Representative Linda Sanchez
Representative Stephanie Herseth
 

Representative Linda Sanchez District: California District 39 Party: Democrat Age: 33 Website: http://www.house.gov/lindasanchez

Good evening. It is a pleasure and an honor to be here this evening and to have an opportunity to discuss some of my experiences as a woman in Congress.

I was recently asked during an interview whether it is more difficult to be a Latina in Congress or to be a woman in Congress. My response to that question today is the same as it was then: it’s definitely more difficult to be a woman. When you combine all of the difficulties of being a woman in Congress with my youth and the fact that I am a freshman Member, the challenges are all the greater.

Currently, there are 73 women serving in the U.S. Congress. That is only approximately 13 percent of the Members of the U.S. House and Senate. Which means that the other 87 percent are men.

There are slightly better numbers in state offices and state legislatures, but the numbers are still heavily balanced in favor of men.

For example, women hold approximately 25 percent of statewide elective executive offices. Just over 22 percent of U.S. state legislators are women. Yet we represent 51% of the population.

Having over 70 women in Congress is an accomplishment, but women remain disproportionately underrepresented here.

When Congress is made up of mostly white men it isn’t surprising that there are some inequities.

There is still the perception that Members of Congress are men!

For example, I have observed that there is a double standard when it comes to dress and appearance. Male Members are evaluated for what they say. Women are judged by how they look. I’ve seen some male Members of Congress wear ill-fitting suits and looking like they combed their hair with a fork. If women in Congress appear in public without a suit or looking as though they just left the salon, it ends up in the newspapers.

The gender stereotypes go beyond the House floor and Committees. I have spoken to several Congresswomen who have experienced sexism from Congressional Security and while attending events off of Capitol Hill. Women in Congress are frequently stopped by Capitol security guards who think they are staff and not Members. One senior woman in Congress attended a dinner with her husband, and someone assumed her husband was the Member and asked about his new Committee assignments.

Young women in Congress or women considering public office must make the tough decision between their career and their families.

When reaching the decision to run for office, younger woman must carefully weigh their options and decide whether to serve the public before or after starting a family.

Many women currently holding office are doing so after getting married and raising children, or spending many years in a different career.

These women bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table, but the women who chose to build families before running for office have made their path to leadership more difficult.

By that, I mean for a woman to build a strong political reputation that can overcome gender stereotypes, and use that reputation to climb to a leadership position takes time.

I have said many times before that I want to see a woman as President in my lifetime. I sincerely believe that can happen. But a strong woman presidential candidate must have a long political resume.

Most likely, any strong candidate would be someone who has worked her way through the political system. Someone who early on got involved in campaigns, held a series of political offices, and really knows her way around the political world.

And this isn’t important just for the woman who wants to be president. It’s also critical for any woman who wants to gain seniority within a political body.

Members of the House of Representatives, for example, often are appointed to more influential committees and receive leadership positions based on their years of service. If we want women to have a loud and influential voice in Congress and in other political arenas, then we need women who entered the game early and worked their way up.

In that regard, our Party’s Leader, Nancy Pelosi, has been both a trailblazer for other women in Congress, as well as a role model for young Members like myself. The problem is that there aren’t enough women in Congress in leadership positions. We need to get more women in positions of authority on House Committees and in party leadership. I know that Nancy has been working hard to do that.

The ability of women like Nancy Pelosi to rise to positions of leadership despite the disproportionate number of men in Congress is a good indicator of the progress women have made. It is very important over the next few Congresses to continue to make progress and concentrate our efforts to getting more women elected.

The reality is many of the women currently in Congress are senior Members and we may soon be looking at a decrease in the percentage of women in politics because many of the ones currently there will have retired. That’s why it’s so critical that we encourage as women of all ages, especially young women, to consider careers in politics. Women must become leaders on issues impacting not just women, but issues that impact our nation as well.

Are women more effective advocates on women’s issues? My answer to that question is a resounding YES!

I certainly do not mean to imply that men are incapable of advocating on women’s issues or that the men in Congress do not support women’s issues. I’m merely making the point that women are best qualified to speak out on those issues that directly impact women.

Our personal connection to national issues, such as the recent debates on partial birth abortions and the attacks on Title IX, give women an insight that men do not have.

H.R . 534 - Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2003

H.R. 534 is a bill that prohibits any person or entity from performing or attempting to perform human cloning, participating in the human cloning process, or shipping or importing an embryo produced by human cloning.

Anyone prosecuted and convicted under H.R. 534 is subject to both criminal and civil fines and up to 10 years in prison.

This is another bad bill and another example of women having far too little influence over legislation that has a direct impact on their lives.

This bill banned practically every medical or research procedure that falls under the umbrella of “cloning.” Democrats and Republicans agreed that reproductive cloning, where you make an exact copy of tissue, a plant, or an animal, should be banned.

H.R. 534 is far too broad because it also bans therapeutic cloning, also known as somatic cell nuclear transfer, or SCNT). Therapeutic cloning is supported by many scientists as a means to develop needed stem cells, and work towards treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease.

Therapeutic cloning produces stem cells by transplanting a patient’s DNA into an unfertilized egg. By banning, therapeutic cloning, the supporters of H.R. 534 have again imposed upon a woman’s right to choose what happens to her body.

As with the partial-birth abortion bill, this bill was considered in the Judiciary Committee, where women are underrepresented. Title IX

Title IX was enacted in 1972 in an effort to level the playing field for male and female school athletes. In order to do that, it instituted dramatic changes in the way schools ran their athletic programs. Under Title IX, women’s sports have made great advances toward athletic equality. Participation in women’s sports has increased dramatically nationwide. Women’s basketball, for example, has more than tripled in size under Title IX.

Women are now participating in sports such as wrestling, rugby, and ice hockey, sports that are traditionally thought of as “men’s sports”, and many female athletes believe that they would not have had the same opportunities without the help of Title IX. Before Title IX was enacted, athletic scholarships for female athletes were all but non-existent. Now, females receive approximately one-third of all the athletic scholarships in the nation.

Sports and competition are good for women.

We need to protect Title IX and the opportunities it provides to women across the country. Without it, the strides that women have made in the sports realm may be lost.

Women are not just great advocates for issues that primarily impact women. As women, we bring a different perspective to issues and to legislation that affects every American.

For example, we know that women’s average life span is approximately five years longer than that of men. We also know that women earn less than men in the workplace – approximately 76 cents for every dollar earned by men. Given these facts, national issues such as social security and Medicare are of particular importance to our nation’s women. Women in Congress, therefore, have a perspective to advocate on these issues that men in Congress do not, and I firmly believe that that perspective makes women more effective advocates on these issues, and other issues such as child care, health care, pay equity, and education, to name just a few.

I believe the same can be said of other ethnic or gender groups and issues relevant to them. For example, I believe that being a Latina in Congress, who is also the child of immigrant parents and a resident of California, makes me a more effective advocate on issues related to immigration than other Members of Congress.

If I’m correct in this assumption, then it becomes abundantly clear that we need more women in Congress if we want legislation passed that benefits our communities, improves education, labor, health care, and so on.

*However, when women are vocal on these issues, too often they are categorized as “women’s issues” and not national issues. As a result, important national initiatives, as well as the input of women, are not given the consideration or attention they deserve.

It is critical that women throughout this nation work together, to increase the number of women in public offices and the federal, state, and local levels. Whether through politics, or education, or sports to promote and protect our civil rights and the well-being of all women.

I hope you answer my call to action…and yes there is a sense of urgency. As women, we must act now to safeguard our liberties for future generations, whether it is choice, Title IX, Social Security, or Medicare. We owe to our grandmothers, mothers and daughters to become leaders on these issues.

Thank you and good evening.

Representative Stephanie Herseth
District: South Dakota at Large 
Party: Democrat
Age: 32 
Website: http://www.house.gov/herseth

Representative Stephanie Herseth
Speaking at WUFPAC's Congressional Reception
July 20, 2004 

 Thanks to so many of you who came to South Dakota over Memorial Day weekend to help get out the vote.

Some of you know that we haven’t sent a woman to Congress from South Dakota before…and if a single, Democrat woman can get herself elected in South Dakota, I anticipate we will be seeing many more young women getting themselves elected with the support of organizations like WUFPAC. 

I want to share an anecdote with you from my first campaign.  I was out at the Brown County fair, my home county, and this woman I had met earlier in the summer brought her three boys up to meet me.  She came back later and said “Stephanie, I have to share something with you, and I am not sure where they are getting it -  but when I introduced my boys to you one of them said ‘she can’t run for Congress, she’s a girl.’ ”

Now we all sort  of looked at each other and laughed politely…but the truth is they are not getting it at home, they are not getting it at school – there is passive learning going on. When little boys and little girls don’t see women in a certain situations, they make assumptions that that is not a role for them, that they can’t do it.  It is bad enough that little boys would think that women can’t run, but it is much worse that little girls also think they can’t do it.

 The political socialization of young girls and young women that I experienced during the course of the campaign and after was extraordinary.  I was invited to speak to a 5^th grade DARE graduation, and after I spoke, the girls gave me a t-shirt that they had signed with: “we know you can win!”  It was amazing to have these girls believe in me and feel I could do it, and who themselves I know want to do it.  Because for the first time in South Dakota’s political history they saw a woman candidate who was well-financed enough to get up on television in those 30 second ads and run a positive campaign that presented to them an option that they hadn’t seen before.  So the importance of  political socialization is that it combats the passive learning. I had a built in advantage in coming from a political family.  It is much more of a challenge to those without the advantages I had of coming from a political background.  We need to get young girls and young women involved in campaigns and the political party process and the state party process and global issue advocacy so that people start to know who these young women are.  I think it is important for all my young cousins to come to political rallies and debates and fundraising receptions. I have a stack of photos from little girls at my events

 I receive letters from little girls from around South Dakota saying “I want to be like you.”  It is our responsibility, whether they are children of our own, nieces, cousins, goddaughters etc. to make sure they have those early political experiences.  And then as we get older, through high school, college and our early professional lives it is important that we have the networking that is necessary, the networking through organizations like WUFPAC and women in the bar, the networking that all of you have been doing this summer whether you are interns on the Hill or members of a Congressional  staff.   We can use that network to recruit women we come into contact with who we think would be great Members of Congress or state representatives, or country commissioners.

As I said to a group at Girl’s State: “I don’t expect you to vote for me just because I am a woman and I am not too far removed from your experience.”  We do need, however, to be more proactive in identifying the young women we meet as possible candidates and telling them “I think you should run some day.” That is what it is going to take.

 I want to tell you about one issue in my campaign that affects young women running for office.  At the time that I chose to run I knew that I would have to run full time, and I would have to forgo income.  I had a little nest egg saved that I felt would get me to the general election.  Then the FEC changed its rule to allow candidates to draw a salary from their campaigns.  Now, I wasn’t making a law firm salary last year.  So I thought the rule change meant that I would have a chance not to accumulate even more debt, on top of student loans, and some of the other debt we young professional women have.  But my opponent and the NRCC made an issue of it.  The intent behind the law is to allow people of more moderate means (usually the younger candidates) to run for office without going bankrupt. So in closing,  I hope that in addition to raising the ceiling for women in South Dakota by running, that the fact that I drew a salary from my campaign will make it a non-issue for any one else who draws a salary from their campaign.  Because for so many people, being able to draw a salary makes them more viable candidates.  Young women in particular stand to gain.

 Thanks for your support! I applaud all the women under 40 who can make a difference in the lives of women everywhere!