Women, Power and Money in 2024 and Beyond
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How can a microchip manufacturer keep track of 250 million control points at once? How can technology behind animated movies help enterprises reimagine their future? Built for Change listeners know those answers and more. I'm Elise Hu. And I'm Josh Klein. We're the hosts of Built for Change, a podcast from Accenture. We talk to leaders of the world's biggest companies to hear how they've reinvented their business to create industry-shifting impact.

And how you can too. New episodes are coming soon, so check out Built for Change wherever you get your podcasts. This is Andrew Osorkin with The New York Times. You're about to listen to some fascinating breakout conversations from our annual Dealbook Summit live event, which was recorded on December 4th in New York City. You're going to be hearing experts, stakeholders, and leaders discussing some pretty vital topics that are shaping the business world and the world at large. ♪

Welcome, everybody, to the deal book, Women, Power and Money Task Force 2024. I'm thrilled to have you all here. We are going to conduct a 90-minute inquiry into a really, really hard question, which is why at a time when women are really in so many ways doing better than ever in society, have experienced so much trauma.

educational, social, financial progress, why is progress still limited in the business world in leadership positions? So to...

dissect that problem, to try to push forward on that problem, we have an amazing group of women that I want to quickly introduce, starting on my far right. This is Lynn Martin, president of the New York Stock Exchange Group, helping to keep our financial system stable. This is Reshma Sajjani, founder of Moms First and Girls Who Code, who has been an advocate, not only for women at the highest levels, but across the board. And this is Lynn Martin,

We have this obscure, culturally unfamiliar figure named Brooke Shields. We'll explain who she is later. We have Thashanda Brown Duckett, the president and CEO of TIAA, who is watching out for all of our retirements and financial safety. We have Donna Langley-

You have an amazing title because it's chairman, actually, of NBCUniversal Entertainment and Studios. And didn't you also recently become a dame? I am a dame, yes. Well, it's great to have you here. Dionne von Furstenberg, the legendary fashion designer. Yes.

Emma Greed, bringing a dose of cool to the Dealbook Summit, the co-founder and CEO of Good American and founding partner of Skims. Amy Griffin, founder and managing partner of G9 Ventures, who I just discovered is sort of responsible for everything I've purchased in the past year. So I don't know whether to thank you or blame you, but it's great to have you here. And finally...

Brooke Boyarsky Pratt, founder and CEO of KnownWell. Brooke is someone I actually met a decade ago in my reporting because I was writing about the class of 2014 at Harvard Business School.

An attempt to really improve women's status at the school. Brooke was not only part of that effort, but she was the best graduation speaker I had ever heard. Had a pretty stunning effect even in her school days. And I have followed her work and her recent founding of this very innovative company that we'll hear about ever since her.

So I want to start by setting a little bit of a common intention for this panel. As we sit here, the odds are still stacked against women in this world, but not the way they used to be.

Women graduating college have opportunities for professional accomplishment, remuneration, and leadership that their grandmothers could scarcely have dreamed of. The leadership of the Fortune 500 is now 10% female. Do you see that as depressing? Do you see that as enormous progress? We'll talk about that. There's a woman on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. There's a single woman on the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Four of the five seats on the Supreme Court are female. Twice, women have been nominated by a major party for president. Women of both parties are making serious runs at the presidency. So I want to set an intention for our 90 minutes together and a sense of joint shared inquiry. Ladies, this is not our first gender panel rodeo. We have all done this many, many times before.

Donna, I believe you have given a thousand interviews and Lord knows how many internal presentations saying that, yes, women's lives should be depicted by Hollywood and those films can succeed in the marketplace. We're not going to ask you about that today because you have proved it true many, many, many times over. The focus I want to set for today is

is about right now. It's about December 4th, 2024. How is this moment like and unlike other moments? What insight can every woman at this table contribute about where we are now when it comes to women, leadership, and power on questions of do women control capital? Do we determine which stories get told? Do we make major decisions? What can you bring

What can you tell us that the other women in this group and the audience listening out there today might not already know or see? If one of the many male leaders at the deal book conference listened today in the privacy of his AirPods to this conversation, what briefing and guidance would we want to give him about what's really going on?

So I want to start by just going around the table and asking you to lay down a number representing where you think we are on women, power, and leadership. If 10 is we're doing brilliantly, we got there, all systems go. And if one is things are really bad and we're moving backwards, we're

Where do you think we are? And will you say just a sentence or two about why you chose the number you did? Lynn, let's start with you. So I'm going to say six. We're not there yet. There's work to do. I see tremendous opportunity if women use their uniquely female traits productively. Okay, great. Rashma? I think I'm going to be controversial and say one. Okay.

I think that when women in America don't have control over their reproductive rights, we don't have basic human rights, period. She's right. Brooke?

I'm going to say four because I feel like we have come a very far way. I would have been at six, but because of what you've just mentioned, I think we got bumped down to four. And I still think that the resistance to us advancing in those numbers is so strong and so historical that we have to be even smarter and beat it, them, whatever, at their own game.

Great. Dajanda? I would say three because potential isn't the metric for one to ten. It would be the metrics.

And if you have 10% women running a Fortune 500, if you have women retiring with 30% less, if you have, if you have, then you have to look at the outcomes. And so, yes, we have made progress, absolutely. But I want us to be real on where we truly are, recognizing that there's still more potential and opportunity for us to get there. A five would mean we were halfway there, and we're not. Okay, great. Donna, please. Yes.

I don't like quotes and numbers, so I'm not going to give a number. But I am going to say that I believe we're at a pivotal moment in this era of this movement. If we were at the sort of the fulcrum of it back in at the beginning of the Me Too movement, we've now got to that, I think, sadly inevitable moment where clearly

cliche though it is, that pendulum is really trying, looking to swing back. So the moment that we're in is that pivotal moment that we've got to hunker down, pivot, shift our strategies, really think about how we harness all the power that we have accumulated over the last few years and put it to use, but in a different way than we've been doing it. Mm-hmm.

Very interesting. I also don't really like numbers. I mean, I kind of like your six because it can turn into a nine, but then everybody else was so low. So it's so depressing, especially for me and my generation, baby boomer, where we thought that we had accomplished so much and we had done so much. It's such a horrible thing.

And I don't like to be a victim. So I think we have to actually act with compassion.

I mean, I don't know. I keep on thinking women know about the solution, right? If there's a fire in the house, even the most submissive woman will get the children, the jewelry, get the stuff going, you know? So women know how to deal with solutions for sure. I think we have to go back a little bit to seduction. And that is not about showing your legs or anything like that, even though if you want to, you can. It's really about...

In a weird way, I think we have to have a little compassion for the men.

And of course not tell them that. But, you know, I think we have to be smarter than that. But then you think about Afghanistan, you know, they had already all the jobs and this, and now they can't even speak in public. I mean, so it is a terrible thing. But we are the strongest sects.

We are stronger than men. We live longer than men. We are smarter than men. So we have to, each one in our own way, we have to think about, a little bit about, have a little compassion for the men and make our ideas a little bit theirs. Thank you. Emma?

I'm going to also say one, because I think while we sit, you know, where we do in the United States of America, and while our reproductive rights are being rolled back, we cannot ignore what is happening in the rest of the world for women. So I give a solid and resounding one, sadly. You're right.

Thank you. Amy? I changed all over the place, too. I was going to go higher. I moved it down. I think one thing that excites me as an investor is that 80% of household spending is by women. And I think that just like empowering ourselves, I think it's this one by one by one. And I think that we can bring another person along if everything we do in our lives, whether it's in business or business.

You know, just making an introduction for someone or just one little thing that a man does, you know, every day in the way that they've built these infrastructure systems that have gone on without them trying to do it. They just have built their networks. And I think, I mean, we're doing it right here in this room by building a network. And so I'm super optimistic.

That we, things are moving. I'm super optimistic they're moving in the right direction. We have to be. What other choice do we have? Terrific. And Brooke, on top of everything, you're sort of our token young person. So you close us out. If I'm the young person, we definitely need to find a few more people for the panel. I'm going to say a five from a U.S. perspective.

The reason I think we're halfway there is we've solved a lot of the systemic policies outside of Roe vs. Wade, unfortunately, that have held women back. Historically, we can vote those things that we've changed, but even more recently, hiring processes, college application processes. Look, women are more likely to go to college, are actually in many industries more likely to be hired at the entry level.

We're now at this second much murkier part, which is what are the cultural issues and the supporting structures that aren't there to allow us, for example, to get to the C-suite.

Well, so let's talk about some of the big changes of the last decade and what impact they've actually had. But before we do that, I want to refine something that I sort of heard flowing through your various answers because I think it's important to define for this panel. When we talk about women's achievement in the deal book world, like this very sort of elite corporate sphere, right?

For all of you, how tied or untied is that to the status of women generally? And I think either answer is fair. We still care about women's progress when it comes to like really holding the levers of power and making these huge financial and other decisions. So I think it's worthy, even if we think that the women at this conference are somewhat disconnected from the rest of the country and their problems.

It's also worthy to talk about this problem as a kind of bellwether for what happens with women generally. So if you don't mind, Shonda, I thought I would put the question to you first because your job gives you kind of x-ray vision into women's lives at so many different economic levels. I think there's a couple of things. And even when we look at our ratings, we all were starting from a different base camp.

And so I think what's important before I answer your question, it's about calibrating to the base camp. If we're comparing the base camp of having rights as a 10, then you're right. We accomplish that question mark on certain issues. But then there's another mountain to climb. And so when we think about then that next mountain and the next mountain, when I think about, for example, the state of women as it relates to economics,

One would say that's another new base camp and where are we? So the number should always evolve with progress, which means you will always have optimism, but you're recalibrating because I don't want a win to be the basics for us. And so when I think about your question through the lens from where I sit, I think about some anchor stats. I think about the fact that you said women do live longer than men, five years longer, but women retire with 30% less.

We also know that women are not saving enough. We also know that a disproportionate of women are at the entry level or maybe working with employers that have less than 10 workers, which means they are disproportionately not participating in work benefit plans. And we also know as a state of what women need, we know given that we are living longer, we are in an intergenerational time.

And we are not paid at the same level of parity for comparable work. The math doesn't math when you think about how much we split it. We split it in terms of giving. We split it in terms of us taking care of our parents. We split it in terms of taking care of our children or being that auntie. And we split it in terms of being very much vocal in the community and in the workplace. And so when I think about the job and the opportunity to be done, I think we have to look at

And that is a difference in terms of what we own.

So it sounds to me like you are making an argument for connection between women at the very top of organizations and what happens more holistically in society. Absolutely. I mean, if you think about for those of us, all of us are playing at the top of our game. But it doesn't mean that being at the top of the game, it's a limited number of us. 10%.

run a Fortune 500, there's only two black women, one Latina. So if we think about what does that mean, we are advocating and recognizing and saying that talent is created equally, opportunity is not. And so for the women that are at the different levels, there's a couple of jobs to be done that for those of us that have the privilege to be at the top have to continue to do. We have to continue to make sure that that door is open.

We have to make sure that we continue to look at policies and practices to make sure that what is getting in the way of that everyday woman to be able to feel that she can succeed and knock those obstacles out. We have to continue to inspire them and to say, you know what, you may not see someone that looks like you in the sector, but you may be the one that has to create it. Those are the kinds of things that I think we have to do in the role that we play to give optimism to women.

and making sure that women don't opt out of sectors that we still are woefully underrepresented in. So that was very persuasive. And because it was, I just want to ask whether anybody wants to register a dissenting point, a point in the other direction. Okay, great. So we're going to take that as our answer and our basis for going forward.

Let's talk about a few things that really have changed in the last decade, but what difference they've actually made. I am old enough to remember when on panels like this, we longed for certain things, but then we actually have some of them. I'm going to tick through them quickly and then let's sort of, let's dive into them one by one. New fertility technology, egg freezing, that allows women to do childbearing at their own pace.

Number two, greater recognition of sexual harassment in the workplace. Number three, paternity leave. Number four, flexible work, being able to work from home on a more flexible schedule. Number five, getting women closer to educational parity. I remember when each of those five things were like the impossible dream, right? They seemed so distant. They seemed so structural, right?

They're not there across the board. There are plenty of women in this country who can't afford egg freezing and don't have it covered. But the progress in those five areas, I'd say in the last decade, has actually been kind of astounding. And we need to give credit for that because sometimes we don't register the positives. But I want to dig into each of them a little bit and ask what kind of impact –

change has had and whether it has helped with this dilemma of how to get more women into leadership positions. So let's do fertility technology first.

As our resident young person, also as the person who just had a baby five minutes ago? Approximately, yeah. How old is she? She's just turned three months. Congratulations. Congratulations. Yeah. Okay. Will you talk a little bit about your generation's utilization of egg freezing? You're part of this, you know, class that's 10 years out of Harvard Business School. I mean...

You guys probably see this as an everyday reality. I mean, back in the day, we saw it as mind-altering, like truly an apocryphal shift. The idea that your eggs could wait for you safely in a container somewhere and that you could do things at your own pace, it's a huge, huge shift. But what has it translated to in your view? False hope.

Thank you. Say more, say more, say more.

extraordinarily privileged that we worked at places like McKinsey where I was and everywhere else I would have never paid for it on my own but who covered it to do it for a good reason because they want you to stay in the workforce and get married later etc. What's been interesting is now 10 years later myself included I've seen a lot of people now cash in on those eggs and

What we've found is that there's a false hope in the sense of, you know, now that you have these eggs, you can just have a baby at 40, 35, 45, and everything is going to go swimmingly, right? And what most of my friends have found is, you know, you unfreeze those eggs, very few turn into healthy embryos. As we all know, unfortunately, an embryo doesn't make a baby, and very few of those then may take a baby.

I mean, I'm thinking of one woman in particular who's a good friend of mine who, you know, knows Bill Clinton, who's one of these people like everyone on this panel, right, who is in these circles and has every access she could possibly have and has had five years of just heartbreak after heartbreak with these frozen eggs that she thought bought her time. Right.

So that would be my thought about them. So Emma, when you had that really instinctual thank you, I want to hear whether your thank you was for the same reason as Brooke articulated, or is it a slightly different reason? Well, it's slightly personal, of course, but it's for a very similar reason. And I think that, you know, I have hundreds of women that work for me. And I think that what's happened, this false hope is, you

you know, really turned into something very different. Because what I see is women that are, you know, from their early 30s to their late 40s that are miserable because they really were fed

And it goes so much further than we think. And I think as women, we have to partially take responsibility for that because I think I was one of these women in a leadership position that was like, wait it out. It'll be fine. Guess what? It's not fine. Like it really isn't. And it's fine if you are one of those people that doesn't want to have a baby. But for a lot of women, that isn't the case. And they've waited and they've waited and they've put their career first. And then when they've chosen to have babies, it's no longer their choice.

And their frozen eggs didn't turn into embryos and the embryos that they had didn't figure out into babies. And so I do think that we're in a position right now where as leaders, we have a responsibility to not just talk the talk, but walk the walk. You have to be honest about what it takes to be a leader and what those trade-offs are instead of creating this like narrative of false hope. Because what I'm seeing is just so many women that are miserable. So...

Especially for the women who run companies that offer this benefit, I'm curious to what you see. If you have a critique of egg freezing, is it the same one we've heard from this side of the table, which is just the technology didn't really come through in the way that it was supposed to? Or is it a different critique perhaps that even for the people for whom the technology did work,

It did not have the transformative effect that we hoped for. I'm hearing interest from both Brooke and Rachel. Please go ahead. As someone who was on the sort of at the beginning of that, graduating from college and all of my friends and being told, you should wait, you should wait, you should wait. And yes, by the time you're able to start or can, it's too late. I went through IVF seven times.

And what my critique would be, because I'm in accord with everything that I've heard, and I'm affirming it in my own mind, but my biggest critique is the information that is shared with women. One of the main reasons why I was unable to get pregnant was because of a cone biopsy

that a male doctor, and it's not male-female, but I can only believe that a more empathetic female or, I don't know, doctor would have given me more information. The cone biopsy was so pervasive that

that it rendered my cervix completely scarred over, and the inability to have children was practically decided in my early 20s. Now, if I'd had that information, again, what's not lost on me is the privilege of being able to go through IVF. But I would have thought about my failures, right?

As not failures, I would have thought about my procreation. I would have thought about a process that I had more control over. So to try ad nauseum and to try

Not sexist ad nauseum, all right, but you know what I mean. But sometimes. But that really tried and confronted this feeling of failure. I'm not a real female. I'm not a real mother. I've had too much in my life. I don't deserve this. I'm not normal. All of those insidious things that kind of creep in.

When if I had been informed just more that here are the – these are the choices. You can wait. These are your options. More information is power because –

I would have felt more in control of my fertility. I'm not saying the result would have been the same or not, but that type of lack of information that I feel females are given about their or taught or provided about their fertility and about the trade-offs and about all of the different... Go in with the knowledge and then you're able to be more proactive with your own bodies and self and

I mean, now, you know, no one was talking about this when I was writing about it, and no one was talking about postpartum. And had I not gone through IVF seven times and lost babies, you know, my postpartum would have been affected differently. There's a level of it. So there's so many little bits of information that I was not privy to and didn't know enough to ask about.

Now I ask every young person that I work with or comes to my company and I say, have you frozen your eggs? You know, I say to my daughters at a certain age, I'm freezing your eggs for you. But that's no longer a very provocative thing to do. It all seems to keep going back to lack of information and then therefore lack of being able to have the control and proactivity that you would deserve to have.

Understood. And let's hear a little bit from Reshma and Lynn. Reshma, because so much of your work has involved around this family question. And Lynn, because you represent like truly the pure financial sphere, right? And we want to get a little glimpse of what things are like in that world. So, I mean, I agree with everything that was said, and I too have been through a tremendous amount of fertility challenges. But I think what the question is, I think we have to have a little bit of suspicion as to why fertility benefits came about and why they were so embraced.

Because I think what we were essentially implying was that what we as mothers, if you are a mother, know is that we want you to extend the amount of time that you're going to have a child because when you do have one, you will be penalized.

We know that there's a motherhood penalty that the minute you become a mother, you lose 6% of your salary, whereas men gain 4% for every baby that they had. And so I think, to me, the inconsistency between providing fertility benefits but not providing child care supports, not providing paid leave benefits, not – and we're going to talk about paternity leave –

later but not incentivizing men to actually take it, really shows the lack of sincerity in corporate America about what these things were actually really about. And I do wish I knew that – it's funny. I mean, I came to this work at Moms First and really fighting for affordable child care and fighting – we're the only industrialized nation that doesn't have paid leave.

The vast majority of women go back to work two weeks after having a baby. We are the wealthiest nation that spends the least amount of money into childcare, which is why 40% of parents are in debt because of childcare. We have to often ask ourselves, why do we have the most educated population of women with the least amount of participation in the labor force? It's because we become mothers.

And we live in a society that has never been built for us. In many ways, that has penalized us. From the school day being 8.30 to 3 to the work day being 9 to 5, you are literally set up to fail. And so I wish, and I think now we're making up for lost time, is that when that moment and that movement began where, I don't know what it is, 60%, 70% of companies in Fortune 500 offer fertility benefits.

that those very same companies were pushed to offer child care subsidies, were pushed to offer backup care, were pushed to actually build or offer child care benefits for frontline workers, were pushed to mandate paid leave, that we had actually fought for the entire system

the entire course of being a mother. And I do think that if we, I do believe that motherhood is the unfinished business of gender equality, that we have been conned into believing it's about confidence and power posing and all these things that are just not true. We are good.

We are smart enough. We are prepared enough. But we are not given the structural support to balance being a caregiver and being a worker. And that's it. Okay. So I just want to make sure we get Lynn in because not only are we – Lynn, we're putting a little pressure on you here to – I mean, I gave a number first. So give us an x-ray into women in finance. And then I want to – based on the other answers, I want to add a second question, which is –

Is there nothing good we can say about egg freezing? Has this literally resulted in no advance? So over to you. So I'm going to zoom out a bit. First, given my answer of six on a scale from one to ten, my demeanor tends to be glass half full. And I tend to believe that in order to make the giant leap forward,

You sometimes take two steps back after you make the giant leap forward. So the fact that there has been so much capital, private capital initially and public market capital focused on women's health in the last five years is

It's hard to not be optimistic that we're going to figure this out. And version 1.0, we're going to get wrong. Spoiler alert, in the U.S., we've gotten version 1.0 wrong of things for hundreds of years. But the fact that we're here talking about this issue, I think, speaks volumes to how far we've come.

how far we've come both from a capital raising standpoint and also trying to figure this out holistically, trying to figure out the ecosystem. So Reshma, I applaud everything you've done because you've identified the issue that, okay, you –

You move childbearing back in a woman's career. Say you have a successful outcome. Remember, I'm the half full person, so I'm going to talk about the positive here. You then need to figure out childcare if you're going back to work. I mean, I like you. I went back to work two weeks after having. I have two children, went back to work two weeks. Okay.

It's just the way I was wired, though. My company very proudly offered 10 years ago, 12 years ago, when I had my children, offered three months paid maternity. They were pioneers in that. We also offer support for egg freezing and all the technologies, the newer technologies. But there was something in me where I also wanted to be me. I wanted to be a mom.

And have this joy around this new person I created. But I also still wanted to be me and talk about financial markets. And do other things. So I think the unique challenge that's identified for women is how do you be you? How do you, people say, have it all?

I don't think that's a thing. I think how do you be you is, and the most authentic version of you, which is a person who has a lot of love to give to a baby, has a lot of love to give to parents, and also is an incredibly, wildly ambitious, intelligent person that can be an outsized contributor to the best society that exists in this world in the U.S.?

So that's kind of an interesting end to the egg freezing discussion, which is, no, because I think that like the conclusion of this group is that perhaps the technology, if the problem is the technology is wrong, perhaps it can improve in the future. Amy, I want to come to you next, but actually on a slightly different issue. I want to,

Let's talk about sexual harassment in the workplace and the fact that we really did have a shift starting in 2017. But there was a big question when that shift was when the earthquake was happening. One of the many questions about it was even if it becomes less socially acceptable and less acceptable in the corporate world,

for a boss to subject a female employee to sexual pressure, will that actually shift the status of women in the workplace? And the reason I want to start with Amy is that venture capital was really part of ground zero of these Me Too stories. There have been so many Me Too stories that we can forget the origins, but there was seminal reporting before the Harvey Weinstein story, I think even before

probably after the Bill O'Reilly story, but before the Harvey Weinstein story about Silicon Valley. And everybody remembers the stories. Basically, female founders like Brooke, like the kind of women you work with, Amy, they were going to venture capitalists for money and they were getting sexual pressure either instead or as part of the equation. So first, we should ask you whether you think that behavior has shifted. But second of all,

Did it – that was in some ways the secondary problem. If the behavior has changed, has it moved the needle on women being taken seriously and getting investment? Wow. Yeah.

You know, it's funny because I operate in a room the way that men built their groups of people that they spend time with. And they're organizations of just men always being together. And I created a group of women. So I operate with all women. And so I feel like it's changed because our goal is to go out and find people to tell investors,

And people that are starting companies, you need to take women as investors. You need to put women on your cap table. And this is why, because they're operating from a uniquely, a lens of a woman. Like you're missing this lens when you're looking at something in an investment committee meeting and you don't even know how to use it. And so I think we've used that to our advantage to say, you know, look at what the women, look what you're missing. Because you're missing the advantage, the vantage point of the women. I can't speak to it in terms of has it gotten better. All I know is I created my own firm, so I didn't have to deal with it.

And I feel like we operate completely differently, both on a macro and a micro level, where all I do all day long is look at companies. I think 75% of the companies we have in our portfolio have a woman that are involved. I mean, when you also talk about funding,

I think it was 2% of all funding, venture funding goes to women. But really, the numbers this year, like 2023 was 15% have a woman as a co-founder. This year, it's up to 24%. So it's getting better. Women are being- Across the board? Across the board for all funding. Wow, that is really- Which is a number to go from two to 24 to say all venture funding in the last year. From 2023, it was 15%. To 2024, it went to 24%. That is remarkable. To have a woman involved.

What do you think accounts for that? I think because the woman's perspective has been left out. And I think that they realize that that's something they need. And so when I'm looking at investments, I'm looking at all of these companies, I get so excited about, you know, I'm looking at all the egg freezing companies and a better for you baby formula and a better for you companies in menopause and just ways that we can change the female experience so that we are included in the room. And I think...

I think it's a really exciting time also on the micro level, but the micro level, the micro level is that when we invest in these companies and they're starting, they're changing the stigma by building these businesses. We're saying, what are you doing on the inside of your company? Like, how are your structures changing in terms of, you know, one of the things I couldn't help but think about was Anne-Marie Slaughter. Do you remember the report that she did a long time ago, like 10 years ago, where she said, one, Hillary Clinton left the office. She came in early and came in late and left early on purpose. So people would go home and be with their families. I love that.

And I also love the idea that women's careers are, you know, they're staggered a bit more than men's. Like, they're just a little bit more staggered. We're on a stair step. We can get off and come back on. And we just have to remember that when I'm sitting in a meeting and I'm thinking about my child's orthodontist appointment, that's okay. We're structurally different than men, right? And so I built my firm that way. I don't know if sexual harassment has changed, but I don't see it.

Because we don't operate that way. And all we do every single day is try to bring another woman into the room and help her. And we all need a lot of help. So it's just like gathering our team. Donna, I know how strongly you feel about this, in part because you were a really fundamental force in getting the, she said, film made. Does the casting couch still exist in Hollywood? And if it doesn't, or if it's greatly diminished...

What has been the degree of secondary effect in terms of lifting women's voices, helping women's stories get told, helping put women in decision-making positions about which stories get told? Yeah. Well, I think there's no question that... Elise, we've seen how industries can change in the blink of an eye. It's true, Josh. One minute, you're the top video rental store in the world...

And the next, nobody even knows what a video rental store is. Some enterprises can't handle change. Others are built for it. On Built for Change, we talk to the business leaders who've embraced reinvention to thrive in turbulent times and come out on top. So what can you learn from three inventors today? Check out Built for Change, a podcast from Accenture, wherever you get your podcasts.

I gave my brother a New York Times subscription. She sent me a year-long subscription so I have access to all the games. We'll do Wordle, Mini, Spelling Bee. It has given us a personal connection. We exchange articles. And so having read the same article, we can discuss it. The coverage, the options, it's not just news. Such a diversified gift.

I was really excited to give him a New York Times cooking subscription so that we could share recipes. And we even just shared a recipe the other day. The New York Times contributes to our quality time together. You have all of that information at your fingertips. It enriches our relationship, broadening our horizons. It was such a cool and thoughtful gift. We're reading the same stuff. We're making the same food. We're on the same page.

Connect even more with someone you care about. Learn more about giving a New York Times subscription as a gift. At nytimes.com slash gift. Get a special rate if you act before December 26th. Again, the Me Too movement really did fuel the

The entertainment industry, the initiatives inside the entertainment industry, corporations had to step up and pay attention. Policies changed. Sets became safer. The practices and processes in place are impactful and effective, right? I would say that as a blanket statement. Now, you know, there's

crooks and crannies in there and there's nuances to all of it. You cannot change human behavior. All you can do is create a culture of accountability. So I do think that progress was made there. And I think also opportunities for women were created because they were, A, fashionable, and B, corporations were held accountable, right? So the door was opened in that moment.

But to go back to the statement I made earlier about we need to make sure that that door stays open, this is a critical time because I believe that the social climate could lead people to slip back into some of the bad behaviors, to think, well, I have permission to go back to how things used to be. Your body, my choice. Absolutely.

Exactly, right? We can look around us and see so many examples of people getting away with bad behavior, right? We don't need to get bogged down with all that here. But I know as a female leader, I need to stay very vigilant in this moment to make sure that the policies that we have in place are enacted upon, the processes that we have are...

enacted upon, that we maintain a culture of accountability and that we live by our values. That's really what it boils down to. I have to make sure to be vigilant that some of the programs and opportunity-creating programs that we have remain, that we don't get pushed back from

the government, you know, to suggest that we can't do diversity hires and so on and so forth. Right. And so we have to be really careful about those things in this moment. So I would say I am actually a glass half full person. So with some optimism, I will just say we have made huge progress and we see the differences and the benefits of having women

in rooms. I know what it feels like to have more than one room, one woman in a room with me. It feels different and it feels great. And I know my female counterparts feel that way as well. And so we don't want to, we don't want to walk that back. And when we, you know, again, we have to be very, very vigilant about it, but this is a moment that we, you know, we can't slink back into the shadows and think, you know, oh gosh, you know, we,

we can't do this, we don't have the energy for it, or to think that we've got policies in place and so therefore they're going to remain. I mean, I even think about some of the things that are in the benefits package.

completely understood why there was a myth sold with that, right? Just the same as we were sold a myth of we can have it all. We broke that myth and now we have to break this myth that you can go and freeze your eggs and then, you know, have an easy time of it. Starting a family. Starting a family is difficult and particularly when you're an ambitious fucking woman, right? But we don't want to walk those benefits back.

So, you know, it is about being vigilant in this moment and being continuing to be very intentional about this work and the decisions that we make and understanding the impact that they can have. And what about the secondary question? Did the Me Too movement help grant women, let's call it, more narrative authority in Hollywood? Did it make...

You know, the voice of official moviemaking, of entertainment production, did it make that voice and vision more female? I think it did. If you look at numbers, again, we could tell a very bleak story, although the numbers improved and there's no question about that. I do believe more women entered the workforce in roles that they wanted.

ordinarily wouldn't have done, whether it's female directors of cinematographers, female composers, areas that had traditionally been very male are now more women. And, you know, the foot got in the door and the door swung open and now they're there and, you know, people have been able to build careers. So I do think that there was shift and change. We'll be right back.

Okay, great. So I'm just going to sort of articulate the scoreboard here. Egg freezing, has it really helped the status of women? I think our answer is not yet. Correct? Not yet. It's had it. Look, I'm grateful for egg freezing. I think it's not told in the right way. It's not there yet. But also, you asked the one benefit, and I do think there is a benefit to it because it actually made people think.

It made you stop, think and have a moment and question yourself. And so I think for the women that, because we offer it as a benefit in all of my companies, but it's like, if you didn't have that choice, maybe you just sweep over that moment in your life. You're actually stopping and having the conversation. I also think it's about the suite of benefits, right? That,

Like if you're trying to offer people egg freezing to give them an opportunity to be mothers, then you should also be offering child care and paid leave. So I think that's the takeaway. Okay, great. So wait, hold on. Put that thought in the parking lot for one second and let's just also review. So basically the Me Too movement, we're getting a little bit more of a yes. You know, Amy –

her own firm. Donna is talking about a shift in Hollywood. Amy, the change in investment you talk about is really remarkable. So that's

Getting more of a yes on that one. Now let's do paternity leave, which, I mean, I just remember my husband when my first child was born 19 years ago this week longing for paid paternity leave and not having it and how much things have changed.

Deanne, I want to ask you, because you have the benefit of the sweep of time, of looking back at the arc of these years and having employees, friends, you know, watching them trying to build careers and families at the same time. What do you feel the impact of paid paternity leave has been? And has it shifted? Has it sort of recalibrated?

family roles in the long term and helped fathers sort of have more license to be more involved? I think paternity leave is a beautiful thing.

It's a beautiful thing for every reason because it's really about equality and it's about equal responsibility. And I think it's many women, you know, many couples have the womanly and I think it's beautiful. So I...

I mean, you all talk. I mean, I had two children at the time. I was 24 and I was starting a business. But I think the paternity, I think to offer egg freezing, child care is incredibly important. But I think paternity leave is a beautiful gesture. So, Reshma, I want to do a little factual exploration with you if you happen to know this number.

Do you know what percentage of the American workforce actually has paid employer-provided paternity leave? I mean, I think it's in the, like, I don't know, less than 30%, right? And how long is it? How long is it?

And it's, well, there's a big, I mean, okay, so basically, right, we don't provide federal paid leave, okay? So the only way you can get leave is if your state provides it or your employer provides it. There's about nine states and D.C. that offer some amount of paid leave. For example, you live in New York State, you can get paid leave, but there are requirements. You have to work for the same employer for a certain period of time. It's

really hard to get it. In fact, we just have a survey that's coming out that it's anywhere that less than 2 to 13% of people that are eligible actually take it in New York State. That's fascinating. So it's very, very, very low. That's okay. And yeah, well, I think we can work, this is where I think the work of the summit is actually really important because part of the reason when we surveyed people why they don't take it, they're worried about repercussions from their employer. Yeah.

Right? And the numbers of men are actually higher that worry about repercussions from their employer because culturally, you know, we are not living in a society, you can just see this by this election, right, where we encourage men to be caregivers. Right?

Right. It's still seen to be in the lane of women to be by two thirds of caregiving work is still done by women. So I think the opportunity that we have in companies like Deloitte, I'm going to let you jump in here. Companies like Deloitte have actually done anything kind of close to essentially mandating that everyone should take it.

And what they've seen is that men are then taking it. When they're given permission by their employers to actually take it, they take it, and then you actually see the caregiving ratio of work being done shift in the family. I married the good guy, right? He proposed three times before I said yes because I was like, are you sure? You know what I mean? I wanted to have kids. You know, you need to do the laundry.

But what happened is, is when we did have our first child, I took my paid leave and he didn't. So suddenly I knew where the diapers were. I knew what was in the bag. I knew what they liked to eat. I knew what shoe sizes there were. And it shifted the dynamic in our relationship. And it's the number one thing we still argue about in couples counseling, right? Is like, who's doing the stuff? Right.

And so I actually think, right, that if we, you know, if employers encouraged men to take caregiving work, I think you would see the gender ratio of unpaid labor really shift in families. Okay, that is very helpful. Tashonda, over to you. Yeah, I mean, totally agree. I mean, again, I go back to great progress, base camp, progress. My husband is a stay-at-home father. And when I think about the conversation, right,

Over a decade ago, he's an engineer, he's a Marine, and we were looking good on paper. But we were in a state where we did not have family and we did not have support. And so while we looked good on paper, it was a hot mess in trying to make it all work. And then we had to decide what was the life that we wanted to have for our family, for

And we decided that I would continue the acceleration. And the reason why I share this story is I think the opportunity to talk about what men go through on that journey to support an ambitious woman who is deeply connected to being a mommy.

And the talk track that men go through from starting to ask the question, how will I be viewed for the people who love you, from your father, from your family?

What do I say when the reality is, especially being a corporate woman, you're in so many rooms with predominantly men, and the first question they ask the guy is, what do you do? And it's coming through a lens of power and positioning to network. And when the man has to rewire to rebuild that confidence,

of being the stay-at-home parent is the flex, is a journey. And so then as a woman, to feel very grateful that I have been in a position to ascend and make the impact that I aspire in the world and in the workplace, but with a clear understanding that I did not have to compromise

how we wanted our family to be, though it comes with trade-offs. And I always say mental gymnastics are real for us. And I am so glad we realized that work-life balance is a lie. And that given that I do like numbers and I'm in finance, my perspective has shifted to living my life like a diversified portfolio and telling myself the truth that we only have 100%, not 130. And telling myself the truth that, um,

I only give my kids 30% because I'm an executive philanthropist, an auntie, a mommy, and all these things. But by telling myself the truth, I'm 100% more present in that moment. And I acknowledge the strength of my husband. And so in the workforce, having that prism of understanding that emotional conversation

I think that it's not enough to just have the benefits. We have to create the culture. And so I think what we have to do in order to accelerate women, we also have to bring men into the conversation. And we have to bring the culture that in the same way that mommies can say, my baby is sick, I got to go, is the men at work quickly to say that, or is he says, I'll just be back? Yeah.

And so these are the cultural nuances that we have to get comfortable talking about so that as we continue to have policy and as we continue to have benefits and leadership in trying to make the world better, we cannot ignore the cultural conversations and saying that it is okay to

If the jobs change, evolve, move, pivot, it does not be a question of your self-worth. It is not a question of your dignity. It is not a question of value. It is not a question of what it means to be the quote unquote head of the household. And I think all of those are conversations that we have to have. And the benefit when it comes to women,

will be the acceleration of us being able to take our academic prowess, being able to take our brilliance and not feel as if it had to take a permanent backseat because you felt like you had to make an impossible choice. So I do think we have to bring men into the conversation and to have a husband who's a Marine, an engineer, and the stay-at-home dad that can share in the joy of not just my success, but in how we raise our children

is to me the conversation that sometimes we leave out. And the next time we have this panel, your husband is invited as well. Okay, so it's sounding to me like our assessment on paternity leave is fabulous, great, potent, need more of it, need more support of it. Okay.

Flexible work. The pandemic brought us a real surprise, right? People had sort of talked about flexible work for years. Should we have more of it? How could we be done? Then this thunderstorm comes into our lives and we're all at home. And some workers have stayed at home.

I've heard two very differing points of view on whether this is helping women progress in the workplace or not. And we even heard this in the preparatory interviews for this panel. View number one is like,

Can run to get my kid at 3 o'clock. Game changer. Makes things possible that I had never heard before. Okay, I'm already – I love this. I love this. For anyone listening out there who can't see the body language, I'm already seeing head-shaking disagreement. It is.

Viewpoint number two, it's making women invisible. If you are not in the office, you can't play. You lose out. So I'd like to ask a couple of people around the table to speak up for these various positions because they probably both have a little bit of truth to them. Okay, so who wants to take You Need to Show Up? Should we nominate Shoshonda? Yeah.

I can. Okay, Lynn, go ahead. So, I mean, hey, I was the first one with the number, so I get the hard questions. I think the one thing that we learned during the pandemic is how important culture is to a company. And it is extraordinarily hard to build that culture and to develop that next generation of talent.

If you can't interact with that group of people in person, there is an efficiency. I'm a very efficient person. I'm a mom. I have a big job. I've got two parents who are older. There's a lot going on. So you've got to be efficient with your time. And the most efficient way to move your business forward is to do a whiteboarding session for five minutes or grab someone in the hallway. Or you can't.

You can't make up for those informal interactions that you have when you're in person. And have you seen women lose out who took advantage of working from home since the pandemic? I have not. It's not, I mean, it's not been...

It's not been something that I've observed, but we've deployed policies uniformly. We tend to deploy policies, men or women. Men have their own set of challenges, especially if, like Tashonda's husband, my husband, works, but he does a lot of the child work.

responsibility at home because he's got a lot more flexible schedule. Sure. Great. Now, I saw very strong reactions from Amy and Emma. So tell us what your body... Take a second and tell us what your body language means on this. You know, I have a really strong opinion about this. And I think I work in a product-based business, right? I'm an in-person person. And to your point, I'm a person that needs things done quickly, urgency. Like my entire...

success has often been not on me doing really unique things. It's been about me getting there first. And so I think that when we speak, you know, from this very, you know, privileged vantage point of being female leaders, the idea that you can be successful from your dining room table is about as much as a joke at this like work-life balance conversation. You ain't going to get far unless you surround yourself with

with people because nobody is successful on their own, right? We build teams, we build cultures, we come together. I am a person that has a singular strength and what I've done uniquely well is bring people around me who have other strengths and build teams to build companies.

And you can't do that from your bedroom. You can't do that from your dining room table. And I think when we're in a time like we are now, where I think it's my responsibility, I mentor a lot of young women inside my own business. You need proximity. You need to be close to me. You need to understand the flow of what's happening. And I think that we've got ourselves into a really tricky position now.

You know, I think that as a female leader, flexibility is absolutely necessary, right? Nobody misses a mystery reader, parent-teacher conference in any of my companies. They're able to have that balance so that they can, you know, have...

a progressive career, but also be able to balance that with their home life. That's completely a given in the way that we've set companies up in this time. But to think that you're going to do that from the comfort of your own house is just not

true. And it's not true if you want to lead, if you want to actually be at a decision-making level in any company. And I haven't seen it work for any women. Amy? I totally agree. I think community is everything. I think being in the room together and having the feeling and having to present yourself and having to know how they like their coffee. I mean, as an athlete, when I was growing up, I had to know how 13 girls had their sandwiches. I knew who liked mustard and who held the lettuce. And that was part of our community and knowing each other. I think

I totally agree. I think there's a little bit of flexibility. I think COVID has accelerated all of this in a good way. It's made us definitely think about it, but I think bring people back into the office. I mean, the companies I'm investing in is venture. People are working all the time anyway. So to come in and be together is really important, but there's going to be a thousand hours. They're going to say, I'm working a thousand hours when I get home anyway, because that's just part of the job. I think two things that are just critical, even if you think about time zones,

Like just time zone, like to get things done. And then the idea of people all working from home on different days, well, then nothing gets done on those days. So as simple as scheduling, things can come down to as simple as how the scheduling is done. But being in the office is absolutely critical, especially for brand companies. You got to feel, you got to touch, you got to be together, you got to have momentum. Does anyone want to speak up for the opposite view? Yeah.

Brooke, go ahead. So I'm going to go in a little bit of a different direction here, but I think the ability to work from home and actually like video calls have gotten rid of some inequity. And here's what I mean by that. Right before I went to Harvard Business School, someone who called himself a mentor to me said to me... Ooh, what's coming? Yeah.

He said, you know, you're about to go to HBS. You're going to be interviewing with a bunch of companies. You should really lose weight quickly because why would anyone think you're smart enough to work at their company if you're not smart enough to know what to put in your mouth? No, he didn't know. And this is someone who had been like a mentor for me. Give us his number. Right? Yeah.

And what we've seen, I mean, while I didn't appreciate that and still don't, the data backs him up on this, right? So like women with obesity, I could go into all the statistics, make 9% less. They have significantly fewer career opportunities. I'll tell you, when we were raising our A's,

And I was presenting to Andreessen who ended up-- Wait, but explain what KnownWell actually is and what your company is and how your company is in some way the answer to the story you just told. Sure, so we aim to be the healthcare home for patients with overweight and obesity.

So I face stigma from the doctor, even my pediatrician telling my mom I should go to fat camp when I was eight, you know, my whole life. And it turns out if you ask men and women who are overweight, what's the most stigmatizing experience they've ever had? It's not the bully or the mother-in-law. It's going to the doctor.

So what we do is we have clinics, we can also see you online and we do primary care and we do metabolic health if someone wants to change their body size. But I felt like it was my calling, so left the corporate world to start it. But why I think this is so important is we know that weight holds back men and women in their careers, disproportionately women. I could go on and on with the facts and figures about this.

We ended up raising our A from Andreessen, our Series A, and I was grateful. And we had a wonderful woman partner, Vanita, who led that round. But trust me, when I was going into these pitches with Bessemer and Andreessen Horowitz and every big VC, I was grateful they could only see me here up. I am sure. Right? I mean, like, look, for people not watching the, people who are on the podcast right now, I look a lot like Brooke Shields, except...

Maybe six inches shorter, 100 pounds heavier. Okay, so look, walking around deal book, right? I mean, I just look different than most of the people here. So I would say the one for women who are, I completely agree for leaders that being in person, bringing people together is important. We know one of the things that holds women back from entry level to managerial is weight and appearance bias. And I think in that way, actually virtual women

like not seeing my pear shape, unfortunately, I think it does help. So that's really powerful. And maybe to finish off... She had also something. Oh, I mean, look, I mean... I'm sorry, but... Yeah, I'm going to be fast because I know we don't have a lot of time. But I think the thing is, I guess I would want... Maybe this is a little bit of a question too, is like, why...

Why can't we think about design? Like, why is it one or the other? Why is it in the office or out of the office? Because I think the reality is, is we know that, and I'll say this as a mom, and I'll say this as someone who's also caring for my aging parents, that there are moments in time where you just need a little grace. You just need a little grace.

And not every leader is Tshunda, like is empathetic or is you, Emin, is going to give you the grace or be like, yes, go to Misreader or it's okay that you don't turn on your phone from 530 to 730. And that the pandemic just really exposed

how much I think women were dealing with, not just as mothers, but as caregivers, because we are also the ones that are caring for their aging population. So I guess my question is, is how do we redesign or think about work to give people grace?

Well, also to close off the point, I think Emma made a very powerful distinction between women wanting to work and women wanting to lead because it's not necessarily the same thing. And it's sounding like one way to reconcile these points of view is if you – this group believes that if you want to lead, showing up in person is ideally important even with the stipulations that Brooke adds.

However, it sounds like the group also acknowledges that working from home can be a lifeline for women to remain in the workplace. Okay, so that's very helpful. Let's talk very briefly, because we are running out of time, about...

Women's educational attainment and especially women in STEM. Again, this was one of these, you know, impossible dreams. If only we could get more women to study engineering, math, science. Reshma founded Girls Who Code. I remember the push at Harvard Business School to get women to master quantitative topics.

Has it happened and did it help? And I think we should – Lynn has like a skeptical expression on her face. So my undergrad is in computer science. I was one of two females in that major when I graduated a long time ago, though. And my master's degree is in math. So this is something that's pretty near and dear in my heart. I think we've –

I've tried as society to make these topics more interesting to younger generations of females, like what Reshma did with Girls Who Code certainly is one area. But I see I have two boys, and I see that there are coding classes that are more tailored towards boys.

female interests and one's tailored towards boys' interests. Like females don't want to build a robot necessarily. They want to go more into graphic design, fashion design, work with the more artistic side. So that's another way to do it. So I think we're getting there. The problem is when you get to college, it doesn't feel like

We've made that leap. So if you go back to your one to ten, I think we're probably closer to one on the college disciplines and especially the graduate degree. Well, then tell this story about the other woman who studied computer science with you. She became a teacher. Okay.

Okay, I feel very strongly about this. So I started Girls Who Code in 2010. I was just with the head of CS at Stanford Engineering. In 2010, 19% of those that were getting their bachelor's degrees in computer science and engineering were women. Today, that number is 40%.

So if you look at every single college from University of Illinois to University of Michigan to Stanford, we have moved the needle from 19 to 40 and sometimes 50. We did that. And what I mean by we, I mean all of the collective, Black Girls Code, Girls Who Code, Code 2040, all of these organizations that were started to really build the pipeline and fill the pipeline. We heard the call and we answered it.

Now, and we also answered it in culture. You look at, you know, I spent so much time spending time in Hollywood being like, can you please put a girl in like a cool teen drama as a coding protagonist? And now you can't literally watch any of them. And like you go on TikTok and the trend. It is cool to be a girl who codes. And has that changed things? Now, here's the problem. Essentially what has happened is the attack on DE&I.

So essentially about a year and a half, because here's what happens when people see progress, when people see change, when they see those black and brown girls coming, when they see those girls come in, they say, well, wait a minute here, because it actually threatens their unearned privilege. For so long, the way you hired in tech is, and I saw this, you would say, put a call out to your friends, ask them to interview.

And now you – we taught 600,000 girls in the United States. So now you start seeing this floodgate of girls, of young women coming to Google, to Microsoft. And listen, I have a list if anybody wants to see it because I get emails, Mrs. Johnny, I have a 4.0, and I just graduated from MIT, and I just applied to Google, and I can't get a job.

And so what was happening was bias. We never rooted out the bias towards women in technology. And at the same time we didn't root out the bias, we have now shut out the door because of DE&I. DE&I, I mean, we don't live in a meritocracy here. And we pretend that we do.

And so what has happened, and everyone, literally almost every single organization except for Girls Who Code has had to shut their doors the past year because companies stopped funding them because of the threats to D&I. So again, we wonder, and this is why history is really important, of like how does progress get dismantled? Well, let's talk about some of the cultural forces that I think people were kind of lightly referencing earlier in the panel.

And the political ones, let's talk about the incoming administration and some forces that are causing some apprehension among some women. President Trump has, of course, been accused of sexual misconduct.

has been found liable in a major civil case, has made misogynistic comments on the campaign trail. Some of his cabinet picks, for example, Pete Hegseth, his pick for Secretary of Defense, have been accused of mistreating women. Now, it has also said, this incoming administration has also said that it will commit itself to providing new and increased forms of support for families.

How important are these forces from Washington in really influencing all of our lives? And I know, by the way, that there are people on the panel who are more comfortable and some who are less comfortable discussing politics.

But I don't really mean to ask the question in a particularly partisan way. I'm asking it more as there are powerful cultural forces at work that we see coming in part from the new administration. And how do you expect them to play out in the next couple of years? I think Trump might actually get child care done.

And I think that one of the things that's interesting that's happened over the past year is that there's an alignment between the public and the private sector that child care is a necessity in order for people to work. And what does getting child care done mean to you? So I think that there might be a policy advancement. So in the Trump tax cuts, you might see an expansion, both of the CTC and the child care tax deduction. I could see an expansion of that from what I've heard.

I can see a standalone bill. There's already been Republicans who have met to say, what can we do to actually reduce the cost of childcare, increase the supply of childcare workers? I mean, we, Moms First, had a very targeted campaign over the past six months to make sure we got both

you know, the Harris, you know, would have been the Harris administration and Trump and Vance on the record that they would do something about child care. Quite frankly, plan on actually running a campaign, whether it's having a clock in every single one of the swing states being, what's the cost of your child care today? And what is it tomorrow? So I think the point is, it's a major cost for families. It's, you know, it's driving inflation. And it is a commitment that the administration has made. And they have all three houses. So let's see if they do it.

And what about a kind of macho, hyper-masculine element we see coming to the fore in the culture now? Dion, there was a word that I didn't expect to see in your pre-interview papers. You repeated over and over again. You said UFC, UFC, Ultimate Fighting Championship. Why does...

the prominence of that organization kind of moved so much to you? When I raised my son, he was forbidden to watch it. So for me, it was a big defeat. There's definitely a macho revenge mood that is happening. And again, the only thing we can do is offer the alternatives.

I really believe in, I mean, you're also expert on everything. And I just say I do nothing. But it's all about what I know how to do, I think, is build women's confidence. And that confidence in being a woman is,

can do so much. So it's, I mean, everyone does what they can. But when you said being you, being you is everything. The responsibility of being you equals freedom.

Well, but what I want to understand is whether you see the popularity of something like UFC as a threat to women and their status. And if you do, can you articulate how? But I don't like to think...

as anything as a threat. But if this is happening, I think we go for the alternative. I have now, I'm in the winter of my life, I have made my mission to make kindness sexy.

Okay? That's what I want to do. Because I think that kindness is a currency and generosity is the best investment. And usually when you say she's kind, it's like she's an idiot. Well, it's not true. Because kindness is not just a virtue, it's a trick.

I mean, it helps everything. So I cannot change what is going on. I cannot change. All I can do is offer an alternative. And really, that's the only contribution that I can make. Donna, I want to ask you to give us a kind of different report from the cultural front.

You've had the extraordinary experience really in the last few days of releasing the film Wicked, totally female-centric movie, huge production, very, very much the movie of the hour, clearly resonating with people in a very powerful way.

Give us a report from the front. What is it like to watch the audience for this film? Who is coming to see it? Whether it's in the form of data or anecdote, even after having spent years of effort making this film, what are you learning now from the release?

So the film is not surprisingly driving a female audience predominantly, but not only. What I'm really heartened to see with this film is that it's resonating everywhere.

In the US, it's not just a coastal phenomenon where people like us would go and see it. You have to remember, Wicked is an adaptation of a Broadway musical. There's usually a ceiling to those kinds of adaptations that...

there's a barrier to entry. Musicals are not for me. I don't do Broadway. I don't, you know, do musical theater. And Wicked is knocking down the door of all of those truisms. And so we're breaking records with it. So again, it is females. It's, you know, it's everything from eight to 80. It is women who have grown up with Wicked, who loved it, whether they saw the musical or didn't. They knew the music.

to new audiences, but that's the primary audience. But again, it's really resonating all throughout the country. And I think just as we're all talking, one of the things that I'm seeing is such a huge opportunity, you know, film and television, they talk about, you know, it has the opportunity to talk about what we go through as a society, right? And to really be a bellwether for culture and

And I think the great thing about something like Wicked is you can absolutely look at that movie and you can dissect it and see it as a movie about fascism. You can see it about – it's a movie about being othered.

That's all in there. But you can also go and enjoy that movie as pure entertainment. And again, that's what we're seeing, how the audience is reacting to it. We have people, I mean, it is a sort of a social media cultural phenomenon. People are posting about their reactions. And we do, we have everybody from, you know, dressing up and just loving, choosing whether they're the good witch or the not so good witch, even though she is a good witch.

You know, to really, you know, looking at Cynthia Erivo performing the role of Elphaba, the Green Witch, and what that means to them. So it's covering a lot of ground. And I think that is the opportunity that we have as a...

as a media company, as a media industry in this moment that we can highlight people's differences. We can tell stories that bring us together. When you talk about what's on display in terms of the toxic masculinity, well, we have the opportunity to depict masculinity in a different way.

Right. We don't have to go through the lens of a political polemic. We can do it in an entertaining way. We can show men, you know, at home, you know, doing domestic things, being good parents. There's so much opportunity that we have. And I have a feeling that we're on the cusp of seeing, again, sort of less politicized stories and more stories that celebrate our identity.

Not sort of pulling us apart with our differences, but really celebrating all the things that unite us as humans. Well, and what you said about learning to talk about gender, masculinity, femininity in a different way is very interesting. Brooke, I wrote down this comment that you made in the pre-interviews for this panel. You said...

Many in the American public are tired of how we talk about gender and race. How many people would agree with that? Yeah. I mean, to close us out, we have a few minutes left. Let's talk a little bit about that. Donna, you said something earlier about how in this phase, in the next few years, we need to address gender a little differently than we have before. I saw some—Amy, do you want to start us off? I saw some nods from you on this. Yeah, probably.

Okay, so Donna, flesh out your vision just a little more and that will give other people time to bring their thoughts together. Well, I think the last eight years has been tough on everybody, right? We've just been living in this whirlpool of toxicity, of negativity and anxiety.

And discourse is just completely disappeared from our means of communication. And it's either I believe this or I believe that. And as is always the case, the truth and the truisms lie in the gray. They lie in the middle. And actually, Dionne and I talk about this a lot, where if we want to

continue our path of steady progress. It's a time, I think, to have less rhetoric and more compassion, more understanding, more...

embracing of the other points of view. And, you know, I think we both believe, Dionne and I, that we need men to be allies. We need them to have a seat at the table in these conversations with us. I mean, I actually even appreciated what you said earlier about, well, Trump might get this done. I actually think...

In some way, it neutralizes the weaponry if we're able to say, you know what? Actually, this administration might do a few good things. We might not agree with most of what they're doing and how they're doing it, but they might. And that all of a sudden kind of takes the temperature down. And so I feel like we're going into an era of that. Again, I always look at everything through a content lens. That's certainly how I'm thinking about stories that I want to tell.

I also think that there's something that I have seen change, and whether it's you're talking about feminism or, you know, I often say if we can take the anger and the rage out of it and the vitriol, and we then can have empathy. We don't have to agree, but we can have an understanding. And I think...

You know, even feminism has gotten, you know, I've been asked this question a lot, you know, and I always struggle with it because it's always been associated to me with burning of this and raging through that. And, you know, I always say it's not about, you know, I am woman, hear me roar. It's I am woman, hear me more. And it's this kind of, this, this, an exchange of ideas, whether you agree with them or not, I found that if you take the heat out

and the rage out of it. I've found it moves through conversations. Well, I think that's a very helpful comment, especially on this panel, because we're talking about the workplace. And at the end of the day, I mean, like rage and the workplace are, they're a very uncomfortable combination. And the life place too, you know? To say the least, yes. Brooke, tell us why you made that comment originally. What were you thinking of?

I was thinking about the election, right? So this was before the election, but sort of looking at polling and... And say what state you live in. I live in Texas. Though my mom is from the Bronx, she would want me to mention that. You'd have to mention that. But, you know, I see it everywhere. And I'm in Dallas, which is a blue city, right? But I do think you...

certainly in the exit polling and what you saw in the election, but also I think in terms of the UFC and the machoism between RFK and Trump and all these other folks, that we've seen a cultural backlash. And I think that's okay.

I think this is really now about how do we continue to tweak messaging and tweak our approach to many of the great points raised here around empathy and building bridges because we're all in this together and we all want the same thing, which is to improve policy for us. And when you made that comment, were you talking about like sort of your own contemporaries, your own generation, like a kind of exhaustion with maybe some of –

The ruts and tired tracks we're in with gender conversation? Yes. Like a feeling like it doesn't match the reality of our lives? Yes. I mean, and that's why I love the approach you took to this panel, right? Because I think a lot of people could say, oh, Lord, another panel on women in the workplace. That's what I'm going to tune out, right? But instead, what this is really focused on is sort of this longitudinal view. And then what are changes we're making going forward and celebrating what has gone well? And I think...

to Brooke's point about less rage, I think what folks are really excited about now is could we take a more positive view so that we can hear people more instead of roar? I think one of the points you made earlier, progress is never in a straight line. And whether it's race, gender, or any other thing, I think the through line is that we recognize there's still a lot of unfinished business.

And whenever you have unfinished business, all of that is going to come like gumbo, right? You're going to have a little bit of this, a little bit of that. You're going to have a reset. You're going to have people feeling left out, some people feeling they were never in. And I think the optimism of when we are in a moment of reflection, exhaustion, frustration,

tired, still optimistic. I think all of us, even in leadership, is saying, what is our next best action and calibrating to the moment that we're in? And I do think it's important, especially for women. If you widen the lens, we go through ebbs and flows.

And pressure makes diamonds in the long term. And so I just think it's important for us to not think that we have to dim a light in order to create kindness. I think it's not a moment of saying, well, then let me just not be seen in order for others to feel comfortable versus saying, let me invite to the conversation people

Yeah.

Then I think in any environment, because the world has gone through every environment, progress all the same. And so I think that's to me, for me and as a leader, I think it is saying there are lessons to be learned.

And one small act is if we, even as leaders, you just break bread and you have these kinds of conversations. And it's not about being right. It's about just being heard. And I think whenever you hear a roar, it's about, do you hear me? And I think we also can't ignore why people are roaring. And I think we cannot, cannot feel as if the only way to have optimism is to silence the

who I am or how I breathe. And I think if we can create that space, and I think that invitation is always open.

I think that we can make progress in any environment. And I do think that even when you are in a point of understanding where we are, you don't have to take optimism off the table. You should absolutely not take empathy and kindness off the table. And you should not take the desire to make positive outcomes off the table. Deshonda, we are each going to call you when we're having a bad day. Yes.

Because that is very inspirational. Thank you so much for closing us out with that. And really thank you to everybody on this panel. This is an incredibly not only accomplished but truly diverse in every sense of the word set of life experiences that you've brought here. We have been able to harvest like really just a tiny percent of the knowledge and experience and wisdom that you carry around. But thank you so much again.

for offering it here today. Thank you, Jodi, for being an exceptional moderator. I don't know how you did it.

Dealbook Summit is a production of The New York Times. This episode was produced by Evan Roberts and edited by Sarah Kessler. Mixing by Kelly Piclo. Original music by Daniel Powell. The rest of the Dealbook events team includes Julie Zahn, Hillary Kuhn, Angela Austin, Haley Hess, Dana Prakowski, Matt Kaiser, and Yanwei Liu.

Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Nita Lassam, Ravi Mattu, Beth Weinstein, Kate Carrington, and Melissa Tripoli. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next time.