[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 55 (Wednesday, March 24, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1759-S1760]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            MORNING BUSINESS

                                 ______
                                 

                         WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, the clock struck 12, and the chaos of 
whistles, bells, and sirens echoed down Michigan Avenue. All across 
Chicago, you could hear--feel--the jubilance erupting in the streets. 
Women of all ages sat on the hoods of Studebakers and Model Ts, waving 
American flags as they rode through The Loop in celebration.
  A decades-long fight for equality had finally come to an end. Just 
days earlier, on August 26, 1920, U.S. Secretary of State Bainbridge 
Colby had issued a proclamation. The 19th Amendment had been ratified, 
and women in America had secured the right to vote, once and for all. 
And though this victory was monumental, America still had a long way to 
go.
  Nearly a century later, on the morning of Saturday, November 7, 2020,

[[Page S1760]]

jubilance once again erupted in the streets of Chicago. Drivers honked 
their horns all along Michigan Avenue, while passengers leaned out of 
their windows, waving American flags. Joe Biden had finally been 
declared the victor of the 2020 Presidential election, his running 
mate: Kamala Harris, the first African-American and first woman Vice 
President of the United States. The scene in Chicago was a fitting 
tribute to the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment's ratification.
  This month, America celebrates Women's History Month. And the people 
of my State are proud of the leading role Illinois has played in 
America's long struggle for gender equality. In 2018, Illinois 
lawmakers ratified the Equal Rights Amendment. Our State attorney 
general, along with the attorneys general of two other States, is now 
pressing in Federal court for the ERA to be officially recognized as 
the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as it should be.
  We are proud of the remarkable women our State has produced. Some 
were Illinoisans by birth, others by choice. They include Ida B. Wells, 
the courageous journalist, anti-lynching leader, and suffragist; Jane 
Addams, the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize and a 
cofounder of the Hull House, a Chicago landmark; Mamie Till Mobley, a 
mother who forced the world to reckon with the brutality of racism when 
she opened the casket of her only son, Emmett; Betty Friedan, author of 
``The Feminine Mystique,'' a book that inspired a new wave of American 
feminism; Gwendolyn Brooks, poet laureate of Illinois from 1968 until 
her death in 2000 and the first Black woman inducted into the American 
Academy of Arts and Letters; Sandra Cisneros, a renowned writer and 
educator whose work is taught in classrooms across the country; Jeanne 
Gang, a world-class architect whose work graces the skyline of Chicago, 
including the tallest building in the world designed by a woman, the 
St. Regis Chicago; Jackie Joyner-Kersee, one of the world's greatest 
track and field athletes and the founder of the Jackie Joyner-Kersee 
Foundation, which offers athletic and educational programming to kids 
in my hometown of East St. Louis, IL; Precious Brady-Davis, an 
environmentalist and transgender woman who has shed light on the 
experiences of transgender parents; Oprah Winfrey, the host of a 
daytime talk show you may have heard of--her career as a talk show host 
actually began on ``A.M. Chicago''; Hillary Clinton, the first woman to 
be nominated for President by a major political party, she may have 
represented New York in the U.S. Senate, but her roots are firmly 
planted in Park Ridge, IL; Michelle Obama, another former First Lady 
who broke barriers--she is the pride of Chicago's South Side, and I am 
grateful to call her a friend; and my colleague in this body, Senator 
Tammy Duckworth, an American hero.
  In 2018, the people of Illinois elected Juliana Stratton as our 48th 
Lieutenant Governor, the first woman of color ever elected to hold a 
constitutional office in our State. She is a dynamo and part of a new 
generation of women who are taking their rightful place as political 
leaders in our Nation. In the 2020 elections, women across America 
turned out in historic numbers, and voters elected a record number of 
women to higher office.
  But we still have a long way to go. America lags well behind other 
developed nations when it comes to gender equality in our government. 
Women account for fewer than 30 percent of our representatives in 
either Chamber of Congress. Countries like Finland, Sweden, and New 
Zealand are far closer to 50 percent, meaning complete gender parity.
  So it is certainly welcome news that President Biden has nominated 12 
women for Cabinet and Cabinet-level positions, including Janet Yellen, 
the first female Secretary of Treasury, and Congresswoman Deb Haaland, 
who would be the first Native American to ever serve as a Cabinet 
Secretary.
  While the past year has been one of historic triumph for women, it 
has also been one of unprecedented challenge. The pandemic has 
disproportionately devastated women. In December, the Bureau of Labor 
Statistics reported that the United States lost 140,000 jobs in a 
single month. A staggering number that is even worse than it seems, 
women accounted for every single one of those job losses. Men, 
meanwhile, managed to gain 16,000 jobs that month.
  Working women, and especially working women of color, have been 
hardest hit by this pandemic. When schools across the country were 
forced to shut their doors, these women were thrust into the dual roles 
of breadwinner and primary caregiver. They shouldered the burden of 
keeping our families and children safe. This is essential work. And 
just as frontline workers need PPE to safely do their jobs, working 
mothers need economic relief to do theirs.
  That is what the American Rescue Plan President Biden signed into law 
this month delivers. It expands the child tax credit, offering up to 
$3,600 per child; it invests in our families, by increasing the value 
of SNAP benefits and expanding childcare assistance; and it gives every 
working American $1,400. The American Rescue Plan will help working 
mothers weather this once-in-a-century public health and economic 
crisis.
  After a year of COVID lockdowns and losses, America is finally 
beginning to feel a sense of hope that the end of this pandemic is 
coming, and looking at the headlines, it is hard not to share that 
optimism.
  Under President Biden, we are vaccinating more than 2 million 
Americans a day. As of last week, more people in the United States have 
been fully vaccinated than our total number of coronavirus cases since 
the beginning of the pandemic. By the beginning of summer, we should 
have a large enough supply of vaccines to inoculate every adult in 
America. This is one of the greatest scientific feats in modern 
history.
  A major reason we were able to develop COVID-19 vaccines at such 
lightning-fast speed is because of the pioneering research conducted 
over decades by a brilliant scientist, one of the unsung heroes of our 
world. Her name is Katalin Kariko. Like many American heroes, she is an 
immigrant. She began her research in a lab in Hungary, when it was 
still under Communist rule. Back then, she believed that synthetic 
messenger RNA could hold the key to treating some of the world's most 
debilitating diseases.
  She followed that dream across continents, immigrating to the United 
States in the 1980s. But people--and, let's be honest, men--doubted her 
at every turn. Her grants were rejected. She faced demotions. She was 
even threatened with deportation. One of the few institutions that 
supported Katalin's work was the National Institutes of Health. The 
experts at NIH didn't just follow the science; they supported the 
visionary behind the science. And that investment paid off. Her 
research into messenger RNA eventually blazed a trail for the Moderna 
and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, which are helping curb the spread of 
COVID-19 at this very moment.
  As we turn the corner of this pandemic, let us remember that it was 
not a miracle that got us here. It was science. It was dedication. It 
was the work of trailblazers like Katalin Kariko.
  As I mentioned, Betty Friedan is one of the great women leaders to 
come out of Illinois. In her seminal work, ``The Feminine Mystique,'' 
she asked: ``Who knows what women can be when they are finally free to 
become themselves?''
  As we celebrate women's history, let us also renew our commitment to 
investing in women's futures. Who knows how many Katalin Karikos are 
out there, ready to change the world?
  For our own good, for the good of humankind, let's ensure every woman 
has an opportunity to ``become themselves.''

                          ____________________