Pat Schroeder in "Makers" on PBS

[Colorado Media Newsroom]

From The Denver Post:



PBS this fall will launch the second round of “Makers,” six new films dealing with women — in war, space, comedy, business, Hollywood, politics. Colorado’s Pat Schroeder is among those featured. In a clip, talks about “the good ol’ boys club” that was Congress when she was elected in 1973.

“Makers,” a collaboration with AOL, also features Geena Davis, Linda Wolverton (who wrote the screenplay for “Beauty and the Beast”) and director Ava DuVernay.

In “Makers,” Schroeder recalls when she sought to join the Armed Services Committee, and was vetoed along with Rep. Ron Dellums. “For the first time, they overrode a Chairman’s veto” and they were admitted to the committee. Then the chairman attempted to humiliate them by offering Schroeder and Dellums one chair between them. “Ron Dellums and I sat cheek to cheek for a rather long time.”

On a TCA panel to promote the film, she told critics, “Barney Frank, a good friend, used to say that was the only half-assed thing I ever did.”

Women are still marginalized, she says. “I’d like to see women be full-on players.”

On reproductive rights, she cited both huge gains and backsliding. She was a young lawyer for Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood right out of Harvard. “Contraceptives were illegal in Massachusetts when I was in law school. If you had told me in the ’60s that we would be having vaginal probes going on now, I wouldn’t have believed it. I am horrified by how they have vilified Planned Parenthood. I am appalled and I don’t know where the young women are. I can’t believe they’re not out there going crazy.”

“A lot of us wanted to try to get our uterus incorporated. We’ve got to have fun with them. Uterus transplants for men! We’ll let them join us and see how they like it.”

She was in Congress for 22 years before the level of discourse “got so nasty.” In her day, she said, you could debate by day, be friends or at least talk at night. “When Newt Gingrich came it, it became name-calling. Retired, after two years of it told my husband I feel like I’m in the junior high lunchroom and it’s a constant food fight.”

On Hillary Clinton: she’ll still have a lot of sexism. I can’t believe they’re asking can she be a grandmother and a president at the same time, making snide remarks about her age. It’s a little more subdued sexism but it’s very much there.”

She knows Clinton can’t turn the country purple. “Hillary understands how mean they are and knows she’s got to come back at them with force.”

Her prescription for how to deal with sexism: “if you can lighten the conversation, it tends to work, she said. Schroeder recalled the time Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill came to Denver and she introduced him the way he always introduced her: “this is Millie O’Neill’s husband Tip, his four kids are the apple of his eye, he does a good job balancing work and family*” And, she said, O’Neill turned to her and said, “I get it.”



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