The lawmaker who defied sexism in Congress

Pat Schroeder 1940–2023

Pat Schroeder was a warrior for women’s rights. When she first entered the House of Representatives in 1972, she was one of just 14 women there, and she knew her presence made the men uncomfortable. “It’s really funny if two women stand on the House floor,” she said. “There are usually at least two men who go by and say, ‘What is this, a coup?’” Over 24 years in Congress, the Colorado Democrat was instrumental in passing historic legislation on violence against women, pregnancy discrimination, and family leave. As the first woman to serve on the Armed Services Committee, she called for arms control. And she did it all while combating sexism with wit. Asked how she could be both a lawmaker and a mother, she replied, “I have a brain and a uterus, and I use both.”

Born in Portland, Ore., Schroeder “grew up in a household where her father assumed women could do anything,” said The Washington

Post, and she got her pilot’s license at 15. After studying political science at the University of Minnesota, she graduated from Harvard Law School, one of 15 women in a class of over 500. She married a classmate and moved to Denver, where she worked for the National Labor Relations Board and volunteered for Planned Parenthood. When she was 32 and a mother of two, progressives asked her to run just to give feminist views an airing, and she shocked everyone by winning, said The New York Times. She considered a 1988 presidential bid, but decided against it, and when she “choked up with emotion” while announcing she would not run, it caused a media sensation. Critics said her tears “had reinforced stereotypes and set back the cause” of women seeking political office.

Schroeder handily won re-election 11 times before retiring in 1997. A year later, she published a memoir titled 24 Years of House Work... and the Place Is Still a Mess. It was “her parting shot,” said Politico, chronicling “her frustration with male domination and the slow pace of change in federal institutions.” And she didn’t apologize for her tearful speech. “The critics who seemed most insane to me were those who said they wouldn’t want the person who had a ‘finger on the button’ to be someone who cries,” she said. “I answered that I wouldn’t want that person to be someone who doesn’t cry.”