There are certainly a lot of things that still need to change when it comes to women in the workforce.

When I get up and work out, I’m working out just as much for my girls as I am for me, because I want them to see a mother who loves them dearly, who invests in them, but who also invests in herself. It’s just as much about letting them know as young women that it is okay to put yourself a little higher on your priority list.

It’s a facet of the gay rights movement that people don’t think about enough. Why suddenly marriage equality? Because it wasn’t until 1981 that the court struck down Louisiana’s ‚head and master rule,‘ that the husband was head and master of the house.

That’s all I could ever hope for, to have a positive effect on women. ‚Cos women are powerful, powerful beings. But they’re also the most doubtful beings. They’ll never know – we’ll never know – how powerful we are.

At Columbia Law School, my professor of constitutional law and federal courts, Gerald Gunther, was determined to place me in a federal court clerkship, despite what was then viewed as a grave impediment: On graduation, I was the mother of a 4-year-old child.

I always say that women should wear whatever makes them feel good about themselves. That’s what I always try to do.

We can’t afford not to educate girls and give women the power and the access that they need.

Woman was God’s second mistake.

The women of my generation and my daughter’s generation, they were very active in moving along the social change that would result in equal citizenship stature for men and women.

Women have to summon up courage to fulfill dormant dreams.

All women have a perception much more developed than men. So all women somehow, being repressed for so many millennia, they ended up by developing this sixth sense and contemplation and love. And this is something that we have a hard time to accept as part of our society.

I’m always rather nervous about how you talk about women who are active in politics, whether they want to be talked about as women or as politicians.

I’m not particularly a feminist, but if you get women off the animal cycle of reproduction and give them some say in how many children they’ll have, immediately the floor will rise.

I have worshipped woman as the living embodiment of the spirit of service and sacrifice.

If you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything.

I don’t want people saying, ‚Should we get a female director?‘ I want to hear, ‚Should we get a great director for this movie?‘

Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country.

Feminists wish women to seem like men. They’re not men.

We as women, we have to understand that we know more, just even instinctively, than we think we do.

If you make yourself indispensable to your employer, he is not going to part with you in a hurry no matter what it costs him.

I’m trying to show everybody that I’m a girl, and I’m five foot four, and you can do anything you want, no matter your gender. It’s your world, too!

I love stories about women.

We’re always looking over our shoulders, ‚what they will think, what the press will think, what will this one – am I making the right career move?‘ When you’re young you have to do all that to survive, I suppose.

Men’s vows are women’s traitors!

Maybe if everybody in leadership was a woman, you might not get into the conflicts in the first place. But if you watch the women who have made it to the top, they haven’t exactly been non-aggressive – including me.

I wouldn’t say I’m a feminist, but I don’t like girls pretending to be stupid because it’s easier.

If you see everything from the point of view of women being victims in some way, you don’t see the wood for the trees. It is better to be a person than a woman.

Men weren’t always happy for me. It was very challenging to watch a woman be so successful.

In the public eye, girls and women with strong perspectives are hated. If you’re a girl with an opinion, people just hate you. There are still people who are afraid of successful women, and that’s so lame.

But for me to have the opportunity to stand in front of a bunch of executives and present myself, I had to hustle in my own way. I can’t tell you how frustrating it was that they didn’t get that. No joke – I’d leave meetings crying all the time.

I believe there is complete equality between men and women. And I believe those passages in the New Testament, not by Jesus, but by Paul, that say women should not adorn themselves, they should always wear hats or color their hair in church – things like that – I think they are signs of the times and should not apply to modern-day life.

When I was growing up, there were no women in orchestras. Auditioners thought they could tell the difference between a woman playing and a man. Some intelligent person devised a simple solution: Drop a curtain between the auditioners and the people trying out. And, lo and behold, women began to get jobs in symphony orchestras.

What we know is that when girls don’t go to school, they earn lower salaries. They get married earlier. They have higher infant and maternal mortality rates. And they’re more likely to contract HIV, less likely to immunize their children.

My mother told me two things constantly. One was to be a lady and the other was to be independent, and the law was something most unusual for those times because for most girls growing up in the ’40s, the most important degree was not your B.A. but your M.R.S.

One of the best things that ever happened to me is that I’m a woman. That is the way all females should feel.

When a father puts in long hours at work, he’s praised for being dedicated and ambitious. But when a mother stays late at the office, she’s sometimes accused of being selfish, neglecting her kids.

I owe nothing to Women’s Lib.

Women, like men, should try to do the impossible. And when they fail, their failure should be a challenge to others.

If you insist upon fighting to protect me, or ‚our‘ country, let it be understood soberly and rationally between us that you are fighting to gratify a sex instinct which I cannot share; to procure benefits where I have not shared and probably will not share.

Black men don’t like to be called ‚boys,‘ but women accept being called ‚girls.‘

All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.

My family has very strong women. My mother never laughed at my dream of Africa, even though everyone else did because we didn’t have any money, because Africa was the ‚dark continent‘, and because I was a girl.

We have to work harder to develop a profound theology of women within the church. The feminine genius is needed wherever we make important decisions.

Men have a much better time of it than women. For one thing, they marry later; for another thing, they die earlier.

As far as a glass ceiling, I feel that all you can do is give it your absolute best with whatever gifts the universe has given you. And if you make it in some way that other people can recognize, that’s fine. But even if you don’t quote-unquote make it, you’re fine if you’ve given it your whole heart and soul.

You may try but you can never imagine what it is to have a man’s form of genius in you, and to suffer the slavery of being a girl.

I remember being in Japan when Destiny’s Child put out ‚Independent Women,‘ and women there were saying how proud they were to have their own jobs, their own independent thinking, their own goals. It made me feel so good, and I realized that one of my responsibilities was to inspire women in a deeper way.

There are some women I definitely would not want to succeed me… but a man like David Souter, that would be great.

Whether women are better than men I cannot say – but I can say they are certainly no worse.

Clever and attractive women do not want to vote; they are willing to let men govern as long as they govern men.

I’ve always felt heroic about my life… As a child, I remember little girls in the playground moaning about how boys could do more than they could. I didn’t think that was the case at all. My parents didn’t treat me as a girl.

But let me tell you, this gender thing is history. You’re looking at a guy who sat down with Margaret Thatcher across the table and talked about serious issues.

Men and women aren’t the same. And they won’t be the same. That doesn’t mean that they can’t be treated fairly.

It doesn’t matter how long my hair is or what colour my skin is or whether I’m a woman or a man.

I didn’t want to set up a women’s studies program. I thought women should learn to operate in a coeducational atmosphere, because, especially in national security and international affairs, it’s male-dominated.

Women have to be active listeners and interrupters – but when you interrupt, you have to know what you are talking about.

The basic Buddhist stand on the question of equality between the genders is age-old. At the highest tantric levels, at the highest esoteric level, you must respect women: every woman.

Those 62 million girls who are not being educated around the world impact my life in Washington, D.C., in the United States of America. Because if we aren’t empowering and providing the skills and the resources to half of our population, then we’re not realizing our full potential as a society, as mankind.

I would not like to be the only woman on the court.

Women feel empowered when they can do the things that are supposed to be only for men, you know? It breaks boundaries, it’s liberating, and it’s empowering when you feel like, ‚Well, I can do that, too.‘

I was a proponent of the ERA.