In honor of International Women’s Day, I’d like to take this time to reflect on our ongoing struggle for equality and also take pride in the progress made in Congress in the past decade.
I am incredibly happy to have seen the representation of women in Congress increase by 50 percent over the last 10 years. Our current legislative session is the most gender-diverse Congress in the history of our country.
To be a member of Congress and witness history unfold before my very eyes has been a privilege. But despite making up a majority of our population, women remain too much of a minority in our civic life. And with so much at stake for women, they should have an even bigger voice in our national decision-making.
This year, as reproductive health continues to take center stage, we must fight back against every extreme right-wing law that attempts to undermine women’s rights. We must be very clear: We will not allow extremists to turn back the clock to a time when women had no control of their bodies and their health.
We must also keep pushing to make the Equal Rights Amendment a reality, and we have to close the pay gap that unfairly punishes women in the workforce who work just as hard as their higher-earning male counterparts.
But above all, we must continue to empower women and lift their voices. When women succeed, we all succeed.
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