Ginny Brown-Waite

While women certainly have made great strides toward pay parity in the past 30 years, there is still a gap in earnings between men and women in equivalent professions. ”

While all of these are important and significant events, it is the United States' foreign policy that furthers the advancement of freedoms and rights for women that is the most striking for me. ”

For centuries, the world has heard the oppressed, the downtrodden and the vulnerable cry out for their freedoms, for their rights and for a chance to emerge from the shadows of the tyranny and bloodshed that they had lived with. ”

First, women are more likely to live in poverty during their retirement years than are men. ”

Since President Bush took office in 2001, this Congress has supported an agenda of democracy, freedom and expansion of rights for all peoples throughout the world. ”

While Kuwait is not a democracy, giving only half the population a voice in their government is not a policy this Congress should support and one that I am glad that Kuwait's leaders are changing. ”

The United Nations has come under the control of outlaw nations and self-serving special interest groups. ”

No longer should women be denied the right to vote, no longer should women be treated as second class citizens, no longer should women not be allowed to be a citizen at all. ”

Let us face it, the U.N. has failed. It has failed in its mission to promote world peace. ”

As is the case with many Middle Eastern nations, women are nowhere near equal to men when it comes to basic freedoms and rights that we take for granted every day. ”