Last night's presidential debate was far-and-away better than the first round. Not because the conversation was any less of a political circus, but because the conversation was actually about relevant issues—funny how when you open up questions to an audience, rather than just an moderator, topics like birth control, equal pay, and student debt are suddenly on the table. The word "women" wasn't mentioned once in the first presidential debate, last night it came up 31 times.

Anyway, here were my three favorite quotes from the debate:

1. "Every woman in America should have access to contraceptives," said Mitt Romney. Hooray! I'm so glad he changed his stance on repealing Obamacare, which includes a provision that entirely covers the cost of birth control for women with insurance. He has also apparently changed his mind about supporting the bill that would allow employers to ban their insurance from covering birth control for religious reasons. Both of those changes, which Romney used to back, would limit access to contraceptives for American women.

2. "These are not just women’s issues. These are family issues," said Barack Obama, referring to women being routinely underpaid in every state. As I wrote about last week, underpaying women hurts the people we support as well as our ability to be retire with any kind of self-sufficient savings. Obama's understanding of this didn't stop headlines like this, though.

3. "We need moms and dads, helping to raise kids," said Mitt Romney, explaining how he would reduce gun violence by, uh, encouraging marriage?