- All Quotes
-
A friend of mine was married to an assistant church pastor who regularly beat her up. He was smart ?- he'd do it in a way that the bruises didn't show. For the longest time, she dealt with it. Who would believe the minister was a wife beater?! Meanwhile, my friend ? - An attorney! ? - Suffered in silence.
-
I was proud to be an original cosponsor of the Violence Against Women Act when Congress passed it in 1994, and was proud to support the previous renewals in 2000 and 2005. These bills always enjoyed large, bipartisan support.
-
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.
-
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 cannot ensure that women will be free of discrimination in the workplace and everywhere as long as women are not universally defended under our Constitution. As it stands now, the equal rights of women are subject to interpretation of law. That is a risk our mothers, sisters and daughters cannot afford.
-
Where are the women? The women are here.
-
More women are working because they have to, that's what it takes to put the food on the table and pay the rent. And yet we have not changed our policies to support the family. The right wing goes to the floor, and they did when they were in power, and talk about family values. Well, where are they? Family values is support for child care. Family values is equal pay for equal work so that women are paid appropriately.
-
In America, we have long stood by the principle that the protections of the law are not meant just for some.
-
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.
-
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.
-
While men's rights are guaranteed by specific language in the Constitution, women's equal rights aren't mentioned.
-
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.