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New mom, activist, and former first daughter Chelsea Clinton covers the May issue of Elle and opens up about women’s rights and family life husband Marc Mezvinsky and their 6-month-old daughter Charlotte.

On how motherhood has changed her: “Marc and I are like, ‘What did we do before we were parents?’ My whole life is reoriented around my daughter in the most blessed sense. I now understand—this is something else that Marc and I talk about all the time—all of the enthusiastic, bombastically spectacular, wonderful things people say about their children, because we also feel and think all those things about Charlotte—that she is just the most remarkable little bubbly, perfect, chunky monkey creature ever.”

On continuing to fight for women’s rights: “We’ve made real progress on legal protections for women, but in no way are women at parity to men in our country in the workplace. And if we look in the political sphere, it is challenging to me that women comprising 20 percent of Congress is treated as a real success. Since when did 20 percent become the definition of equality?”

On the importance of having a woman president: “And so when you ask about the importance of having a woman president, absolutely it’s important, for, yes, symbolic reasons—symbols are important; it is important who and what we choose to elevate, and to celebrate. And one of our core values in this country is that we are the land of equal opportunity, but when equal hasn’t yet included gender, there is a fundamental challenge there that, I believe, having our first woman president—whenever that is—will help resolve. And do I think [having a woman as commander in chief] would make a substantive difference? Yes, we’ve seen again and again, when women have been in positions of leadership, they have had different degrees of success versus their male counterparts, historically being able to build more consensus so that decisions have longer-term effects, whether in economic investments or in building social capital. Who sits around the table matters. And who sits at the head of the table matters, too.”

For more from Chelsea, go to Elle…

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