02:07And it made me think, what else don't I know?
02:10And this all set me down a road to piece together a new narrative that looks at where
02:15are we really on the greater arc of history of women in power?
02:19And what's it going to take to get to a 50-50 world?
02:23And I'm not talking just politics and boardrooms.
02:26I am talking across all parts of society, truly shifting the gender balance to be better
02:31for everyone.
02:33So, in order to think about where we are on this arc and how we're going to get to where
02:37we want to go, let's go back to the very beginning.
02:42It turns out the oldest hominid ever discovered is a female hominid.
02:46Not a feminist, but a feminid.
02:49Okay, we actually know very little about who wore the pants back then.
02:52Not that pants even existed.
02:55But fast forward to the Neolithic age, things were pretty egalitarian.
03:00Women and men had equal social status.
03:03And the earliest written laws reflected these egalitarian societies.
03:07Women could choose to marry and divorce.
03:09Women were healers, shamans, religious leaders, warriors, and lawmakers.
03:14All genders were respected.
03:18We're talking over 10,000 years ago this was happening.
03:22And then, like many times on our journey, the story takes a dark turn.
03:27The balance shifted.
03:30My father attributed this shift to literacy rewiring our brains.
03:34Others point to the rise of agriculture, which favored physical strength, the conquest
03:40of land.
03:40We started seeing the development of military, political power.
03:45Even art became more dude-centric.
03:49Goddesses became gods, and the voices of women were silenced.
03:53In ancient Mesopotamia, one of the earliest laws stated, if a woman speaks to a man out of
03:59turn, her teeth will be smashed in by a burnt brick.
04:05Patriarchy had arrived and was literally chiseled in stone.
04:10But we know that our history has been written mostly by men.
04:13I want the rest of the story.
04:15How are we supposed to know where we are in the arc of history if we don't have the full
04:19context?
04:20And not just elected leaders, but the centuries of badass women that I know were there, paving
04:26the paths and contributing to where we are today.
04:30Let's go find them.
04:34Here we have Hatshepsut in ancient Egypt, one of the first great women leaders.
04:40Egypt thrived under her long and influential reign for 22 years.
04:44But the next pharaoh literally chiseled her face out of history.
04:49And here's Boudicca, the woman warrior who led the Britons in a revolt against the Romans.
04:54And Wuza Tian, the first and only female ruler of China, who also had her story altered
05:00by the men who followed.
05:01There was Margaret I of Denmark, who united the Scandinavian nations.
05:07I had never seen all these women linked together.
05:10Like warrior queen Amina, who ruled what is now Nigeria.
05:15And Queen Elizabeth I, at the time the most powerful person in the world, ruled for nearly
05:2050 years.
05:22While she was in power, an explorer brought her what he thought was the horn from a unicorn.
05:26She liked it so much she added it to the crown jewels.
05:29We could actually call her a unicorn.
05:32We could call all of these women unicorns.
05:35Not mythical or unreal, but women who stood out, unique to their day.
05:39Courageous women navigating uncharted terrain.
05:44And as I learned more about these women, I kept thinking about my mom's thesis that looked
05:49at successful women and the importance of their female mentors.
05:53So mom, how would you define a mentor?
05:56Someone who helps somebody else find their own path.
06:00One question you haven't asked me, which is important, is why did I study mentors?
06:07I never had a mentor.
06:09And then I thought, I wonder what it's like if someone had a mentor.
06:14All the studies, and I had to read all the studies about men first.
06:19Having a mentor made the difference in the final push towards success.
06:28I mean, how did my mom accomplish so much without a mentor?
06:31And how did these women centuries ago accomplish so much?
06:35Did they have mentors?
06:36How did it even work back then?
06:38There was no easy way to connect with other women leaders.
06:44And no narrative over time to link their stories together.
06:48But eventually that narrative did begin.
06:51Like with Christine de Pazan in France in the 1300s, 500 years before the word feminism
06:57was even coined, she is considered the first writer to examine the roles of women throughout
07:02history and to weave together their experiences.
07:06Creating a narrative not just of political leaders, but of women in all different ways
07:11we contribute to society.
07:13And over the centuries, countless women would build on that narrative.
07:16As artists, storytellers, philosophers, mothers, and leaders.
07:24But the mountains of imbalance were also centuries high, and for everyone climbed there was another
07:30to struggle with.
07:31Room for fewer and fewer at the top with more struggling to climb, more hurdles, more pushback.
07:36Like it was around this time that many of the wise, independent, and rebellious women of their day were labeled
07:42witches and put on trial.
07:44An estimated 50,000 women in Europe and the US were burned and executed.
07:52That's a lot of powerful women to lose from our narrative.
07:56And the imbalance was also becoming more and more embedded in political structures.
08:01Even our own country, which I do love, was established with the line, all men are created equal.
08:09And this was a time of slavery.
08:12Clearly they didn't mean all men.
08:14And clearly they didn't mean women.
08:16Women couldn't own property.
08:18We had the same legal status as children.
08:21We couldn't vote.
08:24But no mountain was going to truly hold our power back.
08:29Women were rising in art, science, and culture.
08:36And pioneers were gathering, coming together to fight for more rights.
08:40Momentum was building in Europe, the US, and dots around the globe.
08:44Into what we now call the first wave of feminism.
08:48In 1848, 300 women and a few men convened in Seneca Falls, New York, and declared all men and women
08:56are created equal.
08:59The whole suffragist fight was gruesome.
09:02But the battle was worth it.
09:0570 years after Seneca Falls, women in the US won the right to vote.
09:11But I found this part so haunting.
09:13Only one of the women who attended Seneca Falls was still alive.
09:18Charlotte Woodward was 92 and she didn't make it to the polls.
09:22She got sick on election day.
09:26And this story was such a reminder for me on how long real social change takes.
09:32And that we can't take any of these hard-fought rights for granted.
09:38And if we want to be alive to experience a more equal world, we have to accelerate the pace of
09:45change.
09:47And I do think that's happening.
09:50I mean, if we look at the whole arc of history, a lot has happened in the last hundred years.
09:56Even just in my lifetime.
09:59I was born in 1970, the heart of the women's movement.
10:03I am a woman, here we go, in the end.
10:07It was an amazing surge of momentum, the second wave of feminism, which like all change, had all kinds of
10:15challenges.
10:16The national chairman of the movement to start the so-called Equal Rights Amendment is Mrs. Phyllis Schlafly.
10:25That Equal Rights Amendment, by the way, the ERA, was first introduced in Congress in 1923, was brought back in
10:33the 70s and every year after.
10:35And it still hasn't passed a hundred years later.
10:40But what I didn't fully grasp about the momentum in the 70s is that while all the strides and struggles
10:45were happening in the U.S.,
10:46women gathering, creating support groups, fighting for more rights,
10:50there was also a lot of exciting things happening on an international scale.
10:55By 1970, three countries had elected women as heads of state.
10:59And in 1975, the U.N. brought together the first International Women's Conference.
11:05Over 6,000 delegates from 133 countries traveled to Mexico City
11:09and gathered in person for two weeks to discuss the status of equal rights on a global scale.
11:18They made a collective plan. They'd convene again in Copenhagen in 1980.
11:23Above all, we have learned that to achieve full justice and equality for women will require a long and patient
11:31struggle.
11:32And they'd meet again in Nairobi in 1985 and Beijing in 95.
11:37Human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights once and for all.
11:46It's like all these decades of global gatherings.
11:49We're all the first and onlys, the unicorns from all over the world, coming together to build networks of support.
11:56Kind of perfect that a herd of unicorns is called a blessing.
12:01It was also in the mid-90s that Laura Liswood started the Council of Women Leaders.
12:07I was noticing some very common themes running through about power, about how women are treated.
12:13I started asking them if they wanted to meet. They said they did.
12:17And so that's how the Council started.
12:19And picture, this was the 70s, 80s and 90s.
12:22All the connecting was done with faxes, letters and plane rides just to have conversations.
12:29It's a whole different world today.
12:31The internet is accelerating the pace of change in so many ways.
12:35We can connect across continents and write and share stories that aren't already there.
12:39which brings power and opportunity to far more voices.
12:44But along with that comes greater responsibility.
12:50Our work is not done.
12:53Violence against women is global and systematic.
12:55Inequality is still present throughout every facet of our lives.
13:00We can connect across continents and members.
13:02We are known as people of our lives.
13:07We are known as the public and are the ones on our planet.
13:20And we know the people of our lives.
13:23In addition to that transparency and responsibility, today's world also gives us more ways to learn from each other,
13:29person to person and country to country.
13:31I understand one of the priorities for you
13:33was to have a cabinet that was gender balanced.
13:36Why was that so important to you?
13:38Because it's 2015.
13:45There are over 300 studies showing
13:47that making those changes from all levels,
13:50business, politics, and culture,
13:52makes life better for everyone,
13:54not just women, everyone.
13:57Over half of the countries that rank highest
13:59in gender equality across different sectors
14:02also rank highest on the Global Happiness Index.
14:05A lot of these countries pay for early childcare
14:08and high-quality education.
14:10They have national parental leave for both men and women.
14:13So instead of this idea of stay-at-home mom,
14:15they're supporting parents, period.
14:18Because dads are being deprived of their power too.
14:22The power of nurturing and raising the next generation.
14:27A recent study in the U.S. showed that 50% of men
14:30who are offered paid paternity leave
14:32feel they can't take it.
14:36Men have an entire history of stereotypes
14:38and expectations to wrestle with too.
14:42And those men who are equal parents,
14:44I feel like they're the next chapter of first and onlys
14:48that are paving the path to something better.
14:5150-50 isn't just about women getting more power.
14:54It's about everyone getting more power.
14:57It's about opening up the whole idea of what power is.
15:01Moving beyond the binaries of men and women,
15:04we're all on a continuum
15:05with different combinations of strengths
15:07to bring to the table.
15:09Power is leadership,
15:11but power is also love.
15:13Power is empathy.
15:16Power is the opportunity to find your own path.
15:20So how do we really get there
15:22to the world we want to see?
15:45I turn to the person who blew my mind
15:47and set me down this path in the first place.
15:50So Laura, how do we get to 50-50?
15:54Well, I think change itself goes from the unthinkable
15:57to the impossible to the inevitable.
16:00But someone has to move it along.
16:03I often like it to a standing ovation.
16:06A few people jump up and say,
16:09this is the best thing that they have ever seen.
16:11Then another larger group gets up and says,
16:13yes, yes, this was just excellent.
16:16Then the large group gets up and says,
16:18yeah, yeah, this was okay.
16:20And then finally the last group gets up
16:22because they can't see the stage.
16:25So where are we on that arc of history?
16:28I think the generations that are alive today
16:31have the potential to reach that standing ovation.
16:35Although as we know,
16:36change can be very disruptive
16:38and very unsettling for people.
16:40And often there's some group of people
16:42who want to revert to a good old days kind of thing.
16:46But the rest of us,
16:47we need to stand up and keep clapping.
16:51In the middle of this journey,
16:52our daughter Odessa was getting bat mitzvahed.
16:55And Ken and I talked so much
16:56about what we were each going to say to her
16:58at this big rite of passage.
16:59My favorite saying in the Talmud is,
17:02when you teach your children,
17:03you teach your children's children.
17:05A mentor is someone who helps
17:07somebody else find their own path.
17:10These are all the people
17:12who are going to be there
17:13for the rest of your life supporting you.
17:15Each of these people
17:16has a whole room of people
17:18that supported them
17:20to allow them to be in this room
17:22supporting you.
17:24Piecing together this history
17:25and putting it into context
17:27made me see mentorship in a whole new way.
17:31Mentors are all around us.
17:34Younger, older, peer-to-peer,
17:36country-to-country,
17:37and from all of history.
17:40And we need to keep them all right here,
17:42right next to us.
17:44I used to think I had the full context
17:47of women in power,
17:48but I was still letting
17:49the story of scarcity guide me.
17:52And then I realized that
17:53if we really build
17:54on the centuries of momentum,
17:57generations of courageous women
17:58that have brought us this far,
18:00we can take this story of scarcity
18:02and turn it into a story of abundance.
18:10When you get to the top of the mountain,
18:13pull the next one up.
18:16Then there'll be two of you,
18:19tired and proud.
18:21And when the second one
18:23has finished taking in the view,
18:27let her pull the next one up.
18:32Room enough for all on the mountain peaks
18:37to pull the next woman up.
18:41Pull the next man up.
18:45Pull the next up.
18:48Up.
18:49Up.
18:51Up.
18:52Up.
18:52Up.
18:53Up.
18:54Up.
18:56Up.
19:10Up.
19:13Up.
19:15Up.
19:16Up.
19:18Up.
19:20Up.
19:21Up.
19:21Up.