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The Original Feminists Wanted Two Things. They Wanted The Right To Vote, From Which We Could Work To Get More Equality. And We Have Made Progress. We Did Pass The Anti-discrimination Law, Title 7, Title 9, Equality In The Workplace, Equality In Education And In Sports And In All These Other Areas. But Enforcement Is Very Hard. Changing Stereotypes Is Very Hard.

-Carolyn Maloney

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The Original Feminists Wanted

Carolyn Maloney

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The Original Feminists Wanted Two Things. They Wanted The Right To Vote, From Which We Could Work To Get More Equality. And We Have Made Progress. We Did Pass The Anti-discrimination Law, Title 7, Title 9, Equality In The Workplace, Equality In Education And In Sports And In All These Other Areas. But Enforcement Is Very Hard. Changing Stereotypes Is Very Hard.

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Because It's Important. Laws Can Be Reversed, Supreme Court Decisions Can Be Overturned, Gender Classifications Can Continue.

I Just Remember When My First Child Was Born I Called The Personnel Office And I Asked Them About Their Leave Policies. And They Said, "leave Policies? Women Just Leave And They Don't Come Back." And I Said, "but I Want To Come Back." They Said, "we Have No Leave Policy." And Then They Said, "why Don't You Apply For Disability?" Well, Having A Child Is Not A Disability.

I Have Always Been Supported By The Men In My Life, Which Is Why I Think I've Been Successful In Many Of My Endeavors. My Father Believed I Could Do Anything. He Even Wrote To Al Gore And Told Him That He Thought I Should Be His Vice President.

As More Women Have Gone Into The Workforce, They Find It Harder To Be A Good Mother And A Good Worker. When I Go Into The Office, I Always Feel Guilty. I'm Thinking About The Children. When I'm At Home, I'm Thinking About My Work. So You're Always Under Tremendous Pressure. Women Feel Very Stressed. They Feel Like They're Working Harder And Harder And Harder. And Society Is Not Really Helping Them.

I Write About One Of My Bills That Says Pharmacists Cannot Be Doctors. They Cannot Determine What They Will Or Will Not Sell, And You Find That Many Pharmacists Will Not Sell Birth Control. The Movement Has Gone Not Just Against The Access Of Reproductive Rights To Abortion; The Movement Has Gone To Birth Control. They're Going After Birth Control.

I Think In A Society Where You Can't Even Pass The Equal Rights Amendment, It's Very Difficult To Women Make A Progress. Incidentally, We Are Exactly 160 Years After The Very First Women's Public Rights Convention In Seneca Falls, New York, When A Handful Of Women Started It All And Began The Movement To Make Women Equal.

Nine Out Of Ten Adult Americans Have A Checking Account. It's The Most Widely Used Financial Services Product In The United States.

I Believe The Person Who Was Out Conquering The World, Who Was Out Fighting In The World Were Our Fathers, So To Have Them Come... I Adored My Father More Than Anyone In The World, But My Father Had More Advice On Work Policies And How To Get A Job And How To Survive In The Work Environment Than My Mother Because My Mother Never Worked Outside Of The Home. So I Think The Support Of Fathers Is Very Important.

If You Ask Around, It's Pretty Easy To Find Someone Who Has A Bank Account Overdraft Horror Story To Tell.

In America, We Have Long Stood By The Principle That The Protections Of The Law Are Not Meant Just For Some.

Where Are The Women? The Women Are Here.

Women Deserve The Same Permanent Rights And Explicit Protections Given Men In The Constitution.

The Original Feminists Wanted Two Things. They Wanted The Right To Vote, From Which We Could Work To Get More Equality. And We Have Made Progress. We Did Pass The Anti-discrimination Law, Title 7, Title 9, Equality In The Workplace, Equality In Education And In Sports And In All These Other Areas. But Enforcement Is Very Hard. Changing Stereotypes Is Very Hard.

We're Going To School For Higher Education In Higher Numbers, But The Numbers Still Show We're Not Breaking Though The Glass Ceiling. For Every Nancy Pelosi And Hillary Clinton There Are Millions Of Women Stuck In Cement On The Floor That Are Not Getting Up.

Higher Education

We Have Not Ratified The Convention On The Elimination Of All Forms Of Discrimination Among Women. I Think 194 Countries Have Signed Onto It, But The United States Has Not. And Cedaw To The United Nations Is What The Equal Rights Amendment Or The Women's Equality Amendment Is To The United States. I Think We Should Pass The Women's Equality Amendment And A Lot Of These Other Fights Would Go Away.

Usually Women Are The Lynchpins Of The Family. They Carry The Brunt Of The Work At Home And Of Being Mothers And Of Taking Care Of The Children. Not Always. I Have A Wonderful Husband, Who Is A Great Father And Has Helped Tremendously At Home. And I Think That Men Are Getting In Touch And I Think That The Role That They Have Is So Important, To Be A Good Father And Have A Good Career And Be A Good Husband. But I Think That As More And More Women Go Into The Workforce, You Have To Have More Help At Home And It Becomes More Of A Sharing Of Responsibilities.

The Proposal That Men And Women Should Be Treated Equally Under The Law Is Hardly A Controversial Concept.

You See We're A Country That Talks About Family Values. But We Haven't Passed Anything To Help Family Values Since The Family And Medical Leave Act. And The Family And Medical Leave Act Was One Of The First Things I Voted On When I Came To Congress. It Was Very Thrilling To Me, Because When My First Child Was Born, I Was Terrified Of Being Fired. When My Second Child Was Born, I Was A Member Of The City Council, And In Some Ways It Was Easier To Respond To 250 Constituents Than It Was To Respond To One Employer.

Healthy Moms Mean Healthy Families. When My Republican Colleagues Held A Hearing About Birth Control And Refused To Include A Single Woman On The First Panel As A Witness, I Asked, "where Are The Women?"

I Asked, "what Do You Think The Most Important Advancement Was For Women In Recent Years?" And The Majority, The Item That Polled The Most, Was Hillary Clinton's Run For President. Can You Believe That? Women Saw That As A Breakthrough In Something Very, Very Important. She Didn't Win. And I Think Another Thing That Her Race Did Was It Showed Sexism In Our Society.

The Only Way To Ensure Equality For Women Is To Clearly Declare It In Our Constitution.

In My Research, I Found That Since 1979, Women Have Lost The Equivalent To One Night's Sleep Due To The Pressures Of Balancing Work And Family. And As More Women Have Gone Into The Work Force Because They Have To, And When You Discriminate Against A Woman's Pay You Discriminate Against Her Children Or Her Husband Or Her Significant Other In Terms Of What The Family Income Is.

When I Started Working, Women Were Working At 59 Cents To The Dollar. We Got A Raise, But It's Still Unfair. We're Still 16 Percent Of Congress, Even Though We're 51 Percent Of The Population. We're A Low Percentage Of Our Ceos. We're A Low Percentage Of Boards And Being Part Of Boards.

My Idea Is That We've Worked So Many Years For Equality, But The Only Area Where We've Achieved Equality, With Men, Is In Job Loss. We Are Still 77 Cents To The Dollar.

I Firmly Believe That If You Help A Woman, Then You Educate A Child, You Help The Family. Because Women Are Very Focused On Health Care And Education And On The Family. So If You Help A Woman, You Help The Family, You Help The Village, You Help The Country. And So Empowering Women Is A Very Important Part Of Moving, Not Just Women Forward, But The Economy Of The Nation Forward. Particularly In Very Substandard Nations.

The Reports That Media Matters Have Done About Sexism In Our Society And Really The Mainstream Media Called Hillary Clinton "castrating," They Called Her The B Word, They Called Her All Kinds Of Horrible Things. And I Think In A Sense That It Raised The Awareness In Our Country, So That We Can Have A National Discussion About It.

We Need A Mayor Who Knows How To Balance A Budget, Who Understands The Urgency Of Delivering All The Services That A Great City Needs, Who Understand The Need Of Working Families.

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I Would Say That The Race Of Hillary Clinton Was Very Important To This Country, Because It Showed That A Woman Could Win The State, That A Woman Could Raise Money. I Think That Every Woman Is Sitting A Little Taller, Not Only In Our Own Country, But I Think Women Around The World Watch What's Happening In The United States.

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