[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 28 (Tuesday, March 5, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H1665-H1666]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            WOMEN'S HISTORY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May

[[Page H1666]]

12, 1995, the gentlewoman from Colorado [Mrs. Schroeder] is recognized 
during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, I take the floor today to talk about 
March because March is the month of National Women's History week. We 
keep saying, his story. I guess what we are really trying to do in this 
month is tell her story. I think women's role in history has really 
been left out in so many cases.
  We have this great image that the men in America all came here on 
these dangerous ships, coming across the North Atlantic and all that 
and settling the great country. Yet women came in cruise ships, sitting 
around swimming pools getting their nails done and their hair done. It 
is not quite true.
  Women were there shoulder to shoulder, came to this great country and 
said, we didn't come here to walk in front of you or behind you but 
alongside in building this Nation. I think it is important to remind 
ourselves that early on many of our forefathers got it right. George 
Washington, had everybody followed him, I think, we would be in great 
shipshape. George Washington insisted that the women in the 
Revolutionary Army be paid equally.
  Most people did not even know there were women in the Revolutionary 
Army but, yes, there were. And there are women who were Revolutionary 
soldiers buried at West Point. How come they forgot to tell us that? 
George Washington also did something very interesting. We think of 
Martha Washington as one who sat home and waited for George. Martha was 
not that way at all. She ran a very sophisticated plantation. The 
minute the crops were in during all 3 years of the Revolutionary War, 
Martha Washington picked up everything she had and moved to winter 
camp.
  So she was there in Valley Forge. She was in New Jersey, and she was 
in New York where the military was encamped those three terrible 
winters. The reason we know that is after the war was won and this 
great Republic began to come together, George Washington insisted that 
the Congress pay her for having been there and held the morale and the 
troops together winter after winter.
  Is it not interesting they did the painting of George Washington 
shivering at Valley Forge but they forgot to put Martha in it. If you 
look at women of all different colors and backgrounds, they from the 
very beginning did innovative and wonderful things that held this 
country together. Harriet Tubman was probably one of the most brilliant 
strategists ever. She figured that if they ever wrote down anything 
about the underground railroad for which many African Americans were 
able to escape from slavery in the South, if they ever wrote it down, 
somebody would find it and that would be the end of the underground 
railroad. So they put it all in code and sang it in songs that the 
white folks thought were just nice little songs. They were really 
singing the map to the underground railroad. Is that not a brilliant, 
intelligent undercover operation? As I say, what a strategist.
  Would Lewis and Clark ever have found the west coast if a native 
American woman had not helped them through the forest to get there?
  This is not to say women did everything. But when you read the 
history books, they forget to tell us that women did anything. I think 
it is really reflected in the attitude that we have today about women's 
roles. If we look at America, women are still the major care giver, 
every woman I know, including myself. Life could be stopped tomorrow if 
someone in the family gets critically ill because we have given women 
absolutely very little help with any kind of those care giver roles. 
They are the ones that is to rush with the family's safety net whenever 
someone is in trouble, be they young, be they old, be they sick.
  I think it is time that we do not do gender wars but we just treat 
each other as brothers and sisters and figure out how we are going to 
get on with this great country. How do we respect that? There is 
tremendous value to care giver roles. We should be trying to help women 
who are not only doing their care giver roles but are often forced out 
of the home to work because of this deplorable economy. It only 
generates more and more stress that gets reflected in the family and 
every other way.
  So I would hope that during this month of Women's History Week more 
and more people would sit down and find out what her story really was 
and really realize we did not come on cruise ships. We did a lot to 
help build this Nation, too. We should start taking that into account 
as we plan our legislative strategy, as we do every other such thing. 
Because this is the way that the country will continue to be great.

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