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.

One of the problems and the reason why Carolyn [Maloney ] wrote the book, the Rumors of Our Progress Have Been Greatly Exaggerated is that some people think we have made it when we have not and there's much to be done.

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.

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.

We think it's so important that we get [Carolyne] Maloney in that seat [in Congress]. It's one of the reasons; we also think that she is a unique person that deserves it and would help advance women's rights.

Carolyn [Maloney] is the kind of legislator who, whether she's in the majority or the minority, whether her party is in the majority or the minority, she doesn't take "No" for an answer, and she frequently calls women leaders and say, "I think we should do this. This is really necessary for women." And so she hangs in there and gets bills passed when people think it's not possible.

The gag rule is, is that if any program receiving United States funding for Family Planning cannot mention, cannot speak the word "abortion" in the Third World.