This TED Talk features writer, actress, and producer Naomi McDougal Jones, recorded live at TEDx Beacon Street, 2016.

I'm going to begin today with a story and end with a revolution.

Are you ready?

Yes.

Here's the story.

All my life I wanted to be an actress.

From the time I was very small,

I could feel the magic of storytelling,

and I wanted to be a part of it.

So, at the ripe age of 21,

I graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City,

bright-eyed and bushy-tailed

and ready to take my rightful place as the next Meryl Streep.

That's my grandmother, not Meryl Streep.

Now, it's important for this story that you understand that I was raised by a raging feminist.

I mean, just to give you some idea, when I was five or six years old and obsessed with the sound of music

and running around singing, I am 16, going on 17 all day, every

day. My mother sat me down for a very serious conversation, and she said, okay, look, I'm not going

to say that you can't sing that song, but if you are going to see that sing that song, I do need

you to understand the extremely problematic gender constructs that it reinforces.

So that's where I come from. So it just honestly never even occurred to me that I would be

prevented from doing anything in my life because I'm a woman. Okay, so I graduate, and I start

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