Kelly Cook, co-founder of Bag Snob (and the related sites) attended the conference and I think she found it impressive, insightful and with the impact that Theshoegoddess.com’s Florence, WhenTaraMetBlog.com’sTara and I found it to be.
Kelly attended a number of conferences and featured a post about Christiane Amanpour’s talk.
Here’s just a fraction of what Kelly had to say about Christiane Amanpour’s powerful presentation.
Christiane Amanpour was one of the first speakers of the day, she is the Chief International Correspondent for CNN. I am in awe of her – she is eloquent, smart, precise and unfaltering in her ability to give us straight facts. She talked about how this is truly the time for women to reign and shine and pointed out that Iceland recruited 2 women to rebuild the banking crisis there. She gave another example of how creative and powerful women can be. When Charles Taylor was President of Liberia (he was a warlord and accused of war crimes), a group of women banded together and kept sex from their husbands until he was ousted. Guess what? He was ousted.
The thing that really struck a chord with me was when Christiane talked about motherhood and how she explains to her son why she has to yet again go away. She tells him that as a journalist, it is her job to tell stories and reminded us how the failure to do so resulted in the mass genocide in Rwanda. These atrocities cannot go unchecked and it is her job to report truth without fear or favor. She tells him, “If the story tellers quit, the bad guys will win”. But the lesson she imparts on her son is one that I have to remember as a mother, she says, “It is about justice, not just us”. Is she awesome or what?
Kelly was at the lunch table with all the Glam people & bloggers. She talked about Maria Shriver’s extremely poignant speech which was a true counter-point to the introduction that her two daughters gave which was filled with “Maria Shriver Secrets” .
However as Kelly imparts in her post #2, Shriver bared her soul to the practically SRO crowd about her own hopes and fears. ( fast forward to Shriver’s talk to the lunch crowd) .
Here’s a snippet of Kelly’s post
There are a few anecdotes I’d like to share with you that I feel they are worthwhile. Like the deeply personal speech given by Maria Shriver. It was moving because she showed us a side of her that we can all connect with, the scared and insecure little girl that we all cling to and still struggle to get away from. She talked about her fears and how it paralyzed her life so for long. It means something coming from a strong woman like her because we all feel like but we say things like, “If I were like so-and-so (i.e. Maria Shriver) I would have more courage and more strength”. She is after-all a Kennedy (she is JFK’s niece). She is an accomplished journalist and is the First Lady of California. She should not have these feelings of fear and inadequacies. Well, she is human and that was the point of it all. But her way of getting through it was to face her fears. I know, easier said than done. Her mother is old and in poor health and she is faced with the real possibility of losing her. Instead of living in denial, she confronts this reality and in the ultimate act of acquiescence to the situation, she poured out her soul. For the first time in her life, at 52 years old, she climbed in to bed, lied next to her dying mother and just cried. I was there with 14,000 who cried during that speech and I will remember that when I need the strength.
I must tell you that like Kelly there were many people sniffling and shedding tears– particularly if you watch the video snippet on the Women’s Conference website and get to the “ah-hah” moment for Shriver when her mom was in ICU and she was outside her room crying when a social worker stopped to ask her if she could help her. Shriver –typical of her strong-willed, take charge nature- stated that there were others in much worse shape like a woman down the hall whose dad had died earlier that day and she was much more in need than she (Shriver) was. The social worker then “tipped my face and looked at me and said ‘this isn’t a competition here in the ICU’ . This was the ‘ah-hah- moment for Shriver and she allowed herself to look inside and see all her fears — and has been doing it ever since. Definitely check out the luncheon video here
Kelly discusses many other talks & presentations in particularly Michael J. Fox and the Minerva Awards. Her post is deep, intense and meaningful. It definitely should make you want to check out the Women’s Conference website for more videos and information!
Stevie Wilson
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