The failure of women to have reached positions of leadership has been due in large part to social and professional discrimination.
Interpretation
The lack of women in leadership roles is primarily caused by discrimination in society and the workplace.
This quote highlights the systemic barriers that women face in achieving leadership positions, attributing their underrepresentation to discrimination both in social contexts and professional environments. It suggests that addressing these biases is crucial for empowering women and enabling their advancement in leadership roles.
In practice
In a speech about gender equality in the workplace.
The only difference between men and women in science is that the women have the babies. This makes it more difficult for women in science but should not be seen as a barrier, for it is merely another challenge to be overcome.
We still live in a world in which a significant fraction of people, including women, believe that a woman belongs and wants to belong exclusively in the home.
We bequeath to you, the next generation, our knowledge but also our problems. While we still live, let us join hands, hearts and minds to work together for their solution so that your world will be better than ours and the world of your children even better.
I feel it is now my duty to speak to young women, to encourage them to have careers and, particularly, careers in science.
I wasn't handed college or graduate school or anything else on a silver platter. I had to work very hard, but I did it because I wanted to. That's the real key to happiness. I think unhappy people are those who feel that circumstances are forcing them into a pattern. Happy people are not slaves to the system.
They told me that, as a woman, I'd never get into graduate school in physics, so they got me a job as a secretary at the College of Physicians and Surgeons and promised that, if I were a good girl, I would take courses there.
When you're one of the leaders of the team, there are no days off.
By nature, I am a unifier. I am a builder of consensus. I don't believe in sloppy compromise. But I do believe in bringing people together.
Open, frank communication is the lynchpin to teamwork. A fractured team is like a fractured bone; fixing it is always painful and sometimes you have to re-break it to heal it fully - and the re-break always hurts more because it is intentional.
Presidents grow up in the White House. The times shape the man.
We will take care of every single person in our society. That is our task.
What to an outsider will be no more than the vigorous presentation of a conviction, to an employee may be the manifestation of a determination which it is not safe to thwart.
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