Patricia Schroeder, a former leading feminist legislator who helped redefine the role of women in American politics and used her wit to combat sexism in Congress, died on Monday in Celebration, Fla. She was 82.
Her death, in a hospital, was attributed to complications of a stroke, her daughter, Jamie Cornish, said.
Ms. Schroeder, who was a pilot and a Harvard-trained lawyer, had a long and distinguished career in the House of Representatives. She was a driving force behind the passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which guaranteed women and men up to 18 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a family member.
She helped pass the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which barred employers from dismissing women because they were pregnant and from denying them maternity benefits. And she championed laws that helped reform spousal pensions, opened military jobs to women and forced federally funded medical researchers to include women in their studies.
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Elected in 1972 as an opponent of the Vietnam War, Ms. Schroeder served on the Armed Services Committee for all 24 years she was in Congress. From that perch, she called for arms control and reduced military spending.
She worked to improve benefits for military personnel and persuaded the committee to recommend that women be allowed to fly combat missions; Defense Secretary Les Aspin ordered it so in 1993, and by 1995 the first female fighter pilot was flying in combat. That only further outraged Ms. Schroeder’s critics on the right, like Lt. Col. Oliver North, who called her one of the nation’s 25 most dangerous politicians.
One of the most enduring public images of Ms. Schroeder is of her crying when she announced in 1987 that she would not run for president, as her supporters had hoped. At an outdoor event in Denver, she choked up with emotion, pressed a tissue to her eyes and at one point leaned her head on her husband’s shoulder. The episode dismayed some feminists, who said her tears had reinforced stereotypes and set back the cause of women seeking office.
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Ms. Schroeder wrote that “it was my tears, not my words, that got the headlines” when she announced in 1987 that she would not run for president. Credit...Aron E. Tomlinson/Associated Press
It was an ironic charge against a woman who had done so much to promote that cause. Ms. Schroeder was the first woman elected to Congress from Colorado and the first to serve on the Armed Services Committee. She had to fight blatant discrimination from the start, facing questions about how, as the mother of two young children, she could function as both a mother and a lawmaker.
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“I have a brain and a uterus and I use both,” she responded.
When she arrived on Capitol Hill, she was one of just 14 women in the House, an institution she called a “guy gulag,” where she was sometimes dismissed as “Little Patsy,” though she was relatively tall.
Ms. Schroeder was fully aware that women seemed to make many congressmen antsy. “It’s really funny if two women stand on the House floor,” she said. “There are usually at least two men who go by and say, ‘What is this, a coup?’ They’re almost afraid to see us in public together.”
In her book “24 Years of House Work … and the Place Is Still a Mess” (1998), she wrote of being engaged in battles on every front, “whether we were fighting for female pages (there were none) or a place where we could pee.”
The antagonism toward women was particularly pointed from Representative F. Edward Hebert, a conservative Louisiana Democrat who was the powerful chairman of what had been the all-male Armed Services Committee. At their first committee meeting in 1973, he made Ms. Schroeder sit in the same chair with Representative Ron Dellums, an African-American. As she recounted it in her book, she and Mr. Dellums had to sit “cheek to cheek” because the chairman “said that women and blacks were worth only half of one ‘regular’ member.”
It is not clear that he actually uttered those words — other accounts, including Mr. Dellums’s, do not contain that quotation — but Ms. Schroeder was a sharp rhetorical speaker with a tart tongue and she was not afraid to use it.
She was the one who branded Ronald Reagan the “Teflon president,” against whom bad news, like the Iran-contra scandal, did not stick. Of Vice President Dan Quayle, she said: “He thinks that Roe versus Wade are two ways to cross the Potomac.”
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Ms. Schroeder on the Capitol steps in Washington in 1977, addressing a rally against a ban on the use of federal funds for abortion. Credit...Bettmann, via Getty Images
Her analysis of her opponents’ strength carried the sting of truth: “The genius of the Republicans has been how they figured out how to so polarize the middle class that we vote against our own best interests.” During her brief flirtation with running for president, she said the question she was trying to answer was this: “Is America man enough to back a woman?”
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Ms. Schroeder had been co-chair of Gary Hart’s promising 1987 presidential campaign, until he quit after being exposed as an adulterer. His sudden absence prompted Ms. Schroeder to consider running herself.
Had she pursued the White House, she would have been the first woman from a major party to do so since Representative Shirley Chisholm of Brooklyn, who sought the Democratic nomination in 1972.
But when she announced in Denver that she had decided against it, the crowd groaned. Her supporters had expected her to run. At that moment, her tears spilled forth.
“I had underestimated how much I wanted to pursue the presidency,” she wrote in her book, in a chapter titled “The Presidential Weep-Stakes.”
“I went on with my speech, but it was my tears, not my words, that got the headlines,” she added. “Those seventeen seconds were treated like a total breakdown.”
Indeed, they created a media frenzy. Female columnists said she had ruined the chance for any woman to run for president for the rest of the century, while her conservative critics said she had displayed a dangerous emotionalism.
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The harsh reaction, she said, only underscored the double standard for men versus women in American politics.
“I think it’s amazing,” she said, “that no one ever said that Joe Biden had ruined the future of men forever because people would think that they all plagiarized or that Gary Hart ruined the future of men forever because they all played around.”
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Her death, in a hospital, was attributed to complications of a stroke, her daughter, Jamie Cornish, said.
Ms. Schroeder, who was a pilot and a Harvard-trained lawyer, had a long and distinguished career in the House of Representatives. She was a driving force behind the passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which guaranteed women and men up to 18 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a family member.
She helped pass the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which barred employers from dismissing women because they were pregnant and from denying them maternity benefits. And she championed laws that helped reform spousal pensions, opened military jobs to women and forced federally funded medical researchers to include women in their studies.
Story continues below advertisement
Continue reading the main story
Elected in 1972 as an opponent of the Vietnam War, Ms. Schroeder served on the Armed Services Committee for all 24 years she was in Congress. From that perch, she called for arms control and reduced military spending.
She worked to improve benefits for military personnel and persuaded the committee to recommend that women be allowed to fly combat missions; Defense Secretary Les Aspin ordered it so in 1993, and by 1995 the first female fighter pilot was flying in combat. That only further outraged Ms. Schroeder’s critics on the right, like Lt. Col. Oliver North, who called her one of the nation’s 25 most dangerous politicians.
One of the most enduring public images of Ms. Schroeder is of her crying when she announced in 1987 that she would not run for president, as her supporters had hoped. At an outdoor event in Denver, she choked up with emotion, pressed a tissue to her eyes and at one point leaned her head on her husband’s shoulder. The episode dismayed some feminists, who said her tears had reinforced stereotypes and set back the cause of women seeking office.
Image
Ms. Schroeder wrote that “it was my tears, not my words, that got the headlines” when she announced in 1987 that she would not run for president. Credit...Aron E. Tomlinson/Associated Press
It was an ironic charge against a woman who had done so much to promote that cause. Ms. Schroeder was the first woman elected to Congress from Colorado and the first to serve on the Armed Services Committee. She had to fight blatant discrimination from the start, facing questions about how, as the mother of two young children, she could function as both a mother and a lawmaker.
Story continues below advertisement
Continue reading the main story
“I have a brain and a uterus and I use both,” she responded.
When she arrived on Capitol Hill, she was one of just 14 women in the House, an institution she called a “guy gulag,” where she was sometimes dismissed as “Little Patsy,” though she was relatively tall.
Ms. Schroeder was fully aware that women seemed to make many congressmen antsy. “It’s really funny if two women stand on the House floor,” she said. “There are usually at least two men who go by and say, ‘What is this, a coup?’ They’re almost afraid to see us in public together.”
In her book “24 Years of House Work … and the Place Is Still a Mess” (1998), she wrote of being engaged in battles on every front, “whether we were fighting for female pages (there were none) or a place where we could pee.”
The antagonism toward women was particularly pointed from Representative F. Edward Hebert, a conservative Louisiana Democrat who was the powerful chairman of what had been the all-male Armed Services Committee. At their first committee meeting in 1973, he made Ms. Schroeder sit in the same chair with Representative Ron Dellums, an African-American. As she recounted it in her book, she and Mr. Dellums had to sit “cheek to cheek” because the chairman “said that women and blacks were worth only half of one ‘regular’ member.”
It is not clear that he actually uttered those words — other accounts, including Mr. Dellums’s, do not contain that quotation — but Ms. Schroeder was a sharp rhetorical speaker with a tart tongue and she was not afraid to use it.
She was the one who branded Ronald Reagan the “Teflon president,” against whom bad news, like the Iran-contra scandal, did not stick. Of Vice President Dan Quayle, she said: “He thinks that Roe versus Wade are two ways to cross the Potomac.”
Image
Ms. Schroeder on the Capitol steps in Washington in 1977, addressing a rally against a ban on the use of federal funds for abortion. Credit...Bettmann, via Getty Images
Her analysis of her opponents’ strength carried the sting of truth: “The genius of the Republicans has been how they figured out how to so polarize the middle class that we vote against our own best interests.” During her brief flirtation with running for president, she said the question she was trying to answer was this: “Is America man enough to back a woman?”
Story continues below advertisement
Continue reading the main story
Ms. Schroeder had been co-chair of Gary Hart’s promising 1987 presidential campaign, until he quit after being exposed as an adulterer. His sudden absence prompted Ms. Schroeder to consider running herself.
Had she pursued the White House, she would have been the first woman from a major party to do so since Representative Shirley Chisholm of Brooklyn, who sought the Democratic nomination in 1972.
But when she announced in Denver that she had decided against it, the crowd groaned. Her supporters had expected her to run. At that moment, her tears spilled forth.
“I had underestimated how much I wanted to pursue the presidency,” she wrote in her book, in a chapter titled “The Presidential Weep-Stakes.”
“I went on with my speech, but it was my tears, not my words, that got the headlines,” she added. “Those seventeen seconds were treated like a total breakdown.”
Indeed, they created a media frenzy. Female columnists said she had ruined the chance for any woman to run for president for the rest of the century, while her conservative critics said she had displayed a dangerous emotionalism.
Story continues below advertisement
Continue reading the main story
The harsh reaction, she said, only underscored the double standard for men versus women in American politics.
“I think it’s amazing,” she said, “that no one ever said that Joe Biden had ruined the future of men forever because people would think that they all plagiarized or that Gary Hart ruined the future of men forever because they all played around.”
Patricia Schroeder, Feminist Force in Congress, Dies at 82
Ms. Schroeder, who had a long career in the House, helped steer passage of legislation on family leave, pregnancy discrimination and other progressive causes.
