[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 80 (Tuesday, June 4, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H5760-H5761]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    WHAT THE GENDER GAP IS ALL ABOUT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentlewoman from Colorado [Mrs. Schroeder] is recognized 
during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to be following the prior 
gentleman onto the floor, because I want to talk a bit about the gender 
gap and how I think they still just do not get it.
  America's women are engaging in a gender gap because they are very 
concerned that the Government does not understand what has happened to 
their families, and American women are very family based. That was the 
whole purpose of this Stand for Children organization this weekend, 
where hundreds of thousands of people and organizations came together 
to say things have changed so drastically for America's families, but 
the Government does not understand it, the corporations do not 
understand it, institutions do not understand it. And if we do not 
suddenly start understanding what this is about, we are looking at real 
disaster.
  Let me just point out a bit why I think things have changed so much. 
I graduated from high school in 1958. I want to read to you what came 
from my high school book on home economics about how I should be a good 
wife.
  No. 1, it said: When your husband comes home, have dinner ready. Plan 
ahead the night before a delicious meal. Men like to be fed right as 
they come through the door, and they will feel very comforted if they 
know that they can always count on that.
  No. 2, prepare yourself at least 15 minutes before your husband is 
coming home. Be sure you are refreshed. Touch up your makeup, put a 
ribbon in your hair, clear away the clutter in the house, get the 
children cleaned up. Remember, they are little treasures and they must 
look like little treasures. Minimize all noise. Turn off all machines 
in the house and be there at the door to greet him and welcome him home 
from the very, very difficult day he has had at work.
  Do not greet him with problems. Do not greet him with complaints. Do 
not

[[Page H5761]]

complain if he is late for dinner. Listen to him. Let him talk first. 
Make the evening his.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, you show me an American home where you can practice 
this today and I am going to move there. My husband and I have never 
been able to do this. He has wanted that kind of wife, I have wanted to 
be that kind of wife. We cannot afford it, nor can anyone else in 
America today, except the extremely wealthy, because we are in a global 
economy.

                              {time}  1245

  While America's families used to be little islands of tranquillity, 
what has happened to us today is they are like the Bermuda Triangle. We 
have a government, we have Members on the other side of the aisle who 
vote against family medical leave, against helping with child care, 
against helping with elder care, against, against, against, against 
trying to increase the amount of deductions for children, on and on and 
on. Yet they claim they are pro-family. But what they are saying is, 
your family is your problem, the Government should not do anything 
about it.
  The problem is no one has time to be a family anymore because they 
are working so hard. The average American family feels like one of 
those squirrels in a wheel. They run faster and faster every year, 
their tongue is hanging out, and they never get out of the bottom of 
the wheel. The Government keeps telling them, greet your husband at the 
door, make sure his dinner is on the table and the children are clean.
  Please. That is what is driving the gender gap.
  All the work and family issues continue to get ignored because we 
have got a higher economic level here who very often does not 
understand the stress being put on America's families. So when you look 
at the rest of the Western World, they are way ahead of us. When you 
look at what people were trying to say here this weekend, they were 
saying: Government, get a clue; corporations, get a clue; institutions, 
get a clue.
  We must find a way where America's families again can be that little 
more tranquil island. They will probably never be able to go back to 
the 1950's. But for heaven's sake, they cannot survive under the 
tremendous pressures that they are now under where you see single-
parent families trying to be both mother, father, provider, and 
everything else, dual-parent families working at a gazillion jobs 
running around trying to do everything just to keep the mortgage paid 
and hardly recognize each other when they finally do get to be in the 
house at the same time.
  America's families today have to keep pictures of the family members 
pasted by the door so, if people like that come to the door, they know 
who to let in because they are not around enough. That is what the 
gender gap is about. We have not understood it at all in this body. I 
know. It took me 9 years to get family medical leave passed. It is not 
nearly enough.
  Mr. Speaker, we have got people who want to roll it back tomorrow. We 
have never been able to get many of the other things done. When we get 
that done, we will not have a gender gap. Let us get on with it.

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