“I intend to discuss [women’s equality] not just with women but everywhere ... Equal pay for equal work, and aggressive enforcement of rules against discrimination, are everyone’s issues. And that’s why I suggested, not to a women’s group, but to a mostly male group of union leaders, that the long-standing and total exclusion of women from our highest financial institutions, from the Federal Reserve Board on down, might have something to do with our anti-human economic policies -- and with the feeble Fed regulations supposedly intended to broaden the availability of credit to women.”
Our Quote of the Week expresses how important it is to have representation of and leadership by women, not only for other women, but for all of us.
With the American Bar Association’s (ABA) recent approval of a policy measure to make the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) the 28th amendment of the US Constitution, issues related to women and equal rights are on our minds this week. The speech we’ve chosen to explore this topic takes us back to the early days of the 1976 Democratic primary, when Sargent Shriver addressed the Women’s Leadership Conference in Los Angeles, California. In the speech, he lists a set of “women’s issues” he would focus on as President, including lack of equal representation in the workforce, lack of pay equity, gender discrimination, rape legislation, maternity leave, child care, and ratification of the ERA. Shriver also gives several examples of professions in which women are not well represented, with the financial industry being a critical example, one that can result in “anti-human economic policies”.
Shriver also makes a point that gets at one of the reasons why diversity is important in politics:
“But leadership in America no longer can be left to traditional groups, to those who have had the opportunity to lead — and failed. The same spirit that opens politics to people with more ideas than political pedigree and political debt can open politics to women and other groups that have traditionally been fenced out.”
Throughout the speech, Sargent Shriver challenges a status quo that favors men, but that at the same time limits all of us as human beings. He says:
“There really is no such thing as a ‘women’s issue’ that isn’t also a ‘men’s issue.’ [...] Real equality would be as liberating for men as for women -- and don’t I know that. Men are imprisoned by the very stereotypes that oppress women. The economic rat race and the macho model are the other side of the male dominance coin. What’s involved in this struggle is no less than the most profound of all questions -- what does it mean to be a human being?”
Sargent Shriver’s words are a reminder that any effort to make our society more equitable and inclusive will ultimately benefit all of us.
Like this quote? Read the speech and browse through all of Sargent Shriver’s speeches.
