Healthy moms mean healthy families. When my Republican colleagues held a hearing about birth control and refused to include a single woman on the first panel as a witness, I asked, "Where are the women?"

My idea is that we've worked so many years for equality, but the only area where we've achieved equality, with men, is in job loss. We are still 77 cents to the dollar.

Because it's important. Laws can be reversed, Supreme Court decisions can be overturned, gender classifications can continue.

I believe the person who was out conquering the world, who was out fighting in the world were our fathers, so to have them come... I adored my father more than anyone in the world, but my father had more advice on work policies and how to get a job and how to survive in the work environment than my mother because my mother never worked outside of the home. So I think the support of fathers is very important.

I think that changing stereotypes and attitudes, it takes time. As we progress and we have more women astronauts and more women in construction sites and everything else, then we're making progress. Discrimination is deeply embedded in our community, but we do have the tools to combat it.

The proposal that men and women should be treated equally under the law is hardly a controversial concept.

I was proud to be an original cosponsor of the Violence Against Women Act when Congress passed it in 1994, and was proud to support the previous renewals in 2000 and 2005. These bills always enjoyed large, bipartisan support.