WASHINGTON — President Obama said Tuesday that women and girls have made great strides in the nearly eight years he’s held office, but asserted that they can claim even more progress if society would cast aside long-held stereotypes about the way men and women should behave.

He also urged consumers to patronize more than two dozen U.S. corporations that pledged to close gender pay gaps.

“Women are leading America at every level of society, from Hollywood to Silicon Valley, from the C-suite to the federal bench to the Federal Reserve,” Obama said in remarks at a daylong, White House-organized summit on the state of women.

“And that is progress. It’s real and we have to celebrate it. But we also have to remember that progress is not inevitable,” he said, adding that society is still “boxed in” by stereotypes.

Obama called for more family friendly policies, including equal pay for equal work, paid family and sick leave, a higher minimum age, affordable child care, and paid maternity and paternity leave. He also said consumers should support American Airlines, Johnson & Johnson, PepsiCo and Staples and others that have taken a pledge to ensure “wage fairness.”

At the summit, which was held on the day of the final Democratic presidential primary in the District of Columbia, Obama said Hillary Clinton, the first woman to become the presumptive presidential nominee of a major party, has “raised the expectations of our daughters and our sons for what is possible.”

He put in another plug for her.

“If we really want workplace policies that work for everybody … I will say, though, it would help if we had more women in Congress. It would help if we had more women in the corner suite,” he said, adding “I have a corner suite, by the way … Making that connection for you.”


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