Patricia Schroeder, former US Rep, dies at 82 from complications of a stroke

Former U.S. Rep. Pat Schroeder, a pioneer for women’s rights, died Monday in Florida.

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Schroeder, 82, died from complications of a stroke, her daughter, Jamie Cornish, said.

Schroeder, a Harvard-trained lawyer, was a strong advocate for women and families. She was the driving force behind the passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993. The FMLA guaranteed women and men up to 18 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a family member.

Schroeder was first elected in 1972. An opponent of the Vietnam War, The New York Times reported, Schroeder served on the Armed Services Committee for all 24 years she was in Congress.

She was the first woman on the committee but was forced to share a chair with U.S. Rep. Ron Dellums, D-Calif., the first African American, when committee chairman F. Edward Hebert, D-La., organized the panel.

According to The Associated Press, Schroeder said Hebert thought the committee was no place for a woman or an African American and they were each worth only half a seat.

Schroeder was one of only 14 women in the House when she was elected. She was often dismissed as “Little Patsy,” she said.

In 1998, Schroeder wrote a book titled “24 Years of Housework … and the Place is Still a Mess. My Life in Politics,″ which chronicled her frustration with the slow pace of change in Congress, and the challenges of working on issues with more than 420 men.

Schroeder slammed House Speaker Newt Gingrich for suggesting women shouldn’t serve in combat because they could get infections from being in a ditch for 30 days.

In her biography, she once told Pentagon officials that if they were women, they would always be pregnant because they never said “no.″

Schroeder was born in Portland, Oregon, on July 30, 1940. She graduated from the University of Minnesota before earning her law degree in 1964. From 1964 to 1966, she was a field attorney for the National Labor Relations Board.

She is survived by her husband, James W. Schroeder and their children, Scott and Jamie, her brother, Mike Scott, and four grandchildren.