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For me, personally, it has been humbling since I became First Minister to speak to women and girls and have them tell me how much it means to them to have a woman in the top job in politics in Scotland.

My pledge to you is that the SNP will put women and gender equality right at the heart of the Westminster agenda.

Family law is institutionally anti-male. I've been lobbying MPs, and I'm not going to give up campaigning for equality until I get equality.

Any serious shift towards more sustainable societies has to include gender equality.

An idea like equality between men and women, which is now accepted in the West, is quite new.

I don't think we really think about where we get our equality from. There is a sense of feminism and women become passe, in my opinion.

The Nordic countries are leading the way on women's equality, recognizing women as equal citizens rather than commodities for sale.

If women really want equality, we have to wipe the slate clean. It no longer matters in the largest sense what men did to us for the last 200 or 300 years.

Gender equality is more than a goal in itself. It is a precondition for meeting the challenge of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development and building good governance.