Helen Sommers: An Oral History

Women Advances in Government
Women may be most effective when they reach
critical mass in terms of numbers, researchers suggest.
The more women there are, the more women
get seniority, and “these women become the people
who are dealing the cards at that game,” says Rutgers’
Dodson.
“If the speaker of the House is a woman, the
game’s not going to go on without her.”
– OK, but the “Thatcher factor” shows that
women, once in power, will probably be just like men.
Call it what you will - the Dixy Lee Ray Syndrome
or the Indira Ghandi Quandary - most
people get the message.
Women who act like men. Who don’t seem
to have what the social scientists call a “genderrelated
impact.”
Does that mean that women who get into high
office inevitably become “just like men,” or that
they have to be “just like men” to get there?
For starters, not everyone thinks Margaret
Thatcher’s such a bad model.
“Frankly, I think Golda Meir and Margaret
Thatcher are terrific role models,” says Maura
O’Neill of the Women’s Political Caucus and president
of O’Neill & Co.
Thatcher may not be the woman you want to
emulate, for personal or political reasons. “But
everybody has to look at her and say what a terrific
role model and what respect we have for her,”
says O’Neill.
“When you have a man who is tough, abrasive,
do you generalize that when you elect (another) man
you’ll get one like that?” asks Hine.
Besides, many women say, that was then, this
is now. Twenty years ago, Lorraine Hine played
hardball with her all-male colleagues on the Des
Moines City Council, then baked cookies for them.
Today, she says, it’s a different game. Women
can have their own styles, their own agendas - with
or without the cookies.
In the end, it’ll take a lot more women in the public
arena to prove or disprove some of these notions.
pg. 263
Some who have studied these things believe that
while voters are crying out for politicians who will
pay attention to issues affecting their families, they
also are asking for a more fundamental change in
government and in their relationship to it. And they
believe women can give that to them.
In his best-selling book, “Habits of the Heart,”
and its successor, “The Good Society,” sociologist
Robert Bellah talks about the need to move from
rugged self-interest to a recognition of interdependence
and community.
It’s an insight that the world is picking up on,
says researcher Forbes. “Listen to Bill Clinton
talking about “covenants,” she says. He’s talking
about relationships, about mutual interdependence,
responsibility for one another - her definition of
feminism, says Forbes.
Voters, says pollster Celinda Lake, see women
as “populist outsiders” who can effect change and
can make government work for ordinary people.
But even if every woman running for Congress
were to be elected, Rutgers’ Dodson notes, that still
adds up to less than 10 percent.
“It’s very unfair to expect, even if it’s a record
number, that women will go in there and turn the
world upside down,” she says.
Maybe. Danowitz, who still has vivid memories
of Anita Hill’s testimony during the Senate confirmation
hearings for Supreme Court nominee
Clarence Thomas, isn’t sure. “Think about one
woman on the Senate Judiciary Committee,” she
says. “Think about what a difference that would
have made.”
• Times staff reporter Barbara A. Serrano contributed
to this report.