In fond memory of all the women who built toward this day--

THANK YOU!

and many others.... Thank You!

... with the deepest fondness. They were the one's who informed the conscience of my more youthful days, along with Dr. King.

In a way, I FEEL there's nothing remarkable about Nancy Pelosi as the Speaker of the House, despite a full intellectual comprehension and memory of the struggles for Roe v. Wade and equal opportunity in employment in which I've long participated. Today FEELS anticlimactic ... an "of course" kind of day. I'm glad of that, since it's symptomatic of a heart long-accustomed to regarding gender diversity (as all human diversity) as a matter for celebration rather than angst.

I 'feel' the torch has been passed. Good.

Intellectually, I've lived knowing I was equal. Today, for the first time, I feel it.

I spent three formative years (just out of college) working on and around the Hill in the mid-late eighties. I think there was a wingnut female senator from Fla who got defeated - and then none, and then Barbara Milkulsky. I could be wrong, but I think that when she was elected she was the only female in the Senate. No, there was also Nancy Kassenbaum. Point being - almost invisible. There were more women in the House (my fav. was Schroeder and I cheered when she briefly ran for president and winced at the sarcastic press coverage of her withdrawl from the race because *gasp* she had tears in her eyes) - but not many. While proportionately there still are not many women in congress - there are a huge number more than when i worked in DC. I remember meeting Pelosi in her office - kind and unassuming. Wow. Okay in twenty years these advances should have (and indeed did) happen - but seared in my mind is how absolutely closed DC was to truley powerful women.

Thank you courageous ladies. All of you who made this country a better place.
I love you. I always have. :)

Edited to give kudos to that great Texan, Ann Richards!

First woman in the House. Voted against both world wars, leader in the peace movement. Republican yes, but one of those populist progressive Republicans of that time.