Gentlemen Senators, Please Give Women Their Due

The idea is a great one, writes Gail Collins, and it's also uncontroversial and long overdue: Put up a national museum in DC dedicated to women's history. In fact, a private group is seeking permission to buy federal land at market price and build it at no cost to taxpayers. The likes of Meryl Streep and the former chairman of Abbott Laboratories have pledged $1 million apiece. What's the problem?

"The answer—and, people, how many times have you heard this story?—is that two senators, Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, have put holds on the bill," writes Collins in the New York Times. One of their arguments is that there's already a hundred or so smaller sites around the country, but Collins thinks that only proves the point that "this country really needs one great museum that can chart the whole, big amazing story." It is time to give "what is perhaps the greatest social shift in the history of our culture" its proper due.
(More women's history stories.)