As the first woman of color in the U.S. House of Representatives and the namesake for Title IX, Patsy Takemoto Mink served in Washington, D.C., from 1965 to 1977 and again from 1990 to 2002. In between, when Mink was in her fifties and sixties, she continued her political advocacy at the federal and local levels. This essay reflects on two aspects of Mink’s political career during the period between her terms of service in the U.S. Congress. The first is how she explored the personal and the political through her experience of being subjected to reproductive medical experimentation. The second is her engagement with the Honolulu City Council, which reveals her deep commitment to transparent, democratic governance and her belief that a responsible state can address the needs of marginalized communities. Mink’s time away from Congress reveals the consistency of her intersectional feminist political vision.
University of California Press