Mazie Hirono Quotes

Hawaii's own Patsy Mink served as the first congresswoman of color and first Asian American woman in the House; she later sought the Democratic Party presidential nomination.

I'm the first South Asian woman to be elected to the House of Representatives.

It's going to be very important that we as women's rights advocates are involved in redistricting of both the states legislatures and of the House of Representatives and that we not lose seats but we gain seats for talented women and our country, but we're lacking behind.

When I became the first woman to represent the state of Texas in the United State Senate, it was with the help of a lot of women - and a large number of men, too.

In politics, they found there were not enough females in the House of Commons, so they came up with the idea of shortlists having to have women on them.

It took us 200 years to elect the first Democratic woman to the Senate in her own right, and that's Barbara Mikulski. Six years later, we had a grand slam: We elected four new Democratic women to the Senate. Sen. Mikulski now has some company.

For me, personally, it has been humbling since I became First Minister to speak to women and girls and have them tell me how much it means to them to have a woman in the top job in politics in Scotland.

1992 became known as the 'Year of the Woman' because so many of us were elected to public office that November, including a record six to the United States Senate.

For me, a better democracy is a democracy where women do not only have the right to vote and to elect but to be elected.

In politics, the number of women in the cabinet has fallen and, if current poll trends continue and Labour loses a number of marginal seats, the number of female MPs is likely to drop significantly.

I am really proud to be a part in whatever way of women becoming active in the political scene. I think it was the first time that people came to terms with the reality of what it meant to have a Senate made up of 98 men and two women.

In Tunisia, where women have long enjoyed greater rights than many of their Arab neighbors, women pushed for and won a new electoral code that guarantees women will make up half of a candidates' list for office.

It is Republicans that have led the fight for women's equality. Go back through history and look at who was the first woman to ever vote, elected to office, go to Congress.

You don't only have the need to do it well because leading a country is something quite important, but also because I am the first woman I have the obligation to do it the best possible way so my country can continue voting for women in the future. It is a big responsibility.

Congresswomen are congresswomen - you are, sorry. And for women who want to be congressmen, there's a screw loose in their head. I'm proud of being a woman. I think 'congresswoman' is the appropriate term, and 'Madame chair' is just fine with me.

When it comes to getting more women into parliament, politicians have at least started to take active measures. The British Labour Party introduced all-female shortlists in 1997.

A woman's place is in the house - the House of Representatives.

And because of President Obama, more women than ever are serving in the Cabinet and on the Supreme Court.

So many other countries have had female leaders, in fact the U.S. ranks 61st in female representation in government and I think it is startling and sign of a change that needs to be made.

The list of women to potentially be on a major party ticket, in both parties, is embarrassingly short.

As you can imagine I'm disappointed as anything that I was not selected to be the presidential running mate. And I find it continually appalling that it would be a radical thing to have a woman on the ticket.

Gender used to be a barrier for women to overcome if they wanted to be in politics, but today in Taiwan the situation is somewhat different. I think there is even a preference for a woman candidate, and in local elections, we have seen that younger, better-educated female candidates are overwhelmingly preferred by the voters.

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.”

Many women in politics say they had very few, if any, female role models.

Women are prepared to run for office. They're prepared to show up. Oh yeah, women have big roles to play, and they have stepped up to the plate already.