Eddie Bernice Johnson Quotes
All issues are women's issues - and there are several that are just women's business.
Johnson, Eddie Bernice. Interview by Larry Crowe. The HistoryMakers, 19 Feb. 2007.
At the time and for the next decade she was one of the few world leaders who made women’s equality and rights a major priority. But slowly American and European women and many men began to give higher priority to using foreign policy and foreign aid. Then women from Asia and Africa began to take up the issue and in the early 21st century even some women in the Islamic nations began to fight for women’s rights. Mrs. Roosevelt. However, was the first modern major and high visibility politician to make women’s rights a major international and national issue.
Turkey, the only Islamic nation where women have equal rights, made huge developmental and reform strides immediately after Ataturk reformed Turkish society and gave women the vote, freed them from veils and chadors, educated them and gave them equal employment rights. Turkey moved from an impoverished 3rd world nation to a modern industrialized democracy.
SNCC had been formed to promote equality, but race and class were the issues, not gender. Many of the women left SNCC and proceeded separately to start a women’s movement.
Although Mao attempted to reform Chinese sexist culture and practice, his and other efforts are taking hold very slowly. Into the 21st century, the Chinese Communist party included women but not at the highest levels where the traditional practice of selecting leaders was to choose elderly males. Part of the prejudice agaist female leaders results from Chinese history where women have ruled or controlled China at several points, but none performed well. This is unlike the experiences of England, India, Israel, and other nations where women have been very successful and respected leaders. There is an American NGO in China, providing assistance to women, which has adopted the name “Half the Sky” and it is the title of a book by Nicholas Kristoff and a record album by Ruby Turner.
Eddie Bernice Johnson is an American politician from the state of Texas, currently representing Texas's 30th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives. Johnson is a member of the Democratic Party.
