Anne Hathaway's Speech on Paid Family Leave at the United Nations Transcription

Laurels-winning actor Anne Hathaway delivers keynote address in her first public advent as UN Women Goodwill Ambassador. Photo: UN Women/Ryan Brown

President of the Full general Assembly,
United nations Deputy Secretary-General,
Executive Manager, UN Women,
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,

When I was a young person, I began my career as an actress. Whenever my mother wasn't free to drive me into Manhattan for auditions, I would take the train from suburban New Bailiwick of jersey and see my father—who would have left his desk at the law part where he worked—and we would meet under the Upper Platform Arrivals and Departures sign in Penn Station. We would then get onto the subway together and, when we surfaced, he would ask me "Which way is north?" I wasn't very proficient at finding North at the start, but I auditioned fair amount and and so my Dad kept asking "Which was is n?" Over time, I got meliorate at finding it.

I was struck by that retention yesterday while boarding the plane here. Not just by how far my life has come up since so, only by how meaningful that seemingly small lesson has been. When I was still a child, my begetter developed my sense of direction and now, equally an adult, I trust my ability to navigate space. My begetter helped give me the conviction to guide myself through the world.

In late March, last yr, 2016, I became a parent for the first time. I think the indescribable—and as I understand it universal—feel of holding my week-old son and feeling my priorities modify on a cellular level. I remember I experienced a shift in consciousness that gave me the ability to maintain my dearest of career and cherish something else, someone else, much, much more. Like then many parents, I wondered how I was going to remainder my work with my new function as a parent, and in that moment, I remember that the statistic for the US'south policy on maternity get out flashed through my mind.

American women are currently entitled to 12 weeks' unpaid leave. American men are entitled to aught. That information landed differently for me when, one week subsequently my son's nascency I could barely walk, when I was getting to know a human who was completely dependent on my hubby and I for everything, when I was dependent on my husband for most things, when we were relearning everything we idea nosotros knew well-nigh our family and relationship. It landed differently.

Somehow, we and every American parent were expected to be "back to normal" in under three months. Without income. I remember thinking to myself, "If the applied result of pregnancy is another mouth to feed in your home and America is a country where almost people are living paycheck to paycheck, how does 12 weeks unpaid go out economically work?"

The truth is, for as well many people it doesn't. I in four American women become dorsum to work two weeks after giving nativity because they can't beget to take any more time off than that. 25 per cent. Equally disturbing, women who tin beget to take the full 12 weeks often don't considering it will mean incurring a "motherhood penalty"— significant they will be perceived as less dedicated to their job and will exist passed over for promotions and other career advancement. In my own household, my mother had to choose between a career and raising iii children- a choice that left her unpaid and underappreciated equally a homemaker- because there but wasn't support for both paths. The memory of being in the city with my Dad is a particularly meaningful one since he was the sole breadwinner in our business firm, and my brothers and my time with him was always limited by how much he had to work. And we were an incredibly privileged family unit—our hardships were the stuff of other family'due south dreams.

The deeper into the issue of paid parental leave I become, the clearer I encounter the connection between persisting barriers to women'south full equality and empowerment, and the need to redefine and in some cases, destigmatize men'south function as caregivers. In other words, to liberate women, nosotros need to liberate men.

The assumption and common practice that women and girls look after the home and the family is a stubborn and very existent stereotype that not merely discriminates against women, just limits men's participation and connection inside the family unit and society. These limitations take broad-ranging and significant effects, for them and for children. We know this. And so why do we go along to undervalue fathers and overburden mothers?

Paid parental leave is not about taking days off work; it is about creating freedom to ascertain roles, to cull how to invest time, and to establish new, positive cycles of behavior. Companies that have offered paid parental leave for employees accept reported improved employee retentivity, reduced absence and training costs, and boosted productivity and morale. Far from non being able to afford to accept paid parental leave, information technology seems we can't beget non to.

In fact, a study in Sweden showed that every calendar month fathers took paternity leave, the mothers' income increased by vi.seven per cent. That's half dozen.7 per cent more economic freedom for the whole family. Data from the International Men and Gender Equality Survey shows that nigh fathers report that they would work less if it meant that they could spend more than time with their children. How many of us here today saw our Dads enough growing up? How many of you Dads here come across your kids enough now?

Nosotros demand to help each other if we are going to grow.

Forth with UN Women, I am issuing a phone call to action for countries, companies and institutions globally to pace-up and become champions for paid parental leave. In 2013, provisions for parental get out were in only 66 countries out of 190 UN fellow member states. I look forward to beginning with the United nations itself which has non nevertheless accomplished parity and who's paid parental exit policies are currently upward for review. Allow us lead by example in creating a world in which women and men are not economically punished for wanting to exist parents.

I don't mean to imply that you need to have children to intendance nigh and benefit from this issue—whether yous have—or desire—kids, yous will do good by living in a more evolved world with policies not based on gender. We all do good from living in a more than compassionate time where our needs do not brand us weak, they make us fully humans.

Maternity leave, or whatsoever workplace policy based on gender, tin can—at this moment in history—only ever be a gilded cage. Though it was created to make life easier for women, we now know it creates a perception of women as existence inconvenient to the workplace. We now know it bondage men to an emotionally express path. And it cannot serve the reality of a globe in which there is more than 1 type of family. Considering in the modern world, some families have two daddies. How exactly does motherhood go out serve them?

Today, on International Women'due south Day, I would like to give thanks all those who went before in creating our current policies—let us honour them and build upon what they started by shifting our linguistic communication- and therefore our consciousness—away from gender and towards opportunity. Allow united states honor our own parents sacrifice by creating a path for a fairer, farther reaching truth to define all our lives, especially the lives our children.

Because paid parental go out does more than give more time for parents to spend with their children. It changes the story of what children observe, and will from themselves imagine possible.

I run across crusade for hope. In my own country, the United states of america—currently the just high income country in the world without paid maternity let alone parental leave—great work has begun in united states of america of New York, California, New Jersey, Rhode Isle and Washington which are currently implementing paid parental leave programs. Start Lady Charlene McCray and Mayor Pecker de Blasio accept granted paid parental exit to over 20,000 government employees in NYC. We tin do this.

Bringing most change cannot just be the responsibleness of those who need it nearly; we must accept the support of those at the highest levels of power if nosotros are ever to achieve parity. That is why it is such an honor to recognize and congratulate pioneers of paid parental go out like the global visitor Danone. Today I am proud to announce Danone Global CEO, Emmanuel Faber as our inaugural HeForShe Thematic Champion for Paid Parental Exit. As role of this declaration, Danone volition implement a global eighteen weeks gender-neutral paid parental leave policy for the company'southward 100,000 employees by the year 2020. Monsieur Faber, when Ambassador Emma Watson delivered her now iconic HeForShe oral communication and stated that if we live in a globe where men occupy a majority of positions of power, we need men to believe in the necessity of change, I believe she was speaking about visionaries similar you. Merci.

Imagine what the earth could look like ane generation from at present if a policy like Danone's becomes the new standard. If 100,000 people go 100 million.

A billion.

More than.

Every generation must observe their northward.

When women around the world demanded the right to vote, we took a key step toward equality.

North.

When the same sexual activity union law was passed in the US, we put an end to a discriminatory constabulary.

North.

When millions of men and boys answered Emma Watson's call to be HeForShe, the globe grew.

North.

We must ask ourselves, how volition we be more tomorrow than we are today?

The whole world grows when people like you and me take a stand up considering we know that across the idea of howwomen and men are different, there is a deeper truth that dear is love, and parents are parents.

Thank you.

Related links:

In Focus: International Women'south Day

Printing Release: International Women'southward Mean solar day spotlights impact of changing world of work

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Source: https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2017/3/speech-anne-hathaway-iwd-2017

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