FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 26, 2020
ICYMI:
Biden for President Virginia Hosts Women for Biden Virtual Roundtable
Today, Biden for President Virginia hosted a virtual roundtable with former First Lady of Virginia Dorothy McAuliffe, former Virginia Secretary of Commerce and Trade Esther Lee, and women leaders across Virginia. The roundtable was part of the launch of the Virginia Women for Biden leadership council. The participants discussed how a Biden-Harris Administration will improve women’s access to healthcare and tackle issues that disproportionately affect women across the Commonwealth.
Below are key quotes from the discussion:
“We know this election is so critically important to our children, to our future, to our economy, the middle class,” said former First Lady Dorothy McAuliffe. “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will build back an inclusive economy for all Americans … I am looking forward to an administration that can lead a federal response on healthcare, food security, employment, bring this country back, build it back better. But also the need for family medical leave, family sick leave. Now is the time. Now is the moment.”
“The families that this current administration are hurting by mismanaging the pandemic and taking away health care in the process, these are families that I see everyday,” said Newport News Commissioner of Revenue Tiffany Boyle. “I oversee a team of 43 Virginians who have lost loved ones as recent as yesterday, who have been quarantined as recent as last week, while Donald Trump continues to dismiss the facts and science … My daughter and so many of her friends and so many others need a president that will make campuses and schools safer, bring back the White House council on Women and Girls and build a better economy that includes us women and minorities and not tear all of those things apart.”
“I’m just excited to have somebody who stands up for survivors and who knows what being a woman of color is like,” said Northern Virginia community leader Malena Llanos. “Kamala Harris and I share a story of having parents from another country and having to see them go through being judged by their intelligence, being judged by their accent, and just seeing the barriers they have overcome and setting up our generation to be able to be here … [Watching the Republican National Convention] is such a contrast from watching the DNC last week when we had women of color, we had mothers talking, female veterans, and it’s such a stark contrast in our parties in where we stand and who we stand for.”
“Even though we stand on 100 years of women in this country receiving the right to vote, women of color still are affected by many disparities,” said Dr. Ethyln McQueen-Gibson of Hampton University. “And so today I’m very excited and I hope that this platform will open up the door so we look at caregiver issues for women. Many women do not have the money to pay for childcare so therefore they cannot attend college, they cannot actually work. We also have many women who are caring for older family members and there is not funding that’s available to do that. And then lastly, support for education is so critical and I’m really hoping that the Biden-Harris campaign will really put a focus on dollars so that we can build future providers not only for healthcare but for many other critical jobs.”
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