Millennial women shouted their views with their votes in New Hampshire, where almost 80 percent of them went for Bernie Sanders.

The primary followed a flurry of stories about outraged young women claiming Madeleine Albright and Gloria Steinem had tried to "shame" them into voting for Hillary Clinton. Why, they demanded, should we vote for a woman simply because she is a woman?

The answer: Women in public office expand the rights and enhance the welfare of women and girls in this country and around the world.

These young women might still be looking at job listings labeled with "male" and "female" had it not been for the canny work of two women to insert the word "sex" into the employment section of the 1964 Civil Rights bill outlawing discrimination against race. Democrat Martha Griffiths in the House and Republican Margaret Chase Smith in the Senate managed to outwit their colleagues in order to make it forever illegal to say: "We don't hire women."

Many of these young women probably participated in team sports, or even went to college on athletic scholarships, thanks to Title IX -- the provision ending sex discrimination in higher education. They can be grateful to Rep. Edith Green for that, and to other congresswomen for suffering the wrath of male athletic directors. Rep. Pat Schroeder remembers a Denver high school coach directing his boys to "show her what they thought of the law." The whole team turned around and mooned her.

Fighting for women is not for the faint of heart.

All of the women in Congress, current and former, can tell stories of the difference they've made simply because they were in the room. Rep. Susan Molinari of New York sat somewhat slack-jawed in the 1990s, listening to her colleagues in the Republican leadership argue that they didn't want to spend money on the Violence Against Women Act. When she explained that they would look like they were protecting wife-beaters, they saw the light and passed the bill.

Women in Congress come together across party lines over and over again, year in and year out, to fight for their sisters and their children. If these young voters ever want a leave from work to take care of a baby or another family member, they can thank a bipartisan sisterhood that pushed relentlessly for passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act.