When I started working, women were working at 59 cents to the dollar. We got a raise, but it's still unfair. We're still 16 percent of Congress, even though we're 51 percent of the population. We're a low percentage of our CEOs. We're a low percentage of boards and being part of boards.

In America, we have long stood by the principle that the protections of the law are not meant just for some.

I think in a society where you can't even pass the Equal Rights Amendment, it's very difficult to women make a progress. Incidentally, we are exactly 160 years after the very first women's public rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York, when a handful of women started it all and began the movement to make women equal.

I asked, "What do you think the most important advancement was for women in recent years?" And the majority, the item that polled the most, was Hillary Clinton's run for President. Can you believe that? Women saw that as a breakthrough in something very, very important. She didn't win. And I think another thing that her race did was it showed sexism in our society.

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.

We have not ratified The Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Among Women. I think 194 countries have signed onto it, but the United States has not. And CEDAW to the United Nations is what the Equal Rights Amendment or the women's equality amendment is to the United States. I think we should pass the women's equality amendment and a lot of these other fights would go away.

The only way to ensure equality for women is to clearly declare it in our Constitution.