Keynote Speech
Speaker: Jane Fonda (click here for biography)
Soap Summit 1

Transcript of Proceedings
October 22, 1994, Evening

SONNY FOX: It is a distinct pleasure of mine, of course, to introduce someone who has been so meaningful in the population community and around the world in spreading the message relating to population-related issues. Jane came into the population mix a couple of years ago and I think we owe a lot of that to the gentlemen on my left, Ted Turner, who pointed out to her that although she was as environmentalist for a couple of decades, it had never come to her attention that maybe population played a part in environmental degradation. Ted got her started thinking about that. Therefore, Ted, we owe you a great debt of gratitude for getting her attention fixed on this because she has become such an outstanding spokesperson for population issues here and around the world that in Cairo she was asked to speak at a very well attended conference and at a press conference which I also attended. She was wonderful. She has that ability to communicate with people from all over the world--not because she is a star, but because she's a caring, intelligent woman who knows very well how to communicate. So, it is with great pride and a great deal of privilege that I introduce to you Jane Fonda.

(Applause.)

JANE FONDA: Ted and I have a friend. She's in her forties now. She was taken out of school in sixth grade by an abusive stepfather. Never went back. She never had any parenting. She never had any supervision. And she says that she learned how to behave by watching television and movies. And that's why I'm here. And I'm here because I was in Cairo at the U.N. Conference on Population and Development, and I was in Cairo because during the years since I met Ted, he got me to really understand why population growth is a problem. You know when I lived in California we had 25 years of environmental activism trying to pass Big Green and the Clean Water Act. I never really noticed that in spite of all the good work we did and the good legislation that we passed, it was undone in a couple of years, just because there were that many more people coming in and we couldn't keep up. And Ted really helped me see this.

And since she's here, I also want to mention Barbara Pyle, who happens to be the Environmental Vice President of Turner Broadcasting. Ted was starting a foundation that deals with population and the environment. I said to Barbara, "Well, what are some of the main things that work?" And she said, "Soap Operas." And I said, "Soap Operas?" At the time I hadn't heard about Population Communications International and I didn't really know. I was new to this issue.

I'm assuming that all of you know why population growth is a problem, so I won't go into it. But you know the fact is that we can't solve any problem that we face in the world -- poverty, homelessness, immigration, environmental degradation, war -- none of it unless we address the population problem. It's not the only cause of our problems. I think sometimes environmentalists make the mistake of making it sound like it is and that raises a lot of hackles in a developing country. Consumption patterns, damaging technologies, wrong kinds of development programs in the wealthy industrialized nations are responsible for a lot of the environmental damages, and we have to address those problems. I used to think that simply making more contraceptives available was what was needed. And contraceptives are very important. In fact they're essential, and we need more of them, and we need more choices, and better choices, and we need to reach the hundreds and millions of couples who want it, want smaller families, but can't get the contraceptives. But, in studying the problem more, and in listening to women here and around the world as they prepared for and then came to Cairo, I learned that you can give a woman contraception, but it doesn't mean that she's going to be able to use it. Her spouse may not allow her to, may beat her up if she does. She may have a bad reaction to the one kind of contraception that happened to be available to her. She may not know how to use it properly. She may want or need a large family for any number of reasons. I learned that a woman with no education, no legal status, no financial independence, is in no position to negotiate family size or the spacing of children, and very often they are at risk, from a violence and abuse from uncooperative spouses. All you need to do is read the latest people magazine to see that a girl with little self confidence, little self esteem, no vision of the future for herself, will feel that a baby is proof that she is somebody. There is something that will love her and need her.

I learned that really successful programs in developing countries are ones which are locally administered. Women are in decision-making positions. The people that run them are known in the community and trusted. Women are not seen just as wombs to be blocked, but are seen as whole people with reproductive systems that may need some medical attention. And children whose medical health needs to be cared for. These are the kind of people that become consistent, loyal clients. Consistent contraceptive users. And the kind of programs...that work that way are programs that are cost effective, because they can spread out their fixed costs over a large, loyal clientele.

What else did I learn? I learned about women who keep having children until they can have one or two sons, because their status depends on having sons. And because a son will bring home a daughter-in-law and a dowry, whereas a daughter will have to be provided a dowry when she moves away from home. So since the desire for sons can result in a woman having many children, and in girl children being denied education, or denied equal medical care, and even food sometimes, there's is the need to deal with the problem of gender bias between boy and girl babies. Girls must be educated and valued equally. I learned that men have to be involved in family planning. If a man shares household and child-rearing responsibilities with the mother, you better believe he's going to share the mother's desire for a smaller family. That's what the studies all show. And, if the father does not live with the mother and child, but is required to pay child support, he'll be less likely to go around irresponsibly fathering a lot of children. So that means that child custody laws have to be enforced. Clearly addressing the population problem means more than condoms and IUDs. It means changing the social and economic factors that lead to the need and desire for large families, and which lead to babies having babies.

All of this is what the Cairo conference was about. And it was a first. It was the first time that all these broad issues that affect fertility were discussed. It was the first time that family planning was seen as a reproductive right. It was the first time that the threat of HIV, AIDS, and other sexually transmitted diseases were addressed and that nations were urged to promote, supply and distribute condoms as an integral component of all reproductive health services. It was the first time there was recognition that adolescents be provided with special information, and involved in developing programs for their peer groups. It was the first time there was global recognition of unsafe abortion as a major medical problem that governments have to deal with, which kill 204,000 women a year. The Cairo plan of action addresses all these issues, and many more. It is a twenty-year blueprint aimed at stabilizing world population at 7.8 billion. As you know, it is now a little over five and a half billion. Ninety percent of the participating countries, representing ninety-five percent of the world population endorsed the plan of action. Only twenty countries, ten of them Catholic, ten of them Muslim, gave partial consent. But this; is the first time that there was no country, not even the Vatican, that disassociated itself from the document. They all gave at least partial consent. This degree of consensus in an international forum is unique, and I think a lot of the credit goes to the Clinton administration and to Tim Wirth, head of the U.S. Delegation, who from the very beginning, recognizing that there were real problems and disagreements between women's organizations, demographers, environmentalists, population professionals -- said, "Come on in, everybody." Everybody was sitting at the table. Bela was there, and Joan Dunlop, and some of the factions that didn't agree with the approach that had been taken, the quota-ridden approach that had been taken before. They all sat down at the table. They hammered out their differences. And they all came to Cairo with more women's voices heard at the table than ever before. It was like during the previous twelve years they were scared to have women, who are the main clients, the main receivers of family planning to even be at the table.

There was a lot of press coverage about the controversy between the Vatican and the issue around abortion, but the outcome really highlights the fact that the Holy See has membership in the United Nations as a state, not a religious body, and as a result, the world's Catholics were free to be represented by their respective governments. And the same is true of the Muslims. The Cairo document is not a binding treaty. It's a statement of intent. It is a conceptual basis for action. But because there was so much consensus around the very broad, far-reaching, inclusive and humanistic plan of action, and because of the in-depth and extensive global coverage, primarily by CNN and TBS, I might add, it has galvanized a very unusual degree of activism and commitment to seeing that it is enforced.

And what this means for us in the United States is building a constituency which understands why increasing the foreign aid budget for population-related programs is in our country's interest, short and long-term interest, as well as increasing investment in domestic programs that deal with family planning and teen pregnancy in particular, as well as defending reproductive rights. In Georgia, for example, my new home state, $561,000,000 a year is spent on medical coverage for the first year of teenage pregnancy. Only $11,000,000 is spent on family planning. We've got it all backwards, and it's really costing us because of that.

I hope that all of you will be involved in these legislative and programmatic issues as private, active citizens, but I'm not here for that. I'm here because of what you represent as professional people--which brings me back to my original story about my friend, who learned how to behave by watching television. The population problem will not be solved without your participation in helping to change our patterns of behavior. Governments can legislate, organizations can set up programs, but basically what it comes right down to are the daily decisions that individuals make on the ground in their daily lives. Those choices are very often, too often, driven by what they see on television, as you know very well. I'm told that most of you turn out an hour show a day. These shows are seen by what I think are the most important target audience for this issue--people who are home, mothers, young mothers, girls, boys, people who are unemployed, people who aren't in school, people who do piece-work at home or who are employed in their own home. These are people who need a dream. They are often people who's lives lack glamour and romance. They need role models. You provide their role models. You provide their dreams. But what we're seeing from American television, and I'm not just talking about daytime television, I'm talking about everything, and including rap music, all of the things that make up our culture, is sometimes a little problematic. Too much violence. Writers overestimate the amount of sex between unmarried people and they underestimate the amount of sex between married people. I urge you to read the cover story in Time Magazine. Let's hear it for monogamy. Married monogamous couples have more sex, more orgasms and more fun. But we don't see that on television. It's a well-kept secret. (Laughter)

We see very little communication of values, and we see very little value of communications. You don't see families talking, working things out, setting parameters, setting rules for their children. I'm told that very often shows like to create large families because it's more interesting. There are more characters. We often can see, and again I'm not just talking about--I don't know that much about daytime television--I'm just talking about culture in general, romanticized notions of child bearing. You see people having children but you never really see what it's like to have babies. I've heard about this computerized baby. I'm going to get one. (Laughter) I'm going to give it to my kids. (Laughter) Not for you, you know. You...he had five. Sonny had four. They didn't know, you know, back then, in the fifties, and early sixties, we didn't know that we should stop at two. It is not easy to turn out an hour show a day. I know a tiny bit about it because a decade ago I briefly produced a sitcom based on Nine to Five. And believe me, my respect for what people who have to turn out regular shows do went up immeasurably. I just think it is totally awesome to do it. But I do know that it's possible to putout a good message without being preachy. It's not easy. It's a challenge to do it organically. But it is possible. I won't tell you the times that I've done it unsuccessfully, but I... (Laughter)...you know, Nine to Five, Coming Home, China Syndrome, I produced those movies. Sometimes you can do it so that it comes out commercially good too. And then we have to deal with the advertisers. See that's what we don't have to do with movies, Ted believes so much in this issue, that he said that if any of you are doing a show that is so controversial you lose your sponsors that he might try to come in and buy advertising time on your show. Didn't you say that? (Laughter and applause.) (Inaudible response from Ted.) Yeah, you'd buy time to advertise his movies. Or maybe you'll get NBC and then everything will be great. (Laughter) There will be no more problems.

So what are the kind of things that would be great to see? And I know that this is really silly because I know that you've been talking about this all day, but, I'm still going to say what I think, and I know that some of these things are already on your shows. But, the importance of young people postponing sex. That's a real good thing to say. The importance of having protected sex and of avoiding high-risk partners. That's another thing. Why not replace large families with a lot of neighbors? Everyone has small families and a lot of really fascinating neighbors. Why not show empowered girls who stand up for themselves and know how to say "No" gracefully without hurting feelings. And I've found out from my studies, this is a major issue. And you read in the People Magazine a wonderful article, and it shows how they need to learn and rehearse how can you stay popular and still be liked and still say "No." We have to give them examples like, "I think you are incredibly attractive, and when the time comes and I'm ready to do it, I hope you're still around." (Laughter and applause) Or, "Man, you are one cool dude, but I'm cool too. And, hey, like I'm not ready, but when I'm ready, I hope you'll still be my friend. Are you capable of friendship?" You know, that kind of thing. Challenge the guy if he can be around and it's not just about sex. We've got to see girls doing that. We have to show that those kind of girls, the empowered girls, are hip, and sexy and popular, and smart, and not, you know, the easy girls are usually not as smart and hip. We have to show those kind of differences.

We have to show that vasectomies are macho. We have to make vasectomies are something a real man does. (Laughter) Once he's had one child or two children. And we have to show men that they don't become impotent when they have vasectomies. A lot of men think they do. We have to make it sexy to use condoms. We have to make responsible parenting by a father seem wonderful and manly.

That isn't happening anymore. We have to show how having a child while you're still in school is really tough. How it robs a young person of youth and life opportunities. We have to show the value of hard work. We have to show how you sort out the values in this highly sexually promiscuous country. I mean our kids are confronted by the most terrible dichotomy, and I know this because I've lived in Europe. We have all these sexual messages that they are being bombarded with, but we're so puritanical. Nobody talks about it. Parents never talk about it. And that is why the kids are maybe even more sexually active in Europe, but they don't get pregnant as much, and they don't get the sexually transmitted diseases as much because their teachers and their parents talk to them about it and tell them what to do. They're not so naive.

We should see that girls have a right not to do what they don't want to do. That children have a right to be wanted. Real people of color have to be shown dealing with the real problems that they face in their life. We have to show people deciding not to buy something new and making a choice to live more simply. Help us want to have small families. Help us make sure the children we have will be healthy, and educated and nurtured and nourished. This country needs you to be part of the solution and the whole world needs you to be part of the solution.

(Applause)