Women’s History Month is being marked with events across the city today.
In the afternoon, first lady Michelle Obama is expected to visit Arlington National Cemetery’s Women in Military Service for America Memorial in honor of the occasion.
Earlier in the day, she will have some competition on the glamorous policymaker front when the Avon Foundation for Women announces new efforts to fight domestic violence at a news conference with actress Reese Witherspoon, Avon’s “global ambassador.”
At 10 a.m., the House Education and Labor Committee’s workforce protections subcommittee hews to the theme with a hearing on “Encouraging Family-Friendly Workplace Policies.” Scheduled to testify: Rutgers University’s Eileen Appelbaum; Michelle D. Bernard, president and chief executive of the Independent Women’s Forum; and Heather Boushey, senior economist at the Center for American Progress.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is expected to attend the official unveiling of a portrait of former representative Shirley Chisholm (D-N.Y.), the first black woman elected to Congress — a Congressional Black Caucus Institute event marking the day.
And, in the evening, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, above, delivers the keynote address to the annual bipartisan Congressional Gala, sponsored by the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues and Women’s Policy, at Union Station.
President Obama meets with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown at the White House in the morning, then visits and delivers remarks at the Transportation Department in Southeast.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visits Jerusalem and Ramallah, West Bank, to meet with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
Climate change stays on the radar today with the bipartisan symposium “The U.S. Climate Action: A Global Economic Perspective,” sponsored by the World Resources Institute, the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics, the Center for Global Development and the Grantham Research Institute in London. Former British prime minister Tony Blair, Duke Energy chief executive Jim Rogers and Cisco chief executive John Chambers are expected to attend in the morning.