Photo: James Duncan Davidson

Anne-Marie Slaughter, public policy expert and author of the widely read 2012 article “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All,” closes the first session of TEDGlobal with a talk about how she became a woman she never imagined.

In 2010, Slaughter was considered for a promotion from her job as the director of policy planning at the State Department. She knew she was ready for the job and that she could handle it. “It was my moment to lean in,” she says frankly. But she had been commuting for two years between Princeton and D.C., leaving her husband and two sons to fend without her during the week. She says, “The woman I thought I was would have said yes.” But unable to face the idea of missing out on her sons’ growth, she turned down the job. “Deep down, I knew the right decision was to go home. Even if I didn’t fully recognize the woman making that choice.”

Slaughter still believes that the measure of male-female equality is in how many women are in high-level positions — but that’s only half of real equality. Equality is not just measuring women on men’s terms, says Slaughter; it means much bigger institutional changes. Having reassessed completely her view on feminism, Slaughter suggests three areas where change needs to happen.

The workplace

The most successful companies value caregiving. In Slaughter’s view, if family comes first, that does not mean work comes second; rather, life comes together. Workers who have a reason to get home are more productive and efficient, and breadwinners who are also caregivers are more flexible and have wider ranges of experience, says Slaughter. The benefits of caregiving are undeniable: It develops patience, empathy, creativity, resilience, adaptability — all traits that lead to more satisfaction in the workplace and lower levels of stress.

Photo: James Duncan Davidson

Public policy

Governments need policies that recognize the equal value of breadwinning and caregiving, and they need to invest in both. To support the health of families — and not just women — the law should provide universal childcare, job protection for pregnant women, care for the elderly and support for the disabled. Countries with strong family support measures, like Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands, remain at the top of the OECD Better Life Index, above countries with higher levels of income.

Culture

Society needs to re-socialize men. In many societies, women, who can be respected as breadwinners, caregivers or a combination, are now often the ones with more choices. Meanwhile, a man who decides to be a caregiver puts his manhood on the line. What can be done? Slaughter says that men should value in their counterparts more than just a scramble for the top of a professional ladder, and women shouldn’t measure their mates by their success in the workplace. In addition, boys should be encouraged to choose caregiving or breadwinning. In short: Make caregiving cool for dudes.

These, Slaughter says time and time again, are not women’s issues but family issues. The way forward is toward an equality that will benefit all. The revolution is already beginning, says Slaughter. How fast and how far is up to us.

A poignant ode to the city of Boston, its annual marathon and the victims of the April 15 bombings. [NY Review of Books Blog]

Far, far away in another American city, income inequality varies from block to block. The New Yorker has released an insightful data visualization of city income by subway stop. [New Yorker] Find out more »

Andres Lozano: Parkinson's, depression and the switch that might turn them off
Scientists find a new approach to reversing memory loss, with potential benefits for brain disorders like Alzheimer’s. [Sci Tech Daily] Meanwhile, back at the ranch: Andres Lozano and his team are working on very precise deep brain stimulation to correct dysfunction from similar brain disorders.

Galileo’s public condemnation is often invoked to defend new or unverified science. But as Adam Gopnik writes for the BBC, Galileo taught us a more important lesson: the value of the experimental method, the essence of what science is. [BBC.co.uk]

A plan has been approved to build the world’s largest optical telescope in Hawaii. [NY Times] But will it be any match for the awesomely named European Extremely Large Telescope?

JR's TED Prize wish: Use art to turn the world inside out
JR and his team bring the project “Wrinkles of the City” to Berlin, with photographs of the elderly pasted on 15 walls throughout the city. [JR-Art] Watch JR make his 2011 Prize wish »

Would you like to go to Mars? Would you like to go to Mars to be filmed for a reality TV show? Would you like to go to Mars to be filmed for a reality TV show, knowing you probably won’t come back? Your dream has come true »

A deeper look at the feats of Felix Baumgartner, everyone’s favorite record-breaking skydiver. [Vanity Fair]

Ron Mueck’s exhibition opened this week at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain. Watch a fascinating video of him constructing his work »

Photo: James Duncan Davidson

Freeman Hrabowski was a 9th grader in Birmingham, Alabama, when he heard a dynamic, impassioned speaker at church — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. At the time, King was organizing a march for children, and Hrabowski begged his parents to let him be a part of it.

Freeman Hrabowski: 4 pillars of college success in scienceHrabowski won their blessing to march in the Children’s Crusade, a pivotal moment in the American Civil Rights Movement in 1963. He was taken to jail for participating, even though he was just 12-years-old. In today’s talk, Hrabowski shares the words that King said to him and the others inside the jailhouse: “What you children do this day will have an impact on children who have not been born.”

Today, Hrabowski is the president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), a college that serves students of all backgrounds and that is known for supporting students of color in two areas of study where they are severely underrepresented — science and engineering. The school currently leads the country in graduating African-Americans who go on complete Ph.Ds and MD/Ph.Ds in these fields.

In today’s talk, Hrabowski notes that only 20% of Black and Latino students who start out as pre-med or pre-engineering stick with these demanding majors. That said, the numbers are low in other groups, too — only 32% of white students and 42% of Asian-American students who start rigorous science and engineering majors complete them. “It’s not just minorities who don’t do well in science and engineering,” says Hrabowski. “Students in general are not making it.”

To hear Hrabowski’s four pillars for setting students up to succeed in science and engineering, watch this talk. As Hrabowski says, these guidelines were designed at UMBC to “help minorities students,” but they can also “help students in general.”

It’s been 50 years since Hrabowski went to jail for marching for equality. Much has changed since then and, yet, so any inequalities persist in the United States. Here, four more talks about heartbreaking imbalances still in play today.

Bryan Stevenson: We need to talk about an injusticeBryan Stevenson: We need to talk about an injustice In the eyes of the American judicial system, we are not one and the same, says public-interest lawyer Bryan Stevenson. A third of the country’s black male population has been incarcerated at some point in their lives – a statistic that should give us all pause. In this powerful talk from TED2012, Stevenson gives a rousing critique of a judicial system that “treats you much better if you’re rich and guilty than if you’re poor and innocent.”

iO Tillett Wright: Fifty shades of gayiO Tillett Wright: Fifty shades of gay Photographer iO Tillett Wright has been in love with men, and she’s been in love with women. Though marriage was far from her mind in 2008, when California’s Proposition 8 sparked a national debate over gay marriage, the conversation still struck her like a punch. She embarked on a fascinating photo project to document the LGBTQ spectrum and the many, many different shades that exist along it.

Aaron Huey: America's native prisoners of warAaron Huey: America’s native prisoners of war Photographer Aaron Huey headed to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota to record images of people living in poverty. There, a shocking 90% of residents live below the poverty line and life expectancy for men is just 47 years. As Huey says in his powerful TEDx Talk, the photo project soon became much more — an effort to understand the history of the native Lakota people, “a time-line of treaties made, treaties broken.”

Lawrence Lessig: We the People, and the Republic we must reclaimLarry Lessig: We the People, and the Republic we must reclaim In this bold talk from TED2013, legal activist Larry Lessig addresses a central corruption at the heart of our electoral system – that in order to do well in a general election, a politician must first win the blessing of funders. And yet,  this second group represents a scant 150,000 people out of 311 million. While, yes, politicians are responsible to the people, they’re also responsible to their funders—giving this small group far too much influence.

Venus – New York. Venus is one of my favorite characters in the “grey” movement. She doesn’t confine herself within any labeled sexuality, but she is loud and proud of everything that she is. Venus is a well known DJ and party promoter, and she’s made a name for herself within the hip hop world, which she is helping evolve into a more accepting place.

iO Tillett Wright remembers the moment she decided to start living as a boy — age 6 when the kids at school barked at her that girls weren’t allowed to play basketball. As a teenager and adult, Tillett Wright went on to fall in love with a woman, and then to fall in love with a man.

iO Tillett Wright: Fifty shades of gay

As she reveals in today’s bold talk, while marriage was far from her mind in 2008 when California’s Proposition 8 sparked a national debate over gay marriage, the conversation still struck her like a punch.

“I was shocked by the fact that America, a country with such a tarnished civil rights record, could be repeating its mistakes so blatantly,” says Tillett Wright. “This powerful awareness rolled over me that I was a minority. In my own home country based on one facet of my character, I was legally and indisputably a second-class citizen … I was plagued by the question: how could anyone vote to strip the rights of the vast variety of the people that I knew? … Had these people consciously met a victim of their discrimination? Did they know who they were voting against?”

Tillett Wright had an idea: could she photographically introduce people against the idea of gay marriage to the vast number of people in the United State who consider themselves somewhere along the LBGTQ spectrum? She embarked on a series of photographs called Self-Evident Truths. The first two weeks of shooting in New York City were funded by the Human Rights Campaign, and the first 300 portraits spawned a video that quickly went viral. The project only exploded from there.

Now, Tillett Wright has set out to shoot 10,000 portraits for Self Evident Truths. So far, with the help of everyday donors, she has photographed about 2,000 people.

To hear more about Tillett Wright’s fascinating childhood, and about her hopes and dream for Self Evident Truth,  watch her powerful talk. And in this gallery, Tillett Wright shares some of her favorite images from Self Evident Truths — along with the back story.

Jodi – Wichita Falls, Texas. Jodi’s family disowned her when they found out she was gay. She struck me as such a normal, average American girl — she works as an Abercrombie model at the mall, and was in her third year of college — but when a friend outed her, her religious parents kicked her out of the house, took her photos of the wall, quit paying her tuition, and started telling people her brother was an only child. Jodi suffers from arthritis, but her parents had her removed from their insurance despite that. It was such a powerful revelation for me, to understand the power that religion has within people — that it could drive them to legally divorce their own child.

Brian – New Orleans, Louisiana. When Brian showed up to the shoot, it was this big discussion about which one of the assistants was going to have to go and see if he actually knew what he was being photographed for, because he looked like such a straight manly man. But on his release form he put down “100% GAY”, and we all had to eat our stereotypes. Brian fell in love in high school, and lived with his partner for 20 years in Texas, until they broke up, about a year before this photo was taken. He had taken everything he owned and moved to New Orleans to start a new life, and was working at Mardi Gras zone. When he talked about his former lover his eyes would well up, and he referred to him as his “true love”. Brian taught me so much about how stereotypes of gay men as effeminate are a bunch of naive hogwash.

Alyss – Little Rock, Arkansas. Alyss, who identifies herself as pansexual, is the descendant of a long line of Pentecostal ministers, from a tiny little town in Arkansas. When she put on her MySpace that she thought she was bisexual, her mother grabbed her by the forehead and started praying over her in tongues. Alyss was told that she was no longer her parents’ daughter, and wasn’t welcome in their house anymore, and eventually, because she couldn’t stand being away from her family, she went back into the closet. Alyss was one of the most vibrant characters we met on our Southern tour.

Reverend Jill – Knoxville, Tennessee. Reverend Jill came to the Knoxville shoot with her long-time partner. They pulled me aside and told me how important it was that people know you can have a strong relationship with God, and still be gay. I thought that took tremendous courage, not only to be openly gay in a state like Tennessee, but to take on the religious battle as well. I had a lot of respect for them.

Chip – Atlanta, Georgia. Chip is a scientist and a skater. Again, when he started filling out his form, I almost wanted to double check that he knew what he was there for. It turns out he had gotten in touch with us weeks before, hoping we’d come and shoot in Atlanta. Chip was the only skateboarder who had ever come to be photographed, which kicked off a really interesting discussion about homophobia within the macho world of skateboarding, and how we could all help to reduce it.

Shannon & Willow – Denver, Colorado. Shannon came to the shoot with what I believe was her partner, and their two children, one of whom was in the arms of her biological father. The three adults had figured out a way to maintain a really healthy relationship with each other, and the kids were ecstatic, beautiful children. People come all the time asking to be photographed with the things that they are most proud of in their lives, so it makes me extremely happy when people bring their beautiful children and show that other than straight parents can do a damn good job too.

Carrie – Athens, Georgia. Carrie waited in a long line of people to be photographed in Athens, with long brown hair and glasses. We took a few photos and then she stopped me and asked if she should take her wig off. As soon as I saw her head, and what she was inclined to hide, I told her I thought she looked so powerful and beautiful without her wig. Instantly she straightened, planted her feet and came into her own skin. It was such a testament to the act of standing proud of who you are, be it about sexuality, or otherwise, and I’m really happy to have been able to see that in her.

Jamison – Dallas, Texas. Jamison truly just smacked me in the face with my own stereotypes about people. Before meeting him, and many like him, I had some preconceived, narrow view of what gay people looked like, (especially men) — even if it was a broad view by most standards. Jamison, a big, statuesque trucker from Texas taught me that I don’t know s*** from Christmas — other than straight people come in every shape and size possible. Jamison was a marker of growth for me.

Lauren – Knoxville, Tennessee. Lauren was so excited to participate in Self Evident Truths. A basketball player at the University of Tennessee, she sat on a curb for several hours during our first shooting day, and brought several of her teammates to be shot as well on the second. I gave a lecture at the school on the last day, and Lauren was there with an entire row of friends. After we left, we got an email from her saying that she had spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to contribute to society, and maybe it had to do with a public persona. Via the project she realized her contribution could have to do with her pride in her true self. She was so proud of coming into her own. Sadly, a few weeks later, we got an email from someone in the UT athletics department, telling us to take down all the images of their players.