[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 34 (Wednesday, March 13, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E338]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 COMMEMORATION OF WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH

                                 ______


                         HON. RONALD V. DELLUMS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, March 12, 1996

  Mr. DELLUMS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate Women's History 
Month. This is a time to remember that women in this country and all 
over the world have historically been subject to oppression. This is a 
time to remember that women in this country and all over the world have 
been fighting and overcoming this oppression within the context of 
their own cultural traditions. This is a time to mourn the oppression 
of the past and present and celebrate the empowerment of women in the 
present and in the future.
  Let us remember that the same fundamental rights and freedoms held by 
men are also held by women, that women have the same rights to freedom 
of expression and religion, to individual autonomy and privacy, and to 
vote and hold government office; that women have the right to an equal 
education, equal opportunity in employment, and equal pay for equal 
work; and that women have the right to be free from sexual 
discrimination and harassment, sexual and physical assault, and spousal 
abuse.
  I challenge my colleagues to remember and honor women who have made 
their mark on history, and whose work for recognition of women's rights 
and freedoms has benefited both women and men. These countless women 
include: Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Belle Hooks, and Flo 
Kennedy, advocates for the rights of women and African Americans; 
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, Lucretia Mott, Eleanor Roosevelt, 
Hillary Clinton, Gloria Steinem, Eleanor Smeal, and Dr. Homa Darabe, 
advocates for women's rights; and Margaret Sanger and Emma Goldman, 
advocates for education, autonomy, and responsibility concerning 
sexuality, reproduction, and birth control.
  We should also remember and honor women civil rights leaders, such as 
Rosa Parks, Dorothy West, Dorothy Height, Juanita Jones Abernathy, 
LaDonna Harris, Loretta Armenta, Nadine Gardimer, Lani Guinier, and 
Fannie Lou Hamer. We should remember and honor other social reformers, 
such as Harriet Tubman, Jane Addams, Mother Jones, Dorothy Day, Clara 
Barton, Dorothy Dix, Helen Keller, Florence Nightingale, Mother 
Theresa, and Marian Wright Edelman. We should remember and honor women 
scientists, such as Marie Curie, Margaret Mead, and Rachel Carson; and 
women educators, such as Mary McCleod Bethune and Maria Montessori.
  We should remember and honor women writers, such as Jane Austen, Mary 
Wollstonecraft Shelley, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Gertrude Stein, Virginia 
Woolf, Amy Chan, Alice Walker, Maxine Hong Kingston, Toni Morrison, 
Simone de Beauvoir, Bing Xin, and Taslima Nasrin; and poets, such as 
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Emily Dickinson, Maya Angelou, and Juana 
Ines de la Cruz. We should likewise remember and honor women artists, 
such as Georgia O'Keefe, Maria Martinez of San Ildelfanso, and Frieda 
Kahlo.
  And we should remember and honor women government leaders, such as 
Barbara Jordan, Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm, Geraldine Ferraro, Janet 
Reno, Dr. Joycelyn Elders, Wilma Mankiller, and Agnes Dill; and such 
international women leaders as Sylvia Kinigi, Prime Minister of 
Burundi, Lidia Geiler, President of Bolivia; Siramezo Bandaranaike, 
Prime Minister of Ceylon; Corazon Aquino, President of the Philippines; 
Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India, Benazir Bhutto, Prime Minister 
of Pakistan; and Mary Robinson, President of Ireland. We should also 
remember such international leaders as Wangari Maathai, Kenyan 
environmentalist; Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese democracy activist and 
Nobel Peace Prize winner; Rigoberta Menchu', Guatemalan Nobel Peace 
Prize winner; Radhika Coomaraswamy, Sri Lankan academic and U.N. 
Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women; Gabriela Mistral, Chilean 
educator, poet, and member of the U.N. Subcommission on Women; Sonia 
Picado, Judge on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights; and Gertrude 
Mongella, Tanzanian government minister and organizer of the Fourth 
U.N. Conference on Women.

  These are only a few of the many noted women of the arts, sciences, 
and leadership who deserve mention. In addition to these women, we 
should acknowledge and honor all the unsung women who work tirelessly 
for little or no pay in the home and in the charitable sector.
  Women's rights has been on the international agenda since 1975, when 
the U.N. General Assembly declared 1975 the International Women's Year, 
and when 1976-85 was declared the U.N. Decade for Women. In 1985, a 
U.N. Conference on Women was held to evaluate achievements made and 
work still to be done to realize women's rights. Much progress has been 
made since 1975, but still much remained to be done.
  Consequently, last September, in Beijing, China, the United Nations 
held the Fourth World Conference on Women. At that conference, women 
from all over the world came together. These women came from every 
continent, from every cultural and religious tradition, from countries 
of every economic situation, but these women all agreed that women's 
rights are human rights. They reached consensus on a Platform for 
Action that will be the cornerstone for realizing equal rights and 
freedoms for women throughout the world.
  The Platform for Action recognizes that empowerment of women and 
equality between women and men are prerequisites for achieving 
political, social, economic, cultural, and environmental security among 
all peoples. It aims at removing the obstacles to women's active 
participation in all spheres of public and private life through full 
and equal share in economic, social, cultural, and political 
decisionmaking. It promotes the principle of shared power and 
responsibility between women and men at home, in the workplace, and in 
the national and international communities. It advocates eradication of 
all forms of discrimination against women.
  The Platform for Action calls for strategic action in the following 
areas of concern: poverty, education and training, health care, women-
focused violence, armed conflict, economic structures and policies, the 
sharing of power and decision-making, advancement of women, promotion 
and protection of women's human rights, stereotyping of women in the 
media, natural resources and the environment, and discrimination 
against girls.
  Realizing these goals and addressing these areas of concern will 
require a commitment by governments, international institutions, non-
governmental organizations, and the private sector throughout the 
world. Let us all here in Congress commit to doing our part to help 
realize these goals and address these concerns in our country and in 
other countries. To this end, I am pleased to join my colleagues in the 
House in cosponsoring and supporting H. Con. Res. 119, a resolution to 
support the commitments made by the United States at the Fourth World 
Conference on Women, and ask the entire body to do so. Additionally, we 
should ask our colleagues in the Senate to do their part by immediately 
considering giving its advice and consent to the Convention on the 
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, now before 
the Senate. This Convention will do much to help realize women's rights 
around the world. It entered into force on September 3, 1981, and more 
than 80 nations are already parties.
  Again, Mr. Speaker, on this day, it is an honor to pay tribute to 
women and celebrate Women's History Month.

                          ____________________