A Women's Place...The Freshmen Women Who Changed the Face of Congress
A congresswoman from Pennsylvania describes what she and the other new congresswomen experienced during their first eight months in office
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In what has come to be called the Year of The Woman, the largest class of freshmen women in history was elected to Congress, an event spurred in part by the reaction to the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings. A Woman's Place... is the story of their first eight months in Congress.Congresswoman Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky - with the cooperation of the other freshmen women - chronicles her journey and that of her colleagues, from their swearing-in to her own dramatic budget vote. The Congresswomen reveal a great deal of common ground: a commitment to "women's issues," which they see as important to everyone; a different style of managing, legislating, communicating, and consensus-building, which they hope to impress on the status quo; the desire to put a new spin on the broad range of issues held to be "male issues," simply by being there and presenting the female perspective; and a shared feeling that although women representatives constitute only 11 percent of the House, in many respects they speak for 52 percent of the population. They also speak with great candor about themselves, their goals, and their impressions of the body of which they've become a part, and directly address their view of their role in Congress as women.In an exclusive interview, Hillary Rodham Clinton adds her voice to theirs and those of senior Congresswomen, congressional husbands, and freshmen and senior Congressmen on the subject of the changing role of women in government.Laced with anecdotes and experiences, A Woman's Place. . . presents an exciting self-portrait of a unique group of women at the forefront of a power shift.
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