Document 36: "Plank 9: Elective and Appointive Office," from National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year, The Spirit of Houston: The First National Women's Conference (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978), pp. 38-41.
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PLANK 9
ELECTIVE AND APPOINTIVE OFFICE
The President, Governors, political parties, women's organizations and foundations should join in an effort to increase the number of women in office, including judgeships and policy-making positions, and women should seek elective and appointive office in larger numbers than at present on the Federal, State and local level.
The President and, where applicable, Governors should significantly increase the numbers of women appointed as judges, particularly to appellate courts and supreme courts.
Governors should set as a goal for 1980 a significant increase and, by 1985, equal membership of men and women serving on all State boards and commissions. Concerted efforts should be directed toward appointing women to the majority of State boards and commissions which have no women members.
Political parties should encourage and recruit women to run for office and adopt written plans to assure equal representation of women in all party activities, from the precinct to the national level, with special emphasis on equal representation on the delegations to all party conventions.
The national parties should create affirmative action offices for women. Women's caucuses and other women's organizations within the party should participate in the selection of its personnel and in the design of its program, which should include greatly improved financial assistance for female delegates and candidates.
Background:
"Counting historically, the figures are astounding. Since the beginning of the Republic, there have been 1,726 Senators; of them, 11 have been women. Of a total 9,591 members of the House, only 87 have been women. It defies reason to believe that imbalances of this magnitude are not reflected in the outcome of the legislative process."
Women have been excluded from political power since the establishment of our Nation as the world's first constitutional democracy more than 200 years ago. The white male founders of a Nation born in a revolution based on the concept of representative government denied representation to women along with slaves, Indians, and criminals.
When women's rights advocates gathered for their first public meeting in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848, they focused on women's lack of political power as the source of their inability to change their lives or the laws that made them chattels of men. Paraphrasing the Declaration of Independence, they wrote a Declaration of Sentiments, which said, as one of many pointed indictments of male rule. "Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he (man) has oppressed her on all sides."
During much of the remaining century and until August 26, 1920, when the 19th amendment granting women suffrage at last became part of the Constitution, hundreds of thousands of women and their male sympathizers engaged in struggles for "this first right of a citizen." Even as they demanded the right to vote, a few hardy women anticipated the next step by running for office, including the Presidency. Their attempts met with ridicule.
Montana, one of several States that granted women the franchise before 1920, had the distinction of electing the first woman to Congress in 1917. Republican Jeanette Rankin added another distinction to her uniqueness—the first vote she cast in the House of Representatives opposed American entry into World War I.
The struggle for suffrage In order to win the right to vote, women had to develop and master techniques that became standard fare in future political campaigns: they gathered petitions, rang doorbells, set up card files of voters and legislators, organized at the precinct level, lobbied, demonstrated, and held mammoth parades. During World War I, under the leadership of militant suffragist Alice Paul, some women used more radical techniques, such as chaining themselves to the fence outside the White House and going on hunger strikes in jail.
Looking back on the eventually successful struggle, suffrage leader Carrie Chapman Catt reported:
"To get the word ‘male’ in effect out of the Constitution cost the women of the country 52 years of pauseless campaign. … During that time they were forced to conduct 56 campaigns of referenda to male voters; 480 campaigns to get Legislatures to submit suffrage amendments to voters; 47 campaigns to get State constitutional conventions to write women suffrage into State constitutions: 277 campaigns to get State party conventions to include woman suffrage planks; 30 campaigns get Presidential party conventions to adopt woman suffrage planks in party platforms; and 19 campaigns with 19 successive Congresses."
Once suffrage was achieved, the vast political experience amassed by
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Suffrage leaders went their separate ways, working hard and effectively for a variety of causes—peace and disarmament, abolition of child labor and sweat shops, consumer safeguards, social welfare laws, and protective legislation for women.
Within five years after ratification of the 19th amendment, the women's movement, which once had an estimated two million supporters, was down to a relatively small core of activists. Women did not vote in as large numbers as had been hoped, and they tended to follow male voting patterns. Women used their votes to elect men, but in fact, they had little choice, as few women had the resources to run for public office.
Lacking an independent power base, women became dependent on male party officials for concessions. The political power structure, including both elective and appointive office, remained virtually an all-male preserve, whereas women were consigned to the drudgery of inner party chores, the "housework" of politics.
Women in Congress The "astounding" figures at the beginning of this essay (quoted from an article by Ken Bode in The New Republic, March 4, 1978) illuminate the massive, persistent, and deliberate exclusion of women from the governing of this Nation, in which they are a majority of the population.
Today, of the 100 members of the U.S. Senate, frequently described as "the most exclusive men's club in the world." only one is a woman—Muriel Humphrey, appointed recently as a temporary replacement for her deceased husband. Of the 435 members of the House of Representatives, only 18 are women.
It is a reflection on the process rather than on the women, many of whom have proved to be able legislators, that widowhood became the surest route to Congress. Of the total 99 women who have served in Congress since the beginning of this republic (Bode's count did not include Mrs. Humphrey), more than one-third (38) were appointed because they were widows of Members. The eight women appointed to the Senate served for only fractions of a term—months or weeks. The first woman to serve in the Senate was there for only one day. She was Rebecca Felton, an 87-year-old suffragist from Georgia, appointed in 1922 as a token fill-in until the regularly elected male Senator arrived.
Nine years passed before the second woman member appeared in the Senate—this time a widow appointee from Arkansas, Hattie Caraway.
Senator Caraway and Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, who was named to a House seat left vacant by her husband and then made it on her own to the Senate, have been the only women to serve in the Senate for more than one term.
In Congress, the highest number of women ever to be there at the same time was in the 1961-62 session when 20 women served.
Other ‘astounding’ figures The first woman appointed to the Cabinet was Frances Perkins, who was Secretary of Labor throughout the Roosevelt administration from 1933 to 1945. In the Eisenhower administration, Oveta Culp Hobby headed the Department of Health, Education and Welfare from 1953 to 1955. Carla Hills was Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Ford administration. President Carter is the first President to have two women in his cabinet: Secretary of Commerce Juanita Kreps and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Patricia Harris. Thus, the total of women Cabinet officials throughout American history is five.
There has never been a woman President. There has never been a woman on the U.S. Supreme Court; and until the election in their own right of Connecticut Governor Ella Grasso in 1974 and Washington Governor Dixie Lee Ray in 1976, there had been only three women governors: Nellie Ross of Wyoming, who took over for her deceased spouse; "Ma" Ferguson of Texas; and Lurleen Wallace of Alabama, both of whom stood in for their husbands.
Only with the formation of the multipartisan National Women's Political Caucus in 1971, and subsequently with the Women's Education for Delegation Selection Fund, the Women's Education Fund, and the Women's Campaign Fund did women begin organizing on a nationwide scale to encourage and support women for elective and appointive office and to demand equal representation of women in the structures of the Democratic and Republican parties.
The efforts of these and other groups have helped to produce a significant increase in the number of women in office in recent years, particularly at the local level, but the overall picture remains predominantly male.
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Figures supplied by the National Women's Political Caucus, the Women's Education Fund, the Center for the American Women and Politics at Eagleton Institute, Rutgers University, a major research facility, and the Congressional Clearing House on Women's Rights show the following:
In 1976-77, women held about eight percent of more than 10,000 public offices, including Members of Congress, State executives and cabinet officers, State legislators, county commissioners, mayors, and local council members. This compares with five percent in 1974-75. Of 41 elected lieutenant governors, only three are women.
Although there are 735 women mayors, only four are in major cities: San Antonio, Phoenix, Oklahoma City, and San Jose, California. A woman, Carol Bellamy, was recently elected president of the New York City Council, next in line to the mayor.
Women constitute 9.3 percent of State legislators. Of 1,981 State senators, 99 are women; of 5,581 State assembly members, 601 are women. Six States have no women in their senates, and 17 have only have one.
In mid-1977, women were only 1.8 percent of State appellate and trial court judges: 110 women out of 5, 940.
Women are making a little more progress on school boards, the elective office closest to home and easiest to attain. A survey by the National School Boards Association in 1976 found that nearly 20 percent of those serving women, up from 11 percent in 1974. But one out of five remains a very small number, particularly since it is women who do most of the work in parents' associations and are most involved in the education of children.
Women hold only 15 percent of the appointed positions on State boards and commissions, and more than half of these bodies have no women at all.
Carter administration record
Women appointed to the Carter administration have been of extraordinarily high caliber, and in the Departments headed by Juanita Kreps and Patricia Harris, almost half the appointments have been women. Eleanor Homes Norton, head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, has also appointed equal numbers of women.
But on the whole, women remain notably underrepresented in Government policymaking positions. According to the Congressional Clearing House on Women's Rights, women hold only 16 percent of the top jobs in the administration, but the percentage also includes women appointed to nonsalaried commission posts. At the end of February 1978, of the so-called "plum" jobs in the administration, men held 466; women, 60.
President Carter has named six women to ambassadorships, the same number appointed by President Ford.
The judiciary Only 12 women have ever served in the Federal courts. No woman has been on the U.S. Supreme Court. Two have been on the U.S. Court of Appeals. The other 10 were in the U.S. District Court, Court of Claims, Court of Customs and Patent Application, and Customs Court. Judges are appointed to these courts for life. (There are other Federal judgeships in which the appointees serve for a term of years, such as the D.C. Superior Court, the D.C. Court of Appeals, the U.S. Tax Court, etc.)
At present, only six women are among the 492 lifetime Federal judges; there are currently 33 vacancies. There is one woman on the U.S. Court of Appeals and five in the U.S. District Courts. Of the 525 authorized Federal judgeships, only 1.1 percent are held by women.
Only one of the 35 Carter nominations to the Federal judiciary is a woman, and none of his 10 appointments to the U.S. Court of Appeals is a woman.
Last year, President Carter established a Circuit Judge Nominating Commission, consisting of panels of citizens to review applications for U.S. Courts of Appeals judgeships and, on the basis of merit, select five names to be sent to the White House from which the President would select his nominee. Of the 10 panels set up so far, their membership having been selected by administration officials, none is chaired by a woman.
An omnibus judgeship bill pending in Congress at this writing would increase the number of Federal judges by 140-to-150. Whether this will enlarge the opportunities for women or decrease the already miniscule percentage of women in the judiciary remains to be seen.
Public opinion The absence of significant numbers of women in public office can no longer be attributed to their unavailability or to public prejudice. A Gallup poll in September 1975 reported that 71 percent of Americans feel that the country would be governed as well or better with more women in public office, and 73 percent said they would vote for a qualified woman for President. Eighty percent said they would vote for a woman for Congress or for governor or mayor.
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The use of the word "qualified" illustrates the double standard that still prevails for women in politics. Ruth Mandel, director of the Center for American Women and Politics, which has analyzed the background and records of elected women officials, said recently: "I never met a woman in office who didn't feel she had to be more effective, more successful, more dedicated, more responsible, more moral, more everything in order to be take seriously." At the same time, qualities of strength and leadership admired in male politicians are often viewed negatively, and described as overly aggressive when they appear in women political leaders.
Women seeking political office are handicapped by lack of money and support from party officials and the political "establishment." Few hold top positions in the business community or in organized labor, traditional sources of campaign funds. "There are ‘old boy’ networks," according to Pam Fleischaker of the Women's Campaign Fund. "What we need are some ‘old girl’ networks." Women State legislators who answered a Democratic National Committee questionnaire testified that they have a harder time raising money for their campaigns than men do. Americans for Democratic Action has estimated that it costs an incumbent Member of Congress close to $1 million to defend his seat. The candidate challenging him has to spend more, and when women run, they are usually the challengers.
Writing in Politicks March 14, 1978, political analyst Alan Baron noted: "Most women nominees run in districts their parties feel are almost impossible to win. So these women have virtually no chance; if the districts looked good, of course, prominent male politicians would be running."
The National Women's Political Caucus (NWPC) and other women's groups maintain that support for women candidates will increase when women gain more power within the political parties. A major focus on the NWPC, the Women's Education Fund, and other groups has been to obtain affirmative action programs to guarantee equal representation of women in all levels of the political parties and at their nominating conventions.
As a result of their efforts, the number of women delegates to the 1972 Democratic convention increased to 40 percent compared with 13 percent four years earlier, and to 30 percent in the Republican Party, up from 17 percent in 1968. In 1976, 31.4 percent of Republican delegates were women, but at the Democratic convention the number of women delegates declined to 34 percent because of a relaxation of affirmative action rules.
A women's caucus at the 1976 Democratic convention compromised on its demand for equal representation of women in future conventions in exchange for a commitment from Presidential nominee Jimmy Carter to give women significantly larger roles in the Government and the judiciary and within the Democratic Party.
Although a women is co-chair of the Republican National Committee and women are organized into a caucus in the Democratic National Committee, neither party has yet made a major commitment to the election or appointment of more women to national office by seeking out potential women candidates, encouraging them to run, or by providing financial, political, or logistical support.
Can women make a difference?
There have not been enough women in high political office to determine whether their presence in large numbers would affect national or local parties. However, one can assume that there would be a positive effect on society. During the height of the Vietnam war, an analysis showed that the majority of women Members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, opposed the war. A study by Shelah Leader, Ph.D., who taught political science at Cornell University, also found that women legislators tend to vote somewhat differently from men legislators. Women legislators in both parties, she reported, are more apt than men of their party to vote for laws that help women, particularly the Equal Rights Amendment, and for measures promoting maternal and child health. Another study showed that Congresswomen as a group were more responsive to the needs of senior citizens.
In The New Republic article quoted earlier (March 4, 1978), in which he said that the lack of women in Congress must surely affect the legislative process, Ken Bode noted: "Last fall, for example, when the Congress was deadlocked over the Hyde amendment on Federal payments for abortions and the budgets of two of the largest agencies of government were held hostage in the process, all 27 members of the conference committee debating the question of abortion, arguably of some concern to women, were male." He concluded: "No society that so systematically excludes half its members from the governing process can be called democratic."
Although the public climate has become more favorable to women in politics and government and women have made some gains, the fact remains that more than 200 years after the birth of our Nation, women hold only a shred of political power.
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