So I was born on the last day of the last year of the '70s. I was raised on "Free to be you and me" -- (cheering) hip-hop -- not as many woohoos for hip-hop in the house. Thank you. Thank you for hip-hop -- and Anita Hill. (Cheering) My parents were radicals -- (Laughter) who became, well, grown-ups. My dad facetiously says, "We wanted to save the world, and instead we just got rich." We actually just got "middle class" in Colorado Springs, Colorado, but you get the picture. I was raised with a very heavy sense of unfinished legacy.
Rodila sam se zadnjeg dana zadnje godine sedamdestih. Odgojena sam u duhu projekta "Slobodni da budemo...i ja i ti", (Poklici iz publike) na hip-hopu, ne čujem toliko ovacija za hip hop. Hvala vam. Hvala vam na hip-hopu i Aniti Hill. (Poklici iz publike) Moji roditelji su bili radikali -- (Smijeh) koji su postali pa, odrasli. Moj otac je znao reći u šali, "Htjeli smo spasiti svijet, i umjesto toga smo se obogatili." Srednja klasa je tek nedavno nastala u Colorado Springsu, Colorado, ali shvaćate o čemu je riječ. Odgojena sam sa snažnim osjećajem nedovršenog naslijeđa.
At this ripe old age of 30, I've been thinking a lot about what it means to grow up in this horrible, beautiful time, and I've decided, for me, it's been a real journey and paradox. The first paradox is that growing up is about rejecting the past and then promptly reclaiming it. Feminism was the water I grew up in. When I was just a little girl, my mom started what is now the longest-running women's film festival in the world. So while other kids were watching sitcoms and cartoons, I was watching very esoteric documentaries made by and about women. You can see how this had an influence. But she was not the only feminist in the house.
Sa svojih zrelih 30 godina puno sam razmišljala o značenju odrastanja u ovom strašnom predivnom vremenu. I odlučila sam da je, za mene, to bilo pravo putovanje i paradoks. Prvi paradoks je odrastanje u kojem prvo odbacujemo prošlost, a zatim ju brzo ponovno prihvaćamo. Feminizam je bio plodno tlo moga odgoja. Kad sam bila djevojčica, moja majka je osnovala danas najdugovječniji ženski filmski festival na svijetu. Dok su ostala djeca gledala serije i crtiće, ja sam gledala ezoterične dokumentarce koje su napravile žene o ženama. Shvaćate kakav je to utjecaj imalo na mene. Ali ona nije bila jedina feministkinja u našoj kući.
My dad actually resigned from the male-only business club in my hometown because he said he would never be part of an organization that would one day welcome his son, but not his daughter. (Applause) He's actually here today. (Applause) The trick here is my brother would become an experimental poet, not a businessman, but the intention was really good.
Moj otac je istupio iz muškog poslovnog kluba u mojem gradu jer nije htio biti dio organizacije koja će jednog dana prihvatiti njegovog sina, ali ne i kćer. (Pljesak) Danas je s nama. (Pljesak) Stvar je u tome da je moj brat postao eksperimentalni pjesnik, a ne poslovni čovjek, ali namjera je bila dobra.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
In any case, I didn't readily claim the feminist label, even though it was all around me, because I associated it with my mom's women's groups, her swishy skirts and her shoulder pads -- none of which had much cachet in the hallways of Palmer High School where I was trying to be cool at the time. But I suspected there was something really important about this whole feminism thing, so I started covertly tiptoeing into my mom's bookshelves and picking books off and reading them -- never, of course, admitting that I was doing so. I didn't actually claim the feminist label until I went to Barnard College and I heard Amy Richards and Jennifer Baumgardner speak for the first time. They were the co-authors of a book called "Manifesta." So what very profound epiphany, you might ask, was responsible for my feminist click moment? Fishnet stockings. Jennifer Baumgardner was wearing them. I thought they were really hot. I decided, okay, I can claim the feminist label. Now I tell you this -- I tell you this at the risk of embarrassing myself, because I think part of the work of feminism is to admit that aesthetics, that beauty, that fun do matter. There are lots of very modern political movements that have caught fire in no small part because of cultural hipness. Anyone heard of these two guys as an example?
U svakom slučaju, nisam objeručke prihvatila etiketu feministkinje, iako je feminizam bio svuda oko mene, jer sam ga povezivala sa ženskim grupama moje majke, s njezinim šuškavim suknjama i jastučićima za ramena koji nisu bili baš popularni u hodnicima srednje škole Palmer gdje sam u to vrijeme pokušavala biti kul. Ali znala sam da postoji nešto prilično važno oko cijele te feminističke priče, pa sam počela tajno pretraživati police moje majke, birala knjige i čitala ih, nikad, naravno, ne priznajući da to radim. Nisam se nazivala feministkinjom dok nisam krenula na sveučilište Barnard i prvi put čula predavanja Amy Richards i Jennifer Baumgardner. One su koautorice knjige "Manifesta". Mogli bi se zapitati, kakvo je to prosvjetljenje bilo zaslužno za aktiviranje feminizma u meni? Mrežaste čarape. Jennifer Baumgardner ih je imala na sebi. Jako su mi se svidjele. I odlučila sam, u redu, bit ću feministkinja. Govorim vam ovo -- uz rizik da ću se osramotiti jer smatram kako je dio feminizma priznanje da estetika, ljepota, zabava jesu važni. Postoji mnogo modernih političkih pokreta koji su postali aktualni radi popularnosti u kulturi. Je li netko možda čuo za ovu dvojicu?
So my feminism is very indebted to my mom's, but it looks very different. My mom says, "patriarchy." I say, "intersectionality." So race, class, gender, ability, all of these things go into our experiences of what it means to be a woman. Pay equity? Yes. Absolutely a feminist issue. But for me, so is immigration. (Applause) Thank you. My mom says, "Protest march." I say, "Online organizing." I co-edit, along with a collective of other super-smart, amazing women, a site called Feministing.com. We are the most widely read feminist publication ever, and I tell you this because I think it's really important to see that there's a continuum.
Moja majka je uvelike zaslužna za moj feminizam, ali pogledi su drugačiji. Moja majka kaže "patrijarhat". Ja kažem "intersekcionalitet". Tako da naša rasa, klasa, spol, sposobnost, sve te sastavnice čine naša iskustva koja nam definiraju značenje žene. Jednake plaće? Da. Apsolutno feminističko pitanje. Ali za mene, je također to i imigracija. (Pljesak) Hvala vam. Moja majka kaže "prosvjedni pohod". Ja kažem "online organizacija". Surađujem s grupom super pametnih, iznimnih žena na web stranici "Feministing.com". Postala je najšire čitana feministička publikacija ikad, i govorim vam ovo jer mislim kako je važno primjetiti da postoji kontinuitet.
Feminist blogging is basically the 21st century version of consciousness raising. But we also have a straightforward political impact. Feministing has been able to get merchandise pulled off the shelves of Walmart. We got a misogynist administrator sending us hate-mail fired from a Big Ten school. And one of our biggest successes is we get mail from teenage girls in the middle of Iowa who say, "I Googled Jessica Simpson and stumbled on your site. I realized feminism wasn't about man-hating and Birkenstocks." So we're able to pull in the next generation in a totally new way.
Feministički blogovi su postali sredstvo osvještavanja 21. stoljeća. Također imamo izravan politički utjecaj. "Feministing" je omogućio povlačenje proizvoda s polica u supermarketima. Dobivali smo mejlove mizoginog administratora koji je kasnije dobio otkaz iz jedne od najboljih škola. Jedni od naših najvećih uspjeha su mailovi koje dobivamo od tinejdžerica iz Iowe koje pišu "Googlale smo Jessicu Simpson i naišle na vašu stranicu. Shvatile smo da feminizam nije mržnja prema muškarcima i nošenje Birkenstocksica." Tako da smo uspjele privući novu generaciju na potpuno novi način.
My mom says, "Gloria Steinem." I say, "Samhita Mukhopadhyay, Miriam Perez, Ann Friedman, Jessica Valenti, Vanessa Valenti, and on and on and on and on." We don't want one hero. We don't want one icon. We don't want one face. We are thousands of women and men across this country doing online writing, community organizing, changing institutions from the inside out -- all continuing the incredible work that our mothers and grandmothers started. Thank you.
Moja majka kaže "Gloria Steinem". Ja kažem "Samhita Mukhopadhyay, Miriam Perez, Ann Friedman, Jessica Valenti, Vanessa Valenti, i tako dalje, i tako dalje." Mi ne želimo jednog heroja. Ne želimo jednu ikonu. Ne želimo jedno lice. Tisuće žena i muškaraca diljem zemlje pišu, organiziraju zajednice, mijenjaju institucije iznutra, svi nastavljaju nevjerojatne akcije koje su započele naše majke i bake. Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)
Which brings me to the second paradox: sobering up about our smallness and maintaining faith in our greatness all at once. Many in my generation -- because of well-intentioned parenting and self-esteem education -- were socialized to believe that we were special little snowflakes -- (Laughter) who were going to go out and save the world. These are three words many of us were raised with. We walk across graduation stages, high on our overblown expectations, and when we float back down to earth, we realize we don't know what the heck it means to actually save the world anyway. The mainstream media often paints my generation as apathetic, and I think it's much more accurate to say we are deeply overwhelmed. And there's a lot to be overwhelmed about, to be fair -- an environmental crisis, wealth disparity in this country unlike we've seen since 1928, and globally, a totally immoral and ongoing wealth disparity. Xenophobia's on the rise. The trafficking of women and girls. It's enough to make you feel very overwhelmed.
Što me dovodi do drugog paradoksa: osvještavanje naše sitnosti i održavanje vjere u našu veličinu u isto vrijeme. Mnogi su iz moje generacije, radi dobronamjernog odgoja i obrazovanja samopouzdanja, naučeni vjerovati da smo posebne snježne pahuljice (Smijeh) koje će spasiti svijet. To su riječi koje su nas odgojile. Nakon što diplomiramo puni smo napuhanih očekivanja i kad se vratimo na zemlju, shvatimo da zapravo ne znamo što točno znači spasiti svijet. U medijima je moja generacija opisana kao ravnodušna. Smatram da je točnije reći da smo izgubljeni. Iskreno, u mnogim stvarima možemo biti izgubljeni; ekološka kriza, razlika u imetku u ovoj zemlji kakvu nismo vidjeli od 1928. godine, i globalno, potpuno nemoralna raspodjela bogatstva u tijeku. Ksenofobija u porastu, trgovina ženama i djevojčicama. Sve je to dovoljno da se osjećate izgubljeno.
I experienced this firsthand myself when I graduated from Barnard College in 2002. I was fired up; I was ready to make a difference. I went out and I worked at a non-profit, I went to grad school, I phone-banked, I protested, I volunteered, and none of it seemed to matter. And on a particularly dark night of December of 2004, I sat down with my family, and I said that I had become very disillusioned. I admitted that I'd actually had a fantasy -- kind of a dark fantasy -- of writing a letter about everything that was wrong with the world and then lighting myself on fire on the White House steps. My mom took a drink of her signature Sea Breeze, her eyes really welled with tears, and she looked right at me and she said, "I will not stand for your desperation." She said, "You are smarter, more creative and more resilient than that."
Sama sam to osjetila kad sam diplomirala na visokoj školi Barnard 2002. godine. Bila sam puna elana, spremna promijeniti svijet. Krenula sam i počela raditi pro bono, Išla sam na diplomski studij, radila u pozivnom centru, protestirala sam, volontirala i činilo se kao da ništa ne pomaže. I onda jedne posebno mračne noći u prosincu 2004. godine, sjela sam sa svojom obitelji i zaključila kako sam se razočarala. Priznala sam da sam zamišljala, što je pomalo mračno, kako pišem pismo o svemu što ne funkcionira u svijetu te kako se samozapaljujem na stepenicama Bijele kuće. Moja majka je popila gutljaj svog koktela, oči su joj se ispunile suzama, pogledala je ravno u mene i rekla: "Neću trpiti tvoj očaj." Rekla je: "Pametnija si, kreativnija i otpornija od toga."
Which brings me to my third paradox. Growing up is about aiming to succeed wildly and being fulfilled by failing really well. (Laughter) (Applause) There's a writer I've been deeply influenced by, Parker Palmer, and he writes that many of us are often whiplashed "between arrogant overestimation of ourselves and a servile underestimation of ourselves." You may have guessed by now, I did not light myself on fire. I did what I know to do in desperation, which is write. I wrote the book I needed to read. I wrote a book about eight incredible people all over this country doing social justice work. I wrote about Nia Martin-Robinson, the daughter of Detroit and two civil rights activists, who's dedicating her life to environmental justice. I wrote about Emily Apt who initially became a caseworker in the welfare system because she decided that was the most noble thing she could do, but quickly learned, not only did she not like it, but she wasn't really good at it. Instead, what she really wanted to do was make films. So she made a film about the welfare system and had a huge impact. I wrote about Maricela Guzman, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, who joined the military so she could afford college. She was actually sexually assaulted in boot camp and went on to co-organize a group called the Service Women's Action Network.
Što me dovodi do trećeg paradoksa. Odrastanje je pokušaj brzog uspjeha i uspjeh velikog neuspjeha. (Smijeh) (Pljesak) Jedan pisac je veoma utjecao na mene, Parker Palmer, koji piše kako su mnogi od nas često neodlučni "između arogantne precijenjenosti i pokorne podcijenjenosti samih sebe." Vjerojatno ste i sami dosad zaključili da se nisam samozapalila. Napravila sam ono što uvijek radim iz očaja, pisala sam. Napisala sam knjigu koju sam trebala pročitati. Napisala sam knjigu o osmero nevjerojatnih ljudi diljem ove zemlje koji se bave socijalnom pravdom. Pisala sam o Niji Martin-Robinson, kćeri Detroita i dvoje aktivista za ljudska prava, koja je posvetila svoj život okolišnoj pravdi. Pisala sam o Emily Apt koja je isprva bila socijalna radnica jer je smatrala kako je to najplemenitije zvanje kojim se može baviti, ali je brzo shvatila da, ne samo da joj se nije sviđalo, već nije ni bila jako dobra u tome. Ono što je zapravo htjela raditi je bilo snimanje filmova. Napravila je film o socijalnoj pomoći koji je imao veliki utjecaj. Pisala sam o Mariceli Guzman, kćeri imigranata iz Meksika, koja se pridružila vojsci kako bi platila školovanje. Za vrijeme osnovnog treninga, bila je seksualno napadnuta nakon čega je koorganizirala grupu nazvanu 'Mreža za podršku žena u službi'.
What I learned from these people and others was that I couldn't judge them based on their failure to meet their very lofty goals. Many of them are working in deeply intractable systems -- the military, congress, the education system, etc. But what they managed to do within those systems was be a humanizing force. And at the end of the day, what could possibly be more important than that? Cornel West says, "Of course it's a failure. But how good a failure is it?" This isn't to say we give up our wildest, biggest dreams. It's to say we operate on two levels. On one, we really go after changing these broken systems of which we find ourselves a part. But on the other, we root our self-esteem in the daily acts of trying to make one person's day more kind, more just, etc.
Ovi ljudi su me naučili da im ne mogu suditi samo na osnovi njihovih poraza da ostvare nejasne ciljeve. Mnogi od njih rade u nedodirljivim sustavima, kao što su vojska, kongres, obrazovni sustav, itd. Ali ono što uspiju napraviti unutar tih sustava je snaga čovječnosti. I na samom kraju, što može biti važnije od toga? Cornel West je rekao, "Naravno da je to neupjeh. Ali koliko je to dobar neuspjeh?" Ne želim reći da bismo trebali odustati od naših najvećih snova. Ovdje želim reči kako možemo funkcionirati na dvije razine. Na jednoj razini slijedimo te pokvarene sustave kojih smo i sami dio. Ali, na drugoj razini, pokušavamo osvjestiti samopoštovanje u svakodnevnim radnjama kojima drugima uljepšavamo dan, činimo ga srdačnijim, pravednijim, itd.
So when I was a little girl, I had a couple of very strange habits. One of them was I used to lie on the kitchen floor of my childhood home, and I would suck the thumb of my left hand and hold my mom's cold toes with my right hand. (Laughter) I was listening to her talk on the phone, which she did a lot. She was talking about board meetings, she was founding peace organizations, she was coordinating carpools, she was consoling friends -- all these daily acts of care and creativity. And surely, at three and four years old, I was listening to the soothing sound of her voice, but I think I was also getting my first lesson in activist work.
Kad sam bila djevojčica, imala sam par čudnih navika. Znala sam ležati na kuhinjskom podu svoga doma, cuclati palac lijeve ruke i držati hladne nožne prste moje majke desnom rukom. (Smijeh) Slušala sam ju kako priča na telefon, što je često radila. Pričala je o sastancima odbora, osnivala je mirovne organizacije, koordinirala prijevoze, tješila prijatelje, sve te svakodnevne radnje brige i kreativnosti. I naravno, s tri ili četiri godine, slušala sam njezin smirujući glas. Ali mislim da sam i dobivala prve lekcije o aktivističkom radu.
The activists I interviewed had nothing in common, literally, except for one thing, which was that they all cited their mothers as their most looming and important activist influences. So often, particularly at a young age, we look far afield for our models of the meaningful life, and sometimes they're in our own kitchens, talking on the phone, making us dinner, doing all that keeps the world going around and around. My mom and so many women like her have taught me that life is not about glory, or certainty, or security even. It's about embracing the paradox. It's about acting in the face of overwhelm. And it's about loving people really well. And at the end of the day, these things make for a lifetime of challenge and reward.
Aktivisti koje sam intervjuirala nisu imali ništa zajedničko, osim jedne stvari; svi su naveli svoje majke kao najsnažnije i najvažnije aktivističke utjecaje. Tako da često, pogotovo kad smo mladi, predaleko tražimo uzore značajnog života, koji su nekad u našim kuhinjama, razgovaraju na telefon, rade nam večeru, rade sve ono što održava ovaj svijet. Moja majka, i mnogo žena slične njoj, su me naučile da smisao života nije slava niti nužnost niti čak sigurnost. Smisao je prihvaćanje paradoksa. Smisao je reagirati na izgubljenost. I smisao je voljeti ljude. Na samom kraju ove stvari pružaju život ispunjen izazovima i nagradama.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)