WEBVTT

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"All I wanted was
a much-deserved promotion,

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and he told me to 'Get up on the desk

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and spread 'em.'"

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"All the men in my office
wrote down on a piece of paper

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the sexual favors
that I could do for them.

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All I had asked for
was an office with a window."

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"I asked for his advice about how
I could get a bill out of committee;

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he asked me if I brought my kneepads."

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Those are just a few
of the horrific stories

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that I heard from women
over the last year,

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as I've been investigating
workplace sexual harassment.

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And what I found out

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is that it's an epidemic across the world.

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It's a horrifying reality
for millions of women,

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when all they want to do every day

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is go to work.

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Sexual harassment doesn't discriminate.

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You can wear a skirt,

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hospital scrubs,

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army fatigues.

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You can be young or old,

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married or single,

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black or white.

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You can be a Republican,
a Democrat or an Independent.

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I heard from so many women:

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police officers,

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members of our military,

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financial assistants,

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actors, engineers, lawyers,

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bankers, accountants, teachers ...

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journalists.

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Sexual harassment, it turns out,

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is not about sex.

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It's about power,

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and about what somebody does to you

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to try and take away your power.

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And I'm here today

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to encourage you to know
that you can take that power back.

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(Applause)

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On July 6, 2016,

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I jumped off a cliff all by myself.

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It was the scariest moment of my life;

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an excruciating choice to make.

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I fell into an abyss all alone,

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not knowing what would be below.

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But then, something miraculous
started to happen.

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Thousands of women
started reaching out to me

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to share their own stories
of pain and agony and shame.

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They told me that I became their voice --

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they were voiceless.

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And suddenly, I realized
that even in the 21st century,

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every woman still has a story.

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Like Joyce,

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a flight attendant supervisor

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whose boss, in meetings every day,

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would tell her about the porn
that he'd watched the night before

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while drawing penises on his notepad.

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She went to complain.

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She was called "crazy" and fired.

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Like Joanne, Wall Street banker.

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Her male colleagues would call her
that vile c-word every day.

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She complained --

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labeled a troublemaker,

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never to do another
Wall Street deal again.

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Like Elizabeth, an army officer.

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Her male subordinates would wave
one-dollar bills in her face,

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and say, "Dance for me!"

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And when she went to complain to a major,

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he said, "What? Only one dollar?

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You're worth at least five or ten!"

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After reading,

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replying to all

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and crying over all of these emails,

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I realized I had so much work to do.

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Here are the startling facts:

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one in three women -- that we know of --

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have been sexually harassed
in the workplace.

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Seventy-one percent of those incidences
never get reported.

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Why?

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Because when women come forward,

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they're still called liars
and troublemakers

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and demeaned and trashed

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and demoted and blacklisted

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and fired.

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Reporting sexual harassment can be,
in many cases, career-ending.

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Of all the women that reached out to me,

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almost none are still today working
in their chosen profession,

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and that is outrageous.

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I, too, was silent in the beginning.

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It happened to me at the end
of my year as Miss America,

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when I was meeting with
a very high-ranking TV executive

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in New York City.

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I thought he was helping me
throughout the day,

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making a lot of phone calls.

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We went to dinner,

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and in the back seat of a car,
he suddenly lunged on top of me

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and stuck his tongue down my throat.

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I didn't realize that to "get
into the business" -- silly me --

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he also intended to get into my pants.

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And just a week later,

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when I was in Los Angeles
meeting with a high-ranking publicist,

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it happened again.

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Again, in a car.

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And he took my neck in his hand,

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and he shoved my head
so hard into his crotch,

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I couldn't breathe.

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These are the events that suck the life
out of all of your self-confidence.

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These are the events that, until recently,

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I didn't even call assault.

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And this is why we have
so much work to do.

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After my year as Miss America,

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I continued to meet
a lot of well-known people,

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including Donald Trump.

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When this picture was taken in 1988,

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nobody could have ever predicted
where we'd be today.

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(Laughter)

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Me, fighting to end sexual
harassment in the workplace;

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he, president of the United States

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in spite of it.

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And shortly thereafter, I got
my first gig in television news

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in Richmond, Virginia.

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Check out that confident smile
with the bright pink jacket.

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Not so much the hair.

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(Laughter)

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I was working so hard to prove
that blondes have a lot of brains.

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But ironically, one of the first
stories I covered

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was the Anita Hill hearings
in Washington, DC.

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And shortly thereafter,

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I, too, was sexually harassed
in the workplace.

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I was covering a story in rural Virginia,

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and when we got back into the car,

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my cameraman started saying to me,

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wondering how much I had enjoyed
when he touched my breasts

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when he put the microphone on me.

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And it went downhill from there.

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I was bracing myself
against the passenger door --

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this was before cellphones.

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I was petrified.

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I actually envisioned myself
rolling outside of that door

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as the car was going 50 miles per hour
like I'd seen in the movies,

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and wondering how much it would hurt.

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When the story about
Harvey Weinstein came to light --

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one the most well-known
movie moguls in all of Hollywood --

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the allegations were horrific.

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But so many women came forward,

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and it made me realize
what I had done meant something.

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(Applause)

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He had such a lame excuse.

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He said he was a product
of the '60s and '70s,

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and that that was the culture then.

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Yeah, that was the culture then,

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and unfortunately, it still is.

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Why?

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Because of all the myths

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that are still associated
with sexual harassment.

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"Women should just take another job
and find another career."

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Yeah, right.

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Tell that to the single mom
working two jobs,

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trying to make ends meet,

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who's also being sexually harassed.

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"Women --

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they bring it on themselves."

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By the clothes that we wear

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and the makeup that we put on.

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Yeah, I guess those hoodies
that Uber engineers wear in Silicon Valley

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are just so provocative.

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"Women make it up."

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Yeah, because it's so fun and rewarding

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to be demeaned and taken down.

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I would know.

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"Women bring these claims
because they want to be famous and rich."

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Our own president said that.

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I bet Taylor Swift,

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one of the most well-known
and richest singers in the world,

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didn't need more money or fame

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when she came forward
with her groping case

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for one dollar.

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And I'm so glad she did.

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Breaking news:

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the untold story about women
and sexual harassment in the workplace:

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women just want a safe, welcoming

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and harass-free environment.

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That's it.

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(Applause)

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So how do we go about
getting our power back?

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I have three solutions.

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Number one:

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we need to turn bystanders
and enablers into allies.

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Ninety-eight percent of United States
corporations right now

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have sexual harassment training policies.

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Seventy percent have prevention programs.

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But still, overwhelmingly,

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bystanders and witnesses
don't come forward.

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In 2016,

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the Harvard Business Review
called it the "bystander effect."

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And yet -- remember 9/11.

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Millions of times we've heard,

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"If you see something,

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say something."

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Imagine how impactful that would be
if we carried that through

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to bystanders in the workplace
regarding sexual harassment --

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to recognize and interrupt
these incidences;

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to confront the perpetrators
to their face;

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to help and protect the victims.

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This is my shout-out to men:

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we need you in this fight.

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And to women, too --

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enablers to allies.

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Number two:

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change the laws.

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How many of you out there know

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whether or not you have
a forced arbitration clause

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in your employment contract?

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Not a lot of hands.

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And if you don't know, you should,

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and here's why.

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TIME Magazine calls it,

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right there on the screen,

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"The teeny tiny little print in contracts

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that keeps sexual
harassment claims unheard."

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Here's what it is.

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Forced arbitration takes away
your Seventh Amendment right

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to an open jury process.

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It's secret.

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You don't get the same
witnesses or depositions.

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In many cases, the company
picks the arbitrator for you.

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There are no appeals,

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and only 20 percent of the time
does the employee win.

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But again, it's secret,

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so nobody ever knows what happened to you.

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This is why I've been
working so diligently

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on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC

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to change the laws.

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And here's what I tell the Senators:

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sexual harassment is apolitical.

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Before somebody harasses you,

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they don't ask you if you're
a Republican or Democrat first.

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They just do it.

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And this is why we should all care.

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Number three:

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be fierce.

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It starts when we stand tall,

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and we build that self-confidence.

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And we stand up and we speak up,

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and we tell the world what happened to us.

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I know it's scary,

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but let's do it for our kids.

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Let's stop this for the next generations.

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I know that I did it for my children.

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They were paramount in my decision-making

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about whether or not I would come forward.

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My beautiful children,

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my 12-year-old son, Christian,

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my 14-year-old daughter, Kaia.

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And boy, did I underestimate them.

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The first day of school last year

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happened to be the day
my resolution was announced,

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and I was so anxious
about what they would face.

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My daughter came home
from school and she said,

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"Mommy, so many people asked me
what happened to you over the summer."

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Then she looked at me in the eyes

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and she said, "And mommy,

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I was so proud

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to say that you were my mom."

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And two weeks later,

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when she finally found the courage
to stand up to two kids

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who had been making her life miserable,

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she came home to me and she said,

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"Mommy, I found the courage to do it

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because I saw you do it."

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(Applause)

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You see, giving the gift
of courage is contagious.

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And I hope that my journey
has inspired you,

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because right now, it's the tipping point.

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We are watching history happen.

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More and more women
are coming forward and saying,

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"Enough is enough."

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(Applause)

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Here's my one last plea to companies.

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Let's hire back all those women
whose careers were lost

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because of some random jerk.

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Because here's what I know about women:

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we will not longer be underestimated,
intimidated or set back;

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we will not be silenced
by the ways of the establishment

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or the relics of the past.

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No.

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We will stand up and speak up

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and have our voices heard.

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We will be the women we were meant to be.

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And above all,

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we will always be fierce.

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:22.196 --> 00:14:23.370
Thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

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(Applause)