Kirsten Gillibrand in What Will It Take to Make A Woman President?, by Marianne Schnall

On Civil Rights: Off the Sidelines Project: engage more women in politics

On Civil Rights: Raise awareness of impediments for working women

A: Well, right now it raises awareness, It actually [provides] the information about these structural problems in society that are impediments for women. A lot of young women, for example, don't know that on average a woman earns 77 cents on the dollar for the same work. They may not realize that women only sit on 16% of Fortune 500 boards and make up only 4% of CEOs. And I think once you create that awareness of the challenge ahead of us and amplify that with the call to action to get involved, what my website does is allow them to get where they need to go.

Q: I saw on your website that you said, "getting off the sidelines is a state of mind."

A: It's basically an understanding that women's voices matter.

On Families & Children: Affordable daycare is impediment for women working

A: Some of the feedback we got is that there are some impediments for women entering the work force; for example, affordable daycare, good quality early childhood education. Mothers in particular often want to enter the work force, but don't have the child care or the support they need to do so. So making sure employees know that when they provide childcare services, or when they make it easier for parents to work, they are increasing access to very good workers and to who's available for the work force. That it's a very pro-economy issue if you can provide affordable daycare. A lot of studies show that if you do that, if you provide it on site or make it accessible, that actually a lot of parents are more productive workers as a result.

On Government Reform: Illegal for members of Congress to profit from insider info