 Good morning everyone and a very warm welcome to everyone that's joining us here in the fusion room and also a very good morning to everyone that's joining us online. My name is Joseph Fowler and I'm the head of arts and culture here at the World Economic Forum. Before we start today's session I'd just like to do a little bit of housekeeping could you just take a moment to check that your phones are on silent so we don't disturb the session once we start. Today's session men women pathways to equity. It's a great privilege and a great honor for me to welcome to the stage the the chief executive officer and founder of the Women of the World Foundation Jude Kelly. Well good morning everybody it's absolutely fantastic to be here thank you for the invitation and the thing I'm going to talk about this morning is really me and my journey into trying to make sure that I tell the stories of women from all over the world because of the opportunity I got to be a woman who tells stories and I'm going to specifically then talk about my father and the critical relationship that I believe exists between men who love women particularly fathers and how they express that to their children and what that does to the child. So I'm going to begin way way way way back you can see this is a picture from Leziz caves in Somaliland where we did a wow a few years ago now I don't know what that little picture says to you this is a picture drawn maybe 30 000 years ago when I saw it I thought oh that's me that's a little girl with a skipping rope and I immediately identified it because when I was a little girl and I was facing I'm still quite little I first involved myself with the arts because somebody put on the record player the Sugar Plum Fairy and I immediately felt this music inside me and I started skipping skipping like this and I felt just like the Sugar Plum Fairy and I thought this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life and as soon as I told my father that he said well let's get going and he allowed me to go to ballet classes now I want to just keep on saying that my mother was always supportive but it was my father's support that made me think it was legitimate and I'll come back to that later now when I said to the chap that is the curator of the caves they're amazing these cave paintings aren't they I wonder what the men and women were like that did them he said women didn't do this so of course I said well how do you know that and he said women don't do these things and it reminded me of the crushing nature of the word no or can't or don't or inappropriate and how even our very history as women has had people telling us theologically philosophically and biologically that we don't we can't we shouldn't and we won't but you see we do and that expression of joy now that we know so much more about the history of cave painting we suspect that 75 percent of those cave paintings in fact were done by women but you know it doesn't matter on one level what matters is that there's a girl in my opinion expressing joy I went on to be a storyteller in quite a kind of conventional way if you see it I mean I'm a theater director I've directed superstars there's Ian McKellen directed him in The Tempest and a couple other things you'd recognize him as Gandalf perhaps and there's Patrick Stewart from Star Wars although actually fetchingly in pyjamas in a show I did called Johnson over Jordan by JB Priestley I continue my work with dance that is me directing all the paka penya play shows flamenco shows check off again there with Ian McKellen and the kinds of theaters I work in and have worked in and opera houses etc but you know I came to a point in my life where I realized that much as I love storytelling mainly the texts mainly the work the operas the shows the plays that I was being asked to direct were plays that told us the history of men the anguish of men the worries of men the problems of men and women in general were there to assist those problems and those achievements and I thought this is not where I believe the history of the humanity that I believe in needs to get to and I started to think about women stories obviously my own but many many women from across the very very wide world and thought across that whole wide world how many plays and pieces of music and pieces of art actually reflect what is actually really happening throughout the whole of the history of women and you know it's so few as an artist it's so few and I do believe that the story if it's made central gives you the potency the agency to say and this is my right I have rights if my story exists and if your story is marginalized you do not really have rights and that led me to think that maybe for a while in my career as a storyteller I would transfer from fiction to fact and I would invite women from right across the world to tell their stories to tell their stories together and stories of all kinds not just the status-driven stories the famous stories but stories of unique resilience unique change and unique adventure that have happened throughout the whole of history and now the wow festivals are all over the world as you can see and still growing that's very exciting of course it is but I do still believe that unless people feel that women's stories are about joy happiness and transformation and not about victim the survival and plaintiveness then actually how are we going to be interested and I suppose that's at root my feeling about entertainment as an artist you need to excite you need to exhilarate so I created these idea of festivals because you know if you say the word festival to somebody they know it's going to be joyful fun interesting spontaneous and they also know that we have to eat and drink and they might bump into somebody that might have a romance who knows but these are just some of the festivals and the kind of exhilaration you can see in the festivals from around the world and then then here are some of the also superstars that are real okay so it's not Ian McKellen playing a role it's not Patrick Stewart playing a role it's Angela Davis talking about her life it's Malala talking about her life Hindu Abraham who's here and Mary Robinson they do look like they're having fun don't they and they are having fun and you know why they're having fun and why abdupavine is so transformative in her music and why Alex is so excited in her voyage it's because we have something to believe in something to fight for something to go for which is a better world there's nothing more exhilarating than the idea of a better world than the one we've got I don't want you to think though that when I created wow I created it for women I basically said if you're a woman or you know one it's for you so of course it is for men and this is very significant here is a man creating work with his daughter and this perhaps more formidable picture are a group of soldiers in Pakistan brought specifically in order to protect the wow festival from any kind of hostile actions and there are hostile actions against women's festivals but here they are you can see they've taken on board some of this writing be open and honest maintain confidentiality share your own stories and they're actually talking about their daughters they're asking questions that they couldn't really ask everything from you know periods education they're asking questions that they don't have a forum to ask questions in normally and it really makes a difference here's Jordan Stevens one of the UK's famous rappers talking about his moments when he suddenly realized that the misogyny in rap music was something which would never help his future as a father and he really rerouted his life and then there's John Snow quite a famous journalist as you know talking about how he has changed his view from being a sort of macho war reporter to being somebody who really wanted to look at the psychology of equality and how he had to rethink his own attitude to his daughters as a result very very moving stories now I said this talk was going to be about me and there's my dad smoking the pipe and there's my mum and there they are on a bench obviously in love and romantic how you're brought up by your parents gives you things which you either fight against or preserve and I cannot stress enough to the fathers or proposed fathers or possible uncles or brothers nephews in the room that your role as a man is both admired and loved and needed but you need to know that so here am I one of four daughters and that second slightly chubby one I've still got the gap in my teeth there I am and I want you to look at this this is my mum and my dad when they're old and can you see the way that my dad is looking at my mum he is still admiring other in the 90s they've gone now but I could see my father supporting my mother all the way through my life and here's my son and my granddaughter and I can see he's basically saying to her you're terrific you're terrific he's not saying to her you're pretty he's not saying well I hope you get a nice boyfriend he's not saying well you know it doesn't matter if you don't do too well because I'll still love you he's saying what are your dreams and how can I help you make those happen and that really really changes the game for a girl because you know we might not want patriarchy to exist but the fact is it does and if patriarchy exists theologically and in every other context in which we find ourselves as a minority voice even though we're half of the population of course we look to men and go do you approve of me do you legitimize me do I matter we might not want to ask those questions and as we get older we can sometimes bitterly resent it but the factors were bound together as a species and so the male voice counts now we often talk of course about male sponsorship in in business you know how you promote war women da da da da da da but at root it's the personal intimacy of a man with obviously his partner but somebody who is looking to him as the hero this is what counts now the Hope Brigade is the big exhibition outside I just want you to read if you can this from Helena Kennedy brought up as a little girl in Scotland really from a very poor background now one of the great QCs in the world particularly talking about human rights she talks about the huge influence her father had on her how he encouraged her how he believed in her and this at the end he was never invasive or overprotective this is critical too you know you don't want your dad to be telling you that you basically better hide behind him no you want to be out on your own knowing that he's got your back and here we have a senator from Pakistan Krishna Kamari Kohli what a fantastic statement here it was my father's dream to see me succeed beyond means as a poverty-stricken stricken bonded laborers so you know all over the world whatever place you'll find girls and women in there'll be dads rooting for their daughters and there'll be dads who are in difference and there'll be dads who are hostile and there'll be dads who walk away and they'll be dads who'll kind of pat them on the head and you know fit them in and we know the difference so here's a really sad testimony this is one of ubergang from Nigeria talking about that her father was a violent presence in the household and when he left his violence and then abandonment had a huge sense of made her feel worthless and she's been struggling all her life to write about that but you know you shouldn't begin your life with pain if a woman and a mama kind of ignores their daughter or their son it's very painful but if a father does it it seems to speak of the whole world and that's the difference so we all know that Malala's father you say really championed her like mad and I'll tell you a story about this that when Malala came to wow in Bradford and spoke at a huge conference of families who'd come to listen to Malala she got sick and she had to phone in and so her dad came instead you so say and he talked to the whole group of people about how he believed that you should never clip a girl's wings and the result of his talk meant that five different families decided that they wouldn't send their children off to Pakistan their daughters off to Pakistan to be married instead they'd allow them to do further education now I believe that if Malala had given that talk the dads would not necessarily have been convinced it was the dad giving the talk that made them think okay I trust this as a guy so as women we want to think our voices are equal in the world and yet at the same time we know they're not so we have to ask men men who we love to join in not as helpmates but because if you want a different world and you wouldn't be in Davos if you didn't then what is it you need to do it's a weird thing you know when I say to folk people this is what so I didn't says from the moment my daughter Malala was born I wanted to experience the world I wanted to have her own identity I wanted to be the kind of father who would encourage her now not all of you in this room are fathers but I can tell you that when you say to somebody you know something something something women something something something if their eyes don't glaze over they'll often say to you oh I've just had a daughter or I've got a daughter and you know there's part of you wants to say well you've probably got a woman partner as well maybe a wife you know you had a mother sister at all why do you only just now started thinking about it but I don't want to be cynical I mean yes maybe you're thinking about it because suddenly it's the future it's the legacy there they are and it's yours so you know there's something maybe about that which needs examining but the point is we do want the best for our children or do we does it depend who the children are so let's just examine some facts here Indira and Clara so this is Indira Gandhi the second longest serving Prime Minister of India her father Nehru obviously supported and championed her but you know what she was the only child so supposing she had had brothers would she have been Indira Gandhi that I grew up with when I was a little girl thinking women can be Prime Ministers the first lady to be actually christened an Iron Lady by Henry's Kissinger maybe not because when fathers have the choice between the son and the daughter do they choose the son and this perhaps less known to you Fredrich Mann who was a very very important musician in his time he had a daughter Clara Schumann she was a magnificent prodigy she performed as a concert pianist as a composer she died when she was 88 she married Robert Schumann she was very famous we're recovering her history now she was the only child so of course he poured his investment into her and her alone but then if you look at the story of Mozart Mozart had a sister Mary Anne they both performed together over the whole of Europe she was often given top billing she was taken off the platform when she was 16 because she was of marital age and you've never heard of her and this is the thing we can carry on with a world that keeps demonstrating over and over again but given the opportunity a woman can be the prime minister a woman can be the concert pianist and the composer or given the opportunity a boy will take their place instead but surely there's places for everyone we're not in short supply of places in the world for things to happen so I want to come to you at this point and and ask you really as a group of people who anybody here have a door there's not a therapy session incidentally just going to be really clear as anybody here got a daughter okay well let's start with the men how do you feel about your daughter if you don't mind me asking I mean what's your ambition for her yeah so you'd like it to be professional and successful and do everything you like have you got any sons no I have two daughters both married uh-huh yeah educated in London did their graduation and married with their own choice yes yeah that's a fantastic history and I'm sure they love you and admire you for that freedom that you've given them can you pass forward yes you've got a daughter I have a daughter yes what's your relationship to that journey for her I want her to be resilient because I know the challenges she's going to face so it's really important for me to train her to face adversity so she can deal with those bumps it's important that she's strong yeah now isn't this interesting I mean of course we train boys to face up to the issues of the world but one of the things that happens often when men have daughters is they go oh my god look at the world look at the world for women oh no I have a daughter how is she going to be resilient because she's going to need to be and this is not a kind of putting things at you but very often men haven't created the circumstances in advance for their daughters they've been waiting for the daughter arrives and then they think I better sort of run around and try solving things we have to solve things on an ongoing basis for all daughters futures and not just our own anybody else here got a daughter I'm staying with the men for a bit okay we'll have this one over here yep hi I have two daughters teenagers and I'd like them to be happy in life yes how would you allow them to be happy I'd like them to explore what they like what they're interested in and encourage them to pursue those things in life yeah hopefully help them do it okay I'm gonna pass on to you you've got a daughter and presumably you do are you a single mom if you've got a husband okay let's come to you okay wait for the microphone comes thanks hi so I have a 12 year old daughter who I adopted and she I'm a single mom and I live in Pakistan which is contrary to the general norms and I want her to be empowered and I want her to find her own voice and that's really what I'm working towards yes now there is a lot of evidence that single mums when their daughters and their sons actually realize how they have to double down in terms of work in terms of everything there's a lot of evidence that actually that powers up children because you know they're grateful and they see it um the issue of you haven't got a boy no just a girl did you choose a girl yes I did because because I want I work for women's economic empowerment that's what I do in Pakistan yeah so I definitely I just wanted to you know pass on the legacy to another young child yeah I did think about a boy but I personally felt that this was something that I could pass on better to a girl and I can speak for me I have a boy and a girl and I have a two children two grandchildren boy and a girl and I did to begin with hope that my first child would be a girl because I actually as one of four daughters had never had any brothers so I didn't really know like well how do you do boys um I mean I was able to do boys in a different way but in terms of rearing I wasn't sure and the key issue with my son has been how do you find the language to a boy or to a man that actually confronts the issue of power imbalance between a boy and a girl between a man and a woman how do you have that conversation without it feeling as if you're attacking it's really a difficult one and and daughters who are speaking to their dads even though they absolutely often adore them and love them they often are very kind and evade actually confronting their father about the deficits in his behavior so we know that men get a lot of praise for doing some quite normal things that women do all the time um and that can allow the man to think well you know I'm doing my stuff if you actually double down on like well no but the reality of what needs to be done the amount of emotional journey you need to go on the thought change you need to go on and also the embrace of the whole world not just me these are things that are really are hard to talk about between children particularly fathers to daughters when you don't want to hurt your dad's feelings anybody else got a yes actually well I got a daughter and I want to give her the education my mom and dad both gave me both of them was very very important in my life my father was my champion and the champion of my mother and they told me that when my father asked my mom said but when my father asked to marry her she said to my father I have a passion isn't fit in fear I'm willing to start a family with you what my goal is to become fear director and have my own theater my father said no brainer so that's what my mom did and I've seen in a conservative society a man like my father went through hell lost most of his friends and his family too because he was very supportive of my mother and all his children boys and girls equal he said what is right for the guy the boys is right for the girl here there's no no one on top of the other we're all equal in this house so I tried to bring that also to my daughter and she's becoming a young woman that I'm I'm admiring in her journey in being an actress a writer and thinking full full I mean responsibility for yeah so I you know in a sense I'm gonna end this bit of audience discussion on that point men take flak for supporting women you know you know that in the pub in the you know in the kind of restaurant if you bring up the subject of equality it's not too long before you get oh come on don't be so heavy or do you have to it's a difficult one and if in front of a boy and a girl you take the girl's side the boy can quickly having learned very easily at nursery and school very quickly go you know are you giving the girl empowerment are you putting me down you know where do I stand all these issues are very difficult but I think that unless together men and women think carefully about bringing up girls in relationship to bringing up boys we're asking women as they are older to do all the hard work on their own and it's no use coming back again afterwards and patting them on the back and saying it's great you did it you needed to be there forging the path with them and that means more than just talking to your daughter or your niece or whoever a young woman in your life you love you need to spread that out and basically share it with other men now I started this talk really saying this is about me I feel that I have been given this huge gift of confidence and legitimacy yes by my mother but particularly by my father and that has meant that when other men have you know marginalized patronize whatever casually sometimes not always intentionally by any means I don't kind of fall into a pit of thinking I don't really matter I think no I matter so it also makes me able to be I think affectionate because my starting point is that I love a man and I love men because love is able to be part of how I think of men so this talk this morning you know yes of course it's for women because we're all here doing our thing but I particularly wanted to say to men please don't think a we don't need you and b that you want the massive influence that we keep telling you off for you know we're telling you off for being such a big thing in the world but bearing in mind you are a big thing in the world please use it for the benefit of girls and women at the moment this is a picture again there I am the second here is the bus that we're taking on tour at the moment the wow bus we're touring it around different parts of the country in the UK and then we're hoping to take it around different parts of the world it's a recording studio you can make podcasts in it you can do art classes in it it allows girls to come to wherever it is and just feel as if they matter and they're special it's a sort of touring girls festival now when I was a little girl my father was one of 14 children and he was the youngest of the 10 that survived and I was brought up in an area of Liverpool called Toxteth which actually is quite a difficult place in its history it's had quite a lot of riots and my grandfather always said to me never forget you're the third in meaning the first immigrants were the Chinese because it was a sailing space the second in were the West African sailors and the third in were the Irish and then there have been many others and when I left Toxteth because we became upwardly mobile we went away from so many stories and became to a place where there were fewer stories and the stories were white because that's where we lived and it's taken me a long time to be able to get back into the world of through wow where unless we're hearing all the stories of the world we can't make sense of it all and we can't rely on AI to just come up with the algorithms to make sense for us this is a human issue so when I look at these girls here and I don't know them but I do know that they'll have their struggles they'll have their difficulties but I want them to succeed as much as I have been able to succeed here am I a little girl from Liverpool speaking at Davos and I want them to feel that the world is their oyster but I do know that in the end a lot of their confidence will come from this there's my dad training to be in bomber command when he was 18 wanting to fight fascism and there he is looking quite cool with his glasses rolling the boat supposing he just didn't give a toss but supposing he hadn't really spent any time with me supposing he didn't really care I promise you that would have made a massive difference to who I am today so as we reached the end of my story and my storytelling really what I'm trying to say is that silencing girls around their dreams is the the thing that we do that takes away their rights from the beginning and we know that women's rights are conditional and we know that because we can see Afghanistan take them away like that we can see regimes take away rights if they wish to and unless men fight for women's rights because it's a world that they want they believe in like my dad did then we're doing it on our own with one hand tied behind our back so let's not do that the reason why all those women in the pictures look so exhilarated was because today is the day that we've never had before we are standing on the future and our future does not have to just be about the jeopardy of climate change and the terror of AI it can be about the joy of human progress and that cannot happen unless we're going to be equal as humans in every way thank you