Leadership Quote by Eddie Bernice Johnson

In one brisk line, Eddie Bernice Johnson flips the default setting of American commerce: that business is neutral, and “female business” is a niche add-on. Her phrasing is casual - “I happen to believe” - but the move is not. It’s a rhetorical judo throw, using understatement to smuggle in a structural claim: women aren’t a special-interest constituency within the economy; they are foundational to it.

The intent is both corrective and expansive. Johnson, a longtime legislator who navigated male-dominated institutions, is rejecting the familiar political compromise where women’s economic concerns get quarantined as “women’s issues” (child care, pay equity, workplace safety) while “real” business gets coded male (capital, contracts, tech, infrastructure). By declaring all business “female,” she collapses that hierarchy. The subtext is blunt: if women are disproportionately responsible for the labor that keeps households and communities functioning, and if they’re a massive share of the workforce and consumers, then treating their needs as peripheral is not just sexist - it’s bad economics and bad governance.

The line also carries coalition logic. It invites business leaders, policymakers, and voters to see women’s participation not as charity or symbolism, but as a driver of competitiveness. Johnson’s choice of “female” over “women’s” reads almost deliberately old-school, echoing a generational bluntness: she’s not asking permission from the language police; she’s laying claim. It’s a politician’s sentence with an activist’s punch - broad enough to rally, pointed enough to sting.