I recognize that this is a vast improvement from generations in the past. When my mother took her turn to sit in a gown at her graduation, she thought she only had two career options: nursing and teaching. She raised me and my sister to believe that we could do anything, and we believed her. But what is so sad—it doesn’t just make me feel old, it makes me truly sad—is that it’s very clear that my generation is not going to change this problem. Women became 50% of the college graduates in this country in 1981, 30 years ago. Thirty years is plenty of time for those graduates to have gotten to the top of their industries, but we are nowhere close to 50% of the jobs at the top. That means that when the big decisions are made, the decisions that affect all of our worlds, we do not have an equal voice at that table.我承认，相对于过去的几代人，这已经是巨大的进步。当年我的母亲穿着长袍坐在毕业典礼大堂的时候，她所面对的出路只有两个：护士和老师。她让我和姐姐相信我们能做任何事，我们相信她。但令人难过的是——这不仅仅是让我觉得自己老了，而是我真的很难过——在我的这个年代，问题依然没有多少改变。三十年前，也就是1981年的时候，美国女性大学毕业生占到了50%。三十年的时间足够那些毕业生成为业界精英，可事实上我们离“百分之五十”这个数字还远得很。这意味着在做出能够影响世界的重大决策的时候，女性完全没有同等地位。
So today, we turn to you. You are the promise for a more equal world. You are our hope. I truly believe that only when we get real equality in our governments, in our businesses, in our companies and our universities, will we start to solve this generation’s central moral problem, which is gender equality. We need women at all levels, including the top, to change the dynamic, reshape the conversation, to make sure women’s voices are heard and heeded, not overlooked and ignored.今天，我们这一代将希望寄托于在座的各位。你们是更平等的世界的希望，也是我们这一代人的希望。我真的相信，只有我们的政府、企业、公司和学校实现了真正意义上的平等，我们才能开始解决这个时代最主要的道德问题——性别平等。我们需要生活在社会各个阶层的女性，包括身处顶层的女性来改变推动的力量，重塑对话，让女性同胞的声音被听到、被注意，而不是听而不闻、视而不见。