Lagarde shifts from economics to her personal challenge: gender empowerment. She tells the story of applying to the largest law firm in Paris after law school. She was welcomed, but when she asked about her future as partner, the answer was a smiling, casual 'no' — simply because she was a woman. From that moment, she knew something was fundamentally wrong. She goes on to cite that women in the U.S. still make 80 cents for every dollar a man earns, that there are more CEOs named James than there are female CEOs, and that millions of women worldwide can't even open a bank account. The story is both a personal wound and a rallying cry.