Women in the World 2015: Meryl Streep, Ava DuVernay, Aamir Khan, Jon Stewart

Robi Damelin: "When you see the humanity in the other, that's the beginning of the end of conflict."

Damelin, an Israeli member and spokeswoman for Parents Circle—Families Forum, a grassroots organization for both Israeli and Palestinian parents who have lost their children as a result of the prolonged conflict between the two regions, knows she is just one of many mothers grieving her son. "When I looked into the eyes of the Palestinian mothers, I recognized that we shared the same pain," she said. She was joined by Bushra Awad, a Palestinian member of Parents Circle, who also lost her son in the conflict. Awad, a mother of seven, said that she didn't like Damelin initially, but now they are friends. "Some of the people in my community accept that and some of them don't," she said. "Some of the people said to me that I'm selling my son's blood, but I'm not. I'm buying the blood of my other kids." Damelin and Awad embraced on stage, with Damelin telling the audience, "If Bushra and I can sit in the same room...that should be an example for everyone else."Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy: "I like to make men uncomfortable. I enjoy making men uncomfortable. It is important to be able to look into the eyes of a man and to say, 'I am here and recognize that.'"

Obaid-Chinoy, CEO of SOC Films, was part of a panel moderated by *Daily Show *host Jon Stewart about women in film. She spoke about the difficulties and responsibilities of documenting the lives of real people, particularly female activists in what are sometimes dangerous areas. "You have to live and breath that reality with those people that you are filming. Often for years, their reality becomes your reality. Their nightmares becomes your nightmares. It becomes very hard to take yourself out of that situation at the end of the film," she said. "You know that their reality may continue to be the same, whereas your's will change." Obaid-Chinoy, who is Pakistani, said that it's important to highlight strong women. "Very often we see women in my part of the world as victims...we need to have heroes," she said. "When you do bring their voices forward, other people will be tempted to walk in their footsteps. In some way, I'm hoping that by highlighting this, by putting my camera out there, that I am creating heroes for the next generation in my part of the world."

__Meryl Streep: "I can feel more like Peter Pan than Tinkerbell or Wendy...I want to be Tom Sawyer, not Becky. __

Streep, who recently (and awesomely) funded a writing lab for female screenwriters over the age of 40, talked about the difficulties of getting a male audience to relate to a female protagonist. There is "this act of empathy that women go through from the time we are little girls. We read all of literature, all of history, it's really about boys, most of it," she said. "But I can feel more like Peter Pan than Tinkerbell or Wendy...I wanted to be Tom Sawyer, not Becky." She continued,__ "And we're so used to that active empathizing with the protagonist of a male-driven plot. That's what we've done all our lives…. It's all fellows, you know?" __Men have rarely had to put themselves in women's shoes, she said, and "the hardest thing for me as an actor is to have a story that men in the audience feel like they know what I feel like. That's a really hard thing. It's very hard for them to put themselves in the shoes of a female protagonist. This is known to the studios. They know it's the toughest suit of clothes to wear…."