[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 151 (Tuesday, November 15, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2357]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTE TO DR. MARTHA BURK

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. CAROLYN B. MALONEY

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, November 15, 2005

  Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in tribute to a remarkable 
individual whose record of service to the women's movement across this 
country and around the world is second to none. For the past thirty 
years, Dr. Martha Burk has devoted her life to advancing equality for 
women. I ask all of my colleagues to join me in saluting Dr. Burk's 
record of advocacy, activism and achievement.
  Martha Burk was born in 1941 to Ivan Lee Burk and Dorothy May Dean, 
who owned a retail clothing store in the small east Texas town of 
Pasadena. She married while still an undergraduate and earned a BS from 
the University of Houston in 1962. She spent the next few years at home 
raising her two sons, Mark and Ed Talley. Refusing to accept the 
limited career options then open to women, she earned a PhD in 
psychology from the University of Texas in 1974.
  After her first marriage ended, Dr. Burk moved to Kansas and became 
active in the Wichita chapter of the National Organization for Women 
(NOW). She gradually built her resume as a political psychologist and 
women's equity expert through work as a university research director, 
management professor, and adviser, consultant, or board member for an 
array of political campaigns and organizations including NOW's national 
board. Dr. Burk and her husband, Dr. Ralph Estes, moved to Washington, 
D.C. in 1990 and founded the Center for Advancement of Public Policy 
(CAPP). Dr. Burk is president of CAPP and recently completed a five-
year tenure as Chair of the National Council of Women's Organizations 
(NCWO), a network of over 200 national women's groups collectively 
representing ten million women.
  Under Dr. Burk's leadership, NCWO's membership more than doubled as 
she brought new energy, inspiration, and resources to the largest 
network of women's organizations in the nation. Over the past five 
years, Dr. Burk has focused on involving the next generation of 
American women in feminist politics. Under her leadership, young women 
at NCWO launched the Younger Women's Task Force, an exciting nationwide 
grassroots effort to engage women in their twenties and thirties in 
women's issues and the public policy debate. Dr. Burk has also 
developed and invigorated NCWO's summer internship program, New Faces 
More Voices, a unique program that trains college students to engage in 
effective advocacy and organizing around feminist social justice 
issues.
  In addition to her extensive work promoting women's equality in the 
U.S., Dr. Burk has also worked internationally to advance women's 
rights. She has organized training workshops with women's NGOs 
internationally in Macedonia and Kuwait, under the sponsorship of 
USAID, and has conducted training in the U.S. for delegations from 
Russia, Botswana, Korea, Romania, Bulgaria, and the Middle East. She 
has recently been a member of official U.S. Delegations to 
international conferences in Iceland, Lithuania, Estonia, and China. 
Named one of Ms. Magazine's women of the year in 2003, Dr. Burk's 
syndicated columns have been published in major newspapers and 
magazines around the globe, and she has appeared on news shows around 
the nation.

  A former board member of the National Committee on Pay Equity, Dr. 
Burk has fought throughout her career to end sex discrimination in the 
workplace. Citing the taxpayer-financed advantages business leaders 
enjoy at the exclusive Augusta National Golf Club, she led the effort 
to open membership to women. The power elite's response to this 
controversy exposed how deeply sex discrimination is ingrained in the 
culture of corporate America. Her recent book, Cult of Power: Sex 
Discrimination in Corporate America and What Can Be Done About It, 
explores how systemic barriers of social injustice were put in place 
and how they can be brought down. Currently, Dr. Burk is focusing her 
energies full time on furthering women's progress in the workplace as 
the director of NCWO's Corporate Accountability Project.
  Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to pay tribute to Dr. Martha Burk and to 
recognize her three decades of heroic commitment to women's progress. I 
am confident that her work will continue to influence and inspire this 
generation and future generations to fight for equality. I ask all of 
my colleagues to join me in thanking Dr. Martha Burk for her 
unparalleled contribution to her country.

                          ____________________