ENCOURAGING WOMEN
Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul helps celebrate International Women’s Day at GlobalFoundries campus
MALTA, N.Y. » Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul spoke to a group of GlobalFoundries employees on Monday as the company celebrated International Women’s Day.
During a GlobalWomen company event, held one day after the Sunday holiday at the GlobalFoundries Fab 8 campus in Malta, Hochul shared some thoughts about women in the workforce.
“Let’s make room for more women,” Hochul said, noting that she’s talked with GlobalFoundries
Chief Executive Officer Thomas Caulfield about how to encourage more women to go into the technology sector and to elevate them once in the industry.
“The first idea is to get in the door, and even get high school girls and college students envisioning themselves in a fascinating place like this, where you’re really engineering the future,” said Hochul, who referred to GlobalFoundries as a game changer for the Capital Region.
“I see a future where there will be more women
“The first idea is to get in the door, and even get high school girls and college students envisioning themselves in a fascinating place like this, where you’re really engineering the future.” — Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul
in positions of power in companies like this,” Hochul said in her keynote address, “and I’m encouraged by that.”
She continued to speak about how far women have come over the last 100 years, since the passage of the 19th Amendment which guarantees and protects women’s constitutional right to vote.
Mentioning female leaders such as Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Tubman, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Hochul said, “Today we stand on their shoulders. We have rights that we wouldn’t have had if they didn’t engage in these battles.”
Hochul then asked what the women and men, of 2020 are doing today to break barriers for women. “The right to vote did not mean the right to equality,” she said, explaining how women are underrepresented in halls of political power, in corporate boardrooms and in higher education leadership.
“As much as we talk about it, and progress is made with the Me Too movement … there’s something still going on that I want changed quickly,” she said regarding the maledominated fields.
“I’m so tired of being the only one,” Hochul said, sharing instances in her career when she was the only woman in her town board meetings, county government, and statewide office.
“I want this generation to feel that there are no barriers. Nothing stands in your way - because I had things in my way and I have to break through them, but it shouldn’t have to be that hard just because of the gender you’re born with. It shouldn’t be that hard.”
As a start, Hochul encouraged the women in the room to change the one factor they can fully control: their self-confidence. “What it takes sometimes is just belief in yourself,” she said, “and no one can give that to you but yourself.”
Also at Monday’s event, Caulfield shared a bit about GlobalWomen, an initiative that was founded in 2013.
“We formed it because it wasn’t about a women’s issue, it was about a business issue,” he said, noting that including women in the GlobalFoundries workforce is a high priority for the company. “While this isn’t the end-all, it’s an important part of us to make sure we’re constantly recognizing, rewarding and highlighting women.”