(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Top Comments: Patricia Schroeder [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags']
Date: 2023-03-15
We lost a real trailblazer this week. She won a longshot election to Congress in 1972, and never stopped trying to open more doors for the women who came after her.
But first, a word from our sponsor!
Here at Top Comments we welcome longtime as well as brand new Daily Kos readers to join us at 10pm Eastern. We strive to nourish community by rounding up some of the site's best, funniest, most mojo'd & most informative commentary, and we depend on your help!! If you see a comment by another Kossack that deserves wider recognition, please send it either to topcomments at gmail or to the Top Comments group mailbox by 9:30pm Eastern. Please please please include a few words about why you sent it in as well as your user name (even if you think we know it already :-)), so we can credit you with the find!
Pat Schroeder was my Congresswoman when I was growing up in Colorado. As a kid, I once wrote her a letter in support of the Equal Rights Amendment. She wrote back, an encouraging letter that made clear she’d actually read mine.
In 1987, after I’d left Colorado, she considered a run for President. (Reporter: “Why did you choose to run for President as a woman?” Schroeder: “What choice do I have?”) I was one of the welcoming committee for her at the airport, but we were late and her plane was the only one in history to arrive early. So she had to wait for her own welcoming crew. I don’t remember much of her speech, but I remember she had to step in and gently correct the host who introduced singer Judy Collins as “Joan Collins.”
When she later concluded that she couldn’t raise the money for a serious presidential run, the media gleefully focused on her tears. Cue the thousand “emotional woman” hot takes. For years afterward, she kept a folder of clips about male politicians who cried — including, famously, “tough guy” Reagan.
Schroeder championed feminist causes like the FMLA, and she was the first woman to sit on the Armed Services Committee. She called the military “the real welfare queens,” and she was the one who coined the term “Teflon President” for Reagan. When she left Congress, she followed up with a book called “24 Years of House Work ... and the Place is Still a Mess. My Life in Politics.″ One favorite anecdote from it: she ran across a newspaper interview where her husband said that being married to a Congressman meant he had to take care of things like the kids’ doctor appointments. Reading this, she offered him $500 if he could name the kids’ doctor. (“Um, I meant I would do it if you needed me to….)
She continued to work in support of Democratic candidates, and mentored women who wanted to enter politics. Despite her famous sarcasm, she never seemed to grow cynical.
She died on Monday, at the age of 82. The trails she blazed will be walked by generations of women after her.
On to Top Comments!
No submissions tonight. Hopefully the glitches are done, and people can go back to posting & sending in awesome comments!
Top mojo, courtesy of mik:
Picture quilt, created by jotter, brought back by elfling & the help desk crew:
Quilt appears to be semi-borked. This is less of a quilt and more of a washcloth:
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/15/2158461/-Top-Comments-Patricia-Schroeder
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
