The late Eleanor Roosevelt was the wife of Franklin D Roosevelt - arguably the greatest US President of the 20th century.
But Mrs Roosevelt was not content to sit idly by the fireside. She had fire in her belly too.
Eleanor Roosevelt was a political tour de force in her own right.
She once said: “The battle for the individual rights of women is one of long-standing and none of us should countenance anything which undermines it.''
When President Truman appointed Mrs Roosevelt to the United Nations he called her “ The First Lady of the World”. Roosevelt to help create the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
When Mary Robinson broke the glass ceiling of the Irish Presidency in November 1990, she remarked: “The hand that rocks the cradle, rocks the world.''
However, it takes more than sloganeering to create the conditions for gender equality, particularly in politics and public life.
That is why the latest initiative by some prominent female voices from the world of journalism deserves much credit.
Ten years after the remarks of Mary Robinson, I joined the newly formed policing board and was immensely proud of the work it did in creating a new start for policing in Northern Ireland. But on reflection it was far from diverse.
Of the twenty-one members, only two were women and both of them (like me) were appointed through a public appointments process. The three political parties - DUP, SDLP and UUP - on the then policing board failed to nominate a single woman from amongst their ranks. That demonstrated a distinct failure in leadership and a missed opportunity.
Today the most prominent spokesperson on a nearly anonymous (and irrelevant) policing board is the SDLP board member, Dolores Kelly. Back in my day the loudest political voices on policing were mostly male.
Some people may say that was 2000 and this couldn’t happen today.
But in 2016, the new Commission on Flags, Identity, Culture and Tradition announced by the late Martin McGuinness and Arlene Foster produced a fifteen person board.
Both the joint chairs were male. This time when given the opportunity to make political nominations the parties, the DUP, SDLP, Sinn Féin and Alliance all opted to nominate men.
In fact, of the entire board only one appointment was female. Perhaps the long awaited and costly report published last week would have been less tepid had the constitution of the commission been more diverse.
Claire Hanna, Naomi Long, Pam Cameron and Mary Lou McDonald are all first class political representatives and slogged hard to reach the top of their profession.
It’s clear the general public has an appetite for a more diverse panel of elected representatives.
Anyone who doubts this should look at the results: in the last assembly elections in 2017 the proportion of female members elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly rose to 30 per cent. It was a mere 16 per cent in 2011. And how do we know there is still more road to travel? Simple: the Scottish Assembly gender balance sits at a 48 per cent female/52 per cent male. The Welsh Assembly female representation is 35 per cent.
Of course, all candidates of whatever party should be selected on merit but with all things being equal and where possible political parties should be offering the electorate gender balanced tickets. It will be interesting to see how much misogyny still governs some political parties as candidates are selected over the coming months.
Parties which fail to read the runes are likely to be punished at the polls by a more discerning public. Electorates have a right to expect political representation which reflects what their communities actually look like. And it's not a freemason’s meeting!
One thing is for certain, as Europe’s most formidable leader, Angela Merkel, departs the political stage, Germany and the EU will feel the backdraft. Merkel’s political dedication and demeanour made us all feel a little bit safer. Compare that to macho Boris.
