Wow, firstly I'd like to thank, I'd like to thank the organizers of today's of event Deena Katz and Morgan Geffner, who's holding my microphone right now that's how well organized she is.

Thank you for inviting me to speak today.

And to all of you gathered here thank you for giving your time your support and your voice to this unstoppable movement.

I am proud to be representing Times Up an organization made up of some of the bravest most determined, most inspiring women that I have ever had the great privilege of sharing with and learning from.

In light of the recent revelations regarding abuse of power and sexual harassment and the question of consent versus coercion–I find myself pensive taking time and digging deep to understand where we are and how we got here.

My mind baffles.

How could a person publicly stand by an organization that helps to provide support for victims of sexual assault while privately preying on people who have no power?

I want my pin back by the way.

How is it okay for someone in a position of power to use that power to take advantage of someone in a lesser position? Just because you can does that ever make it okay?

If a person isn't saying yes but they aren't saying no–how can anyone feel justified to make that decision for them?

As I pondered on–I began to notice in myself a kind of revelation too.

I started to feel something bubble up inside me a kind of rage; the revelation that this rage wasn't just for these women that were taken advantage of and ignored and unseen, but also on behalf of myself.

As the rage settled in it gave way to other feelings sadness and unexpectedly guilt and grieving and suddenly I was 19 again. And I started to remember all the men I'd known who taken advantage of the fact that I was a young woman who didn't yet have the tools to say no–or to understand the value of my own self-worth.

I'd had many relationships both personal and professional where the power dynamic was so off that I had to create a narrative in which I was the ‘cool girl' who could hang in and hang out and that sometimes meant compromising what felt right for me and that seems okay.

Compromising my voice, and therefore allowing myself to be unseen and degraded, and whether it was intended by the other party or not, because it allowed me to have the approval that women are conditioned to need.

I was coming from a place like so many young women do a feeling like my creative value and my professional value and my sexual value could only be measured by the approval and desirability of a man. Even if I had come from a household where the conversation about self-respect was prioritized just being a woman stacked the cards against me because for so many centuries women have been taught to be polite. To please and to pander.

And I've come to realize that not just my 19 year old self but my school-yard self and my married self, and my professional self have all the times been a victim of this very condition. A condition that I'm certain a majority of us share.

I never completely absorbed the ‘Me Too' phrase because I took the phrase at face value but I've come to realize that while ‘Me Too' means different things to different people, to me it is very simply the ability to empathize with the visceral realities of this condition.

I want to move forward and for me moving forward means my daughter growing up in a world where she doesn't have to be a victim of what has cruelly become the so Shoal norm that she doesn't have to fit into the bindings of the female condition–Times Up on the female condition.

Gender equality can't just exist outside ourselves it must exist within.

We must take responsibility, not just for our actions but for ourselves.

We must make it our responsibility to feed our own healthy ego, to teach our children to exercise their own autonomy an ego strength by leading by example.

I have recently introduced a new phrase in my life that I would like to share with you NO MORE PANDERING–no more feeling guilty about hurting people's feelings when something doesn't feel right for me.

I have made a promise to myself to be responsible for my self, that in order to trust my instincts I must first respect them.

I am finally on a path of forgiveness; not for the people who took advantage of my conditioning to pander but forgiveness of myself, for giving the girl who felt used and heartbroken and confused and guilty and taken advantage of and weak – I stand before you someone that is empowered, not only by the curiosity about myself and by the active choices that I am finally able to make and stand by, but by the brightness of this movement, the strength in the unity that this movement is provided; it gives me hope that we are moving towards a place where our sense of equality can truly come from within ourselves. Thank you.