RUTH ROSEN:

And if you think about it, what the gay and lesbian movement did and the women's movement did is, we changed the terms of debate in American political culture.

If you look at the legislation that was passed just about women, women got the right to have credit cards in their own names, to buy mortgages, to be on juries in certain states. We got the right to actually own our own property in the 19th century, which we didn't have, have custody of children.

And then, of course, Title IX in the 1970s gave women the right to sports. But the most important two things that I would mention is the fact that women are safer today because domestic violence has been made into a felony. And, at work, women know that if someone preys upon them, sexual harassment is illegal.

And those two things alone, domestic violence and sexual harassment, were names that we gave hidden injuries that women experienced, and they really didn't have a way to talk about them. By naming them, we could debate them, and as a culture we could decide whether we wanted to pass legislation. And we did.

And, as a result, I think that women's lives are a lot better, because at work and at home, they are protected from things that they really didn't know how to discuss before.

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