Quote

Some men don't have the opportunity to be the type of father they need to be, and I hope my example teaches them to step up.

When my mom ran for the Senate, my dad was there for her every step of the way. I can still hear her saying in her beautiful voice, 'Why should women have any less say than men, about the great decisions facing our nation?'

I'm not saying that men make better fathers than women do mothers.

You can lead a man to Congress, but you can't make him think.

The reality is is that Congress is a very male-gendered oriented institution. Out of the, you know, more than 10,000 people who've ever been elected to Congress, you know, only about 250 of them have ever been women.

Congresswomen are congresswomen - you are, sorry. And for women who want to be congressmen, there's a screw loose in their head. I'm proud of being a woman. I think 'congresswoman' is the appropriate term, and 'Madame chair' is just fine with me.

When I grew up, people said, 'You'll never be the man your dad was.' And I said, 'Gee, I hope not.'

When I'm talking to groups that are all men, we talk about how the masculine role limits them. They often want to talk about how they missed having real fathers, real loving, present fathers, because of the way that they tried to fit the picture of masculinity.

Now, since I'm a husband and father, discrimination against women isn't just political, it's personal.