Cecile Richards Quotes

If you want to have high-powered career women who have families, you need to provide options for them in terms of childcare.

I think the rules will change and I think more and more young women are going to decide that having a family and taking care of a home is not a bad choice, but how do we subsidize it - not necessarily European-style socialism. It'll have to be a new more creative, dynamic and local solution.

How do you give smart, accomplished, ambitious women the same opportunities as men to reach their goals? What about universal preschool and after-school programs? What about changing the corporate mind-set about the time commitment it takes to move up the ladder? What about having more husbands step up and take the major load?

Our goal should be to develop work-life policies that enable people to put their gender values into practice. So let's stop arguing about the hard choices women make and help more women and men avoid such hard choices.

I think that the female workforce is so valuable. And if we're going to champion women in the workforce, which our economy seems to want to do, we have to deal with the realities, which is that they have children, and they need a way to take care of their children in a supportive work environment.

To create a society that is supportive of child-rearing parents is a role of the government, and we are also working to realize a society where women can shine.

I look forward to the day when half our homes are run by men and half our companies and institutions are run by women. When that happens, it won't just mean happier women and families; it will mean more successful businesses and better lives for us all.

In Sweden, both parents take care of the children.

It is easy but inaccurate to label any legislation which makes it easier for working families to combine family and work responsibilities 'job killers.'

Maternity leave and parental leave is absolutely vital for strengthening families. It's an issue for men and women.

We need to push for work-family practices and policies that allow individuals to customize their work lives according to their changing individual preferences and family obligations, not just their traditional gender roles.

I recognized that if you're going to have women in the workforce that sometimes you need to be more flexible.

I think parental leave is enormously important - and it's a personal decision. Part of building a company whose goal is to empower women in all aspects of life is that I've given my team some leeway to determine what parental leave looks like for each of them individually.

It's embarrassing to be in the only westernized economy that doesn't have paid family leave and flex scheduling, and that disproportionately helps women.

My husband has an outstanding record in promoting opportunity for women and the women that he surrounds himself in his staff and the women that he has promoted throughout his career. He's the father of three daughters. He's obviously a husband who's been very supportive of a very active wife with her own career.

I come from Canada, and maternity leave is six months to a year, and they also have paternity leave, and I think that there's something to that. There's also something to making a more comfortable environment for women to breast feed or to bring their kids into work and to have more nurseries in these office buildings.

As women, we're presented this false choice that is either our children or our work. But I don't think I fully understood the paradox until I had a child. I bring my son to work and let other parents do the same. I am very intentional about the workplace that I create, and my son is a big part of that.

As intense as our work is, I try my hardest to live my life so that people in my office feel they can work at 'Frontline' and be parents if they choose to. This goes for the men as well.

We have seen a lot of barriers removed for women like myself with young children to be able to run for office.

This idea of doing it all is the enemy of equality, not the path to do it. It's impossible to do two full-time jobs, and an impossible definition of success is just another way of making women feel like failures... Any definition of success has to include social policies that honor families and men who raise babies as much as women do.

Most female CEOs have been more understanding than their male counterparts, of the stress that new mothers experience to 'do it all,' which often means, 'all by themselves.' Why? They've been there. They understand the policies needed to keep women in the workforce.

No work-family balance will ever fully take hold if the social conditions that might make it possible - men who are willing to share parenting and housework, communities that value work in the home as highly as work on the job, and policymakers and elected officials who are prepared to demand family-friendly reforms - remain out of reach.

Avon is a unique place to work; we've got family-friendly policies. We have more senior women in high-level management than any other company; 46 percent of our officers are women.

If the feminist program goes to pieces on the arrival of the first baby, it's false and useless.

I'm particularly fortunate to be in a position where I can bring my child to work and be able to get good child care. Not a lot of women have that.