Collins: Women in Senate face ‘extra barrier,’ must ‘prove that we belong’

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said Monday that women elected to the Senate “face an extra barrier” compared to men and “must prove that we belong there.”

“I will say that I do think that when women are elected to the United States Senate, that we do face an extra barrier that men do not,” Collins told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

{mosads}“When a man is elected to the Senate it’s assumed that he belongs there. My experience has been that we women have to prove that we belong there and once we do that, we’re accepted. But there is an extra barrier that I’ve found.”

Collins is one of 21 women serving in the Senate.

Collins on Friday decided she would stay in the Senate and not run for governor of Maine.

She’s been in the news this year for being one of three Senate Republicans to oppose a slimmed-down ObamaCare repeal measure backed by her party.

Over the weekend she criticized Trump’s executive order meant to begin repealing the health-care law in addition to the administration’s decision to end a subsidy to insurers that helped individuals afford insurance under ObamaCare.

“Well, I’m very disappointed in the president’s actions of this past week,” Collins told ABC’s “This Week.”