House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) tore into the harassment that Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) recently revealed she endured from male colleagues in Congress about her physical appearance.
“It’s absolutely ridiculous. It’s disrespectful,” the first woman Speaker of the House told reporters on a conference call Thursday. “Some of it, I think might be — I don’t know. I don’t know who the people were, who said the things they said, let’s hope it was generational and will fade away. But I thank her for her strength and shining a light on it so that people know how tasteless and inappropriate it all is.”
Asked if Gillibrand should name the colleagues, as some have suggested, Pelosi said, “That’s up to her. But the fact is, they know who they are. … It’s just appalling — the statements that Senator Gillibrand referenced. And I’m sorry that she had to undergo that. It’s degrading.”
She added: “My experience was a different one. Mine was a different one. And certainly when you have the gavel it’s a different one.”