Patricia Schroeder: “I am continuing to talk a bit about women in history since this is Women's History Month. One of the things I have been…”

“I am continuing to talk a bit about women in history since this is Women's History Month. One of the things I have been doing this month as I talked to people is I carry around a little shoe. It is no bigger than that, and it is a shoe that someone gave to me that they bought in an antique store in China that was used to go on a woman's foot. When you think about it, China was one of the few countries where you were not even better off being rich if you were female, and maybe many of you remember the story of the three swans written about the three Chinese women who kept praying that when they came back they would not come back as a female. But when you think about the binding of the foot, and I have not seen anyone that could look at that shoe and not shudder to think of the pain of what it felt like to have that foot bound, and then when you think about the fact that that practice did not stop until halfway through the century and there are still women who are older hobbling around that had had this done to them, you realize how far the world is behind on dealing with women and women's issues. Mr. Speaker, when I talk about the binding of the foot, I think we bind something in this society, too. We have bound women's minds.”