[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 21 (Thursday, March 5, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H891-H897]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 1997, the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. 
Norton) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority 
leader.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor this afternoon, I expect 
to be joined by other women Members of Congress. I have already been 
joined by my distinguished cochair of the women's caucus here in the 
Congress, the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson). We have come 
because this is a special month. It is called women's history month. We 
who are Members of Congress are not historians, however. While we exalt 
in women's special history in this country and acknowledge the need to 
use this month to make Americans more aware of the vital role that 
women have played in the country's history, we have an additional 
obligation, we who serve in the Congress, and that is to keep people 
current on what it is that this Congress is doing for women and for 
families. For now 21 years the women's caucus has taken as its special 
obligation to secure the rights and needs of women and their families.
  I am going to say something about the work of the women's caucus 
because I believe that much of that work is done behind the scenes and 
women's history month is a good point to let Members and others know of 
the history that is being made in this body for women and for families. 
Before I am through, indeed in just a few minutes, I am going to hand 
it off to my cochair, the Republican cochair of the caucus, the 
gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson), and then I will come back 
to say something further.
  Last year was a landmark year for the women in Congress. We are 50 
strong now. We know that that is nothing to write home about if you 
consider that there are 440 Members of this body, but it does mean that 
there has been progress in this body since there was hardly a woman to 
be found among the Members. And that was the case 21 years ago.
  Last year in celebrating our 20th anniversary, we had the first 
dinner we have ever had because we thought when you get to be 20 years 
old, you ought to do something special, and we had that in a beautiful 
Federal building downtown, a historic structure. President Clinton, 
First Lady Hillary Clinton, both attended the dinner and spoke, and the 
first woman ever to be Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, was the 
featured speaker, and because women like to have fun, Sweet Honey in 
the Rock came to sing for the women and men who were gathered there.
  What we do most of the time, however, is not to celebrate. What we do 
most of the time is to fix upon some priorities from among the many 
that confront the country every year affecting women and families. Mrs. 
Johnson and I thought that on the 20th anniversary of the caucus, we 
ought to look at the great progress we have made and think about how we 
should proceed in the future.
  We looked at what milestones had been accomplished. I have to tell 
Members, without detailing all of them during the time we have this 
afternoon, that they are most impressive, 20 years of concrete 
achievements.
  To give you just a feel, a few examples. Women in Congress are 
particularly proud of what we have done for women's health. Women's 
health was a submerged and neglected field when the women's caucus was 
born. Today, however, women's health is an issue that women and men in 
this body can take real pride in. Women are now included in clinical 
trials. Women had the great neglected conditions, but now osteoporosis 
and breast cancer are among the conditions that the Congress has given 
a particular time and attention to.
  We are beginning to focus on a real sleeper issue in women's health. 
If I were to ask the average person what kills more women than any 
other condition, there would probably be some conditions in the cancer 
category that people would come forward with because there is so much 
said about this disease. But the fact is that it is heart disease that 
kills most women. We need to look closely at heart disease in women to 
see what it has in common and how it is different from heart disease in 
men.
  Beyond health, and there are a dozen conditions and avenues in health 
that the women's caucus has brought alive in its 20 years, but I would 
also cite the Family Medical and Leave Act. This opportunity for people 
to take uncompensated time off for a serious health need has been a 
godsend to hundreds of thousands of families already, and it was just 
signed in 1992. It is a landmark piece of legislation. It leaves us 
behind most industrialized countries because most industrialized 
countries give some form of compensated leave for family and medical 
needs, but we are getting there.
  There is, of course, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, to name 
another of the great achievements of the women's caucus. When I was 
having my children, pregnancy was not even covered by health insurance 
plans, and if it was covered at all, it was covered in a very small 
amount compared to other conditions. A woman could be dismissed because 
of pregnancy. This, of course, was discrimination based on pregnancy, 
and I was Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission at a 
time when we believed that pregnancy discrimination was, of course, 
covered by title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. A decision from the 
Supreme Court interpreted title VII not to cover pregnancy, however, 
and it fell to this body to make it clear that title VII should cover 
pregnancy, and the landmark Pregnancy Discrimination Act was passed. 
There is no question that women's ability to move as they now must in 
the workplace would have been severely hindered without the work of 
this body on the Pregnancy Discrimination Act.
  If I could name just one more among many pieces of legislation that 
are hallmarks of the 20 years of women in the Congress, the Domestic 
Violence Act, this is another piece of legislation that it took years 
to enact, but which everyone now embraces as a landmark act. Domestic 
violence crosses all manner of boundaries in our society, and women 
have been left without help or assistance, with the focus of the 
Congress on criminal violence. This body opened itself to understanding 
that some of the worst violence occurs inside the home, and that more 
women are murdered by partners and husbands than by strangers. And so 
the Domestic Violence Act was passed.

[[Page H892]]

  Before speaking further about the work that the Congress is doing led 
by women Members of Congress to make history and not simply celebrate 
women's history month, I would like to turn to my very good friend, the 
gentlewoman from Connecticut, Mrs. Johnson. I turn to Mrs. Johnson, 
with whom I work side by side, sister to sister, one party or the other 
notwithstanding. We work together, we believe, as a model of how 
bipartisanship can and should work in this body. And we believe that 
the women's caucus is the best example of bipartisanship in the 
Congress, and we have lots of concrete results to show for what good 
bipartisanship can do notwithstanding difference in party.
  I yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson), 
Republican cochair of the women's caucus.

                              {time}  1515

  Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the 
gentlewoman from D.C. (Ms. Norton) and, indeed, I am proud to serve 
with my colleague as co-chair of the Congressional Caucus for Women's 
Issues because it has made an enormous difference to restructuring the 
law over the years to recognize the needs of women and the rights of 
women to be free and equal participants in our democracy.
  We are all blessed to live in a land where individual freedom, 
individual responsibility, equal opportunity and equal justice are the 
principles that underlie our government. But those ideals cannot be 
realized unless they are reflected in the law and, indeed, the law 
changes and moves and has to be amended and reformed as our 
understanding of what it means to be free and equal changes.
  And so it took almost 100 years, well, I guess it was a good 70 years 
from the time that women really organized to get the vote at a tea 
party in Seneca Falls before they actually gained the right to vote in 
a Nation whose underlying document says we are all free and equal and 
that we believe in self-government. So it does take time.
  And today, as we use this special order to kick off Women's History 
Month, I would like to just talk a little bit about some of the major 
changes in the structure of law that governs us, that both reflect 
women's demand to be free and equal citizens in our great Nation, but 
also have enabled women to do so.
  Many of us remember the days before Title IX when women did not have 
any right to play intercollegiate sports. There was simply no money in 
it for it, and all the sports budget went to men and all the 
scholarships went to male athletes. Today, we have women competing on 
teams in the Olympics, in a great variety of sports, specifically 
because the Congress of the United States passed Title IX that 
guaranteed to women equal access to sports opportunities.
  That changed the physical education programs of our grammar schools, 
of our high schools and, very importantly, of our colleges. And it is 
for that sole reason alone, that change in Title IX under our education 
laws, that we as a Nation are competing in the Olympics in many, many 
sports and winning many gold medals.
  The equality that women have achieved, not quite, but we are moving 
in that direction, in the arena of sports has been reflected also in 
their opportunity for higher education. And we see an increasing 
number, in fact a very great explosion in the number of women who are 
lawyers and doctors and engineers and experts of all kinds, having 
graduated from college, having had access to the same education that 
men in our society have had access to many moons before.
  So our education statutes, as they were written, and rewritten then, 
have been a bridge over which women have traveled to gain the real 
equality that comes from the individual equality that comes from equal 
access to educational opportunity.
  Other areas of great achievement are in the areas of health research, 
and the Congress Women's Caucus has been a leader in the area of health 
research and women, not only to focus new research dollars on the areas 
of women's health, the diseases that were most threatening to women, 
because they were not getting nearly the research attention that the 
diseases that threatened men were receiving, but also to change the way 
we do health research so that research was focused equally on women 
with heart disease as well as men with heart disease; black women as 
well as white women; black men as well as white men; ethnic diversity, 
racial diversity and both genders in all of our research studies, in 
all of our clinical studies, so that knowledge advanced not just about 
cardiac disease in men but about cardiac disease in a diverse 
population in a free society.
  So the Congress Women's Caucus led that effort to change the way we 
do clinical trials, to change the way we do health research, as well as 
to include at the top of the Nation's health agenda those diseases that 
were most threatening to the lives of women.
  And in the area of retirement security, we simply had to change the 
law so that as a man earned a right to a pension over the years, he 
could not sign away his wife's right to a pension after his death 
without her knowledge or permission. So through the law we enhanced 
women's opportunity for retirement security as we enhanced women's 
opportunity to equal educational opportunity and as we have in many 
areas enhanced women's opportunities in the workplace to equal earning 
power.
  On this issue of retirement security, our first efforts were to make 
sure that a spouse could not sign away his wife's right to retirement, 
a small retirement pension; and thereafter to follow that with a 
homemakers' IRA and other things to equalize the opportunity for women, 
both women who were married to workers and women who worked, to have 
the equal opportunity to prepare for a secure and economically adequate 
retirement.
  But we also have had to change the law in many other areas to assure 
women's equal treatment under the law.
  So in the area of family violence, when I first was elected to public 
office, and now that goes back many years at the State level in the 
'70s, it was all right for a man to beat his wife. It was not all right 
for him to beat his neighbor's wife. He could be actually arrested and 
put in jail if he beat his neighbor's wife but if he beat his own wife, 
he could not be charged in the same way.
  And that is because way, way back, women were men's property. And our 
free society, in spite of our Constitution, in spite of our beliefs 
that we were all equal and free, was slow to apply that concept of 
equality to the concept of violence. So today if a man beats his wife 
he will be treated just the same as if he beat his neighbor's wife. And 
wives are equally protected against violence with any other woman not 
related by marriage to a man.
  So in the area of health, in the area of retirement security, in the 
area of violence, in the area of education, in the area of work force 
participation, women have made tremendous strides. But there is more to 
be done. The challenges ahead of us are real and we must achieve them 
if women in America are to achieve real equality of opportunity, real 
freedom and real personal responsibility, and in the equal justice 
under law.
  In the future, Federal day care policy must not discriminate between 
the benefits we provide to women who have to pay for out-of-home care 
and the benefits we provide to women in the same economic bracket, the 
same earning bracket who provide that care to their children at home.
  We have to better recognize in a society where research has shown 
that development from zero to 3 is so crucial, we have to provide a day 
care policy that does not discriminate against the parent caregiver. So 
we have much work to do in day care.
  But the Congress Women's Caucus has led the battle and won the battle 
for ever more money into the day care component of welfare reform and 
in the day care support that we provide working parents. But we have a 
long way to go in developing a nondiscriminatory policy that simply 
supports women in the very, very important work of raising children, 
and particularly in those critical years from zero to three.

  We have a long way to go in assuring that women have equal economic 
opportunity. And while we have made a lot of progress in some areas, 47 
percent of the work force is female but only 5 percent is senior 
management. Seventy-five percent of those working women hold low-paying 
jobs with little

[[Page H893]]

security. Very few, for example, are successful in the skill trades.
  In fact, of all the areas, that is perhaps the area of lowest female 
achievement. Only .8 percent of the Nation's 1.2 million carpenters are 
women; only 1.3 percent of the Nation's plumbers and steamfitters and 
pipefitters are women; and only .7 percent of our mechanics are women. 
And yet those are jobs that are well paying; those are skill jobs that 
pay $23 to $27 an hour. And these are areas of nontraditional work 
where women need the right, if their skills and interest lead them, to 
participate on an equal basis.
  Finally, we have enormous challenges in terms of workplace policy. 
The gentlewoman from D.C. has talked about the leadership of the 
Congress Women's Caucus and the work of the Congress to provide family 
and medical leave and more equitable treatment of pregnant women. We 
also have to go further than that.
  I believe we need to provide protection for women who want to change, 
or men for that matter, who want to take time and a half off instead of 
time-and-a-half pay.
  People need to have the right to choose between time and money when 
it comes to bringing up their families. They need to be able to better 
balance the challenges of work and family in the interests of 
themselves and their own children. The law needs to be structured in 
such a way as we did in the Family and Medical Leave Act, that that 
individual employee choice is protected, and that the employee is 
protected from retribution in the course of employment by the employer.
  I am proud to say that, in the comp time bill, the protection is 
modeled on the protection in the Family and Medical Leave Act, but it 
is stronger. I think we have to recognize far more forcefully than we 
have women's need in the workplace for flexibility.
  We believe in personal freedom. We believe in personal 
responsibility. There could be no equal opportunity without women 
having the freedom and responsibility to better balance their work and 
family responsibilities.
  So there is much work to be done in many, many areas. But as we go 
forward in Women's History Month, we must make sure that we all 
understand not only the progress that women have made, but the degree 
to which that progress has come specifically as a result in changes in 
the laws that govern us so that we all do enjoy the same access to 
education, the same access to health research dollars, the same access 
to retirement security, the same access to job opportunities, and the 
same access to protection as employees.
  So it has been really a pleasure to join the gentlewoman of the 
District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) this afternoon. It has been a great 
honor to work with my colleague these 2 years as co-chairs of the 
Women's Caucus.
  I am pleased to see that some of our colleagues have joined us.
  Ms. NORTON. I would like to thank my co-chair of the Women's Caucus 
for those very informative remarks and for her work with me on women's 
issues in the Congress.
  Before I yield to the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. Morella) who 
has joined us, I want to also thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut 
(Mrs. Johnson) for continuing the theme that we have set during this 
hour; that we are not simply this month celebrating women's history. We 
in the Congress are celebrating women making history. As such, we are 
informing women and families of America about just how that history is 
being made in this body.
  Before I yield to the gentlewoman from Maryland (Ms. Morella), I do 
believe we have an obligation to update women and families on new 
legislation that has just been passed in 1997, much of it through the 
work and pressure of the Women's Caucus, that affect women.
  There are four or five very important such pieces. One is an 
expansion in mammography coverage. Breast cancer and mammography 
coverage have been a priority for the women in Congress, important 
facts for women on Medicaid, which covers not only elderly women but 
disabled women. We have reduced the age where mammography is covered 
from 39 years to 50 years. This is important information that is 
probably not out in the public as yet because it is so new.
  We have expanded Medicare and Medicaid coverage for Pap smears, 
pelvic exams, clinical breast exams, and bone mass exams; this only in 
the past year, 1997.

                              {time}  1530

  We have barred discrimination in Medicare and Medicaid coverage of 
domestic violence and discrimination in the use of genetic information. 
This moves us toward correcting abuses that were reported to the 
Congress. And, of course, I think that there is more general 
information, as we approach April 15 when taxes must be paid, that we 
are beginning in this year to have the possibility for families who are 
raising children under 17 to get a tax credit for those children of 
$500.
  These are examples of the nuts and bolts of what it means to fight 
for women in the Congress, to have something to show for it, to listen 
to what women and families say they need and to fight for it on this 
floor and to carry that fight over into the other body.
  Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have been joined by the woman who 
was the Republican cochair of the Women's Caucus during the 104th 
Congress, the Congress before this Congress, and a woman who has fought 
hard for women and families ever since coming to Congress. I yield to 
the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. Morella).
  Mrs. MORELLA. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from the 
District of Columbia, the cochair of the Congressional Caucus for 
Women's Issues, for yielding. I want to thank her and the gentlewoman 
from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson), who just spoke earlier, for the 
leadership that they have shown with the Congressional Caucus for 
Women's Issues. I am the former cochair of it and very dedicated to the 
issues that we have heard espoused and others that need to be done.
  I know as we talk about Women's History Month there is no need really 
to go back to Margaret Brent from my great State of Maryland who in 
1648 asked for the right to vote for women, it did not come about until 
1920; or to the fact that Eileen Collins has just been appointed to be 
one who will command a space mission next year. But right now I wanted 
to focus my comments on just a couple of issues, the issues of child 
care and family violence.
  One of my top priorities for this Second Session of the 105th 
Congress is to expand access to, and the quality of, child care. To 
that end I have introduced the Dependent Care Tax Credit Refundability 
Act, H.R. 2553. It will help working families obtain quality child 
care.
  Currently the dependent care tax credit is a critical source of child 
care funding for low-income families. Unfortunately, it does not help 
the poorest of the working poor because it is not refundable. As a 
result, those who earn too little to pay Federal income taxes do not 
receive the amount for which they would otherwise be eligible.
  My legislation would both expand the credit to help more families and 
make it refundable to enable the poorest of working families to 
qualify. It would also include those who provide respite care for ill 
or disabled dependents.
  Over 5 million children under the age of 3 are in the care of others 
while their parents are at work. Finding quality care for these 
toddlers is particularly difficult. Research shows that the first 3 
years of life are a critical period of brain development, of 
intellectual growth, of emotional development. Thus for children in 
child care during these years, the quality of the child care is 
inextricably linked to their growth and development.
  I am pleased to be a sponsor with the gentlewoman from Connecticut 
(Ms. DeLauro) of legislation, the Early Learning and Opportunity State 
Grants Act of 1997, H.R. 2713. This legislation will provide grants to 
States to expand the availability and improve the quality of care for 
children from infancy through age 3.
  College costs and the burden of child care can make a college 
education inaccessible for many women. Women are twice as likely to 
have dependents as men, and 3 times as likely to be single parents. For 
these reasons, I have introduced the College Access Means Parents in 
School, known as the CAMPUS Act. This legislation will enable

[[Page H894]]

more low-income women to get a college education by providing campus-
based child care centers.
  Often finding affordable quality child care can be an insurmountable 
barrier for students who have children. The CAMPUS Act will tear down 
this barrier by providing financial incentives for colleges and 
universities to establish campus-based child care centers. The good 
news is that students who have access to campus-based child care 
centers are more likely to stay in school and graduate than the average 
college student. Peace of mind that their children are being well cared 
for enables most of these students to achieve a higher grade point 
average and to complete their college education in less time than the 
norm.
  It is critical that we address the issue of child care at the 
earliest opportunity. I will continue my efforts along with the rest of 
the Women's Caucus to make this assistance a reality.
  When the Violence Against Women Act became law in 1994, it changed 
forever the way the Nation addressed the crimes of domestic violence 
and sexual assault. Today there are more investigations, criminal 
prosecutions and stiffer penalties for those who cross State lines to 
commit domestic violence. Millions of dollars have been given to the 
States to help them reshape the responses of police officers, 
prosecutors, judges and victims' service providers to violence directed 
at women. There is increased funding for shelters and there is a 
national domestic violence hot line.
  But the 1994 act could not and did not cover every issue involving 
violence against women. Working with the National Coalition Against 
Domestic Violence, the NOW Legal and Education Defense Fund, the Family 
Violence Prevention Fund, Ayuda, the Center for Women Policy Studies 
and many other organizations, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. 
Conyers), the gentleman from New York (Mr. Schumer) and I have crafted 
an omnibus bill, dubbed VAWA II, which is Violence Against Women Act 
II, that will reauthorize programs under the original legislation and 
also address such issues as child custody, insurance discrimination, 
battered immigrant women, campus crime, legal services eligibility, 
medical training, workplace safety, and the problems faced by disabled 
and by older women.
  This shows that much more needs to be done, but the concerted efforts 
that we hear about here and that we will read about and, I hope, 
support of the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues will note that 
this Women's History Month will mark the beginning of some significant 
changes and advances in progress made for all women.
  Again I want to thank the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia 
(Ms. Norton), the cochair of the Congressional Caucus for Women's 
Issues. I notice that the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey), 
who is very supportive, is also here to address this body. I urge my 
colleagues to join us in cosponsoring all the legislation that was 
mentioned, VAWA, II and ensuring that its critical provisions are 
approved in the near future.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from 
Maryland for coming forward to participate in this special order, for 
her work last term as cochair of the Women's Caucus and for her 
continuing hard work with this caucus. I thank her also for those very 
valuable remarks.
  I am pleased to see that as the gentlewoman from Maryland has said, 
we have been joined by another good friend in the caucus, another very 
hard worker in the caucus and a very productive and hard worker for 
women and families in the Congress, the gentlewoman from California 
(Ms. Woolsey).
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding to me. 
I thank her for her kind words, for her very hard work on behalf of 
women and for her energy and for her great intelligence. I also thank 
the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson), the gentlewoman from 
the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) and the gentlewoman from Maryland 
(Mrs. Morella) for celebrating Women's History Month, for participating 
in this special order and for organizing it in the first place.
  Mr. Speaker, I come to the House this evening to honor the story 
behind the creation of National Women's History Month. In doing so, I 
salute the National Women's History Project from the 6th Congressional 
District of California, the district that I represent. This year, our 
Nation celebrates the 150th anniversary of the women's rights movement. 
In my home district, this is of particular interest and a particularly 
special occasion because Sonoma County is the birthplace of the 
National Women's History Project, the organization responsible for the 
establishment of Women's History Month.
  The National Women's History Project of Sonoma County is a nonprofit 
educational organization founded in 1980. The history project is 
committed to providing education and resources to recognize and 
celebrate women's diverse lives and historic contributions to our 
society. Today they are well known by educators, publishers and 
journalists as the resource for U.S. women's history information and 
referrals.
  As recently as the 1970s, women's history was virtually an unknown 
subject. In 1978, as chairwoman of the Sonoma County Commission on the 
Status of Women, I was astounded, as well as the other members of our 
commission, by the lack of focus on women.
  During this time, with the leadership of Mary Ruthsdotter who 
followed me as the next chair of the Commission on the Status of Women, 
the commission designated the week of March 8 for International Women's 
Remembrance. This celebration throughout county schools was met with 
enthusiastic response, beyond anything we had anticipated. I am proud 
to tell Members that this observance marked Sonoma County's first 
Women's History Week, the first women's history week in the country 
that we call America.
  The key to the celebration was to have communities and schools 
recognize the importance of women and the mark that women of all 
cultural backgrounds have made on society and on our history. It soon 
became a goal to get Congress and the governors nationwide to declare 
National Women's History Week.
  By 1981, with the hard work of the History Project, Congress declared 
a National Women's History Week. Together, the women of my district and 
the National Women's History Project succeeded in nationalizing 
awareness of women's history.
  As word of the celebration's success rapidly spread across the 
country, State departments of education encouraged activities to honor 
Women's History Week as a way to educate students about the diverse 
role of women in history. Within a few years, thousands of schools and 
communities nationwide were celebrating National Women's History Week.
  In 1987, the National Women's History Project first petitioned 
Congress to expand the national celebration to the entire month of 
March. Due to the project's successful efforts, Congress issued a 
resolution declaring March Women's History Month. Each year since, 
nationwide programs and activities on women's history in schools, 
workplaces and communities have been developed and shared during the 
month of March.
  In honor of Women's History Month, I must also pay a very special 
tribute to Molly MacGregor, Mary Ruthsdotter, Maria Cuevas, Bonnie 
Eisenberg, Suanne Otteman, Lisl Christie, Donna Kuhn, Sunny Bristol, 
Denise Dawe, Kathryn Rankin and Sheree Fisk Williams, the women at the 
National Women's History Project.

                              {time}  1545

  These women from Sonoma County serve as leaders in the effort to 
educate Americans about the contributions women have made and are 
making in our society.
  The history project works with teachers and leaders of national 
women's organizations to encourage the development of programs and 
events that celebrate the diversity of women's lives. The project also 
works with curriculum specialists in school districts throughout the 
country to help teachers integrate women's history into the schools.
  Under strong and thoughtful leadership, the National Women's History 
Project has been recognized for outstanding contributions to women's 
and

[[Page H895]]

girls' education by the National Education Association, for diversity 
in education by the National Association for Multicultural Education, 
and for scholarship service and advocacy by the Center for Women Policy 
Studies.
  I am grateful to all the devoted women at the National Women's 
History Project for developing women's history month, and for 
coordinating this year's 150th anniversary of the women's rights 
movement for this country.
  Again, I am proud to honor the National Women's History Project, an 
organization which has brought national visibility to women's 
accomplishments. They have left an indelible mark on Sonoma County and 
across the Nation. Their legacy and work serve as a reminder of the 
barriers women have overcome and the barriers that yet remain.
  Congratulations, wonderful women, and thank you for all that you have 
done.
  I thank the gentlewoman for organizing this special order.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. 
Woolsey), for those very important remarks and for her work with our 
caucus.
  I want to continue to talk about that work. I spoke earlier about new 
legislation that the caucus worked to get passed last year. I want to 
speak about new ground we have broken with new approaches to working 
for women as a part of the Women's Caucus.
  We have initiated three new approaches. One is a team approach, a 
bipartisan team approach. The other is a Women's Caucus hearing 
approach, and the third is a women's town meeting approach.
  Let me say a word about women's bipartisan teams. We are a bipartisan 
caucus, and we have often worked together on an omnibus legislative 
bill so we can bring together every bill that women have introduced, 
and we have put it all into omnibus legislation and we introduced it.
  We decided that the Women's Caucus should continue to work on such 
legislation, but that we ought to work more closely together in teams 
of Members who have special interests. I think the women and families 
of America need to know about this team approach.
  Did you know that the women of the Women's Caucus are working as 
teams? That means we Republicans and Democrats led each team, one from 
each party, on issues that we read from our constituents as among their 
primary concerns when it comes to women and families.
  Let me call out what these teams are, and let me let you know what 
women Members are working on these teams.
  Expanding the work against violence against women, the gentlewoman 
from Wyoming (Mrs. Cubin) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. 
Roybal-Allard).
  Preventative health services for women, the gentlewoman from Maryland 
(Mrs. Morella) and the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Ms. 
Christian-Green).
  Educational child care and school readiness, a major issue this 
session, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Pryce) and the gentlewoman from 
California (Mrs. Tauscher).
  Job training and vocational education, the gentlewoman from Hawaii 
(Mrs. Mink), and here may I say I am calling out the team leaders. 
There is not enough time to call out all the team members for each 
important area.
  Title IX, the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Kilpatrick).
  Health care insurance reform, the gentlewoman from Washington (Mrs. 
Smith) and the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter).
  Juvenile justice, the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Myrick) 
and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren).
  Women in the military, the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Fowler) and 
the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman).
  Pensions and retirement benefits for women, the gentlewoman from 
Washington (Ms. Dunn) and the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. 
Kennelly).
  Teen pregnancy, the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Granger) and the 
gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton).
  Higher education, the gentlewoman from New Jersey (Mrs. Roukema) and 
the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Sanchez).
  Women-owned businesses, the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Kelly) 
and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Millender-McDonald).
  HIV-AIDS, the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. Morella) and the 
gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Johnson).
  International women's rights, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-
Lehtinen) and the gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. McKinney).
  You have teams, but what do these teams do? Let me offer a 
representative sample of what these teams have been doing, because I 
believe that when you hear some of what in fact happens that may not 
meet the public eye on the floor of the Congress, that women, men and 
families in America will have some sense of the very hard work that 
women insist upon doing for women and families.
  The gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Fowler) is a Republican; the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman) is a Democrat. They have 
worked like two peas in a pod on an issue that reared its head the 
first day of the 105th Congress, and that was sexual harassment of 
women in the military.
  As I speak, there is an important trial going on of a high level 
military official who was accused of sexual harassment. At Aberdeen, 
they broke a terrible story of drill sergeants who were said to be 
harassing women in their command.
  We are concerned about this, but I do not think the country should be 
surprised. You cannot change what has occurred over the millennia, 
which has been putting men and women together in the military, without 
knowing there will be occasions like this.
  The real question is, what are you going to do about it? You ought to 
expect there will be some occasions like this, and we ought to, I 
think, be very proud of our armed services, that this is very much the 
exception and not the rule.
  Well, Representatives Fowler and Harman, working closely with the 
gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) and me, simply decided we 
were going to press this issue to the finish. I am pleased to report 
that our team leaders, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Fowler) and 
the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman), worked with the chair of 
their subcommittee, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer), who is the 
chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security on military 
personnel, and brought that work into our caucus so that we could 
coordinate with that committee as they went all around the country to 
see whether or not sexual harassment of this kind was present in other 
installations as well.

  This issue has been settled in the Army, as far as I am concerned, 
because they brought it before us, the secretary of the Army Togo West, 
and what has happened is an extraordinary report that indicates the 
action that the Army is going to take.
  I have to say that if the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman) 
and the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Fowler) and the gentlewoman from 
Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) and I sat down to write what had occurred, 
we could not have written a better report ourselves.
  We think this is going to take care of the sexual harassment in the 
Army, and I am proud of the work the women in the caucus have done 
here. We were far more disappointed at the Kassebaum Commission report, 
because that commission had been established by Defense Secretary Cohen 
following reports of sexual harassment in the military, a very 
distinguished commission, which worked very hard.
  But I am here to report that the bipartisan Women's Caucus disagrees 
that women should be separated in training. We think all you do is to 
delay the problem. If women are separated in training, you are going to 
get women and men coming together for the first time when they are in 
fact in the field. Rather work these problems out in training, than to 
bring them to the field, where we simply cannot afford that kind of 
intrusion on the work of our Armed Forces.
  This is a bipartisan matter. We are not necessarily speaking for 
Democratic women or Republican women.

[[Page H896]]

 We are not about to turn back on the notion that we want to further 
integrate women in the Armed Forces, not move back from where we were. 
As it is, each service can decide how they are going to do this, and 
the Marines are not integrating training. But we are not going to stand 
for moving back, for example, integrated training in the Army, where 
integrated training has occurred.
  If there is a problem, there is a problem at one installation. There 
may be problems at others. You do not deal with problems by turning 
back the clock; you deal with problems by rooting out the problems.
  There is a commission of people who have studied this matter before 
in the Armed Forces, and they have said they believe, above all, that 
women should be further integrated, and not taken back. So the 
Secretary of Defense is going to have to decide which way to go.
  We appreciate what the Kassebaum Commission did and we understand why 
they did it, but I have to tell you, if anybody had looked closely at 
the integration of blacks and whites in the services after World War 
II, I can tell you that there were many incidents, and that it was very 
hard to get southern white men under the command of black men. But in a 
command structure, you can do it, and we did it successfully in the 
military with blacks and whites, and the Women's Caucus is going to 
demand it be done as well with women and men.
  The team has done yeoman service and work, and they continue to be 
vigilant and report to us in their report to the caucus that they will 
be looking at specifically gender segregation in the military to see 
whether or not anything emerges on the floor, so that the entire 
Women's Caucus will come forward to fight, if need be.
  Thus far, all is quiet on the home front. I think that those who want 
to come forward to try to sex segregate training know that they are 
going to have a fight on their hands, and I think so far, so good. But 
be forewarned, you are going to meet a phalanx of women on the floor if 
you try it, and they are going to be Republican women and they are 
going to be Democratic women.
  Let me go on to report on another team, the Preventative Health 
Services Team, just to give you an idea of the kinds of things Women's 
Caucus do that do not always make it to the floor as legislation.
  That team, of course, is chaired by team leaders the gentlewoman from 
Maryland (Mrs. Morella), from whom you have just heard, and the 
gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Ms. Christian-Green). I should 
really say Dr. Christian-Green, by which I mean MD doctor. Dr. Green 
has been a MD for more than 20 years, and is now a Member who 
represents the Virgin Islands.
  An example of what that team has in mind for this year is that among 
the things that that team will be doing this year is a presentation on 
breast self examination by Doctor-Congresswoman Donna Christian-Green.
  They reported she is going to discuss proper breast self-examination, 
and what she is going to do is ask women staff from all over the 
Congress, the Senate and the House, and she and the gentlewoman from 
Maryland (Mrs. Morella) are going to call them together and have a 
discussion about this, the progress that has been made, and what we 
need to do to get breast self-examination more widespread.
  You will not see that on the floor of the House. That is the kind of 
innovative thinking and follow through that is typical of these two 
Members and of Members of this caucus.
  Let me give you another example from the work of the team leaders on 
Women-owned Businesses. That team has as team leaders the gentlewoman 
from California (Ms. Millender-McDonald) and the gentlewoman from New 
York (Mrs. Kelly).
  They have already had a hearing, and I will have a word to say about 
that later, but they have already had a hearing on women's procurement 
in the Federal sector. The Federal sector is the granddaddy of all 
procurement, obviously, because the Federal Government is so large and 
so many contracts are let, and they found some difficulty as women 
strive to get more of those contracts.

                              {time}  1600

  Let me tell the Members an interesting approach they have taken. 
Together they have introduced House Resolution 313, which makes 
recommendations on ways women can gain access to more procurement 
opportunities for the Federal Government. But being women, who always 
like to get something done, they have done more than simply introduced 
the resolution. They have sent copies of their resolution, their 
follow-up in this session has been to send copies of this resolution to 
all Federal agencies, encouraging them to implement these 
recommendations right now, without legislation, as a follow-up to their 
own women's caucus hearing.
  I believe the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. Morella) may want to 
say some more. I will finish with these teams, so if she wants to have 
something more to say, I will yield more time to her.
  The gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. Morella) works on the team on 
HIV/AIDS. This is an issue that plagues our country still. We have made 
enormous progress on it, but the disease is moving sideways to women 
and to people of color. We have to find ways to keep the disease from 
popping up in a new population. We have done well. We need to do much 
work, but we have done well with gay men. We cannot have this disease 
move over to minorities and women, and we need more work here.
  They will be sponsoring a briefing with HHS and advocacy groups to 
discuss access to treatment for low-income HIV-infected women and their 
families, and Medicaid coverage for such patients. This disease is 
moving to women, but particularly to low-income women, and particularly 
to women of color. That will be a real service.
  Finally, let me say a word about a follow-up to a hearing that my co-
chair, the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Nancy Johnson) and I had 
on contraceptive research. We found that the government is not doing 
contraceptive research anymore. That means more abortions, and that 
means nobody in the world is doing it, because we pay for most of this 
research.
  We want to encourage more of this research, and we want to encourage 
more work to cover contraception so that after-the-fact remedies like 
abortion will become rare, as it is said. The gentlewoman from 
Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) and I sponsored such a women's caucus 
hearing and we are sending a letter to insurance companies encouraging 
health plans to provide adequate coverage for contraception. There are 
all manner of plans that cover abortion and do not cover the pill, do 
not cover the IUD.
  That is an invitation at a time when we have not done enough 
contraceptive research, it is usually inadequate and I must say not 
foolproof methods available to use, and then go to backup remedies 
which none of us want to encourage. We hope that insurance companies 
will provide such coverage. I am a cosponsor of the bill, as is the 
gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) that would require 
companies to do so. But in advance of that and before that bill passes, 
we would like voluntary compliance.
  We are also drafting language regarding contraceptive research 
funding to start up again the kind of funding that only the most 
powerful and richest government can do. We do not have adequate 
contraceptive research for women in America. We do not have it for 
women in the world. It is one of the great services we could do for the 
world.
  Would the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. Morella) have more time she 
desires before I go further?
  Mrs. MORELLA. No, I do not, thank you.
  I want to congratulate the gentlewoman on the fact that in her 
discussion of Women's History Month and what the caucus has done, that 
she has stressed the bipartisan nature, and the fact that we do have 
partnerships, we do have teams that work together on all of the various 
issues, whether it is pay equity, child care, domestic violence, HIV/
AIDS and health issues, small businesses. I think the gentlewoman has 
articulated it very well. It really is just the beginning of all of the 
work that we do, so I thank the gentlewoman very much.

[[Page H897]]

  Ms. NORTON. I thank the gentlewoman for her efforts to make our 
caucus truly bipartisan, because it certainly takes hard work. We iron 
out our differences and go ahead. On things we disagree, those do not 
become caucus issues.
  On choice, for example, there are some Members, Democrat and 
Republican, that are not with us on choice. Therefore, we do not worry 
with that in the caucus. Those of who are strongly pro-choice will do 
it on our own or with other Members.
  Mr. Speaker, let me finish by saying that the two other 
groundbreaking approaches the women's caucus has used this session are 
town meetings and women's caucus hearings. We had a town meeting on pay 
equity, because we have found that that is a number one issue for women 
and families. That was a meeting where we did not do most of the 
talking. We invited women from around the country to do most of the 
talking. Most of those women came from operations like the business and 
professional women's clubs of America. It was an important innovation 
for the women's caucus.
  We have had four women's caucus hearings. I mentioned some of the 
team members. Those hearings have been on zero to 3, the groundbreaking 
work that has been done on what we all had better understand about 
young children and what has to be done. It is to far more adequately 
stimulate them and get child care for them.
  I have mentioned contraceptive research. We have to move ahead on 
that or else we are inviting more abortion. This last year was the 25th 
anniversary of Title IX. We had a hearing to commemorate it and to 
indicate the great unsolved issues under Title IX, and of course I have 
mentioned the procurement hearing because while there is a 5 percent 
goal, a voluntary goal, for women for contracts from the Federal 
Government, we are only at 2 percent. The women's caucus hearing 
brought that out.
  Mr. Speaker I appreciate the time that has been awarded to the 50 
Members of Congress for this special order.

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