Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, appeared on Air America’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” last night, commenting on whether some women were too busy nursing their primary wounds to back Obama as president.

“Truthfully, I don’t know a women’s rights leader that’s my age or later that wasn’t involved in the civil rights movement,” she said. “So for me, it’s seeing something in my lifetime that I was hoping I’d see. In fact, it’s the fruit of all that labor for all of us who fought for civil rights, and it’s another milestone that we should all take pride in and I think a lot of us do. Basically, our two great movements, the civil rights movement and the women’s rights movement, have been working together for years, and in a way, it was just unfortunate that it happened like this.”

But, Smeal continued, the historic — if bruising — primary indicated that the Democratic Party has evolved to include women and minorities in a more significant way. And, she said, that’s a very exciting thing.

Here’s the audio clip of the show.