It's her. Yasss.
- All righty. - Hi.
- Oh, my gosh. - How you doing?
- Hello, hello. - What's going on?
- Good to see you. - Hanging out with you.
- Hi. - How are you?
- Pleased to meet you. - It's wonderful to meet you.
Hi! It's so nice to see you.
It's great to be with you guys.
Thank you.
- In one of my favorite spots. - Yeah, we heard.
Hi.
- All: Cheers. - Tea, tea.
Yes, ladies. Yes, ladies.
- That's right. - ( laughing )
I'm trying really hard so my face can stop shaking.
Like, my face, it just went...
- It's not. - I need to calm down!
- You look amazing. - Like, I'm trying to be all,
"Of course, cool." But inside, I'm just like, "Words. Say words.
What are you gonna say?" Okay, anyway.
I'm honored to be here at the table
with all of you powerful presences,
- and bask in your presence. - Yes, indeed. Yes.
I would love to know what drove you
to find this passion for empowering young girls?
You know, I was one of those girls.
You all were one of those girls
where you know you were born with something, right?
Whether it's drive or talent or ambition.
And I always thought, like,
"Wow, what if you're born with that,
you know that inside of yourself,
but no one else supports that?
So you grow up with that frustration.
You grow up with that emptiness, right?
And I know there were a lot of girls like me in my neighborhood,
the south side of Chicago, who were left behind
not because they couldn't do it,
but they didn't have the opportunity.
When you were growing up, what was is it that you did
which sort of helped you make your voice heard?
Well, for me, I was fortunate
to have parents who believed in the power of education
and they believed in me.
My father believed that I was my brother's equal.
I say this all the time.
A lot of times girls and children,
the first time they get validation for their own voice
- is at their own dinner tables. - Right.
It's who in their lives on a day to day basis
is telling them that they are worthy
and that they're capable.
You know, if it weren't for my father believing in me,
I wouldn't be able to be the person that I am today.
- Yeah. - Speaking of fathers,
in India, there's a lot of conflict when it comes to that,
because a lot of people think that you have to get married
and you're going to go over to your husband's house and take care of his kitchen.
So why do you need to study? You don't need books for that.
- Um, you do. - Yes.
- Well, you do. - Oh, yes, you do.
- Right. - I had the opportunity to go to Lucknow,
which is one of my favorite cities in India, by the way.
Great food, great people, also very inspiring stories.
We went to Study Hall Educational Foundation.
So they have a girls' school and they have a boys' school.
So I had the pleasure of attending this, like,
conversation sort of, like, workshop that they do with the girls.
And then I attended a similar session with the boys.
And I was mind-blown.
So there are these young boys, 14, 15,
and they're talking about
how they are changing their lives
in order to make it okay
for their sister to live the way that she should.
So they're like, "Right now what I'm gonna do
is I'm saving up to have a fixed deposit in my bank
so that when my sister is of age,
she can choose what she wants to do with that money,
if she wants to use it for her college."
And I was-- "How old are you?"
So just that. I want to ask you,
that gave me sort of, like,
you suddenly look at it, girls' education,
as then a human issue, not a gender issue.
It's not anymore that, "Girls need to be better than boys."
- Yeah, absolutely. - It's not that.
It just normalizes really complex conversations in your head
as to it really is just a human to human issue.
What-- how do you look-- what do you think--
You said it better than I could.
- Oh! - You know, that example--
That example says it all.
I mean, this is about creating a balanced
and effective society, right?
And you only do that if you're investing in all of it.
- Yeah, yeah. - Not half of it. Not a piece of it, right?
And having girls educated with boys
and being able to see all those ships rise,
you know, is powerful, and that's how culture changes.
- Yeah. - You know, every girl today
that is trying something new,
taking something on, excelling,
they are laying their foundation
for understanding the power of their womanhood.
- Yeah. - Paving your path as, you know,
the first to do it ever, that's tough.
I gotta ask, as First Lady, those firsts--
there's many firsts that come with that, right?
Like, ooh-hoo! I read the book. I know.
But where do you find that empowerment,
especially when you don't have a role model
that you can look to
to see how it's been done before?
- You are the-- - Well, it does--
it goes back to an education.
I came into my role as First Lady not--
you know, I just wasn't Michelle Obama.
My education put me in positions to have jobs where I was able
to start my own organizations and manage staff.
I was a corporate lawyer.
I was an associate dean at an academic medical institution.
I started a non-profit organization.
I was, you know,
the vice president at a hospital, you know?
So all those skills, because of my education,
lo and behold, prepared my for this role
of being the first, right?
Because you sort of get used to being the first, you know?
Oftentimes, when you're the first,
you've been the first at many tables.
- Mm-hmm. - But being at the table
- doesn't mean acting like a man, you know? - Right.
And sometimes I think we get that wrong.
We think, okay, we have to shed
all of our womanhood to sit at this table.
- Yeah, and be tough and-- - But the truth is
what we need is the balance of who we are.
What we provide is the balance that isn't there,
and that's a good thing, right?
Yeah, there are differences. They're not better or worse.
They're not negative or positive.
They're different, and we don't have to be
anything other than our natural selves
to add huge value to the table,
but we have to believe in that.
Liza: It is a very different perspective
that you're able to offer, right?
- I love that. - I'm gonna write that down.
- Did you get it? - I'm a woman now.
- Just stepped into womanhood. - But, with that said,
it's also important to create community for yourself,
and that's what I think a lot of these programs do for these girls.
They pull them out of the isolation of their own homes
because the truth is you're never the only one.
It's just sometimes we're so scattered
that we don't know we're out there.
And these programs call these girls into one place
and say these are the girls that believe they can run.
These are the girls who are interested in, you know, economics.
These are the girls who want to find their voice, and you're not alone.
So we, as young women, as older women,
we need to continue to build those communities for ourselves.
So we may be the only one at that conference table,
the only one in that meeting, but when we leave,
we need to find our places of comfort and our tribe.
We need to find and sometimes build our own tribes.
- Yeah. - In the programs, like,
even in my travels to Namibia, the girls that I met,
even though they were, like, 12 to 16,
there was always a sense of just, like, this rotation.
Like, as much as I'm afforded this opportunity to be in the program,
I want to come back when I've come out of it
and give back to somebody else.
There was definitely a cycle
of we have to keep doing this for each other.
Tiffany: Because when you empower a girl, she goes back.
She doesn't give give back to her family. She gives back to her whole community...
- Exactly, right. - ...and her country. That's the whole--
That's everywhere. You see that everywhere.
It's the betterment of all when you're, you know,
employing and empowering half of the population.
- Exactly. Exactly. - Huh. Who would have thought
- that some good would come out of that? - Right?
And it doesn't always have to be monetary, you know?
Because I think sometimes it's always like,
if you take a girl to school, then she will give back
through feeding her family or whatever.
But it was great to see them understand
that past the economy and spiritual,
- it's confidence. - It's very humanitarian.
Absolutely. Yeah, so how can they help their community?
- Yeah. - You guys are helping to tell the story
of young girls just like you
who don't have the platform to let people know
"This is who I am. See me.
See what I can do. I am worthy of the investment."
- Right. - You know?
So you are the next generation.
Because of the people that are watching you,
you know, you can fundamentally change
the way people see the world, see each other.
- That's right. - There's a responsibility that you have.
Not to trip you out or make you, you know--
- I think I'm gonna cry. - You better do your job.
You guys know how to do this
in a way that I will never know.
So I am counting on you all to be those women
who are owning those seats and using your voices.
You're doing a terrific job already.
- Thank you. - So I'm on your team. You're not on my team.
- I'm on your team. - Did you hear that?
You guys, she's on my team.
That's gonna be on loop on my Instagram.
Right, right, right. This is a cool tribe right here.
- It's a good tribe. - I like this tribe.
I mean, we've got Michelle Obama in our tribe.
- That's good. - I'm in with this tribe.
That's right.