February 12, 2020 - Issue: Vol. 166, No. 29 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 2nd Session

[Page H1114]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1715
                         EQUAL RIGHTS FOR WOMEN

  (Ms. CLARK of Massachusetts asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. CLARK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, in 1970 in this very 
Chamber the first African American woman elected to Congress, Shirley 
Chisholm, said:
  There is an unspoken assumption that women are different. Artificial 
distinctions between persons must be wiped out of the law.
  Congresswoman Chisholm was calling for the passage of the equal 
rights amendment. Fifty years later and a century after securing the 
right to vote, I stand before you, Madam Speaker, with the same call to 
action.
  I stand before you as a Member of the 116th Congress with the 
greatest proportion of women Members in our history and a female 
Speaker, but yet as a woman, my rights remain unprotected in the 
Constitution.
  The majority of Americans are women, but yet our Constitution does 
not fully and explicitly include our mothers, daughters, grandmothers, 
aunts, and neighbors.
  Our Constitution is not just a founding document. It is a 
foundational document to equality under the law. It is time to reflect 
the truths that have become self-evident, that all people are created 
equal. It is time to pass the equal rights amendment.

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