It's going to be very important that we as women's rights advocates are involved in redistricting of both the states legislatures and of the House of Representatives and that we not lose seats but we gain seats for talented women and our country, but we're lacking behind.

I'm not going to say that all the cabinet appointments of the men and women, you know, obviously we might have some reservations on some, but the women's movement has congratulated them for some of the appointments and is urging and encouraging more women in the Executive Branch and high areas.

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

We're doing quite well in some states, but there are states that you can't - I mean, it's just ridiculous the representation of women, and having been an advocate for women, lobbied in many states as well as here at the national level for women. People behave differently when there are women at the table, men do. Our issues get higher prominence. We're taken more seriously.

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

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.

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.