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Artist News Awards
Bono calls on Donald Trump to “make equality a priority” of his presidency
By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 16 November 2016
Bono has called on US President-Elect Donald Trump to “make equality a priority” during his time in office, as he accepted his Woman Of The Year award from Glamour magazine.
As previously reported, Bono recently became the first man ever to appear on the US magazine’s annual list of notable women, in recognition of his campaigning for gender equality. This week he appeared at a ceremony in LA to accept his prize.
The U2 frontman began his speech by noting how “ridiculous” it was that he had won the award. “If I didn’t know how ridiculous it was, I did have the blessed internet to remind me”, he added, before reading out a few disparaging tweets.
He continued: “I’ll tell you that the real reason that I’m here is because [this was] one of the tiny few awards that caused real excitement in our house and actually stopped the usual dinner conversation and started what my daughters think of as the only conversation – about there being 130 million girls that are not going to school, a conversation where right here in the United States Of America, women make 80 cents to a man’s dollar”.
He said that he’d asked his wife Ali what he should say, and that she’d told him “Don’t look down at me. But don’t look up at me either. Look across to me. I’m here”.
“So, I say to the President-Elect: Look across to women”, he concluded. “Make equality a priority. It is the only way forward. The train is leaving the station. Be on it or be under it”.
Read Bono’s speech in full here.
