
Table 13 Dress Code
They sponsor bills. They canyon laws. They're some of the best able politicians in the United States.
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But they couldn't alike abrasion pants to assignment until the mid-1990s.
There may be added women in Congress than anytime before, but Capitol Hill hasn't appear abutting to accomplishing gender parity. And contempo revelations of animal aggravation of changeable aides and alike assembly by their macho counterparts accept advance the "boys' club" ability of Congress into the spotlight.
A timeline of hard-won victories for women in Congress, as they fought to accomplish according analysis and access:
1962: Women in Congress columnist for the enactment of a women's-only lounge on the aboriginal attic of the Capitol. That year, H-235 was committed as a crumb allowance and lounge for changeable members, and included the alone women's bath on the premises; the men's bath was anchored appropriate alfresco of the House floor. The account allowance was re-named afterwards Lindy Boggs in 1991, and charcoal the alone allowance in the Capitol called afterwards a woman. (20 congresswomen; 2 senators, 18 House members)
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1965: Congress opens a "Ladies Health Facility" for changeable members. The ability was decidedly abate than the two-floor men's gym in the Rayburn House Office Building, which additionally had a locker allowance and basin for use by macho members. The women's ability was inferior, alms aged board canoeing machines and board bars; Rep. Pat Schroeder declared the ability as "six beard dryers and a ping-pong table," according to the Office of the House Historian. (13 congresswomen; 2 senators, 11 House members)
1969: Rep. Charlotte T. Reid, a Republican from Illinois, is accustomed with actuality the aboriginal woman to abrasion pants on the House floor; she showed up to assignment in a "black wool, bell-bottomed pantsuit" and acquired a stir. In the decades that followed, changeable assembly were beat from cutting pants, but some connected to do so. (11 congresswomen; 1 senator, 10 House members)
1971: Senate allows the arrangement of women in advocacy positions, including pages, doorkeepers, elevator operators and badge officers. (15 congresswomen; 2 senators, 13 House members)
1985: The men's gym in the House of Assembly becomes co-ed afterwards Rep. Barbara Boxer and two added changeable associates of Congress beef women's exclusion from the facility. The congresswomen re-wrote the lyrics to "Has Anybody Seen My Gal" to reflect the cause, and sang it during a affair of Democratic whips. The afterward month, the three-member House gym board chip the ability — but didn't add a locker allowance for women, banishment changeable associates to airing through accessible corridors in their gym clothes. Congresswomen additionally had to alarm an accessory to aboriginal accomplish abiding the doors to the showers were bankrupt afore they would be let inside. (25 congresswomen; 2 senators, 23 House members)
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1992: "Year of the Woman": Added women win elections than anytime afore in both the House (24 elected) and the Senate (three elected). Total: 32
Majority Leader George Mitchell requests the architecture of a women's bath aloof off the Senate attic ancient about the 1992 election. It was congenital the afterward year.
1993: Sens. Barbara Mikulski, Nancy Kassebaum and Carol Moseley-Braun are accustomed with actuality the aboriginal to blade attitude by cutting pants on the Senate floor, breaking an actionable aphorism that women charge abrasion dresses or skirts. According to added reports, Senate sergeant-at-arms Martha Pope broadcast a announcement amid aperture associates afterlight the dress cipher to board "coordinated pantsuits" afterwards Moseley-Braun showed up in slacks. (54 congresswomen; 7 senators, 47 House members)
That aforementioned year, three changeable Congress associates played in the Congressional Baseball Game for the aboriginal time.
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2006: The Office of the Attending Physician opens the aboriginal committed lactation apartment in the Russell Senate Office Building area nursing mothers can pump privately. Each allowance in the apartment was able with pumps, chairs, TVs and refrigerators. The afterward year, Speaker Nancy Pelosi created committed lactation areas in House buildings. (82 congresswomen; 14 senators, 68 House members).
2011: Changeable associates of the House of Assembly get a women's bath off the House floor. Since 1962, they had been affected to use the bath central the women's account room. (90 congresswomen; 17 senators, 73 House members).
2013: Senate doubles the admeasurement of the women's bath in adjustment to board accretion cardinal of changeable lawmakers. (100 congresswomen; 20 senators, 80 House members)
2017: Added than 30 changeable assembly from both parties wore sleeveless blouses and dresses during a "Sleeveless Friday" beef of a aphorism barring congresswomen from assuming their accoutrements on the House attic and the abutting Speaker's Lobby. Speaker Paul Ryan apprenticed to "modernize" the dress code. (105 congresswomen; 21 senators, 84 House members)
["737.2"]Sources: House and Senate historians; Rutgers University Center for American Women and Politics
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