Eleanor Smeal: I mean this is not like a very dry political book. This...

Just think - guns have a constitutional amendment protecting them and women don't.

Eleanor Smeal

amendments gun thinking

There's no question in my mind but that rights are never won unless people are willing to fight for them.

Eleanor Smeal

fighting rights people

Nowhere have women been more excluded from decision-making than in the military and foreign affairs. When it comes to the military and questions of nuclear disarmament, the gender gap becomes the gender gulf.

Eleanor Smeal

gender-gap military war

Carolyn Maloney led the fight to make sure that DNA evidence kits are processed and passed the Debbie Smith Bill. She, when no one almost would listen to us on the whole issue of the Taliban and its treatment of women, she helped pass the Afghan Women's Empowerment Act.

Eleanor Smeal

issues dna fighting

[We need to push] for what we want, not just what we can get.

Eleanor Smeal

womens-rights want needs

Feminist humor raises consciousness. And the reason it's funny is because it stands something on its head. Goodness knows you've got to have a sense of humor if you do feminism full-time, I tell you.

Eleanor Smeal

sense-of-humor feminism feminist

We think that Hillary [Clinton] will be a symbol and a reality for the women of the world, and it's very important because so many - so many underdeveloped countries, not the least of which is Afghanistan, the women of the world need help, and she understands those issues and is a lightning rod for them.

Eleanor Smeal

country reality thinking

We've spent too much on how to destroy and blow up things with the military and too little on our health care, and too little on education, and it goes on.

Eleanor Smeal

military blow goes-on

Since the 1950s (until the early 1990s), girls in Kabul and other cities attended schools. Half of university students were women, and women made up 40 percent of Afghanistan’s doctors, 70 percent of its teachers and 30 percent of its civil servants. A small number of women even held important political posts as members of Parliament and judges. Most women did not wear the burqa.

Eleanor Smeal

girl teacher school

In New York that probably has more lawyers per square foot than any other state in the union, more women lawyers. I mean, it to me shocking that this can happen in 2008, but fortunately, you had a governor who was sensitive enough to this outrage that he pointed it out to the nation, and is trying to do something about it.

Eleanor Smeal

squares new-york mean

Well it's unusual for us to do an endorsement, you know, and the special occasions where you need appointments, but we thought that Senator [Hillary] Clinton had occupied such a neat and unique role, certainly a worldwide advocate for women, and also there's also only 16 women without her in Congress.

Eleanor Smeal

unique special needs

She [Carolyn Maloney] has there day in and day out for us and for women of this country and of the world, but she also never forgets the citizens of New York, and she's been, as you know a trailblazer for 9/11, commission for, you know, the financial district, etc.

Eleanor Smeal

citizens new-york country

I have been studying women’s political behavior since the early 1970s and first identified the gender gap in 1980 with the help of legendary pollster Louis Harris.

Eleanor Smeal

gender-gap gaps political

Since 1996, the Feminist Majority Foundation has been immersed in a campaign to support Afghan women and girls in their fight against the brutal oppression of the Taliban.

Eleanor Smeal

support girl fighting

We have got to have more providers to replace those who are leaving.

Eleanor Smeal

providers abortion leaving

Well we didn't look at it like that. We looked at it: "Why Carolyn Maloney?" Of course, we didn't know about Caroline Kennedy, but we do know and have - this is not against somebody, this is for somebody who we know has had a proven record. It's 16 years in the House, 10 years on the City Council of New York City, that she has shown her determination to pass legislation. She is - she knows how a legislature works.

Eleanor Smeal

determination new-york years

Carolyn Maloney is very, very comfortable with a whole host of issues, but on women's issues, she is really just one of the few people who understands that women are not only half of the world and half of the United States, but they need an advocate; that they have to have advocacy; that our issues cannot be ignored.

Eleanor Smeal

issues united-states people

I've been here a long time working for women. These are long years and this is an unusual legislator.

Eleanor Smeal

unusual long years

Carolyn Maloney knows how to get something done, and as I said, it doesn't matter if she's in the majority or the minority. It doesn't matter if she's chair of a committee or not, she can figure out how to get a piece of legislation passed, and that's what is - is a unique quality.

Eleanor Smeal

majority quality unique

Many family planning clinics and - and programs that service women have refused now to take women's - United State's money because they feel that it would be unethical, and it could injure their clients even more, their patients even more. That has to be changed.

Eleanor Smeal

united-states clients would-be

I mean this is not like a very dry political book. This is - it was a very quick and entertaining and interesting read because there were so many stories, at least for me, of real women and - and sort of the issues that they face, and her commitment to wanting to help them.