>> he has looked at the quality. he believes in people and human rights. he's one of the greatest guys i know and i'm so happy that he is our major. i bring to you mayor edwin lee. [applause] >> good afternoon. welcome. thank you very much for that wonderful introduction.

i have a lot to be happy about. this is the 100th anniversary celebrating international women's day and to tell you we have quite a bit to celebrate. we probably have the highest number of women commissioners ever in the history of the city today. isn't that wonderful we have clearly a good and growing balance of women on the board of supervisors, commissions, agency appointments, and department heads. i'm proud to be heading up this very complicated city. [laughter] one that does not let me sleep very much. certainly -- i said this in many occasions. these last eight weeks, i've fallen in love with the city

evening the for the eight weeks ago because it's such a wonderful place to be. every community that i visite, t fascinates me how so many other people who work here, but even those who do not just love the city and they do what they can to make sure it is running well. it is very natural that as i am thrust with the responsibility of being mayor that i look for talent. i think a lot of the talent is with the women in san francisco. [applause] it has been my pleasure to have been an employee of this wonderful government for some 22 years now. to take you back, i had the pleasure of serving another majoyor some years ago, one that taught me a lot of things. one of the things that i recall

back in the late 1990's, the early 2000's, was when i was the director of public works. there was this report that came out. it had been a conference at the united nations and this report was being taken very seriously by the commission on the status of women, but one of the things it had not been able to do was penetrate key departments of the city that had been male- dominated for many years. would you think dpw fit that description? it certainly did. this report was handed to me through the mayor's office. of course, the mayor then was mayer brown. and said, "what are you going to

do with this?" of course, the first thing you do is read it with the understanding that there's probably a lot of information there that's going to be very hard and goals and programs that will be difficult to implement at the department of public works, which have historically been a very male-dominated agency. we made a commitment to the mayor that we would study that report and implement every single one of those as it applied to every level. i was willing to do that. surrounding the were a lot of other powerful women who said it would not be that hard. all you had to do was pay attention. all you had to do was not take no for an answer. all you had to do was look forward, not backwards. with those very little pieces of advice, we took on that task and we found mid-level managers. we found that many women that

were trying to get even to the blue-collar work, the work on the streets, had to be treated more equally. they had to the processes that were fair. as we went up the ladder, we found it to be easier and easier because we simply paid attention to it in a short time, i was able to report back to our mayor that this program of implementing the principles and making sure that it happened in the very blue-collar department of public works was going on in a very good case. i was able to identify midlevel managers who were women. they were all there for many years, but they just were not invited to become part of management in an open way. i'm here to say to you that a

lot of fire successes -- a lot of our successes reflect efforts made in the past. i do not think they were too difficult to make one to focus on them. a lot of that also had to do with the enthusiasm that the city has brought to making those goals are real. a lot of that enthusiasm came from the women's summits in san francisco. the one that i remember i did not even get a ticket to because it was so crowded. it's the one mayer brown introduced to the city when he revived the mayor's some -- when he revived the women's summit. i knew there would be a lot of things that came out of that. those of you in those days, you were fighting for those tickets. i just gave up and said what do i have to do. as we looked at the videotapes and the press events that

followed, we were blessed with a lot of great insights. the encouragement from women of international stature coming from all over the world attending this summit. that makes it easy for me to say to you that the things that i'm doing now and the things that i have done are a lot credited to the predecessors that opened the doors for me and opened the doors for many women. it's very easy to introduce to you someone who has earned this title. this year's man of the year award goes to willie brown, jr. [applause] come on up.

mr. mayor, thank you very much. i'm just delighted that you are in a position to be able to present this to me. i'm going to work and see if i can win it next year and i'm going to ask you to stick around. [laughter] [applause] and present it to me next year in your capacity as mayor of san francisco. [applause] mayor lee, you have got to know that the women of san francisco that you giave an opportunity to

in your capacity as the chief administrative officer of the city -- even to the state, the person you designated to replace you, a woman. you elevated women to positions of importance inside of the mayor's office. i saw naomi little out there. one of your deputies -- i do not think they called them deputies anymore. every man has his impression on what happened in this city. i am delighted. i'm going to tell you. many of you on the women's summit when we did those -- when i look around and i see jackie and i think about susan and all the other women who headed the

mayor's summit -- i hope that as your term unfolds, may yor, you will find athink distinguisn more ways than one. we clearly became the first city to champion what was supposed to be the process being led by the un. we were the very first city to do that with reference to women. [applause] i do not think there is any other municipality anywhere in this country that ever matched what we did in terms of trying to inspire women to become full participants in the pursuit of justice and equality. i'm just delighted, mr. may

or, for you to present this award. to all of you will have been responsible, shelly, and others, i'm delighted. it's going to go on my wall. i'm going to prove to my daughter susan and to sonia that somebody thinks i'm a man of the year. [applause] [laughter] >> we have one more quick presentation before we do a couple of things. a couple of people mentioned the past womens' summit. jackie is one of them. there are others here. if we could just ask you to stand up. we want to recognize you for the work you did and the history you created. thank you. [applause] >> we have something else for

mayor brown. i'm having to present him the jet by night -- jdei knight award for all the years he's been working in the death star. you know all the things he has done to support us. we especially want to give him this award for being the first state legislator in the country to find family planning for low- income women. in the 1970's, when he was on the national board of planned parenthood. i do not know if you know that, but i was there. we want to give him a weapon today to help us as a fundamentalists tried to take

those rights away from us. mayer browor brown -- [laughter] [applause] >> may the force be with you. [laughter] they the force be with you and with us -- may the force be with you and with us. >> a jedi warrior. now you know what was behind that mask darth vader was wearing. me. >> at this time, i want to acknowledge a couple of people outside of our committee. outside of our committee.

so are you going out tonight? i can't. my parents say i have to be home right after work. ugh. that's so gay. totally gay. ugh. that is so emma and julia. why are you saying, "that's so emma and julia"? well, you know, when something is dumb or stupid, you say, "that's so emma and julia." who says that? everyone. announcer: imagine if who you are were used as an insult.