There are no more excuses for leaving women out of the inner circles of power. Qualified women are everywhere. Women are ready for leadership; they just need to be identified and asked.

Life experience is not something to be denied, but to be celebrated.

I confess to feeling continued ambivalence about political life, aware of its shortcomings and disappointments, but drawn back to it again and again because of its infinite promise. Justice can triumph, wrongs can be righted, and pain can be alleviated, if the right fix is found. The optimistic illusion that one can change the world is difficult to resist, especially when from time to time that illusion is sustained by even a hint of reality. Change does happen in the political process.

We're all basically made of the same stuff: generosity and selfishness, goodness and greed.

Every time a woman leaves the workforce because she can't find or afford childcare, or she can't work out a flexible arrangement with her boss, or she has no paid maternity leave, her family's income falls down a notch. Simultaneously, national productivity numbers decline.

A small pay discrepancy between men's and women's salaries for the same job may seem inconsequential. But over the years, salary discrimination adds up to a significantly smaller pension.

Fair treatment in the work force is no longer exclusively a labor issue, nor is it a women's issue - it is a fundamental economic issue.