We already knew that the U.S. Senate is sexist — very. We wrote about this problem last year when Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) spoke out about several disturbing incidents.?That’s nothing compared to the latest bombshell, however. Apparently, as recently as 2008, female senators were barred from the Senate swimming pool so that the male senators could swim together naked.
Kay Hagan (R-NC) just wanted to swim. It was late 2008, and the Democrat was newly arrived on Capitol Hill as North Carolina’s junior senator-elect. But Hagan was told that the Senate pool was males-only. Why? Because some of the male senators liked to swim naked.
It took an intervention by Senator Chuck Schumer, head of the Rules Committee, to put a stop to the practice, but even then “it was a fight,” remembers pollster Celinda Lake, who heard about the incident when the pool revolt was the talk among Washington women.
Hagan was hit with this disturbing fact when she was a?freshman Senator in 2008.
From Mediaite:
A spokeswoman for the Senate gym told a North Carolina paper at the time that the pool was open to everyone, but according to Politico, it seemed to be an informal rule that only exposed penises were allowed to bathe in the cool Senate waters.
OK who besides me can do without the unwelcome visuals of nude male senators. Who were they? We don’t know. Mitch McConnell? John McCain? Harry Reid. Ew. Am I the only person who wonders why the Senate has its own pool?
