Laurie Levin: Get excited. I.
Sheva Carr: Alright, my very old friend, not old. She's old, but we've been friends for a long time like it's weird. So Laurie's gonna tell the story because it's long enough ago. I don't even remember. Maybe your dog. My memory.
Laurie Levin: Yes, yes. Well, and I think it was more momentous to me. You you were involved in the trainings. From what I recall
Laurie Levin: the earlier days of of heart math. So I've been a heartmath coach certified coach for over 20 years, and it was Stephanie. And you know Tricia and Kim Allen and chef and car. This little person.
Sheva Carr: And close that.
Laurie Levin: Hair comes flying into the room. You know we're all in our heart we're doing. And here she comes. And I was just like, who is this? Because from the moment you spoke, Sheva, you just captured my heart.
Sheva Carr: Work.
Laurie Levin: Somebody that I knew I needed to listen to and continue to listen to. I don't remember exactly what you spoke about, but I do believe you told your story of your time in Nicarag, Nicaragua. I don't think I I think I heard it then.
Laurie Levin: and then you know how you talked about how you were released, and it was about doing the work of Heartmath without even knowing about Heartmath, of course, at that time. So I just felt
Laurie Levin: from
Laurie Levin: that training. Certainly the other people there. The trainers are a magnificent at heart, math, but you just captured my heart in a way that I
Laurie Levin: I don't know. There are no words.
Laurie Levin: and every time you've done something, and I could or couldn't be there, I'd be like Oh, my God, it's Sheva. It's Sheva. So anyway, that's my story, and I'll I'm so thankful
Laurie Levin: to have been able to stay in connection with you all these years.
Sheva Carr: It's beautiful, and your name is like a
Sheva Carr: you know a household name around heart math.
Laurie Levin: I've been, cause I've been around. It's so long.
Sheva Carr: Have, and so
Sheva Carr: thank you for your tenacity to the heart, and for representing us.
Laurie Levin: Yes.
Sheva Carr: The Commission on the Status of Women this year.
Laurie Levin: Yes, thank you. Yeah.
Sheva Carr: We in our prior call.
Sheva Carr: we
Sheva Carr: we're looking at, among many other things.
Sheva Carr: some baseline attitudes, one of them being taking things for granted.
Sheva Carr: and one of the collective global energies
Sheva Carr: that is most taken for granted are women.
Sheva Carr: or in cultures all over the world. Women
Sheva Carr: have played roles that hold culture together
Sheva Carr: as caregivers.
Sheva Carr: as educators.
Sheva Carr: as child razors, as water fetchers.
Sheva Carr: as child bearers.
Sheva Carr: and
Sheva Carr: in the last 2,000 years
Sheva Carr: the unique role of the female anatomy and
Sheva Carr: psychology within culture
Sheva Carr: has been
Sheva Carr: diminished in value
Sheva Carr: in ways that we can measure at the UN.
Sheva Carr: Does this make sense to everyone?
Sheva Carr: I am looking at our group, and everyone here except our honorary hire female David.
Sheva Carr: who has a very strong, higher feminine side.
Sheva Carr: is of this persuasion, and I guarantee you.
Sheva Carr: Your life has been touched
Sheva Carr: by the energetic collectively of taking women for granted. Can everyone relate to that in some way.
Sheva Carr: so, as an on-ramp
Sheva Carr: from the heart start, call into Lori's presentation of her adventure at Csw.
Sheva Carr: And maybe sharing a little bit, too.
Sheva Carr: since we also have many, many partners certified trainers here.
Sheva Carr: sharing a little bit about
Sheva Carr: for 20 year journey as a provider.
Sheva Carr: because she's run the marathon, not the sprint.
Sheva Carr: and she has wisdom. We don't want to take for granted.
Sheva Carr: Can we do a heart lock in
Sheva Carr: 2? There's another one of our honorary females.
Sheva Carr: Michael, good to see you.
Sheva Carr: but
Sheva Carr: bring in his higher feminine into the mix.
Sheva Carr: We need more men.
Sheva Carr: oh, and all gender identities to understand these issues
Sheva Carr: in order to help advocate for a balancing of the equation
Sheva Carr: in the Kabala today we are in an energy grid of the Libra energies to reset
Sheva Carr: balance on the planet.
Sheva Carr: Just for today.
Melinda: Certainty.
Sheva Carr: It is. It's a one day opportunity. Don't take it for granted.
Sheva Carr: and one of the things that we can balance
Sheva Carr: is bring more balance to the gender
Sheva Carr: equation.
Sheva Carr: So I want to invite us
Sheva Carr: to do a 5 min heart lock in, to warm up the heart field for Lori. Can we do that
Sheva Carr: first, by not taking her for granted.
Sheva Carr: She got herself all the way to across
Sheva Carr: the Pacific puddle
Sheva Carr: from Europe to represent us in New York at the UN. Do I understand that? Right, Lori? You're living in Spain now.
Laurie Levin: Atlantic.
Sheva Carr: Atlantic puddle, of course. Yes.
Sheva Carr: you, Caleb.
Laurie Levin: Inform you people, you know.
Sheva Carr: Hey? Listen! I'm Nova Scotian. I should know that my apparently my geography hasn't woken up yet.
Laurie Levin: Yeah. Atlanta. Yeah, yeah, I'm in Spain.
Sheva Carr: Right. So she she hugged but
Sheva Carr: to represent us
Sheva Carr: at the UN.
Sheva Carr: And now to bring us what she learned there, so we don't want to take that for granted.
Sheva Carr: We want to appreciate that
Sheva Carr: and breathe gratitude for it.
Sheva Carr: and also knock the dust off where we take other women for granted.
Sheva Carr: including ourselves. Melinda.
Sheva Carr: You know how many details she orchestrates for all this, and she's gonna stew about a missed phone number. Come on.
Sheva Carr: If I navigated as many details as Melinda does, my brain would explode, and then you'd all have to have a funeral for me.
Sheva Carr: So just breathe some appreciation for the women in your life, for yourself, for Lori.
Sheva Carr: and we'll warm up the heartfield together. Yeah.
Sheva Carr: 5 min.
Sheva Carr: breathing that in through the heart
Sheva Carr: and out through the heart.
Sheva Carr: Give yourself a moment here.
Sheva Carr: listen for your intuitive guidance.
Sheva Carr: Anything it wants you to know right now.
Sheva Carr: and as we
Sheva Carr: shift modes.
Sheva Carr: listen to and receive. Lori.
Sheva Carr: my invitation
Sheva Carr: is to listen to her
Sheva Carr: with the same
Sheva Carr: quality of attention
Sheva Carr: with which you
Sheva Carr: have closed. Then.
Sheva Carr: listening to your own heart.
Sheva Carr: so that as you listen to Lori.
Sheva Carr: You're listening
Sheva Carr: to her as your own heart.
Sheva Carr: Just try it on as the quality of listening. Miss Lori.
Sheva Carr: I'm gonna pass the baton
Sheva Carr: to you. Let me give you screen sharing capability.
Sheva Carr: You should have that now.
Laurie Levin: See?
Laurie Levin: Can you see that.
Sheva Carr: Yes, we can.
Sheva Carr: We see your slides on the side. If you.
Laurie Levin: I'm going to do that at one I've got to move. Okay, just things around up here. Let's see if I
Laurie Levin: we good better.
Sheva Carr: That's perfect. Thank you, Laurie.
Laurie Levin: Thank you. Thanks for pointing that out. I appreciate it.
Laurie Levin: Well.
Laurie Levin: thank you so much. It is such an honor to be with you today. This event.
Laurie Levin: you know, holds a there's so much meaning here. And and and the reason, you know one of the reasons I went to this event. Well, there's not many other reasons. It's one reason I've been working on this my entire life. So since I was a teenager.
Laurie Levin: so that's almost 50 years, so I'll kind of weave that in here. But it meant more to me than just about anything this past decade to you know, to be able to attend this event, so I'm so thankful for the opportunity and no coincidence. I just happened to get on a call that Chef and Melinda were on and mentioned the UN. And when they said Commission on the status of women, I'm like, Oh, my, gosh!
Laurie Levin: Tell me more about that. And I think I emailed you within about 5 min
Laurie Levin: to to get involved. So again, my heart, you know, I'm just filled with thanks for being able to attend this year's commission on the status of women at the United Nations. I'd never been before.
Laurie Levin: and it was an extraordinary event
Laurie Levin: I'll just mention. I only have one hand. I
Laurie Levin: took a really bad fall 2 weeks ago in Malaga, in Spain, and I broke my shoulder. I just want to say that heart is one of the tools that I use to ease pain.
Laurie Levin: and it made such a difference. And it when I go to my heart, when there is pain, it just fills me up with such hope. And even as a Cabala student I always get what a pleasure you know this pain is for a reason. It's serving me, and in combination with heart math. It's amazing how that pain just subsides enough so that I can take continue on. So I've been typing this for the last 2 weeks with with one hand, so I hope it makes sense.
Sheva Carr: Well, Lori, we're definitely going to be sending you some healing during this time, but also 2 things, one
Sheva Carr: that
Sheva Carr: can you hear the dust knocked off. How deeply she appreciates
Sheva Carr: the path that the fiera foundation gave her. To get to the UN.
Sheva Carr: And part of that appreciation
Sheva Carr: is to all of you that have donated to the Fuhrer foundation or volunteered your time.
Sheva Carr: That's what keeps that going.
Sheva Carr: So take in that fix
Sheva Carr: really own that this pipeline of possibility and opportunity exists because of you
Sheva Carr: and me, of course, but
Sheva Carr: it's a team effort.
Sheva Carr: big time.
Sheva Carr: and especially in this case, acknowledging the role that Melinda played to help our Csw. Delegates get to the UN. This year.
Sheva Carr: She was
Sheva Carr: the core co-creator behind that entire momentum.
Sheva Carr: So I just want to say that. And also, Lori, I have to ask, Who's your Cabala teacher?
Laurie Levin: Here in Europe. Alison Serrar, who's in Israel.
Laurie Levin: and I I study with Ellie chevro, David Guillem. There's so many Dan.
Sheva Carr: Yeah. Yeah. When did you start studying Kabala?
Laurie Levin: Over 10 years ago.
Sheva Carr: Cool. Robert and I met at the caballa center.
Laurie Levin: Oh, you shared that with me a couple of years ago, and I was like, Oh, my gosh! That's amazing that our past have continued to come that way. Yeah.
Sheva Carr: I've known Alice Cheva for 30 years.
Laurie Levin: I listen to her many times a week on her podcast.
Sheva Carr: That's beautiful. Yeah.
Laurie Levin: I'd like to start off, and I hope hope you don't mind. I just want to read
Laurie Levin: something here. It's I wrote a book that came out 2,021, and I'll just if you can. I don't know if you can see it here with the background.
Sheva Carr: Yeah, we need you to turn your background off.
Laurie Levin: It will come up at the end as well, so I'll show you. But
Laurie Levin: I just this took me over almost 15 years to write. It spanned that amount of time. For me it was. It was difficult to write, but it's called, call me a woman on our way to equality and peace.
Laurie Levin: and when I saw the title.
Laurie Levin: a theme of the event this year accelerating the achievement of gender equality, it was like, Oh, my gosh!
Laurie Levin: Just the path, you know, just the parallel path here, so I'll just be. I'll just read a couple chapters, a couple, not a couple chapters. I'm sorry. Couple paragraphs.
Laurie Levin: What became apparent to me early in life is that it is time for the patriarchy to be dismantled in every country in the world.
Laurie Levin: There's no important, more important work today than that of equality.
Laurie Levin: We understand the civil rights of all human beings are inextricably linked. If we are to reduce and eliminate our greatest challenges, ensuring that everyone has a fair shot at life must be our goal.
Laurie Levin: We are on one team, and it's called humanity. We live in different countries on this beautiful planet and different communities.
Laurie Levin: different families. Yet we were all human beings, deeply connected to one another, and our planet desiring love.
Laurie Levin: freedom, safety and the opportunity to achieve happiness and success
Laurie Levin: for peace and a healthy, sustainable planet. We need each person to be strong, to be healthy, to be free
Laurie Levin: to be equal.
Laurie Levin: We're on our way. Let's speed it up.
Laurie Levin: So that's what I've been working on for, you know. 4 or 5 decades was speeding up the closing of the gender gap. So when I saw accelerating the achievement of gender equality, I was really excited. Even more so, more excited because I I I knew that I was
Laurie Levin: while it was going to be a long trip. 20 to 25 h is what it takes to get there and back.
Laurie Levin: it was going to be worth my time.
Laurie Levin: So gonna go ahead and oop. Let's see.
Laurie Levin: how do I?
Laurie Levin: Okay, that's how I advance the screen. Okay, seems like it's different each time. So this is just my first
Laurie Levin: day of coming to the event, you know, flying over from Spain, and what I experienced and saw on Saturday, as I went in, I was commuting from my sister's house in New Jersey, which was a 2 h commute each day, which was really fascinating because I met so many New Yorkers as I was going typically the wrong direction on the subway or the train, or by foot, and they redirected me and got me on my path.
Laurie Levin: So some beautiful pictures of what I saw that first weekend at the event, and what I want to share with you is just 14 slides is what inspired me most 3 things that inspired me so much. I'll never, but they'll never leave me
Laurie Levin: the sessions that I attended. Just so you could see where I hung out. And what's kind of the work that I'm you know, been most interested in
Laurie Levin: a few session highlights, and then the way forward as I see it. That be okay.
Laurie Levin: that sound good. Okay.
Laurie Levin: So what inspired me most.
Laurie Levin: I was overwhelmed with the love and support that I felt from the international community. I mean, I don't know. There are no words to really describe it. One of the sessions, and I'll mention that in just a minute.
Laurie Levin: which I felt tremendous fatigue in, and I'll explain why that was in as soon as people started talking, and I was hearing where they were from. I was amazed
Laurie Levin: that they we were all coming together
Laurie Levin: over 8,000 attendees, who share a common interest and understanding in this one thing as I felt it.
Laurie Levin: the best way toward peace and prosperity is to close the gender gap. This gap is the cause of our greatest challenges and points us squarely in the face of the solution.
Laurie Levin: I felt that collaboration, that connection, the support, the love like. I've never felt it in any room before, as I felt there. That first event that I went to
Laurie Levin: and th. This is so important to me because I'm a data person. I'm a a 25 year corporate executive. And then I I did research. And I continue to do research almost every day. I love reading studies and data. So I hope I don't bore you too much with a little bit of data. But this is why
Laurie Levin: we need to speed this up. Women's political and economic parity are still, you know, over a century away.
Laurie Levin: or political parity. We're a hundred plus years for economic parity. We're 200 plus years these numbers haven't changed
Laurie Levin: in years and years.
Laurie Levin: So the idea of speeding this up is still most important to me. It's never changed. The webinar is.
Sheva Carr: Just so, you know, heart ambassadors is a very data driven community. We have
Sheva Carr: weekly scientific literature reviews. Maybe you'll want to start joining this.
Laurie Levin: Okay, thank you. Yeah. I love data can't get enough data. I actually, I'm reading it all the time.
Laurie Levin: The women. And in Afghanistan
Laurie Levin: I can't think of a scarier place to be right to be female, and particularly one like me who's outspoken. And you know, in the trenches, so are these women.
Laurie Levin: even though they're confined to their homes, their courage, their ongoing engagement, their commitment
Laurie Levin: really is amazing. In the hardest place in the world to be female
Laurie Levin: Afghanistan was just named the most unhappy population in the world, and you know in in in the last, what is a year or so they've been named the worst economy. So you can see the difference. This demonstrates the impact that women's absence and presence
Laurie Levin: makes.
Laurie Levin: And you know the impact it has on the quality of life for all.
Laurie Levin: When we're present, when we're not, that difference can really be
Laurie Levin: demonstrated by way of Afghanistan. And I've met many women from Afghanistan. I continue to talk to them. The journalists and I have a meeting this week. My third meeting with an Afghan journalist who is on the target list in Afghanistan, and I'm really excited to continue to get to know her.
Laurie Levin: And then learning about the vast amount of research and boots on the ground, doing the good work to end, gender poverty.
Laurie Levin: So again, 3 things that inspired me most.
Laurie Levin: the sessions that I attended
Laurie Levin: US. Economic inequality, the Equal Rights amendment catalyst for change.
Laurie Levin: ending economic, gender-based violence, unveiling the nexus between gender-based violence and women's economic freedom.
Laurie Levin: Afghan journalist under the Taliban
Laurie Levin: the care economy in an evolving world. This is about equal share giving. I can't read pictures. I wonder if I can move everybody's picture
Laurie Levin: not getting the first one.
Sheva Carr: Sorry if you go to the upper right.
Sheva Carr: where you'll see a little box that says, view the upper right corner of your zoom screen.
Laurie Levin: Yep. Very good. Okay.
Sheva Carr: And if you click, view you can click side by side, gallery.
Laurie Levin: That's what I was hoping. But I'm not seeing that on mine, and I'm not getting access to a cursor. Only my keyboard.
Sheva Carr: okay, like.
Laurie Levin: May not be operating, but that's okay. You can read it. I don't need to read necessarily for you, but equal share giving. Gloria Steinem said, got the quote of this.
Sheva Carr: Actually, I'm going to. I am gonna ask you to read them because we do have members of our community who see with their ears.
Sheva Carr: not their eyes.
Laurie Levin: Wish I could move that. And I
Laurie Levin: heading, Yeah.
Sandra Solano: I could. I could!
Sheva Carr: But how could it come from?
Sheva Carr: Yeah? You could ask us to read them.
Laurie Levin: Somebody else read them. I'd love to have somebody else read each of those. Thank you. Great suggestion.
Sheva Carr: Alright, Sandra.
Sandra Solano: Yeah. So we have us the right that the care of economy in an evolving world, equal sharing of care, giving, and household responsibilities between men and women as a tool for social equity and cohesion.
Sandra Solano: No poverty, eradication without empowerment of women and girls next steps for the future of Afghanistan
Sandra Solano: boys don't cry the role of man in preventing gender, but based violence.
Sandra Solano: transforming the performing arts. Commodification of women.
Sheva Carr: So that was our by the way, that was the fear of Foundation's presentation.
Sandra Solano: Accelerate gender equity, equality through mentorship, and entrepreneurship.
Sheva Carr: I was also ours.
Laurie Levin: Right? Oh.
Laurie Levin: sound, interesting.
Lynne Jensen: I see a couple more on there that Sandra didn't read. I don't know.
Sandra Solano: Oh, she had already read them on the top.
Lynne Jensen: Okay.
Laurie Levin: Yes, yes, so those are the sessions I chose to attend, very difficult to choose, because there's about 10 sessions per hour.
Laurie Levin: 2 week event so really tough to choose. But these are the ones that I ended up attending.
Laurie Levin: all all areas I'm very passionate about today. So this one is this. This. This has continued in my life for about 45 48 years. Now, if you look at the picture to the right, you'll see an era. Rally
Laurie Levin: Springfield, Illinois. This is June of 1,982, and I'll never forget getting on a bus. I'm from St. Louis, Missouri.
Laurie Levin: with, you know, busload of women and traveling to Springfield, Illinois, for the rally so the Equal Rights Amendment are those 24 little words that you see at the top of the screen. And this is what we were all working so hard on, and thought that by attending this rally that really we were very close. We saw such an amazing crowd assembled. It was
Laurie Levin: probably 10,000 of us there at the Capitol building, and it we just felt like we were, you know, moving forward. Well, that was 1982, and of course the Equal Rights Amendment was written by Alice Paul in 1922. So we're over a hundred years, and we still don't have
Laurie Levin: women
Laurie Levin: in the Us. Constitution. Women, as a matter of fact, have only one constitutional right. That's the right to vote. It's one of the very few. It's a handful of countries in the world where this is the case. This has been a passion of mine, as I said, for 45 years on the flight from Spain. I'm sorry from the flight from Washington, DC. As I was leaving the United States to move to Spain to be closer to my daughter. Lives in Dublin, Ireland just had my first grandchild.
Laurie Levin: Tears just were coming to my eyes, and I knew that I was sad because I was leaving the United States, and that's my country. I was leaving the place. My parents are buried. I was leaving the place I was raised, my daughter was raised.
Laurie Levin: My friends and family are there.
Laurie Levin: yet would pang to me the most
Laurie Levin: was this.
Laurie Levin: that we still hadn't passed the Equal Rights Amendment
Laurie Levin: still brings tears to my eyes because it feels like such a failure. You know I felt as part of this for so long. What had us fail?
Laurie Levin: And it was in that moment, though at 36,000 feet above that, my next business venture came to me. As a result of that question.
Laurie Levin: you know that's what I've been trained to do is ask questions. Ask my heart. Why did we fail?
Laurie Levin: So I'll get to that in just a moment as well, but you can see that the cost of being a woman, as you probably
Laurie Levin: most of you know, is too high.
Laurie Levin: We are the United States is just one of 13 high income countries that has not guaranteed paid paternity leave nor maternity leave very few. Just one of 2 high income countries. That hasn't done that. My daughter lives in Dublin, Ireland just had my first grandchild. She got a year off paid
Laurie Levin: for her child right? It's amazing. Right? Well, not in Ireland. That's something that they they've they've had in place for for decades.
Laurie Levin: Our maternal mortality rates are some of the fastest rising in the world, and they're just abhorrent for black and indigenous women.
Laurie Levin: And of course the money that women make is so much less that by the time. We're my age.
Laurie Levin: We have, you know, half a million dollars less in our bank accounts. If we have a 4 year degree. If we have a Master's degree. We have over a, you know, a million dollars less than men do doing the same jobs. So this is quite a detriment to go into your senior years with and to live.
Laurie Levin: you know, even, you know, as a younger person, because you're just not paid oftentimes enough to take care of your family.
Laurie Levin: and even in jobs where women dominate, we're paid less. And then, of course, we're penalized for having children and being caregivers in so many professions today.
Laurie Levin: Course, very important today is reproductive health care as it is always
Laurie Levin: critical component of economic equality. And we're working hard.
Laurie Levin: 40 years ago I was helping people walk into planned parentheses and so forth throughout St. Louis, so that that topic also is near and dear to me, and sad that we're still working on that one as well. So the Equal Rights Amendment. We still have a long ways to go. As a matter of fact, I still I feel it's still just as far off, even though we've ratified it by the number of required States
Laurie Levin: and number of Congress members. So two-thirds of Congress, 3 fourths of the States have all ratified the Equal Rent Rights Amendment
Laurie Levin: yet it hasn't been published. That's the only thing that's left to do, and we we're not getting that done so, I you'd say, Oh, well, we're so much closer. In fact, I don't feel that we are any closer than we were back in 1,982 when I attended that event.
Laurie Levin: So what impact will the era have will clarify the discrimination based on sex is illegal.
Laurie Levin: This is most important, it will place the burden of proof on those who discriminate instead of those who are being discriminated against. This is a reason we lost the led better case, because the burden of proof was on
Laurie Levin: on her as opposed to the employer. Where that's not the case. When you're bringing a case to try to court or race or religion. Religious discrimination only when it ha happens with gender is the burden of proof on us. So it means that you're likely to win a case, maybe 30 versus 80 or 90 with on race and religion discrimination. So that's something. Why, another reason the Ra so very important, of course, reproductive health care.
Laurie Levin: and we just know that the you know, we can't rely on legislators. We need something more lasting. And why, for me the era. 45 years ago. I knew that was what we needed to do. Not all these individual laws and issues we needed to get into women, into the Constitution. So what can you do? What can we all do?
Laurie Levin: Join global movements for gender equality? Tell Biden to instruct the national Archivist to publish the era and support cedar, which is the convention on the elimination of discrimination against women. We're one of just a couple of countries in the world that doesn't support that. That's the global era.
Laurie Levin: We haven't supported that either. The United States
Laurie Levin: paid family and medical leave.
Laurie Levin: The international community must put pressure on the US. To publish the RA.
Laurie Levin: And we wanna share this information about where the Us. Stands and how far behind we are and organize at the local and state level. And I I mentioned earlier that I felt just this draining and fatigue as I sat in this event and saw the leaders that I've been on zooms with national leaders for years, were speakers at the event which was really exciting.
Laurie Levin: and I felt such fatigue, though I was like, Oh, my gosh! I can't believe I'm hearing the same thing for a year they weren't even as old, some of them, as as you know. As long as I've been hearing that conversation.
Laurie Levin: but I have to tell you it shifted. It shifted in seconds when I saw I looked around the room and I saw the international support for the women and men and people in the United States to get this done. They were from all over the world in that room because they knew the importance. It was for the United States to ratify the and get women in the Constitution. They've already done it.
Laurie Levin: and they were there to support us, so that my spirit I it just was so uplifting
Laurie Levin: to really be part of that community right there, talking about the equal rights, and then first time I've ever experienced that, of course.
Laurie Levin: then ending economic gender based violence was the next session I attended. All of these were just marvelous. You know. The statistics, of course, are very, very grand. They haven't changed, and as long as I've been looking at data they haven't changed one in 3 women.
Laurie Levin: you know, will endure physical or sexual violence. One in 5 will be raped. I think it's closer to one in 4 myself. There's so many issues that are linked to this. And I love the World Bank leader, and I don't recall how to pronounce her last name. She's one of these that you see here?
Laurie Levin: it's a major barrier to development.
Laurie Levin: It's a human rights violation. It's a roadblock, Major roadblock to ending poverty, and they've taken on a 3 pillar strategy, and that is to end it. Gender-based violence to end global poverty can't do one without the other
Laurie Levin: to identify those things specifically. That will, you know, provide gender equality country by country, and to develop women leaders that is absolutely critical.
Laurie Levin: absolutely critical. The last place I lived in the United States was a little island off the coast is Charleston. There was only 70. I was very involved. I was the point person for for South Carolina, for the equal rights amendment.
Laurie Levin: Only 17% of their state legislator is female.
Laurie Levin: And I said, until you get to the 25 to 30% threshold is great. But we look, if you look state by state, those that have 25% leadership female, they are the best run states in the country. They have the highest quality of living on every key quality of life. Measure in South Carolina is at 17, and I said the era as I was leaving, I just want to share with you until you get women's leadership up. This is a dead issue in South Carolina.
Laurie Levin: I love some of the the other countries that spoke the rep for the people. They weren't necessarily leaders. They were just people in the crowd again that speak about these things, coming from all over the world, experiencing these things. Gender based violence has increased tenfold in Tanzania.
Laurie Levin: Can you women have to leave work early in order to be safe in order to get home safely that evening.
Laurie Levin: and in Sweden they have cases, the the the woman said, of abusers taking out loans and women's names. They ruin their credit, run up debt to keep them locked into that. You know. Situation that they're in in that in that household.
Laurie Levin: and gender-based violence doesn't stop when women go to work, it continues.
Laurie Levin: so this is a
Laurie Levin: a challenge for every country.
Laurie Levin: a challenge for every country, and an opportunity
Laurie Levin: for all of us to, I think, understand
Laurie Levin: at least enough of the data where you can speak about it and be aware of it, so that when people joke about things like this, we can say, Hey, you know it's not funny, because for so many of us, and I'll raise my hand. I'm one of those statistics, so
Laurie Levin: I speak, from the heart on this topic as the reason I chose the event. It's it's really instrumental in us achieving peace and global pro. You know, prosperity for all, and ending poverty on the planet.
Laurie Levin: Very important
Laurie Levin: link.
Nienke van Bezooijen ❤: Lori. The name of the for the previous shot slides is unaired.
Laurie Levin: Oh, thank you, thank you so much. Fiera.
Lynne Jensen: Good deal.
Nienke van Bezooijen ❤: Bierda.
Laurie Levin: There were so many beautiful names, and I hear them in Spain all the time, and
Laurie Levin: I can't remember them after a million, because they are pronounced so differently. So, Bierda, thank you.
Nienke van Bezooijen ❤: Yeah. The.
Laurie Levin: Spoken person. I love listening to her. Yeah, really exciting to hear from the World Bank.
Laurie Levin: And then the app you'll see. Picture. These are pictures from the room, obviously. And this was the the panelist. And if you can look at the woman, let's see in the middle the largest picture 2 women up on the curve table. That's the woman I continue to talk with today. Her name is Lean Lima on Wari.
Laurie Levin: So here is the panelists of journalists. Their their lives are at risk. Of course they're not in. They were. They fled as soon as we were, you know, when that was announced that the United States was leaving. They they fled. That week. They got out. They were able to get out, obviously. And and they're here speaking. Many living in the United States today.
Laurie Levin: So in terms of journalists, it's a very dangerous position. The man
Laurie Levin: sitting at the table owns a newspaper actually, and he employs many female journalists.
Laurie Levin: So he's a very brave soul as well. I loved hearing from him and his support for maintaining women journalists in spite of the Taliban takeover.
Laurie Levin: There were good news is there were.
Laurie Levin: When the Taliban took over. They decreased the numbers from 50, 1,400 women journalists to 400. Today there are 500. It's grown a little bit. We were excited to hear that.
Laurie Levin: But you know so many of these journalists journalists are now living.
Laurie Levin: and poverty because they are not allowed to leave their homes without a mail escort.
Laurie Levin: There's very few female role models in the country any longer, and one of the saddest things for me was hearing about the boys, the little boys in these households who are now watching their mothers.
Laurie Levin: you know, who are what? Even if they weren't professionals working outside the home, who are now seeing such a transformation in that country to women being actually imprisoned in the home and now wearing burkas.
Laurie Levin: and what that's doing to the boys. They're very concerned about them as well. It's something we we talk about, the girls and the women. The boys is very. They're very important as well in all of this.
Laurie Levin: You know, university are close to women, and and girls cannot go to school past sixth grade.
Laurie Levin: So what can we do to support women journalists in Afghanistan?
Laurie Levin: They need online education. They need financial and technical support.
Laurie Levin: They need jobs from home, but do not want this long term. They all said, not long term. We we want to get back into the workforce. But right now we can do online work for companies outside of Afghanistan.
Laurie Levin: they need legal support and the international support and diplomatic pressure.
Laurie Levin: And again, the long term goal for women there is to stay, get back fully engaged in the society. It is the women that brought the economic prosperity to Afghanistan 20 in those 20 years that the Taliban was pushed out. So another again. Another example. I, when I speak to people about this, these topics, I always say, how goes the state of women?
Laurie Levin: Because the state of the family, the community, the nation, and the world. You can look at it in every country, how the women are doing.
Laurie Levin: That's how the quality of life it is for everybody in that country.
Laurie Levin: the care economy. This is a really important discussion. Gloria Steinem said. Women are not going to be equal outside the home until men are equal in it. I've been passionate about this topic for a long time I I married somebody. I'm not married any longer, but he certainly did equal work in the home. That's for darn sure, and we raised our daughter to marry a man who did the same thing, although I have to say, if you know anything about Irish men
Laurie Levin: whom my daughter married, they are all feminists.
Laurie Levin: It's an extraordinary country where they're all pretty much just raised that way. I've just been amazed at the 10 years going to Ireland now so many times talking to so many wonderful men.
Laurie Levin: Unpaid services are unfair to women.
Laurie Levin: unpaid jobs as chef has started out our conversation. That. Women are, you know, taken for granted, and we we are certainly, as it relates to this. Men, you know, are trained. It's not not the fault of anybody. However, it's everybody's responsibility. And I say to men, don't just walk by her doing all this work.
Laurie Levin: get involved and don't listen to. Oh, I've got it! You don't know how to do it. Oh, it's be easier for me to do it. Don't stop there. Go ahead and sit down and have meetings, saying, okay, what needs to be done this week, right? And and and split those things up because it so holds women back in the workforce. We're working so many more hours
Laurie Levin: during the week, and it's very difficult to maintain. I was a vice president, a pretty big company, and I could never have maintained that job. It was very lots of hours. I worked 60 to 80 HA week, but I never missed an event of my daughters, because I was able
Laurie Levin: to make it flexible because of the position I held. But also I want to give my daughter's father a lot of credit to for not being the kind of guy you know. Race. He was right, not raised necessarily to be that way. And yet he understood that he needed to be that way in Sweden. They're making extraordinary progress. Just, I'll point out 1 50 years of pre paid parental leave for both parents. They work very, very hard in Sweden to make sure that men and women
Laurie Levin: are in the workforce, and in order to do that they know that they have to have men and women at home. Caregiving
Laurie Levin: men are different. Once they give care to children.
Laurie Levin: I talk about that in a little bit, and that's really exciting to see that connection so often spoken in these events.
Laurie Levin: Spain. Where I live there's still a big gap, but they still certainly are making, you know, far, far advanced in so many ways than the United States, so very moving to see how countries also are learning from each other.
Laurie Levin: I I loved hearing like we had Prime Ministers in the room, and
Lynne Jensen: Right.
Laurie Levin: And all kinds of people, heads of organizations. And they were going. Wow! They were asking questions. Now, how did you do that? And how did you do that and taking notes? So it's really exciting and inspiring to know that from this.
Laurie Levin: from these annual events at the United Nations, that there is so much work going on after the event
Laurie Levin: back to Afghanistan.
Laurie Levin: This. This is an interesting story. No poverty, eradication, eradication without the empowerment of women and girls. This is part of the panel. There were certainly many other speakers, but when I saw this woman I was blown blown away. Her name is a Moba Suraj. I had seen her on the News World news for 2 years, and I'm just passionate about the girls and women in Afghanistan because I know where any woman is not free. None of us are.
Laurie Levin: and the world is held back is 50% of the potential in the world is held back. And for that we're all hurting today. So she remains in Afghanistan. She's part American and part Afghan, and I think that's the reason people are saying she has. She is still alive, that the fact that she is part American and she is so well known
Laurie Levin: nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Laurie Levin: and I'd been seeing her for a couple of years, and when I looked up and I it was very fortunate how I was given the one seat that was directly in front of her. It's a interesting series of events that led me to that chair, because when I first walked in, this room was packed and I had to stand up against the wall taking notes. Now I hadn't broken my shoulder, so I both hands writing, but I prefer to use my ipad but 20 min in. A young man from the middle of the room came up and said, Ma'am, I'd like you to take my seat.
Laurie Levin: and I said, No, no, no, that's okay. I got this, and he said it again, and I thought, you know he's 20 something years old, he said. I want to sit on the floor. I want you to have my chair.
Laurie Levin: That was for the prior event.
Laurie Levin: And then, when they were moving into this event.
Laurie Levin: the room was filling up, and they said my chair neat, was needed for the next group of speakers, so I kindly said, of course I'll move, and I thought, Oh, then I need to stand up. But a woman said, No, you can sit in my seat right here, sitting directly in front of this. I mean, within a couple of feet.
Laurie Levin: and as I looked up and I saw her, I went. Oh, my gosh! This is the woman! The reason I wanted to do everything that had anything to do with Afghanistan at the at the Commission here this year, so I've learned so much. I'm I'm getting pretty involved here, and hope to be working more. I was able to talk to her personally after the event, the asks of the Afghan women, this is what I was listening for, and what I keep asking for, because they themselves will be the change in Afghanistan. We we can't figure this out. They have to.
Laurie Levin: We need to support them. But we need to listen.
Laurie Levin: They want
Laurie Levin: us to facilitate opportunities for them to meet directly with the
Laurie Levin: link, A to better positions for girls and women.
Laurie Levin: We should not recognize the Taliban until this ends, they say, invest in skills, enhancement for girls and women.
Laurie Levin: Women's rights are not traded off in negotiations which so often happens, and what I why, I believe that Joe Biden, who said he would publish the era on day one of his Presidency has not done it. We were traded off.
Laurie Levin: Make sure that 30% of all funding is targeted to women's rights
Laurie Levin: expansion of scholarships for Afghan women. Afghan women can only go to work in education and in medical care as as
Laurie Levin: midwives, because the Taliban only allows women working with women in the medical areas to take care of them. So they are allowed scholarships and can get medical scholarships within Afghanistan. So they're
Laurie Levin: particularly Fenland Fenland that they say, is their best support, although the United States is their largest financial support in the world.
Laurie Levin: But scholarships are something they're really working to to get more of. There's more women that want those, and they need long term loans with proper mentorship and coaching.
Laurie Levin: And for the youngest panelist. And she is sitting next to Mabu Basaraj, she said, that the domestic violence in the home now is just. You can't even imagine it's skyrocketed. It's forced marriages of girls. 1011 12 years of all of age.
Laurie Levin: It's not. They're not secure to go outside. Some are taken forcefully. If they've ever been reported to not have warned the hijab they need support for their mental wellbeing. There's more suicide now amongst the girls in Afghanistan than I think they've ever had.
Laurie Levin: Poverty will not be eradicated without girls and women, so the country will remain in that category of worst economy in the world until this changes.
Laurie Levin: and then again, expansion for scholarships from the international community. You can see the picture. I thought it was interesting. This was before the Taliban. If you look up in the left the the triangle.
Laurie Levin: Women were everywhere.
Laurie Levin: We were in all professions, you know. It was really wonderful to see that over the past 20 years in Afghanistan.
Laurie Levin: and then, after August 2021 you there was still a few women in place. This is the future that the girls and women fear today. It's it's pretty much getting to that state.
Laurie Levin: And then, boys, don't cry. We know that this is
Laurie Levin: the male identity and the female identity. This is what my book is about.
Laurie Levin: and closing the gender gap.
Laurie Levin: You know, I talk about a human identity. Let's forget these gender identities. Let's talk about a human identity based on care, love, right, kindness and compassion, one identity for all of our children.
Laurie Levin: and as a result that boys are not, you know, allowed, taught to express their feelings, to cry
Laurie Levin: one of the men spoke about. He had seen us a stone, a woman stoned
Laurie Levin: in his early years, and the girls cried, but none of the boys did
Laurie Levin: so. This is the source
Laurie Levin: of really all of the challenges we have on the planet is the fact that men
Laurie Levin: are held back from being human beings, and are taught to compete, to win at all costs. And and our world really encompasses that.
Laurie Levin: The men grow up feeling, if they, you know so many of them that do this. Of course they've seen it in their childhoods. One of their parents was violent, and oftentimes it was the father. They grew up, not feeling, you know, good enough. They often feel alone. They have poor physical and mental health. You can see substance, abuse
Laurie Levin: it goes on and on depression. Suicide amongst men is highest in the United States, much higher in men than women, at least in violent suicide as well. So men need to put words to trauma. We heard from the experts of the room. There was just so many wonderful speakers. Many, most of the speakers were men in this particular room, I believe, at least 50 50.
Laurie Levin: This! And I talked about the speaker who spoke about witnessing an honor killing
Laurie Levin: they suggest. One of the country says we must talk to men and make them aware about how unhealthy this was. Spain, how unhealthy it is to be macho.
Laurie Levin: redistribute the care work, calling upon men to do their job.
Laurie Levin: One of the men said, women have done theirs. These are quotes, actually, men who care for their children become better people and less violent.
Laurie Levin: Who? Yes, who care for children in Mexico. They call it a mindset revolution. They're doing lots of work in Mexico around this
Laurie Levin: a country that desperately needs it. I lived there for a couple of years when I was 19 to 21.
Laurie Levin: That was my first case of sexual assault, but it was by an American man.
Laurie Levin: Women have been brave for decades, one speaker said, women have led for decades on this. It is time this was a man. It is time for men to take responsibility and do the work to end male violence.
Laurie Levin: And then the extraordinary fiera foundation.
Laurie Levin: not just because you are in the room, but I want to say these are 2 of the most beautifully assembled events. I was in awe of the orchestration of these events.
Laurie Levin: How they how they felt being in that room.
Laurie Levin: I don't know. If everybody in the room was, at those events, I I'm assuming that some were
Laurie Levin: not every no, not everybody, maybe not most. Oh, my gosh! If you get a chance to see those recordings
Laurie Levin: beautifully orchestrated, so wonderful job to those in the room. I I believe Belinda and Chevro were very responsible. I would have a feeling right for these events. It was just beautifully done. I was captured. They were, you know, these were. This was a long week going to all these events, back and forth for me. I'm so glad there's one, I thought, oh, I'm so tired I don't know if I can go to this. I'm so glad I went. One was Monday. One was Tuesday.
Laurie Levin: Just a few of the things that I remembered so well was cheva talking and picturing the athletes. I was very athletic. My family. All of us were and I the the attire, and I've always said, look at the volleyball women and the Olympics. What they're wearing. Look with the the at the swimmers and the Olympics are wearing versus the guys. Well, not the guys. They're wearing pretty little little skimpy kind of suits as well. Actresses, singers. It's the standard, as Chevro pointed out, it's the culture, right?
Laurie Levin: So often represented as female economic empowerment when it is actually female exploitation.
Laurie Levin: These are lines from the events
Laurie Levin: when we play, quotes, when we place our lives in the hands of another person, there is chaos and confusion.
Laurie Levin: The heart empowers us to make other choices as we evolve, so will our culture. And there was a beautiful play, and I'm sorry I don't have her name in front of me. The play.
Sheva Carr: That's.
Laurie Levin: Pardon me.
Sheva Carr: Yeah.
Laurie Levin: Her name.
Sheva Carr: Bella, Bella, Merlin.
Laurie Levin: Oh!
Sheva Carr: Love. We're in the.
Laurie Levin: Amazing actress. 1 one person show right.
Laurie Levin: and what she captures is her evolution
Laurie Levin: from
Laurie Levin: letting somebody else define her right, letting culture and letting another person define her and her evolving and coming of age, in that it was just beautifully, beautifully done, so extraordinary assembly, again, of the play, of the pictures of the
Laurie Levin: the women, how we, how we dress in in these industries that we're professionals, and yet we barely have anything on most of the time and then accelerating gender equality through mentorship and entrepreneurship. There was so many of the delicates, such a part of this, and they each had something really wonderful to say, I love this, not about learning something new, but remembering something true
Laurie Levin: to me, I that just resonated with my heart. It's about coming back to our heart. You know humanity right. Wh. What is it? Has that child thrive? What is it that has a human being thrive? It's not to win at all costs. Right. It's win, win. It's not win, lose.
Laurie Levin: Our masculine energy is doing building. I'm sorry. Got doing twice doing building.
Laurie Levin: You get the idea there are feminine in energy is collaboration innovation of, we need both of those right that's in every one of us. And we need that balance and that imbalance that's within us, due to those gender identities is the imbalance we see in the world.
Laurie Levin: So balancing the 2 is our opportunity. It's such an extraordinary opportunity to transform self and all existence.
Laurie Levin: And I love this. You know you're out of balance when you're not connecting with your intuition. Your hearts enter guidance, the ultimate, the ultimate mentor is within each of us. So those were the events that I attended, and I'll just wrap up with a final page. I'd love to stay in touch with everybody in any way I can. So I just put oh.
Laurie Levin: one more. I'm sorry. This is a beautiful picture that's outside of Conference Room 4 at the the United Nations Building. Just beautiful as you walk in. I'm gonna ask somebody else to read the quote. If you don't mind.
Laurie Levin: I love this quote because it just captured the way I feel about moving forward versus working on an individual legislation today versus working on a campaign
Laurie Levin: as I've done for 40 or 50 years. I'm choosing this as my new
Laurie Levin: way forward. And would somebody like to read that quote? Please.
Melinda: I won't get it.
Lynne Jensen: I heard.
Melinda: Everybody wants to.
Laurie Levin: A couple people can. I wouldn't mind if.
Sheva Carr: Go ahead! Margaret, go ahead, Margaret!
Laurie Levin: The great quote.
Margaret Heath: Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world.
Margaret Heath: All things break.
Margaret Heath: and all things can be mended.
Margaret Heath: not with time, as they say, but with intention.
Margaret Heath: So go
Margaret Heath: love, intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally.
Margaret Heath: the broken world waits in darkness for the light that is, you.
Laurie Levin: Do you not feel this from this beautiful picture here, as I saw that I was running out for the next session?
Laurie Levin: You know I was always running there, going to the next session. I wanted to get a seat because oftentimes those rooms were so crowded, and I saw this, and I said, no, I've got to stop and get a picture of that. And and that quote, it's a fame, a favorite. Quote it.
Laurie Levin: it speaks to me. It's the light within is the way forward. So I just wanna share that for me as somebody who's a feminist and asked a social justice activist my whole life.
Laurie Levin: I do feel and sense that a new world is coming. There's no question about, and it's going to take a new way of being. Einstein, of course, was the one that said, you can't sell
Laurie Levin: the problems right with the same mindset that created them. And I realized for 40 years I had the same mindset that created the problem. I was essentially part of the problem.
Laurie Levin: And so my work today, my new website just launched it a couple right before the event. Actually.
Laurie Levin: I really raised to get that done because I wanted that
Laurie Levin: so that I could go off and not have to even think about that. I just wanted to so focus on the the Commission, on the status of women.
Laurie Levin: But it's it's really about spiritual and physical wellbeing. Once we're all there, it's through elevating consciousness with the power of the heart. So my work is heartmat, cabala, blue zones, whole food plant based nutrition. It's about fueling our body emotionally and nutritionally.
Laurie Levin: You know, from that which has us all thrive, and we know how to do that today. We've always known how to do that. It's just a matter of remembering. So thank you so very much. I really treasure each of you for being here today. And I know each and one of you is so committed
Laurie Levin: to a better world for all of us. So thank you for all all that you do, and Chev and Melinda thank you so much again for saying yes to me when I reached out to you. Thank you.
Sheva Carr: Lori, do you have any extra time for some questions? I would imagine. I know I have a few. Does anyone.
Laurie Levin: Absolutely did I? I think I
Laurie Levin: did. I leave the share.
Sheva Carr: Yes, you left share.
Sheva Carr: and maybe you can put your website and contact information in the chat as well.
Sheva Carr: Sure.
Laurie Levin: With my one hand. So give me a moment.
Laurie Levin: I want to get back to the screen.
Sheva Carr: She's doing that. Let's all take a moment to breathe some love
Sheva Carr: into Laurie's shoulders. Knowing
Sheva Carr: an appreciation for this amazing presentation.
Sheva Carr: and also appreciation for the many, many decades of seasoned activism.
Sheva Carr: Beautiful. Thank you, Larry.
Laurie Levin: Welcome, my pleasure.
Sheva Carr: Does anyone have questions for Lori?
Sheva Carr: While you're pondering I'll kick them off.
Sheva Carr: I'm curious, Lori, cause. Obviously I've
Sheva Carr: run delegations to the Csw. Now for over a decade.
Sheva Carr: and I'm curious from your perspective as
Sheva Carr: a an era marathoner rather than sprinter.
Sheva Carr: What is what is the current holdup in opposition to the area. Why was Biden negotiated out of it.
Sheva Carr: and by whom.
Laurie Levin: This is the sense that I have from this. So, Donald trump.
Laurie Levin: Once it was ratified by that 38 State State.
Laurie Levin: We went from Nevada to Illinois, to Virginia.
Laurie Levin: 2,017, 2,018, 2,020, ratifying, getting to the 38 State.
Laurie Levin: Once we did that. All that we needed was the National Archivist to publish it. Donald Trump's administration
Laurie Levin: told the National Archivist not to publish it.
Laurie Levin: So I'll just say this is
Laurie Levin: the feeling that I have about this over decades of working on this, that.
Laurie Levin: and looking back at what held it up in 1922, because it's been introduced into every legislature that's existed, every every
Laurie Levin: every session. It's been introduced, and why it fails is that the goal post keeps moving
Laurie Levin: because of the patriarchy.
Laurie Levin: So the patriarchy must keep women constitutionally unequal.
Laurie Levin: Right? It's the reason you have the extreme in Afghanistan. No education for girls and women, while we've ex, you know, certainly have that there are other things we don't have, and that's constitutional equity.
Laurie Levin: And it's the reason so many things go against us legislatively, is because they can't point to the Constitution and say that women are in it, whether it's abortion or whatever we can, we consistently lose.
Laurie Levin: So when Biden got into office. He made that statement, and women, of course, got him into office.
Laurie Levin: What happened was, I mean, you could just feel the tide turning with it, and I've been on zooms, you know, for so long as he got into office, wondering, Well, where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Is that politically the climate was such that if he had.
Laurie Levin: he would have literally created even more divide division coming out of the trump
Laurie Levin: 4 years.
Laurie Levin: because
Laurie Levin: there have been so many reasons why people have argued against the era
Laurie Levin: right now. It's the deadline that was put in place which is arbitrary, because it took the 27. The era is the 20 Eighth Amendment, and the Twenty-seventh Amendment took over 200 years.
Laurie Levin: So you know, equality. There are no time limits to equality. But it was the political climate, Chevy.
Laurie Levin: that had him back off feeling. Oh, my gosh! If I do this, I will lose on so many other fronts.
Laurie Levin: Again, women's rights are traded off every time, every country
Laurie Levin: it happens again and again and again. It it just keeps going.
Lynne Jensen: Bob, you can.
Laurie Levin: The patriarchy is is the way of the world. Right? In most countries that's pretty much what you get outside of Iceland. You know, countries.
Sheva Carr: Well, actually, Iceland does not pop. It's just Iceland's got some major issues.
Sheva Carr: But Sweden is really the forerunner at the moment for women's constitutional rights and
Sheva Carr: bystander involvement and protection.
Sheva Carr: Well, I so.
Laurie Levin: Been number one place in the world. Typically for women there are 10. There's about 1020. I have it in my book.
Sheva Carr: But let's just say it. It's not for the record.
Sheva Carr: and that is part of the issue is the image of
Sheva Carr: equality doesn't help real equality happen.
Sheva Carr: So I happen to have done extensive work in Iceland. And it's devastating the situation for one, there.
Laurie Levin: And every countries continues to have its issues here. There. There isn't a country where Gender Bay, you know, where violence doesn't occur, and there, there's no, there's no country where full equality exists for women and equal pay. There's no country. But when you look at the best, and I rank the countries in the book.
Laurie Levin: You know, there's those that just come out on the top, 20 on every single measure, and it's gender equality. When you look at that ranking. You see how it per. It's just so consistent with, you know best, Prosper, you know the pro most prosperous, the best on environment the most peaceful countries.
Laurie Levin: So it's just the parallel, and it's a moving target, because this study might say this and that study may say that. But you'll see the consistency of several countries. That rank in that top 20 United States is not one of them. Matter of fact, the United States, in 2,018 was ranked the most dangerous, tenth, most dangerous country in the world to be female.
Sheva Carr: Yeah.
Laurie Levin: You for that question. Yeah.
Laurie Levin: I love to talk. I get fatigued by it. But.
Sheva Carr: I I would imagine, of those top 20 countries you ranks. The Nordic countries are always there. Is that true? Yeah.
Laurie Levin: Always Ireland. We.
Sheva Carr: Yes, Median.
Sheva Carr: Sweden, Norway, Iceland, these are the countries that have Denmark have always been.
Sheva Carr: and
Sheva Carr: Finland at the forefront of gender equality. Now I've lived in both Iceland and Finland.
Sheva Carr: Oh, my mom's
Sheva Carr: well.
Sheva Carr: and it's bad news gang, because what is the top? Isn't necessarily the possible.
Laurie Levin: Oh, no, no, no, not by any means. But when you look at where the United States rings we have much to learn. That's what was so exciting in each of these rooms. Each of these settings.
Sheva Carr: Pleasure.
Laurie Levin: Theres were taking notes.
Laurie Levin: you know, about what this country's doing, what that country's doing. But I want to tell you United States was not the leader on anything
Laurie Levin: not leading on any of them.
Sheva Carr: Well, no!
Laurie Levin: Cross! Brilliant.
Sheva Carr: With it
Sheva Carr: the cross pollination of that wisdom. Some of you may remember the Brock Turner rape case. Does anyone remember that at Stanford.
Sheva Carr: So all of the Americans, men and women.
Sheva Carr: turned a blind eye to a rape happening on the street.
Sheva Carr: It was 2 Swedish graduate students
Sheva Carr: who are trained in bystander involvement.
Laurie Levin: Yes, yes.
Sheva Carr: Who stopped that from happening and called the police and held him back until the police got there.
Sheva Carr: So
Sheva Carr: that was a learning for the country of the United States. Yeah.
Sheva Carr: hear from? Well, thank you.
Laurie Levin: My father wrote to the judge and said, Judge, please give my son mercy. Don't make him pay, for, you know, 10 min
Laurie Levin: a bad act.
Laurie Levin: A bad act, you know.
Laurie Levin: Don't pay campaign. Well.
Laurie Levin: she, the victim, had written the woman who was assaulted and raped
Laurie Levin: she was. She had written a letter she had talked about. You know her mental state of being
Laurie Levin: the state that she was in today. It's terrible what she's gone through.
Laurie Levin: And he said, Please don't you know? Don't hold my son, you know. Don't please send him to jail for 10 min of being a bad actor.
Laurie Levin: So again I see the question, what is the fear behind equal rights? Assuming it's fear behind it.
Laurie Levin: Anybody else want to speak? I'm gonna open because that I could certainly answer that, but I'd love. I know there's other people props possibly like to speak.
Lynne Jensen: I did some research on that, because after Chuck Schumer put it before the floor last year.
Lynne Jensen: put the vote to have it published, and it was defeated. I wanted to know why, so I did a little bit of research on it.
Lynne Jensen: And
Lynne Jensen: What came up
Lynne Jensen: in my reading was the fear that once women become empowered and have the era.
Lynne Jensen: that abortion will become very quickly legal again.
Lynne Jensen: So is that the current excuse? I don't know.
Laurie Levin: Exactly. The goal post keeps moving the early 19 hundreds. It was. Women didn't have the the physical frame to work 8 HA day. Can you imagine we give birth? We didn't have the physical frame. That was the argument. In the 19 early 19 hundreds, when Alice Paul.
Lynne Jensen: Who.
Laurie Levin: Brought this forward then the 60 seventies it was. Oh, it would have been the draft right? Oh, we can't have women go off in the military. Look at all the women in the military today. More recently it was coed bathrooms.
Laurie Levin: Well, all of these keep coming into place. Now it's our way of life. So now it's the deadline back to the deadline, which is arbitrary. It's not even part of the amendment, so there's no winning case there.
Laurie Levin: but the protection of the patriarchy, even by women.
Laurie Levin: Right? It's still in place, and women keep it in place as well. It is that fear of, and particularly in the United States of white male order being dismantled, and those that are entitled it's blinding. Their entitlement isn't, is blinding for so many. They don't even know it's there for white people, right? The privilege. We don't even recognize all the things that we like. We're talking about initially taking for granted right, we take it for granted, but for others
Laurie Levin: they don't have access to that. That's something they have to struggle for, fight, for, defend each and every day.
Laurie Levin: Well, it's the same thing here with the patriarchy and men, you know. It's very difficult when you don't have economic power, and you're not paid the same, and and so forth, can really keep a lot in place. The physical violence that we endure.
Laurie Levin: So there's so many factors there.
Laurie Levin: But if you look at well educated women. Afghanistan won't allow it, because they know that's the end of the Taliban.
Laurie Levin: So again, well educated, fully, you know, equal rights. That's when men are going to have to share, and so many men don't want that to happen. Certainly.
Laurie Levin: right? It's women at home taking care of the children and them makes it a lot better. I'll tell you. They have somebody at home taking care right
Laurie Levin: of your children growing up when you got a big job
Laurie Levin: allows you to keep the job.
Laurie Levin: But for most women, certainly during Covid, who gave up their jobs, it was. It was the women that gave up their jobs oftentimes because they're paid less. So it was the job they felt to give up. But it's the vicious cycle.
Laurie Levin: So again, fear I think you're absolutely right. But it's that the protection of male white order in the United States that people are fighting today, this election coming up for us all
Laurie Levin: is so very important.
Laurie Levin: so very important.
Laurie Levin: I see another. Oh, that's a hand up. I, Sand Sandra or Sandra.
Sandra Solano: Hi, Laurie, thank you so much, for this is I very informative, and it has
Sandra Solano: Give me a more global perspective of experiences. I have had the last the last week.
Sandra Solano: And
Sandra Solano: one of those, I think, that gives a little bit of insight into the mind.
Sandra Solano: There's a resistance to this. And and I'm seeing it more from our blends of emotional
Sandra Solano: reaction.
Sandra Solano: And the fear based response of the change of the status quo the a new biotech company opened a very large production facility very close to my house. The CEO is Puerto Rican and Puerto Rican women, very eloquent with an accent.
Sandra Solano: And they put this beautiful video showing the diversity of their workforce, and how that different viewpoints creates innovation and breakthroughs, and
Sandra Solano: they are in the edge of
Sandra Solano: something that can be a cancer curing drug and genetic modifications, and and that can solve some genetic diseases. And I mean, they're really at the at the
Sandra Solano: Cardinesh.
Sandra Solano: and I was so excited to see the video.
Sandra Solano: And she is this person speaking in the video.
Sandra Solano: And then when I went to the comments.
Sandra Solano: The aggression in the Commons was very striking. Very much
Sandra Solano: one of the benefits is that things that people were feeling are being say aloud.
Sandra Solano: so the amount of men commenting, this is code, for white men need no apply.
Sandra Solano: Why do they? Why does don't they have somebody who speaks English? She needs to go back to the kitchen, and all that is started like by common 25 into actually dead threats.
Sandra Solano: So for me it was an exercise of even becoming aware of my own fear.
Sandra Solano: because it was resonating with the fear behind all those comments.
Sandra Solano: So
Sandra Solano: I'm I don't know what the solution is yet. But for now I'm just pressing to the fear that that type of reaction has caused. My daughter just had a very dangerous scary incident in Chicago, and
Sandra Solano: and just being with the fear that
Sandra Solano: it is no safe for us to be a woman right now.
Sandra Solano: especially where I am in Ohio. Being a Hispanic professional women is not
Sandra Solano: a safe thing to be, and and a safest space to occupy
Sandra Solano: at the same time, to know that is fear from those that have benefit from the status quo of losing those benefits.
Sandra Solano: and that might be our job is to respond with something other than fear. And and that's where I am right now. So this was such a really very touchy and very valid
Sandra Solano: validation of a lot of the things I have been feeling, and it, and and really educational of what can be done. So I appreciate it.
Laurie Levin: Beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that story. My my brother is one of the leading biotech people, probably
Laurie Levin: in the world and out of boston in San Francisco, and he named when he he left a CEO of one of the many companies he started. He named a woman purposely, and as he was about to get on Cnn. And announcing her, he called me. I'll never forget the call, he said. Laurie just named our new CEO. It's I'm gonna be on the news. And he said, I think you'll be proud. So I was so thrilled, and that was gosh, that was many years ago.
Laurie Levin: So
Laurie Levin: I just heard that Joe Biden, just named
Laurie Levin: more Federal judges, female Federal judges than any President has ever had. So keep the faith, is all I can say. One of the reasons. I am adamant about my heart math work 3 days a day I do a heart lock, and if I didn't, I would be
Laurie Levin: dangerous to myself and others, because I this was like this
Laurie Levin: angry woman, you know, in the United States, as a social justice activist for so long until I realize this is getting the better of me.
Laurie Levin: It's it's not allowing my mismanagement of my emotions. It's not supporting me as a mom as a wife, as a individual.
Laurie Levin: as a activist. I was undermining my work
Laurie Levin: because I was so highly reactionary, you know.
Laurie Levin: So I just say, keep the faith. And Kabbalah. For me, too, the combination is so powerful with heart math.
Laurie Levin: It just keeps me in that space of
Laurie Levin: I'm excited now. Yeah, I I'm not going to see the era past pot. Possibly in my lifetime.
Laurie Levin: I think I'll see a woman president, though
Laurie Levin: I do believe I will.
Laurie Levin: I'm so hopeful about that, and excited, and if I don't, I don't. The work. I was an athlete. When I think about how us athletes, female athletes were treated in my day. And now my niece
Laurie Levin: plays division one soccer in the United States for Michigan State, and she's going pro in Europe this year, so I would never have had that opportunity right. She had a full scholarship to play soccer in the United States, and now she's gonna she plays for the Morocco National team just came back from the Ghana games.
Laurie Levin: So what a difference! And it just brings me.
Laurie Levin: I mean to tears.
Laurie Levin: you know. And so when I think back on that plane ride over the ocean to Spain, and I was crying for feeling like a failure with the era
Laurie Levin: I know in my heart. We're not, you know. We plant the seed. We may not see the tree right the full-blown tree.
Laurie Levin: but we need to plant the seed.
Laurie Levin: and while we may not finish the word.
Laurie Levin: We need to keep doing it.
Laurie Levin: I know that that's the way forward
Laurie Levin: can't.
Laurie Levin: and I'll I'll leave it at there. But thank you so much.
Sheva Carr: Thank you, Laurie. I I would love to offer a slight
Sheva Carr: tilt of the camera lens
Sheva Carr: on something you shared if I might, Sandra.
Sheva Carr: There's a misconception that there are those who benefit from the status quo.
Sheva Carr: but I don't think we serve the transformation with
Sheva Carr: planting by feed
Sheva Carr: with our lunch.
Sheva Carr: When you look at the slides that Lori shared about
Sheva Carr: the violence, domestic violence, and men not crying when women are murdered in front of them.
Sheva Carr: or boys not crying.
Sheva Carr: What we have to understand, I believe eventually
Sheva Carr: is that there's a principal Lazarus shares that connection and notes up
Sheva Carr: of knowledge happen on a continuum.
Sheva Carr: we will either come to know ourselves and each other through caring connection or violence.
Sheva Carr: There's a huge intimacy that emerges between torturers and the tortured
Sheva Carr: intimacy on the level of sexual intimacy.
Sheva Carr: deep intimacy, because they come to know each other's limits.
Sheva Carr: Violence is a last resort. Way people come to know themselves.
Sheva Carr: And so as the status quo disallows the vulnerability of men, for example, disallows the caring connection, and time and space
Sheva Carr: from and to feel their connection to their children to their spouses, to their parents.
Sheva Carr: That's not a benefit.
Sheva Carr: That is why they're suiciding at even higher rates than women. We can't
Sheva Carr: feed the discourse that it's a benefit.
Sheva Carr: They are not benefited by this anymore than anyone else is.
Sheva Carr: It's a whole system, dysfunction.
Sheva Carr: and the whole system benefits from the transformation of equality.
Sheva Carr: and more and more men are in theme with our heart. Start, call
Sheva Carr: no longer willing to pay the taxes
Sheva Carr: on what chauvinism does to them.
Sheva Carr: White supremacy is not a benefit to anyone.
Sheva Carr: Everyone pays
Sheva Carr: for the dysfunction of the homes.
Sheva Carr: and Laurie's data
Sheva Carr: gives us a way to speak to that
Sheva Carr: based in evidence
Sheva Carr: that the countries that are thriving economically, socially, environmentally, are the countries where equality is at its peak.
Sheva Carr: There's no such thing as status quo benefit.
Sheva Carr: You could try that on.
Sheva Carr: But
Sheva Carr: it's an illusion.
Sheva Carr: Those that think it's a benefit
Sheva Carr: just don't know how good it can get.
Sheva Carr: They're clinging to a suboptimal because it's familiar.
Sheva Carr: and if we are deliberate about
Sheva Carr: how we language things.
Sheva Carr: we will will be better ambassadors of the future.
Sheva Carr: Anything else you want to add to that Sandra cause that came inspired out of your sharing.
Sandra Solano: Yeah, no, I I really resonate with the the familiar and the perception in their minds that because it's familiar is is safer.
Sandra Solano: But yeah.
Sheva Carr: Don't project it into their mind, because you're the one that said it's perception in your mind, and if you change it in your mind, you're hop part of this hologram.
Sheva Carr: These are the subtle ways in which we are the drivers of the status quo.
Sandra Solano: Lost some packed there, and probably for my private coaching call.
Sheva Carr: I'll be sending me love. But this is where the power is. Kiddos.
Sheva Carr: This is where our power as hard ambassadors is.
Sheva Carr: and Laurie's on to this. This is why she's moving and groovin in the sense that
Sheva Carr: she could see using heart method and Kabala where she's the driver of the status quo
Sheva Carr: in our own consciousness
Sheva Carr: and our capacity to start changing it here.
Sheva Carr: There is no S in them.
Sheva Carr: There's only one of us here.
Sheva Carr: It's a rich, rich, deep, deep, deep
Sheva Carr: discourse, and I wanna thank everyone
Sheva Carr: for your contributions to it.
Sheva Carr: I have a couple of other things for you, Lori. One just regarding
Sheva Carr: the skimpy clothing issue.
Sheva Carr: Has anyone seen the uproar in the media about Nike's designs? For
Sheva Carr: as Olympic kit for the summer Olympics.
Sheva Carr: all hell has broken loose.
Sheva Carr: because it's like, you know, the the hip line is up to the nipples, to the women's
Sheva Carr: athletic kit, and
Sheva Carr: people are having none of it.
Sheva Carr: So there is. Thank you so much, Sandra, and thank you for your incredibly rich contribution.
Sheva Carr: Lori, I have worked with women in Afghanistan at various points over the last 24 years.
Sheva Carr: and also with us veterans of the war in Afghanistan.
Sheva Carr: for whom the current situation is very devastating.
Sheva Carr: many of whom lost limb and friends lives to try to make change.
Sheva Carr: And I appreciated what you said that we need to listen
Sheva Carr: to them.
Sheva Carr: Because clearly coming in as colonialist saviors didn't work.
Sheva Carr: and many veterans of our of the Us. And Canada
Sheva Carr: in the UK.
Sheva Carr: Are paying a devastating price for the grief
Sheva Carr: at seeing how that approach didn't work.
Sheva Carr: and I just wanted to invite you as as you're now making these connections and
Sheva Carr: doing more work there to stay in touch with us if there's anything we can do to help.
Sheva Carr: I taught women in Afghanistan, Hartman
Sheva Carr: through a
Sheva Carr: contraband, letters
Sheva Carr: that were passed in 3 Afghan languages from refugee camps in Pakistan
Sheva Carr: under Burke, as into the country back in 2,001
Sheva Carr: from about 2,001 to 2,004, and for those who have my book being the source of love. There's a whole chapter
Sheva Carr: about that work we did in Afghanistan called the Compassion Quilt
Sheva Carr: and so this is a deep passion of mine.
Sheva Carr: and therefore I just want to extend to you, Lori.
Sheva Carr: as you unfold. Whatever your calling is there. If there's any way we can be set of support. Let us know.
Laurie Levin: Thank you. As I turned around from Saraje after her speech, I filmed the whole thing
Laurie Levin: 6 min. It's the most one of the most passionate speeches, she got a standing ovation. I was the only one filming, and I guess the journalists from the prior presentation the prior day were behind me. I turned around. I go. Oh.
Laurie Levin: there they are. So I went and talked to them, and they wanted my video.
Laurie Levin: And one of them is Lima. I'm worried, and we talked immediately thereafter. She has 3 point proposals she's presenting to me a shared.
Laurie Levin: We're meeting again this week to further that discussion. So far I've got several people who are interested in working on this effort. It's an it's an online application.
Laurie Levin: But when she mentioned we need to give them hope I shared with her my work with heart math, and Kabbalah, and I said.
Laurie Levin: You know I'll be there for you in any way I can, and I think I know some other people who might wanna who might be helpful for us. And then, since that I met with a woman of West Point graduate who was stationed in Afghanistan, who trained Afghan women
Laurie Levin: them as medics and as other things that they were doing. And so that was an extraordinary conversation I've had, too. So it is. Yeah, it's an important part of the world for us not to not to forget about. Please.
Laurie Levin: Yeah.
Sheva Carr: So 2 things about that one, I'll I'm happy to send you the compassion quote
Sheva Carr: as an audio chapter, and as a written chapter, if you share it with them.
Laurie Levin: Please, please.
Sheva Carr: And
Sheva Carr: and
Sheva Carr: a current member of my Board of Advisors previous Founding board member.
Sheva Carr: very, very wealthy individual who started the largest
Sheva Carr: medical testing company in the world.
Sheva Carr: for a while with his daughter, had an organization in Afghanistan
Sheva Carr: that was giving women their online work
Sheva Carr: prior to the 2021
Sheva Carr: pull out of the Us.
Sheva Carr: And they, single handedly, I believe, rescued 50 Afghan women
Sheva Carr: during the who were part of their program.
Sheva Carr: So if her 3 Point plan, and
Sheva Carr: includes this kind of telepror.
Laurie Levin: Yes.
Sheva Carr: Then I would suggest, maybe inviting her to come and present
Sheva Carr: at one of our ambassador members calls.
Sheva Carr: and I will invite my colleague to that, or
Sheva Carr: we'll record it and send it to him, and see if he has
Sheva Carr: ideas about how to help.
Laurie Levin: Thank you so much. That's extraordinary.
Sheva Carr: Yeah.
Sheva Carr: Finally, we always offer our guest speakers, Lori.
Sheva Carr: A
Sheva Carr: a complimentary heart, ambassador course. So
Sheva Carr: we have the heart mastery courses. I don't know if you're aware of those
Sheva Carr: with 45 different harvest skills in them.
Sheva Carr: And then we have about how many is it now, Melinda? 40 50 electives courses.
Sheva Carr: and there's a lot of
Sheva Carr: a lot
Sheva Carr: on topics, many of which I think would interest you. So if you wanna take.
Sheva Carr: maybe Melinda can send you the list of electives that are currently available, and you could look@heartmastery.com.
Sheva Carr: And so we'd love to gift you with one of our courses, which could be a great way to.
Sheva Carr: and
Sheva Carr: spend some passive time in the receiving mode, while your shoulder is healing.
Laurie Levin: Thank you. Appreciate that very much. That's wonderful. Thank you.
Sheva Carr: Anything else that anyone else needs or wants to share or ask to complete our time together.
Sheva Carr: Yes, Ninka.
Nienke van Bezooijen ❤: Hi! Oh, hi! Lori! This is the Netherlands! Hi! Spain! You're represented. Thank you for the broad perspective you brought in this one thing what I noticed here in the Netherlands. We have
Nienke van Bezooijen ❤: groups where students can be a member of when they're when they're going into college.
Nienke van Bezooijen ❤: And recently there has been a big
Nienke van Bezooijen ❤: issue, because a group of male students sent out a Bengalist
Nienke van Bezooijen ❤: with addresses, phone numbers, physical descriptions of women, how they best would be sexually in relations.
Nienke van Bezooijen ❤: A whole range was here in the Netherlands. A. And what I want to bring. What created awareness
Nienke van Bezooijen ❤: is that this has been in these group for many generations. And now there is a shift
Nienke van Bezooijen ❤: in how women and men and their parents have now another awareness how this is going going to influence them for the rest of a life, because the social media is not now more active as well. Many of the
Nienke van Bezooijen ❤: the adult students from now said, well, this was going on in our time as well, and now there seems to be shift in this generational pattern. I just wanted to bring that on, because I think this which you shared about is another awareness going on. There's a new wave coming up.
Nienke van Bezooijen ❤: I felt deeply that this is, we're not done.
Nienke van Bezooijen ❤: But at least there is another perspective onto the service coming up.
Nienke van Bezooijen ❤: and some
Nienke van Bezooijen ❤: I just wanted to bring that on for the generational aspect as well.
Laurie Levin: Yes, Netherlands. So one of one of those other countries that we can look at not, you know. It's not a gold standard, nothing. It's no country. Has everything right down figured out.
Laurie Levin: certainly. But it's one of those countries that does. We could learn from.
Nienke van Bezooijen ❤: Yeah. And and the political climate is is
Nienke van Bezooijen ❤: widely in Europe spreading to the far right wing. So we have to see
Nienke van Bezooijen ❤: our our work is is needed, and to be continued.
Nienke van Bezooijen ❤: Thank you for your wonderful presentation, Laurie.
Laurie Levin: Thank you so much. My pleasure.
Sheva Carr: Lori. Is your book available as an audio book by chance.
Laurie Levin: As of yet I'd love to record it. It's my goal is to record it.
Sheva Carr: Is, a.
Laurie Levin: Yeah.
Sheva Carr: You do. It's my primary mode of reading these days.
Laurie Levin: I need to get it done. I really want to do it. Thank you so much for saying that.
Sheva Carr: Well, this is a good time to do it.
Sheva Carr: because you don't need your shoulder to give your voice.
Laurie Levin: Got it. You know. I've got a course that I'm introducing now, too. I feel like I'm there's and the Afghanistan things guys like, oh, so yeah, but no, I do want to get that. I'm writing a 3 book series as well right now is called Rise the first one's called rise off the second one's listen up, and the third one is woman up.
Laurie Levin: you know. So I'm excited about this conversation of elevating consciousness, because again, I want to approach these things from, I think the place, the space
Laurie Levin: that will actually create solutions
Laurie Levin: versus this. We're waiting for legislators waiting for leaders politically. No, in fact, we know it comes from as Margaret Mead, said one individual, or a group, maybe of 7 or 8 people that are joined, not at the hip, but at the heart.
Laurie Levin: and who are able to accomplish
Laurie Levin: what we cannot do alone. But it doesn't take that many of us to get together. So one of the goals I have is to create those small circles of people that learn these techniques
Laurie Levin: that can, you know, stay vocal in their communities about these topics aware, make them aware of these things, and then in their heart
Laurie Levin: move out into the community. That's where we see sustainable change.
Sheva Carr: Well, look at that. Y'all, it takes 7 heart. Investors has got 10 times what it takes.
Sheva Carr: Let's do it.
Sheva Carr: Thank you so much, Laurie, what a privilege to have you represent us!
Sheva Carr: And have you come and educate us?
Sheva Carr: Much gratitude to all, much left.