Cokie Roberts

Slowly, slowly, slowly but definitely, the workplace is becoming a more humane place because of the presence of women.

Mary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborne Roberts [née Boggs], (27 December 1943) – (17 September 2019), generally known as Cokie Roberts, was an American journalist and bestselling author. Her career included decades as a political reporter and analyst for National Public Radio and ABC News, with prominent positions on Morning Edition, The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, World News Tonight, and This Week.

Quotes

The truth is, the notion that gay marriage is harmful to marriage, is sort of mind-boggling, because these are people trying to get married. But it seems to me, if you want to defend marriage against something, defend it against divorce.

• Senator John Tower (R-Texas): What is your definition of womanizing?

  Roberts: Well, I think most women know it when they see it, Senator.

  • February 26, 1989, on the ABC News program This Week With David Brinkley ("Tower Excerpts: ‘I’m a Single Man; I Do Date Women’". Los Angeles Times. Associated Press. February 27, 1989. )

• The truth is, the notion that gay marriage is harmful to marriage, is sort of mind-boggling, because these are people trying to get married. But it seems to me, if you want to defend marriage against something, defend it against divorce.
  • Real Time with Bill Maher (6 August 2004)

Wellesley Commencement Address (1994)

Commencement Address to Wellesley Graduating Class (1994)

• I say, in politics, it is the women who are constantly bringing the civilizing issues to the forefront, the caretaking issues, the issues of concern to families and children.

• I have to tell you I don't just see this role of women as caretakers in the world that I cover, I see it in the world I live in. Slowly, slowly, slowly but definitely, the workplace is becoming a more humane place because of the presence of women. The idea that time can be taken for family, whether it's having children or caring for sick people or elderly people in your family. That is becoming more possible for the men in the work place as well as for the women in the work place because of the fights that we have fought over the last several decades.

• Life is long. You have many opportunities ahead of you. You have so many more opportunities than so many people. You are privileged and blessed. And you will have the opportunity to say "Yes" to many different things, but you also will have the opportunity in the saying of "Yes" to say "No" sometimes, to say "No, it's not right for me, and my family, right now, to take this great job offer." And you know what? Another one will come along. I'm living proof of that. You can do it all. There are times when you have to not do it all at once. There are times when you don't sleep. But you can do it if you have some sense about saying, "This is what's right now, this is where I am now, and this is the care I need to take right now." I think that it is important to look at the long view as you go out of here and realize that there's a long time ahead, and there is time to see it all, to do it all, and to do it in ways that make you proud and happy in the end.

• The long view: when we were living in Greece, we used to go to this beach at Marathon — just think of it .... And there was a little museum there, a little tiny museum from well before the Battle of Marathon that you've studied, with artifacts from 7000 years ago. And you looked in these cases, and there were buttons, there were frying pans, there were mirrors, there was jewelry — and it was remarkable to look at. You could open them and put on — you could put it on and use it right away! It was totally recognizable to the lives of women today. For men, what was in those cases? Well, there were some bows and arrows, and there were some articles of worship, so if you were a soldier or a priest there was something. But if you just went about leading your daily lives, there wasn't something terribly recognizable for you. That's what we have: we have this wonderful, wonderful continuum.
  So I say to you, young women of Wellesley, open up those cases. Take up the tools and put on the jewels — of your foremothers and sisters. Go out into this world and take good care of it.

External links

• Official biography at NPR
• NPR stories by Cokie Roberts
• Video Interviews with Cokie Roberts on Charlie Rose
• Women of Influence · National Endowment for the Humanities
• Oral History of the U.S. House of Representatives – Cokie Roberts gives a first-hand account of growing up in the capital.
• The Interviews, at the Television Academy Foundation
• Appearances on C-SPAN