So last year, we had the first annual 50/50 Day. It happened in May, and we had everyone show our film 50/50. We made cool posters about all the intersecting issues involved, and discussion kits. We had amazing speakers, everyone from Ava DuVernay to the women presidents of Iceland and Malawi. It was an amazing, amazing array of speakers, and there was 11,000 events. This year, it's April 26. I encourage all your listeners to sign up. It's free.
They get to show the film, 50/50. We have a new film coming out this year called What If? and it asks what would the world look like if both elected officials, and companies, and media truly reflected the population? I'm always trying to say, "What could it look like? Where could we go?" And there'll be amazing speakers, and we already have, I think it's 23,000 groups signed up.
People can have it at their company, at their school, in their conference room at lunch, at their home. But we think there's real value to people around the world, on the same day, talking about the same subject. You can have it any time of day, but you'll be able to tap into this live stream of amazing speakers, and it's a very exciting day to talk about an issue that, as we know right now, a lot of stuff is coming up around gender equality with the Me Too Movement, and it's a complicated issue, and we want to create a space for men and women.
We don't call it "Women's 50/50 Day." To us, it's an everyone issue. And we create a really exciting framework to have a really meaningful and important conversation. Our films have a lot of humor, and we try to make the issue as accessible and entertaining as possible because there are many parts to it. One of the most exciting things that happened this week is that the superintendent of all California Public Schools just sent an email to every principal who runs a school in California to do a 50/50 Day event, K-12, which is so huge for us because we know all of this should start so young, this kind of reframing and education. So we're really excited about that.
TS: I think that gender parity is an issue that's important to so many people. When you say, "Yes, we're a lot better off when it comes to women's empowerment in the world today than we were 100 years ago," people will say, "Yes. That's true, and we have a long way to go."
TSh: Absolutely. Yes.
TS: When you imagine that long way to go, and how individuals can make a difference in that, what is it that you see in your vision of what if?
TSh: Yes. A couple things, yes. I'm impatient, as I've told you. So yes, we've come a long way, but I'm very impatient for us to get here already. I look to countries like Iceland who made it a law that women are paid equally. I want that. I want that here. That means we need more women running, winning elections, and there's a lot of levels to what you just asked.
But what I guess what I will say is that, for 50/50 Day this year, a big part of it are, we have these action pledges we're asking everyone to make. We're making a really cool tool on the Web that you can ... we let you choose where you're coming in as, as an individual, I run a company, I'm a manager, I'm a stay-at-home mom, wherever you're coming in at. We're going to give you five specific things you can do. Because everyone can make a difference in this issue, from big to small.
If you run a company, you can say, "Yes, I'm going to have 50 percent women on my board." But there's so many smaller things that everyone can do, and we're going to list them out. We're going to have people make pledges, put them on social, and then we're going to follow up with people. So every three months, we're going to provide resources to help people achieve their pledge, and if they get stuck, resources to help them get through that.
Of course, will give us a lot of research on this, too. So yes, I agree with you. We've come ... I think I like to feel like we've come a long way, to feel that momentum at my back to give us the power and strength to take it all the way. I want gender parity, I want women to be paid the same. I want them to be valued the same way. I want equal representation in movies, making movies, on television. I want equal representation in the history books. I want it all.
If you see my film 50/50, you'll know how strongly I feel about it and the way that it go through a 10,000-year history of this, and I got through each wave of feminism. The wave we're in right now, which is a lot about intersectionality, which is a subject I'm super interested in, which is interdependence and connectedness. All these issues are connected. How can we be aware of them and help move it all forward so we get to where we want to be? Which is a society where everyone is valued for what they contribute, and everyone has equal opportunities.
TS: What do you mean by intersectionality?
TSh: Well, it's a word being used a lot. It was introduced a while ago, but you'll hear it a lot if you're in the women's space. But it's about intersecting issues, the intersection of race, and gender, and all the issues that you really need to ... if you look at our poster, if you go to 50-50day.org, which is where you sign up, you'll see our poster with ... you know I told you about the 24 character strengths?
TS: Yes.
TSh: Well, we have about 24 circles that have to do with what it's going to take to get to gender equality that's better for everyone. A lot of people talk about pay equality, well that's one circle. The Me Too is talking about safety and violence. That's one circle. But if you go on there, we have five columns: economy, politics, identity, culture, and home. Within that there are all these intersecting issues from pay equality, to laws and justice, to political leadership, to media and technology, to safety and violence, to unpaid domestic work, to gender norms, to parenting.
There's so many parts to this. What's really exciting is people got these posters last year and they just keep them up in their coffee room all year round. I have one on my fridge, and it’s just good to interface with thinking about the intersectionality of how many issues are connected to this larger issue about gender equality.
TS: How did the idea for the 50/50 Day and film, this being the issue that you wanted to focus on, how did that come to you, Tiffany?
TSh: Well, a couple things. I felt really fortunate, my mom, total feminist. She was writing her PhD when I was growing up on successful women and their female mentors. I grew up with her, then I grew up with a father that wrote about goddess culture and patriarchy, and how women are shifting back in power. I felt, being a woman, that I was incredibly powerful.
Then you go into the real world, and you realize how many women don't feel that way, and aren't treated that way. When I was running the Webby awards, I used to be one of the only women in tech, and I've never found that to be an issue, to be honest with you, but I felt a moral obligation to make space for more women to feel that way.
Then I was speaking at a conference, and I met a woman named Laura Liswood, and we were backstage, and I feel like I know my feminist theory, and I know my history around women's rights and everything. I asked her what she did for a living, and she said, "Well I convene women presidents and prime ministers through the United Nations." I was like, "Wow. That's amazing. How long have you been doing that?" And she said, "Around 20 years." I was like, "Well, how many were there 20 years ago?" thinking there had maybe been, I don't know, maybe a couple, thinking of Indira Gandhi and Thatcher. She said, "Oh, there was 15, 20 years ago." I was like, "Wow. How many are there today?" Again, thinking that number wasn't that much greater. She said, "Oh, there's been 50." My mouth just fell to the ground. I couldn't believe there had been that many. Then I proceeded to ask every single person I knew that question, and no one came close to the answer.
We're talking about people that ran feminist organizations, CEOs of big companies. No one knew the answer. I thought, "Wow. We've been telling a story of scarcity for so long, maybe we need to retell a story of abundance." That sent me down this path to go 10,000 years ago, and rewrite the true narrative around women in power, and what it's going to take to a more gender-balanced world, so I made that film 50/50. I'd like to tell you now that that number is 70 elected presidents and prime ministers, even though we haven't had one in our country.
That inspired me to make the film, to kind of rethink what we know and what stories we're telling ourselves, and that we need to come from a place of strength more instead of scarcity. Like I said, the film came out a couple weeks before the election, and I was so frustrated with the election, I thought, "I'm going to channel my frustration into doing a global day about gender equality."
TS: What are the total number, if you know it, of presidents and prime ministers worldwide? If we're at 70 now. What's it going to take to get 50/50?
TSh: It's still like 15%. It's not 50/50 by far, but it's a lot more than I thought.
TS: Yes.
TSh: So I mean, no. That's always the good number. You want both. But the fact that no one even knew the first number.
TS: Sure. Sure.
TSh: No one did. I think it is about knowing our history, and a lot of history books don't talk about enough women, right? History books are usually written by men. So it's just rewriting the narrative in a bigger way. I'm very excited about this election. This is not a partisan issue for me. It is an every person issue. There's more women running than ever, and you get more women in office, and more people from underrepresented groups, you're going to get more diverse perspectives, you're going to get better solutions. And you're going to get more laws that support all these ideas about equality, like in Iceland.
TS: You've mentioned a couple of times the importance of looking back at our 10,000-year history, and a previous time when the goddess was worshiped, and where women were respected, and that we're—to use your words—we're coming back to where we were once 10,000 years ago. You know, I know some people don't believe that version of history. They're like, "Really? There was a time like that?"
TSh: Yes. Well, listen. I grew up with a father who wrote a lot about ... his big question was, he traveled all throughout Europe, and what started him writing the book, The Alphabet Versus the Goddess, was how was it that there was goddess cultures all over the world, and then what was the event that kept happening that switched it to patriarchy? What happened all throughout history? First, women were revered, and then it was patriarchy, and all male gods.
What he looked at throughout all of history was whenever literacy was introduced, that seemed to kind of rewire people's minds into sort of a left-brain—he knows that it's much more nuanced than left- and right-brain—but kind of rewiring society to be more patriarchal. Then, with the advent of images that we're seeing with electromagnetism, and with television, and film, and the internet, that women are rising once again.
He wrote a New York Times bestselling book about it called The Alphabet Versus the Goddess. These are the stories I grew up with, so you could believe or not, but personally, there are definitely relics of goddesses. A lot of cultures, and in Native American cultures, there are still strong women at the advent stories. I personally think, I was raised with all these patriarchal stories. I much prefer thinking about women as goddesses, because I've always felt, like the stories in Judaism, personally, really turned me off because they were so patriarchal. I'm a cultural Jew, but those stories don't speak to me.
TS: One of the things I'm feeling in this conversation, and I want to admire your character strength here, is a character strength of tremendous creativity, Tiffany, that you have. Also, underneath it, the love that I feel for being of service. I would love it if you would talk to someone who feels that love, that desire to be of service, but hasn't figured out these very clever and creative ways that you have, putting together a movement on the internet, and being able to be a filmmaker. But they have this desire to serve our collective evolution in some way.
TSh: Mm. Well, there's a poster we made for the film, 30000 Days, that I would recommend anyone listening, that's searching right now for their purpose, which is what I think you're talking about. There's a really exciting moment. We have the character strengths poster, which is based on the Positive Psychology Movement, so the 24 character strengths. In this film about finding meaning and purpose, on one part of the screen, we put the character strengths. On the other side of the screen, we put kind of a poster, if you will, of issues, whether it was the environment, or education, or justice, or whatever it is.
We put them so they're almost tilted towards the horizon. What we said is, "If you can match your strengths with the thing you're most passionate about, the issue that gets you most excited, that's how you're going to find your purpose." This visual, if you watch 30,000 Days, it's right smack in the middle of the movie. It's a very exciting thing to look at. Because if you haven't found it, it's a great thing to meditate on, is to look at the strengths, identify your strengths, look at those issues, identify what you care most about, and figure out how you can make that string between them and link it.
It's really exciting when you see someone have that moment, or figure out how to make work not work, it's their passion, it doesn't feel like work. I feel very fortunate, I really do. I feel so grateful that I love what I do so much that I get excited to get out of bed in the morning, and I want to help people find that. That film was really my attempt... well, actually if it's a building block. The Science of Character is to really try to think about and break down who you are to identify those strengths and what you want to work on.
Then 30,000 Days is really about, how do you mirror those strengths to issues you care about?
TS: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Beautiful. Now, finally, Tiffany, I want to talk a little bit about the future of technology from your positive lens. We hear so much about the negative ways that technology has turned us into an ADD culture, lowering our IQ, making us crazy. I think a lot of people can appreciate your technology Shabbat. At the same time, you hold, I think, a pretty positive vision of the potential for technology as a tool for our collective evolutions.
TSh: Here's the thing. I really subscribe to Marshall McLuhan's view of technology, that it's an extension of us. It's not this "other thing," it's what we've created. So technology is us, and we are good, bad and everything in between. But if we can continue to strive for our better selves, I ultimately believe that we will wrestle through this and it will be used for good purposes. There'll always be this struggle because that's the human struggle.
I'll tell you this one instance that happened to me recently that really made me just love technology all over again. My family story that we grew up with is that my grandfather's family, he was the only one who escaped out of Odessa, and the rest died in the Holocaust. That was our story. I actually went to the Soviet Union in 1988 to talk about personal computers and looking for parts of my family that I never found.
Then, cut to, my father passed away. This was his father, who I mentioned that was the only one that escaped. We get an email, my brother gets an email from someone in South Africa. I have an unusual last name. It's not common. It's Shlain without a C. We only know our own family of Shlains. Through the internet, through a LinkedIn note, my brother gets an email, "I think we're related."
So to make a very long and beautiful story short, I just got back from South Africa with my sister last week where we went to the 80th birthday of this fabulous new relative named Avroy Shlain. My dad would have been 80 this year. There's this incredible Shlain family we had never met. I'm hearing so many stories of people being connected through 23andMe, and Ancestry.com, that were disconnected through the Holocaust or whatever it was, and now are being reunited.
Also on 23andMe, I recently found out I have .001% Native American. I don't know how that's possible, but I loved knowing that. Every day, there's things that just make me pause and go, "Wow, look at what this tool that we, as humans, have created, is doing." Then on the same side, I'm going, "Look at what just happened with our election. Oh my gosh." We need to talk about it. We need to wrestle with it. We need to figure out practices that make it not overwhelm our lives. We need to do the necessary discussing and thinking about what is this thing that we've created? And how can we use it for good and not for ill?
TS: Well, it's interesting. When you make this comment, I think about it as a part of us. I notice that really changes the conversation, versus looking at the instruments, whether it's our iPhone, or computers, or whatever, as something outside of us. Oh, it's part of us.
TSh: Yes. It's us. Then, you stop ... it's actually much, you have more agency in it. When you say, "Oh, it's technology's doing something to us." It's like you're not responsible... something's doing something to you, versus, this is us. We're creating these tools. It's much more empowering for you to actually go, "Oh, I'm going to turn off my screens one day a week." Of, "This thing doesn't own me. It's me. I can rise up and create boundaries, and know when it feels good and when it doesn't."
I think it really is, again, reframing to a more powerful place instead of this thing that's taking over us, and you know, my husband is a professor of robotics, and there's a lot of fear. There's all these articles, "Robots are going to take over humans. They're going to get rid of every job." He's the one voice saying, "Actually, no. That's not going to happen. I've been studying robotics for over 35 years. It's going to help amplify what we do, but nothing's going to replace being human."
The qualities, like empathy, and taking initiative, and cross-disciplinary thinking. We made a film together about it, called The Adaptable Mind. It was a 10-minute film that was shown for Character Day, which was a lot about that. There's so much fear about robots, which is really kind of an internal fear that we're not going to be needed. Again, if we remember how incredible humans are, and the skills that make us human, machines will never replace that.
TS: Tiffany, what questions are you asking now?
TSh: I was recently asked to think about my vision for the future, and I was thinking a lot about that we need more visions for the future. We need more "what-ifs." We need more showing us what the potential could be. I think we spend a lot of time tearing things down. I think about that. Then I do ask the question, I told you I'm working on a book around the tech Shabbat. I used to be a smoker. It's nothing I'm proud of, but I did it to rebel against my doctor family. I did it in my 20s. At the time that I smoked, everyone smoked.
Right around the time that I quit, it was the first time, at least in California, that the law made it so you couldn't smoke in bars, and that was one of the most fun aspects of smoking, was the social aspect. When I think about it now, you go around America, and hardly anyone smokes. That's a huge, that was a huge behavioral shift. I mean, doctors used to smoke. You could smoke on airplanes, and in movie theaters, and then now, it's really changed. So that does give me hope in terms of the screen use.
I'm comparing the behavioral aspect of it. Of course, technology is something that has great benefits for us. But it's about coexisting in a more healthy way. I do think about that a lot as I'm writing this book about shifting the way we do things, and can we rise up to create practices where we create boundaries around technology?
TS: OK, Tiffany. And for people who want to participate in 50/50 Day, or Character Day later in the year, how do they find out the details?
TSh: You can go to Letitripple.org, which is the name of my film studio in San Francisco, and there's links to both of those. It just takes a couple minutes to sign up, and you're suddenly part of our community where we have these two global days. It's very fun, and I would love for all of your listeners to be a part of it, because the more people that are a part of it, the more powerful it becomes.
TS: Letitripple.org. That's a beautiful name. Thank you so much for your beautiful heart and your great work.
TSh: Oh, thank you for having me, Tami. I love all the people that you talk to, and your voice in the world. So, thank you so much for having me.
TS: Tiffany Shlain, she is an activist filmmaker. That's my description of her. She's created 50/50 Day coming up on April 26, 2018. Got to letitripple.org for more information.
Soundtrue.com: many voices, one journey. Thanks for listening.
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As a person of faith I find much to commend here. We must live to unite, not divide. And, in this distracted secular age of technology we must find ways to transcend the imminent frame of this age. I personally practice sabbatical from social media and technology in general on a frequent basis. }:- ❤️ anonemoose monk