Miss Representation Page #4

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from making a difference

and becoming leaders.

Mitchell:
Here we are...

this massively powerful

democratic society,

and we are not modeling

for the rest of the world

a better balance.

Newsom:

If people knew that Cuba,

China, Iraq, and Afghanistan

have more women in government

than the United States of America,

that would get some people upset.

No wonder we are in such trouble

in this country.

We've been choosing

our national leadership

from 6% of the country.

Lawless:

Without more women in politics,

we just don't really have

democratic legitimacy.

Something looks fundamentally wrong

with our political institutions.

We're shortchanging voices

that are urgently needed

in public forums

from ever getting to the table.

Washington is still pretty male,

and it was not unusual

to go into a room

and be the only woman in the room.

Sometimes, it mattered.

When there was an attempt

to change Title IX

and some pressure

from Capitol Hill about that,

I can remember Karen Hughes

and I going to the President

and saying, "You can't do that

because you don't know"

"what it was like to be a woman

in college prior to Title IX,"

when you had to ha a bake sale

"to get your sports team

to take a trip."

If you have any kind

of a decision-making board

and there are not any women

on that board,

they're going to make

the wrong decisions,

because they don't have

the woman's perspective,

the woman's insight,

the woman's experience.

It's an absolute scandal

that America's women

continue to earn just 77 cents

for every dollar men earn.

In nine states

and the District of Columbia,

women who are victims

of domestic abuse,

who've been victims

of domestic abuse,

can be denied healthcare coverage

because domestic abuse

can be considered

a pre-existing condition.

We go to the ladies room...

the Republican women

and the Democratic women...

and we just roll our eyes

at what's being said out there.

And the Republican women said,

when we were fighting over

the healthcare bill,

"if we sent the men home,

we could get this done

this week."

[ laughter, cheers and applause]

The United States is the only

major industrialized nation

without paid family leave.

If women didn't speak up

on these issues

and didn't become

front-and-center

on making sure they were

on the front burner

of the legislative agenda,

they simply wouldn't happen.

I feel if it wasn't us,

who would do it'?

Women have been actually creating

the best public policy in America

in every state and community

of this country.

The living-wage campaigns,

micro-enterprise, safety...

everything that needed

different thinking,

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