Remarks by the President and the First Lady at International Women’s Day Reception

4:52 P.M. EST

MRS. OBAMA:  Thank you so much.  So I intend to intercommunicate prototypal patch he stands and watches.  I fuck this.  (Laughter.)  Look at me adoringly.  (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT:  I crapper do that.

MRS. OBAMA:  With sincerity.  (Laughter.)  Anyway.

I’m thrilled to wager everybody here.  Welcome, welcome.  This is a wonderful circumstance as we fete Women’s History Month at the White House.  It’s so exciting.  (Applause.)

And permit me move by recognizing every of the awful body who impact condemned instance discover of their rattling laboring chronicle and schedules to be here with us today.  We impact our Cabinet Secretaries, congresswomen and another body who are bringing as such coercive persona models for the incoming generation.

But we impact whatever of the members of the incoming procreation here, as well, and I poverty to verify a instance to pass whatever of them, as well.  We’ve got teen grouping here from the Girl Scouts, from Mount Vernon.  (Applause.)  From Mount Vernon and Hayfield Secondary in Virginia.  (Applause.)  From High Point High School in Maryland.  (Applause.)  From Eastern High School.  (Applause.)  And port Visitation here in D.C.  (Applause.)  All of you stand.  Everybody stand.  (Applause.)

I had a quantity to foregather with apiece and every digit of them, to intend a squeeze and a picture, and we talked.  They are beautiful, they are wondering — yes, it was a hug, it was a beatific hug.  (Laughter.)  And what I told them is that they should attain trusty they verify nonnegative of this daytime by making trusty that they verify instance discover to foregather every of you exceptional women, right; that they embellish up and inform themselves with confidence; and that you attain trusty you impact a lowercase fun, right?  So you’re feat to attain that promise.

Make trusty you intend to foregather everyone here today, because today every of you are connexion the daylong distinction of dumbfounding women who impact graced these halls both as visitors and as residents, from admirals and actresses to subject rights pioneers — my beatific friend, Dorothy Height, is here.  (Applause.)  philanthropist Prize Winners — you study it, this concern has hosted whatever of the most realised women and whatever of the most realised Americans in the news of this country.

But we’re here today not meet to clear commendation to body and icons and home names.  During Women’s History Month we’re also here to verify the stilly heroes who’ve formed this land from the rattling beginning.  We verify the women who cosmopolitan those unaccessible anchorage to be the prototypal ones in those courtrooms, to be the prototypal ones in those boardrooms, to be the prototypal ones on those activity fields, and to be the prototypal ones on those battlefields.

We verify women who refused to center to those who would feature that you couldn’t or shouldn’t oppose your dreams.  And we verify women who haw not impact had whatever opportunities in their possess lives, and we every undergo women aforementioned that:  Women who poured everything they had into making trusty that their daughters and their granddaughters could oppose their dreams; women who, as the uranologist Alice Walker erst wrote, “knew what we staleness undergo without lettered it themselves.”

All of us are here today because of women aforementioned these who came before us.  And during this Women’s History Month, haw we recommit ourselves to carrying on their impact for our possess daughters and granddaughters, and also for our sons and our grandsons too.

Now, speech of sons, it is my feeling to inform digit of the whatever men in the shack — (laughter and applause) — my husband, and the President of the United States, Barack Obama.  (Applause.)

THE PRESIDENT:  That would be me.  Thank you, everybody.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you rattling much.  Thank you.  Thank you, everybody.  Please, impact a seat.  Let me begin by meet thanking whatever of the grouping who are involved here today.  Michelle mentioned my unpaid Cabinet members, the exceptional members of legislature and grouping who are in our grownup White House team.  I also poverty to impart Ms. Kerry pedagogue for emceeing today.  Give Kerry a bounteous ammo of applause.  Where is she?  There she is.  (Applause.)

Ms. Katharine McPhee, who’s feat to be performing a strain in the program.  Where’s Katharine?  She’s around — she’s practicing.  (Applause.)  She’s here, I meet saw her.

Secretary Madeline Albright is here today.  (Applause.)  and Ms. Mozhdah Jamalzadah is also feat to be here performing a strain in the program, so we poverty to impart her, provide her a bounteous ammo of applause.  (Applause.)

And then there’s this Mohammedan here.  (Laughter.)  FLOTUS, that’s what we call her — FLOTUS.  (Laughter.)  She is — I’m biased, I acknowledge; but I conceive she’s a pretty beatific First Lady.  (Applause.)  Don’t you think?  She’s pretty good.  (Applause.)  And I’m rattling fervent when I countenance at you adoringly.  (Laughter.)

The news of USA over the instance 200 eld — instance 233 eld is digit of laws decent more just, of a grouping decent more equal, of a organization existence perfected.  It’s a news of captives existence ordered liberated and a shitting to fit the prospect of that freedom.  It’s a news of waves of tired travelers reconsecrating USA as a commonwealth of immigrants.  It’s a news of our merry and gay brothers and sisters making the most of that most dweller of demands –- to be aerated the aforementioned as everybody else.  And it’s a news of women, from those on the Mayflower to the digit I’m favored to call my wife, who looked crossways the party table, and thought, I’m smarter than that guy.  (Laughter.)

The news of America’s women, aforementioned the news of USA itself, has had its peaks and valleys.  But as digit of our enthusiastic dweller educators erst said, if you drew a distinction finished every the valleys and every the peaks, that distinction would be worn with an ascending curve.  That ascending flex –- what we call advancement –- didn’t hap by accident.

It came most because of daring, unconquerable women.  Women aforementioned Abigail Adams, who brought on the offense of her economise Evangelist by advising him to “remember the ladies” in our origination documents.  Women aforementioned the pioneers and settlers who, in the text of one, said, “I intellection where he could go, I could go.”  Women aforementioned Dorothy Height and Sylvia Mendez and Betty libber and Gloria libber and Sandra Day O’Connor and Madeline Albright, movement assumptions and dynamical laws and violent downbound barriers.  Women aforementioned mountaineer Rodham Clinton, who, throughout her career, has place jillions of cracks in America’s render ceiling.  (Applause.)  It’s because of them –- and so whatever others, whatever who aren’t transcribed in the news books –- that the news of USA is, ultimately, digit of wish and digit of progress, of an ascending journey.

But modify as we emit on the wish of our history, we staleness also grappling forthright the actuality of the inform -– a actuality scarred by unfairness, scarred by misfortune for likewise whatever women in America.  The statistics of inequality are every likewise senior to us — how women meet acquire 77 cents for every state men make; how digit in quaternary women is the individual of husbandly hostility at whatever saucer in her life; how women are more than half the population, but attain up exclusive 17 proportionality of the artefact in Congress, and inferior than 3 proportionality of Fortune 500 CEOs.

These, and some sort of another facts and figures, emit the basic actuality that in 2010, flooded sexuality status has not ease been achieved; that the duty of perfecting USA goes on; and that every of us, men and women, impact a conception to endeavor in movement the flex in America’s news ascending in the 21st century.

I’m chesty of the exceptional women — and the exceptional Americans — I’ve ordained to hold verify up this task.  In constituent to our unpaid Secretary of State, we’ve got Hilda Solis bringing where the prototypal someone Cabinet Secretary, Frances Perkins, erst served, at the Labor Department.  (Applause.)  We’ve got Kathleen Sebelius directive our Health and Human Services Department; Janet Napolitano streaming the Department of Homeland Security.  Susan playwright is our diplomatist to the United Nations.  The lead of my Council of Economic Advisors is Christy Romer.  We got Lisa Jackson, who’s doing enthusiastic impact at the EPA.

We impact meet exceptional talent every crossways this administration.  And from upbeat shelter reform, to status and energy, to matters of husbandly policy, I’m hunt the direction of magnificent women.  And that itemize doesn’t include, by the way, the Justice I ordained to the Supreme Court –- Ms. Sonia Sotomayor.  (Applause.)

So, yes, I’m rattling chesty to impact ordained so whatever magnificent women to so whatever primary posts in our government.  But I’m modify prouder of what apiece of them is doing –- and what every of us are doing –- to attain chronicle meliorate in USA and around the world, because lifting up the prospects of our daughters module order every of us doing our part.  And that’s ground we’ve ingrained a newborn White House Council on Women and Girls, chaired by my someone and grownup advisor, Valerie Jarrett, that module hold attain trusty that every conception of our polity is employed to come the challenges visaged by women and girls.

At a instance when women are on the bounds of making up the eld of America’s workforce, the rattling prototypal calculate I subscribed into accumulation -– a calculate titled after Lilly singer -– was fashioned to hold ready America’s promise:  If you do the aforementioned impact as a man, you ought to be paying the aforementioned remuneration as a man.  (Applause.)  To hold parents equilibrise impact and family, we’re substance states more hold for quality, inexpensive female tending and paying kinsfolk leave.

At a instance when we are waging digit wars and conflict a orbicular meshwork of emotion and violence, we requirement the assist of every those nationalistic Americans who are selection to do their part.  And that’s ground Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mullen and crowning Navy officers definite to modify an senior obstruction against women, so our complete and colorful Navy women, as substantially as men, crapper hold on submarines.

At a instance when it’s ease jural for upbeat shelter companies to secern against the victims of husbandly hostility in octad states nonnegative the District of Columbia, we’re hunt upbeat shelter reforms that would eventually command in the poorest practices of the shelter industry.  And I’m also chesty to state that I’ve ordained the prototypal White House Advisor on Violence against Women, Lynn Rosenthal.  (Applause.)

At a instance when the jobs of tomorrow module go to workers with the noesis and skills to do them, we’re ramping up efforts to civilize our teen grouping in power and technology, field and math, and we’re making a primary try to enlist women to those fields -– because I poverty to wager more teenage astronomers aforementioned Carolingian Moore.  In fact, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has launched a newborn partnership with Spelman College to condition women engineers and hold place them to impact rebuilding our highways and our infrastructure.

And since today happens to be International Women’s Day, it’s also worth mentioning what Secretary Clinton, and Ambassador Rice, and this brass are doing on behalf of women around the globe.  We raised what’s titled the orbicular suffer conception that limited women’s admittance to kinsfolk thinking services abroad.  (Applause.)

We’re pursuing a orbicular upbeat strategy that makes essential investments in female and motherlike health.  We sponsored a U.N. partitioning to process endorsement for women and girls in conflict-torn countries –- to hold attain it doable for more women aforementioned Mozhdah, who cosmopolitan from Afghanistan to tie us here today — to accomplish for their dreams.  We created the prototypal Office of Global Women’s Issues at the State Department, and ordained Ambassador Melanne Verveer to separate it.  (Applause.)  We’re finance $18 meg — we’re finance $18 meg to conflict the unconscientious cruelties existence sworn against girls and women in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  And incoming month, I’ll patron an entrepreneurship meeting to hold fit a dedication I prefabricated in Cairo; a meeting that module focus, in part, on the challenges covering women entrepreneurs in Islamic communities around the world.

We’re doing every of this not exclusive because promoting women’s empowerment is digit of the prizewinning structure to encourage scheme utilization and scheme success.  We are doing it because it’s the correct abstract to do.  I feature that not exclusive as a President, but also as the ascendant of digit daughters, as a son and a grandson, and as a husband.

Growing up, I saw my care devote most of her chronicle to promoting the rights and well-being of women overseas; to empowering them to verify more curb over their scheme lives and be healthy to charge their families as well.  I saw my gran impact her artefact up to embellish evilness chair at a slope in Hawaii, play as a secretary, never had more than a broad edifice education.  But I also saw how she impact a render ceiling, and had to check as men, no more eligible than she was, uprise up the joint ladder.

Before we got to the White House, where we are glad for the exceptional hold that we obtain from the White House staff, I’d wager the challenges Michelle visaged as a employed mom.  And as usual, she handled it with petition and skill, but she’d be the prototypal digit to verify you it wasn’t ever cushy equalisation the responsibilities of existence a infirmary chief with those of existence a mother, and sometimes bedevilment most the girls when she was at work, and sometimes bedevilment most impact when she was with the girls.

And today, as I wager Sasha and Malia effort older, I conceive most the concern that they -– and every of America’s daughters -– module inherit.  And I conceive most every of the opportunities that are ease beyond accomplish for likewise whatever teen women and likewise whatever of our brothers and sisters — likewise whatever of our sisters and mothers and aunts — every of the render ceilings that impact ease to be shattered.

We impact so such more impact to do, and that’s ground we’re here today.  I conceive most this because it reminds me of ground I’m here.  I didn’t separate for President so that the dreams of our daughters could be delayed or denied.  I didn’t separate for President to wager inequality and wrongdoing preserve in our time.  I ran for President to place the aforementioned rights, the aforementioned opportunities, the aforementioned dreams within the accomplish for our daughters and our sons alike.  I ran for President to place the dweller Dream within the accomplish of every of our people, no concern what their gender, or race, or faith, or station.

If we crapper meet genuine to that cause, if we crapper meet genuine to our origination ideals, then I’m dead overconfident that the distinction that runs finished America’s news will, in the future, as it has in the past, be worn with an ascending curve.  And I’m especially entertained that these teen ladies are here today because they’re the ones who are feat to hold flex that flex towards official and equality.

Thank you rattling much, everybody.  God gesture you.  God gesture the United States of America.  (Applause.)

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5:11 P.M. EST