Obama’s Barnard College Commencement Speech Win
Obama’s Barnard College Commencement Speech Win
May 14, 2012 4:33 PM EDT
The president drew cheers in a speech encouraging female grads to be tough and ‘fight for your seat at the table.’
Obama Barnard Speech
U.S. President Barack Obama greets a graduate before making the commencement address at Barnard College in New York City, May 14, 2012. (Mandel Ngan, AFP / Getty Images)
On Monday morning, President Barack Obama delivered what will be his sole college commencement speech in 2012 at Barnard College, the all-women’s school affiliated with Columbia University in upper Manhattan. The president—who told the nearly 600 young graduates to “aim high and hope deeply”—seized the occasion to reaffirm his commitment to women’s issues, a topic that has already dominated bipartisan debates this year and that will surely come into play come November. (Indeed, Obama’s decision in March to speak at Barnard’s commencement came just as the Democrats began to decry a GOP-led “war on women.”)
Obama—who referenced his mother, grandmother, and wife as examples of strong, persevering women—acknowledged that this year’s graduates are heading into a tremendously uncertain economy, and noted that the country’s young women face additional challenges right now: unequal pay, backsliding on reproductive rights, and few role models in the boardrooms of Fortune 500 companies or in the halls of Congress.
“We are better off when women are treated fairly and equally in every part of America, whether it’s the salary you earn or the health decisions you make,” Obama said. “We know this to be true. The question is whether together we can muster the will—in our own lives, in our institutions, in our politics.”
Stressing the need for more women to enter male-dominated fields like computer science and engineering, Obama drew cheers and applause when he delivered a message to the students from Michelle: “You can be stylish and powerful too.” He also struck a chord among graduates and some 7,000 assembled guests—including actress Cynthia Nixon and U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel—when he invoked Seneca Falls, Selma, Stonewall, and the history of America’s civil-rights movements.
more...
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/14/obama-s-barnard-college-commencement-speech-win.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
