My family was one of the few South Asian families in my community in Illinois. Growing up in the '80s, I remember going to the K-Mart with my mom, when she was wearing her sari, and she'd get made fun of. People would ask my mother, 'Were you born with that dot on your head?'

We need policymakers to keep an eye on gender and write policies that are explicitly designed to include underserved populations like girls in computer science courses.

I refuse to see losing as a negative. Obama lost in '83 when he ran against Bobby Rush. Hillary lost in '08. Even Lincoln lost the first election. It's a useful learning experience.

There's no better way of learning from your experiences than having an open and honest conversation with yourself about why you fell short.

We should be able to go to our government and get clear answers.

There are servers, and there are people that are served. There's something contradictory about that in a democracy, certainly.

In politics, they found there were not enough females in the House of Commons, so they came up with the idea of shortlists having to have women on them.

At a time when 2500 American soldiers have given their lives for the cause of bringing democracy to Iraq, it is sad and frustrating to watch the Republican establishment disgrace the exercise of democracy in our own House of Representatives.