President and Mrs. Obama spoke at today’s International Women’s Day reception in the East Room of the White House. It must have been a rather jovial event — the official transcript notes nine different sets of laughter and twenty-six sets of applause. The event was emceed by actress Kerry Washington.
Mentioning the LGBTQ community as part of America’s history, President Obama said,
The story of America over the past 200 years — past 233 years is one of laws becoming more just, of a people becoming more equal, of a union being perfected. It’s a story of captives being set free and a movement to fulfill the promise of that freedom. It’s a story of waves of weary travelers reconsecrating America as a nation of immigrants. It’s a story of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters making the most of that most American of demands — to be treated the same as everybody else. And it’s a story of women, from those on the Mayflower to the one I’m blessed to call my wife, who looked across the dinner table, and thought, I’m smarter than that guy.
During his address, the President mentioned many American iconic women, from Abigail Adams to Gloria Steinem to Hillary Clinton, who, Mr. Obama said, “throughout her career, has put millions of cracks in America’s glass ceiling.”
Saying, “full gender equality has not yet been achieved,” Obama noted there is still much work to be done.
“But even as we reflect on the hope of our history, we must also face squarely the reality of the present — a reality marked by unfairness, marked by hardship for too many women in America. The statistics of inequality are all too familiar to us — how women just earn 77 cents for every dollar men make; how one in four women is the victim of domestic violence at some point in her life; how women are more than half the population, but make up only 17 percent of the seats in Congress, and less than 3 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs.”
Obama also discussed women in the military, but did not mention “our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters” in that arena, ignoring an opportunity to reinforce his call to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Obama concluded by saying,
“I didn’t run for President so that the dreams of our daughters could be deferred or denied. I didn’t run for President to see inequality and injustice persist in our time. I ran for President to put the same rights, the same opportunities, the same dreams within the reach for our daughters and our sons alike. I ran for President to put the American Dream within the reach of all of our people, no matter what their gender, or race, or faith, or station.
“If we can stay true to that cause, if we can stay true to our founding ideals, then I’m absolutely confident that the line that runs through America’s story will, in the future, as it has in the past, be drawn with an upward curve. And I’m especially pleased that these young ladies are here today because they’re the ones who are going to help bend that curve towards justice and equality.”
More on International Women’s Day.
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(Story h/t Chris Geidner)